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Make Me Bleed	By : Insatiable_Fox Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7610 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor any characters from the Harry Potter series. I make no money nor claim a profit off this work.

Chapter List
- 5
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Harry moved away from the table, crossing the kitchen to grab a half empty bottle of Rum. “This story needs liquor” he answered emotionlessly in response to Draco’s skeptical look. Pulling out a chair, Harry sat down across from him, taking a long swig from the Rum bottle before offering it to Draco.

“I don't drink” He replied quietly, trying not to flinch as the fumes permeated his nostrils.

Potter simply shrugged. “More for me.” He leant back, the image of calm, yet Draco could see the tension. The nerves, evident in the strain of veins against skin in tightly held limbs, the drumming of fingers across the worn wooden table. “So it starts” Harry suddenly announced, with an over emphasised flourish of his hand. “Back when we were seventeen. Well, it probably started before that, but I can't be fucked retelling birth to adulthood.”

“Seventeen is still a child” Draco murmured quietly, before clearing his throat and fiddling with the fraying hem of his sleeve. “You would probably be surprised about how much I know, anyway. Voldemort-” Draco sneered the name “-was quite chatty mid rape. Offensive, really, to be violating, let alone torturing, someone, and only be able to talk about another. How Harry Potter had foiled all his plans since birth.” Draco laughed humourlessly. “But I digress. Please continue, Potter. This isn't about me.”

“Did you know Ron, Hermione, and I were hunting horcruxes seventh year?”

Draco couldn't contain the small gasp that escaped his mouth. “Several?”he asked, horrified. His father had been... was... obsessed with power, and had made him study the magic in depth during fourth year holidays. Yet even Lucius had deemed the cost too high, the sacrifice too much, the magic too dark. To think that someone had made several? Draco shivered involuntarily.

“Seven.”

“Seven?!” Draco parroted, mind reeling as he tried to imagine someone splitting their soul seven times. Not that Voldemort was human. By the end, he was more monster than anything.

“Only six were intentional. When he tried to kill me the curse backfired, and I became the unintentional seventh, and final, one.” A twisted grimace pulled on thin lips. “I died, then came back. Chose to. I still wonder, Draco, if it would have been better for me to just have stayed dead.”

“But Voldemort would have won” Draco tried to point out rationally.

“And what’s to say he didn't, in the end?” Harry all but shouted.

“Harry. Hold on.” Draco tentatively laid a hand over Harry’s slightly shaky one, keeping it there only momentarily before drawing it back into his own lap. “Start at the beginning, or with the war.”

“Right. The war. Battle of Hogwarts. Well, we fought, and it was bloody.” Harry grimaced. “But you know that already. You were there.”

“No. Not really.” Harry looked up at him, startled, a strange look fleetingly crossing his features. “I was at the beginning, obviously.” Draco dropped his voice, fingers absently tracing the ruined lines of his dark mark. “When you saved me. In... in the room. I never thanked you-” His voice broke and he trailed off, shutting his eyes tightly to try to suppress the memories. The cloying stench of Fiendfyre, acidic in his nose, the unnatural heat as it clawed desperately at him. The overwhelming sense of gratitude and hope when Harry came back. To save him.

“Draco.” Harry's voice was surprisingly soft, considering the edge it held moments before. “You don't need to thank me. But even if you did, now is not the time.” Draco nodded mutely, unable to look at Potter. “When did you leave?”

“Right after” Draco managed to choke out. “You let me off your broom, and I ran. I don't remember where, I'm not sure I ever had a destination. But I found my mother. She was standing in the corner of the great hall, her hand covering her mouth and just staring. I don't think I will ever forget that sight, Harry. Of her just frozen in the middle of battle, wand held at her side. She didn't belong there, and certainly not beside the Death Eaters. So I took her hand, and we ran. No one gave us a second look, or tried to stop us. At one point, sh-she tripped over a body on the floor.” Draco stopped abruptly, sucking in a huge breath in an attempt to calm his shaking body. “It was Bellatrix. A-and Mother, she didn't even care. She just looked at her, then pulled me on.”

“She cared more about getting you out” Harry spoke gently.

“She did.” He finally looked up and met Harry’s gaze, resenting the emotion he saw there. “Don’t. Don't look at me like that. Like... I deserved to be saved. That position belongs to you.”

Harry laughed bleakly. “And yet...” He picked up the bottle and took a hefty swig, quickly followed by another. He was silent for a long while, picking absently at the label on the bottle, before he suddenly spoke. “I tried to forget for so long. The sight of Tonks lying broken, blood oozing from her crumpled body. The tortured and terrified screams ripped from innocent children. The acrid stench of Avada Kedavra which permeated every single inch of the castle. Like a smoking tree, recently struck down by lightening. That's what it smells like, to me.” Harry’s eyes were haunted, lost traversing the catacombs of the dead. “Tonks. Remus. Fred. Snape. Sirius. Do you know how many more names I could list? Over fifty innocent people died that day, and I can name every single one. Name every death I'm accountable for.” Harry paused, face hard. “I tried to forget. Fought to bury the flashbacks deep, forgive myself, accept and move on like I was told to. But the memories... they’re like an insidious disease. You think you're winning the battle, moving on. But suddenly you remember, every detail, every face, every death, before you even had a chance to realise you were beginning to.” A burning man, fire in his eyes. “And then I realised that I didn't want to forget.”

