You Set Fire to the Rain | By : icicle33 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11826 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2 |
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter characters or any part of the HP fandom or universe. This story is written purely for pleasure and no money is be made from it. None at all. |
Author's note: Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. I know that I was mean with my cliffhanger, but I hope you will have some peace after this chapter. Once again, a special thank you to my betas: ashii and erised_dreams, and as always, feedback makes my day!
Enjoy.
: :Six: :
“Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulernable.” ~DJB6
: : :
The next few weeks were amongst the most confusing of my life.
When Binky had Apparated us to Andromeda’s house, I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t know what to do, how to get you to nearest hospital, or even how to contact a local Healer. Something about you had already broken me; carrying your limp body in my arms had awakened something deep within in me that I just didn’t understand—a feral need to protect you and destroy anything and everything that would do you harm. I never wanted to let you go again, and Andie had to pry you from my arms.
Thank Merlin for Andie—she was a fallen angel who handled what felt like a hopeless situation with her usual self-composure and grace. She remained completely cool and summoned the best Healer in France to deal with your injuries. They treated you right at her house and even left all healing salves and follow up potions that you would need to speed up your recovery. I have always said that Andromeda was one of the kindest women I had ever met, but during your recovery, she proved it even further. She barely left your bedside, and when she did, she made sure that I was watching over you in her absence.
Andie used to be a mediwitch back in her youth, so your primary Healer, Healer Moreau, allowed Andie to administer all your treatments at her house. At the time, I was eternally grateful, thrilled that we would not have to rush back to England because the last thing I wanted was to try to explain to the British press why I was keeping vigil at an ex-Death Eater’s bedside.
Frankly, I didn’t have an answer to that question. All I knew was that you needed me, and I couldn’t leave your side.
: : :
Although Healer Moreau had treated the worst of your injuries—your broken ribs, your punctured lung, as well as various bruises and flesh wounds—your frail body remained unconscious. You remained in a coma for twelve days. They turned out to be twelve of the longest days of my life.
The healer believed that you had sustained a prior head trauma and had suffered from internal bleeding to the brain; however, the injury was so subtle that you probably didn’t feel any discomfort besides some uncomfortable headaches, which was mostly likely why you let them go untreated. I didn’t understand the fancy medical terminology that the healer used when describing your condition, but Andromeda explained that when you leave internal bleeding untreated, even slight internal bleeding, can cause serious complications such as shock and, in your case, a coma.
Somehow, your healer didn’t seem too concerned. He just reasoned that these things take time, and the best thing we could do for you was let you rest, let your body heal itself and your magical core replenish. He figured that you would wake up in a couple of days. Yet, as the days dragged on, I grew increasingly worried, and I could tell Andromeda did too, even if she would never admit it. Her sapphire eyes were lacklustre again, and the bags under her eyes grew deeper with each passing day that you didn’t awaken. Even Teddy seemed to understand that something was wrong. One evening, he came into your room and attempted to read you a bedtime story, just like his Grandmother and Uncle Harry do for him when he’s sick.
It broke my heart to see this little boy, my little boy, so concerned about his distant cousin whom he barley knows. Yet, not as much as it hurt to watch your listless body lie there, day after day, wasting away.
Every day I asked Andromeda when she thought you were going to wake up, and she always delivered the same response.
“Soon, Harry. Quite soon.”
But soon just wasn’t fast enough. I’ve never been a patient person. And I’ve never been good at just standing idly by on the sidelines while someone else suffers, so you can imagine my agitation when all I could do was watch you sleep and watch Andromeda care for you.
I didn’t even like you at that point. In my mind, you were still that same spiteful git that I had always hated. Still, I couldn’t leave your side. I needed to know that you were going to be fine. For some reason, a world without you in it, without the snarkiness of Draco Malfoy, just did not seem conceivable.
There wasn’t much I could do for you, and although I offered to help, Andromeda preferred to administer your healing and nutrient potions herself. Really, the only thing I could do was sit with you and keep you company.