Draco sucked in a breath, his own mind back at the battle. It had never occurred to him that Potter would be anything other than thankful, or relieved, that it was all over. He, like everyone else, had never stopped to question whether the price Harry had paid was too much. “I never realised you felt like that” he said softly.

“I don't want, nor need, your pity” Harry retaliated, mimicking Draco’s own words. “I've said it before, Draco. I deserve this. It. Everything. I led those people into battle, like pigs to slaughter. Blinded by The Saviour. They would have done anything.”

“They didn't do it for you!” Draco snapped, anger pooling in his stomach, the desire to defend those who lost their lives fuelling his words. “They did it for themselves. For the greater good. Because there was no alternative. It was fight, or be ruled.” He shook his head. “It wasn't for you.”

Harry simply sighed. “Do you want to hear the rest?” Draco nodded mutely, clamping his lips together in an attempt to keep silent. “The war left an indelible mark on everyone, but some more than most. Hermione and Ron - everyone from the order - they just wanted to move on. Put it behind them. ‘A fresh start’, as Hermione would say. We had won. Voldemort was gone. Yet no one seemed to notice, Draco, that that wasn't the case. There was no one inherently evil left, but no one innately good either. Death Eaters walked free, the Ministry was still corrupt, and the battles still raged on, even if they were on a intimate scale.” Harry paused to look at Draco, grabbing his hand desperately. “It felt like it was all for nothing!” He rushed out, wildly. “I sat and watched the Weasley’s grieve. Saw Teddy handed off to Andromeda. Saw the ruins of Hogwarts slowly be rebuilt in an attempt to forget the past. Hermione and Ron, they didn't understand. They couldn't see how, if you paused and actually thought, it all landed on me. So I left. I couldn't be part of this ‘new’ world, not when it was the same wolf, just wrapped in sheepskin. I left, and now I slowly pay for each drop of blood spilt with my own. Blood for blood.”

Harry fell quiet, and Draco too sat silent, each reliving their own horrors. A tap dripped intermittently somewhere in the room, and Draco thought of the times just after he had been expelled from all that he had ever know. Night upon night he had sat, huddled and twisted in a crevice, with only the desolate sounds of water trickling into a storm drain to interrupt his hatred. How wrong he had been, with his childlike narcissism, to think he had been the only one wronged.

That had ended soon after, of course. He had soon learnt that Voldemort was far from the only evil in the world, that he had deserved everything that had been, and was soon to follow.

With a grimace, Harry abruptly spoke. “Ron was furious when I snapped the elder wand. After finding it endlessly funny that you had been, at one point, unknowingly its master-”

“What?!” Draco half screeched, interrupting whatever Harry had been about to say.

“Not that Voldemort knew” Harry replied conversationally, as if he had not just casually mentioned that Draco had been the master of the most powerful wand in existence. “He thought Snape was. So he killed him to gain it. But its allegiance, at that point, was to me, since I'd disarmed you at Malfoy Manor.”

“Of course it was” Draco muttered. “Of course I had been the master unknowingly. Sums up my luck pretty well. And of course you snapped it.”

“It had done enough harm, had been the catalyst for enough pain.”

Draco nodded slowly, pushing the knowledge about him aside and mulling over what Harry had said previously. “I find it hard to believe that Granger and Weasley didn't come after you. Once you had left.”

“They did” Harry acknowledged. “ It wasn't pretty. But then they saw, and it gave them the excuse they needed, to go and live their lives.”

“Saw what?” Draco was almost afraid to ask, but he knew if he stopped, it would be the last time Harry would tell.

“The ruins of Great Aunt Walburga’s portrait.”

“By the front door? I saw it.” Draco took a breath. “ It felt... It felt like despair. Like every particle of hope had been sucked from my body to be feasted on.”

“I did that. They were right to run. No one could get rid of that portrait, and many tried. Until I did. It was so easy, Draco. Natural. Like the dark had always been inside me, and I simply gave it a chance to come out. Walburga, she would scream about how I was ‘defiling the great and noble house of Black’, over running it with half bloods and muggle borns. Then she changed her tune, and hit too close to home. That I was the reason so many had died. A traitor to the light, to the magical world. That I had been given the chance to fix the wrongs, but in the end just made sure that blood would be spilt.” Harry took a breath, his hands gripping the edge of the table where he sat rigidly in his seat. “ I already knew that. But Ron and Hermione were there, and all I wanted to do was shut everyone up. Like a bomb, Draco” and Harry closed his eyes. “I just let the dark free, and it succeeded where no others had. Torn apart, in an instant. That’s when I lost the last drop of hope. And unknowingly ensured that everyone else who passed it would too.”

Harry stood and left the table, soon appearing with another bottle of liquor. Draco hadn't even realised he had finished the first one, so caught up had he been in Harry's words. He watched Potter raise the tequila to his lips, the quick look of revulsion that passed across his face before he took a deep pull. “Haven’t you had enough?” he chided gently, fearing the outcome if Potter kept drinking. He didn't think he could cut Harry, not tonight, not after hearing what he had.

“What are you? My mother?” Potter snapped, before letting out a manic chuckle.

Draco spoke without thinking. “No. Your friend.” Harry stilled, his hand pausing with the bottle still clutched in it. Draco squirmed under Potter’s intense scrutiny, wondering how a stare could be so forceful when Harry was surely dancing the line of inebriation and analgesic unconsciousness. “What happened to your wand?” he asked, in a slightly desperate attempt to relieve himself of Harry’s all-consuming focus.

“It was snapped. Godric's Hollow. And left there, as Hermione and I ran for our lives.” Harry answered bitterly.

“And you didn't think to get another?”

“It was never the right time, in the beginning. And now, well. It would seem to be more than I deserved. I haven't tried in years, but there used to be a few spells I could do wandless, if I concentrated enough.” Harry furrowed his brows. “As, apparently, can you. Which makes me wonder why you never helped yourself before?”

He studied Harry for a long minute, the dark matted hair curling down past his shoulders, the beard which, if he hadn't know better, would have made him believe Potter was trying to emulate Dumbledore. In Harry's case, Draco guessed it was simply neglect. He was surprised this question had only come up now, had been sure that as soon as Potter apparated them away, Harry would be on him, demanding to know why he was mooching off him when it was apparent Draco could protect himself. Clearing his throat, he turned to answer Harry, unable to meet his eyes. “I'm not sure. Trust me, I was as surprised as you were when it actually worked. I just wanted - well, I wanted him to suffer. To hurt. And I didn't want you to fight my battles.”

Draco was quiet for a long time, his fingertips unknowingly tracing along the fragile underside of his wrist in mimicry of Potter. He eventually looked up; to talk, to defend, he didn't know, but what he saw in Harry's face made every word dry up in his mouth. Awe. Compassion. Sympathy? Empathy. And something else, which made his stomach churn and his body tense. An awareness he hadn't felt since his schooldays, and resented the return of. It made him want to hide like a child under the bed, zealously wishing that Potter never looked at him like that again.

This was him; he was Draco. A nobody, a pitiful excuse for a wizard, a shell that had been used and violated too many times to count. An abandoned carcass left to rot. A conflagration which ripped through the ones he most cared about, resulting in an indelible stain, a fetid mark to be concealed and forgotten.

A mark which, he now vowed, would never be left on Harry Potter. He would help him, heal him, reinstate the hero he was born to be. And then he would leave him in peace.

“I want to show you something.” Harry's rough voice startled him, pulling him out of his reverie although he managed to quell the sense of panic Potter's words had initially sparked. Getting up from the table, he followed the other man through the house until they stood shoulder to gaunt shoulder outside a door, the gold lettering spelling out a decadently ornate Sirius. Harry reached up a hand to gently trace the tarnished characters, before dropping it to rest heavily at his side. He shot a quick look at Draco, letting out a weighted breath and pushed the door open.

A shrine. That was the first thought that came to Draco as he followed Harry inside the dusty room, gingerly stepping over the items that littered the floor. He stifled a laugh when he caught sight of the naked muggle girls whose posters adorned the walls, instead trying to keep his mood sombre, realising that what Harry was doing was taking a leap of faith in him. Potter stilled in the middle of the bedroom, turning to face Draco.

“This is Sirius’ room” he stated obviously, as if Draco hadn't read the sign announcing said person’s room. He waited for Potter to say more, but when it became apparent none was to follow, he fumbled for something so say.

“Did it always look like this?” He gestured around the room.

“I haven't changed a thing.” Harry’s voice was taut with suppressed emotion.

“At all?” Draco asked, incredulous.

“Why should I?” Harry moved to where a dresser sat, its mirror dusty with unuse. “Honour his memory, and all that crap?” Harry stared at his reflection before moving away with a twisted grimace. “I pay for his death, and I do it the only way I know how.”

“By dwelling in a shrine?!” Draco all but shouted.

“By punishing myself. So every time I step in here, every time I go to sleep, I'm reminded of him. I wear his clothes as punishment, just as much as I cut and bleed for it. The cutting; it's an act of violence, turning emotional pain into physical pain. I can deal with the physical, Draco. Not the emotional. And the satisfaction” The manic grin was back, macabre and dark. “Running my fingers over the scabs and welts left behind. It's a reminder. A reminder of the control I can possess.

“You're fucked” Draco said, unthinkingly. It was only just hitting him now how terribly sick Harry was, ill and wrong and in desperate need of closure.

Harry physically blanched at Draco’s words. “I thought you, out of all people, Draco, would have understood.”

Draco just shook his head, his heart breaking a little inside. “I need to get out of here” he said, moving to the door. He cast a quick glance back at Harry, before leaving him standing there, surrounded by the possessions of a dead man he was trying so hard to please, by, Draco suspected, doing the exact opposite of what he would have wanted.
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Make Me Bleed