So I did. I sat with you, day after day, hour after hour, and grew incredibly bored and lonely, particularly during the long nights when Andromeda retired to her quarters with Teddy. It was just you and me for countless hours, and as I watched you lying there, your pale skin glowing almost ethereally in the moonlight and your fair hair fanning out in golden waves amongst your pillow just begging to be stroked—the last thing on my mind was sleep.
So I talked. I talked about anything and everything from Quidditch scores to my favourite Muggle authors, but I quickly ran out of topics that I thought would interest you and was left with the only topic you knew nothing about—myself.
I don’t know if it was because you looked so young and helpless, like a lost, little boy rather than the 21-year-old man you actually were, or if it was because I knew you couldn’t hear me, but either way, I told you everything. All of my deepest and darkest secrets.
I told you about the Dursleys and how miserable my life had been before Hogwarts. I told you about how scared I had been when I first entered Hogwarts, terrified that I wouldn’t make any friends, and that I would still be that freakish Potter boy that no one ever wanted to play with. I even told you how I had begged the Sorting Hat not to put me in Slytherin, and how in second year, Ron and I had Polyjuiced as Crabbe and Goyle and tried to trick you into telling us who the Heir of Slytherin was.
Once I started talking to you, I just couldn’t stop myself—the secrets just kept spilling out. It was as if you were a long lost friend, the perfect listener, someone I could trust and who absolutely understood me.
Obviously, it was ridiculous because you were unconscious and couldn’t respond to a word I was telling you, but I liked to think that you were listening that even if you couldn’t respond, you could still hear me.
Sometimes, I even made up snarky little comments that I thought you would tell me if you could actually reply, like “Potter, get over yourself” or “Potter, you really are pathetic. The world has more important things to worry about then your melodrama”. It was comforting to attempt to forge responses for you. It kept my mood up and hopeful that you would awaken soon, but most of all, it kept me talking.
I prattled on and on for days on end, telling you everything that I liked and disliked and how confused I was about my future—how I didn’t know if I should go back to the Aurors. It was ironic because you were so mentally and physically drained those couple of weeks that your body needed the rest to recuperate itself. But I was so mentally and emotionally despondent those couple of weeks that I needed the release and recuperation as well. Without saying a word, you helped me start changing my life, primarily in accepting a distant truth about myself that I had never wanted to admit. I’ll never forget that.
By the eleventh day of your coma, I was starting to get frantic. Healer Moreau had come over and examined you that day to see how your recovery was going. All your test results were positive, and other than being anaemic and somewhat underweight, your body had reacted favourably to all the treatments. You were practically healed in every way, so it made no sense that you hadn’t awakened yet. He couldn’t assess your mental state without you being conscious, so he just assumed that the unless you had some sort of latent brain damage that hadn’t shown up on your scans, then the only reason you hadn’t roused yet was because you didn’t want to, because you had given up.
I couldn’t accept that fact, especially now that I felt we had some strange level of camaraderie at least on my end, so I decided to bargain with you. After all, you were a Slytherin and demanding something of a Slytherin without offering anything in return was sure to be a fruitless venture. Andromeda had told the healer that I had been talking to you, hoping to see if I could get a response. I thought he was going to tell me that I was mental and wasting my breath, but instead he just smiled at me and told me that it was a good idea. He explained that there was a chance, although slight, that you could hear me.
Well, I have always had the odds against me. I have lost count of the times that I had people attempt to kill me before I was even sixteen, but somehow I had always emerged unscathed; somehow, I had always beaten the odds. You always called me lucky, said that I was the luckiest prick in the world because no matter what, I just wouldn’t bloody die, so that night, the twelfth night that I had sat by your bed, I pleaded with whatever higher, meddling powers existed and demanded that they help me one last time.
I sat by your side, gently stroking your hair and told you that if you came back and opened your eyes, I would share my most private and painful secret with you—a secret that I had never told anyone except for Hermione and eventually Ginny.
I grabbed your hand that evening for the first time and laced our fingers together. It was surprising how easily our fingers fit together, your long, slender fingers complementing my shorter, rougher ones. Holding your hand felt so right, so different from the last motionless hand I held like that, Ginny’s hand. I brushed a stray lock of your hair from your eyes and took a deep breath. I was going to keep my end of the bargain by telling you my deepest secret. I could only pray that you would keep yours.
To be continued...
: : :
Author's note: Hello, and thanks for reading. I know that this wasn't the most exciting of chapter since Draco is in a coma, but it is one of the most important chapters because this chapter and the next one create a turning point in Harry and Draco's relationship. However, I'm sure that you are all anxious to get to the Harry and Draco interaction; therefore, I'm going to be extra nice and update tomorrow too with chapter 7. That way, these two kind of slower yet important chapters, will be over, and we can get to the Harry and Draco interaction/relationship. I would really love to hear your thoughts on this chapter since it was one of the more difficult chapters for me to write. Also, I post this story on a few different sites, so I send out an email alert about chapter updates to make my life easier. I know that sometimes on this site a lot of stories can get updated at once, so if anyone wants me to add them to my list, just leave me your email in a comment.
[6] The quote at the beginning of the chapter is by Dr. Joyce Brothers and it does not belong to me. However, I felt it describes Harry and Draco's relationship perfectly, especially since both boys are vulnerable right now: Draco physically and Harry emotionally.
Until tomorrow,
~Icicle
Review Responses:
LeaniaSTL: Hello, dear. Thank you so much for giving my story a chance even if you found it slow at first. The thing is that it is a novel length story and I really wanted to give a plausible reason to why Harry winds up going to France and how the boys wind up stuck spending the summer together. Therefore, I couldn't just jump into the action. I'm glad that you found it more interesting as you kept reading, and I promise that it only gets better once Draco and Harry are stuck at Andromeda's.
SP777: Hello, love. I'm sorry that I have you nervous, but I think you'll be able to breathe a little better after this chapter, knowing that Draco is at least alive. Thank you very much for your comment.
unneeded: Hello again, love. You are now my most loyal reader/reviewer, which makes you special. I'm pretty sure that you have reviewed every chapter and that really means a lot to me. The comments really keep me going. Here's a *cookie* for all your kind words. Your comment amused me because you are right about Binky. She is not the smartest or most put together of house elves. Let's just say that Draco never ate anything she cooked. = D
Thank you again lovely reviewers. Your comments were greatly appreciated, especially because chapters 6 and 7 were difficult for me. I didn't get as many reviews for this chapter, which made me sad because I thought it was a good one, but I'm assuming it's because everyone was mad at me for the cliff hanger. I can't promise there won't be anymore cliff hangers, but I can promise that you won't be kept waiting for a chapter for too long. Anyway, have a great weekend everyone.
While AFF and its agents attempt to remove all illegal works from the site as quickly and thoroughly as possible, there is always the possibility that some submissions may be overlooked or dismissed in error. The AFF system includes a rigorous and complex abuse control system in order to prevent improper use of the AFF service, and we hope that its deployment indicates a good-faith effort to eliminate any illegal material on the site in a fair and unbiased manner. This abuse control system is run in accordance with the strict guidelines specified above.
All works displayed here, whether pictorial or literary, are the property of their owners and not Adult-FanFiction.org. Opinions stated in profiles of users may not reflect the opinions or views of Adult-FanFiction.org or any of its owners, agents, or related entities.
Website Domain ©2002-2017 by Apollo. PHP scripting, CSS style sheets, Database layout & Original artwork ©2005-2017 C. Kennington. Restructured Database & Forum skins ©2007-2017 J. Salva. Images, coding, and any other potentially liftable content may not be used without express written permission from their respective creator(s). Thank you for visiting!
Powered by Fiction Portal 2.0
Modifications © Manta2g, DemonGoddess
Site Owner - Apollo