flower crowns | drarry

thirty seven

they lapsed into a silence so heavy, draco could feel it at the back of his throat, a sour invasion twisted in despair, unlike the comfortable silences they usually shared. harry shivered out a rough exhale and draco shook his head.

hesitantly, he placed his hand atop harry's much colder one, drew the pad of his thumb over the bumps of harry's knuckles.

harry's eyes flickered to his face, dull and worn but draco kept his own stare trained on the flex of his fingers.

"if..." he began roughly. "if you want to, you can tell me. about your dream."

for a few moments longer, the silence lingered. shadows draped themselves across harry's face, and he stared into the orange flame with that odd, aching expression, quiet whilst draco drew mindless patterns along his skin.

harry was so frigid beneath his touch, and quite forcefully, draco remembered when they'd stood amongst the debris of the fallen castle, covered in grime and ash and blood, too shocked to do more than gasp and gasp and gasp as voldemort announced harry dead. remembered the screaming and the sobbing and that one moment when he'd thought the end of the world was upon him. when he'd thought of harry with his eyes burning like green wildfire and his rabid grin bordering on apocalyptic, when he'd thought of him and his unruly hair and unrulier heart, and of those moments where they stood together and against each other and draco had never felt so alive. the moment he felt the sky was crashing down, because draco had never felt so alive as when he was with harry, and now harry would never live again.

he'd been lucky—they'd all been lucky that harry had managed to survive even that, return from even death. and yet harry didn't seem to realize how...how miraculous he was. kept bargaining and betting his life even once he no longer had to and draco...draco just didn't want to lose him.

finally, harry drew in a breath and began to speak, quiet as the crackles of the ember in the burning furnace.

"you said you hated me."

draco paused.

harry inhaled sharply through his teeth, a quick shudder working its way down his spine, and draco squeezed his hand. he wasn't upset, not at all. just...surprised.

"everyone was dying," harry murmured. "ron and hermione, they despised me. they hurt me just like dudley and told me it was...my fault. i ruined them. and you...at first you were holding me. you were happy. and then you were dying in my arms, dying—and there was blood everywhere and i couldn't—couldn't...save you and you said you hated me. and voldemort told me it was over. i destroyed everything, i was just like him. and i was alone again."

the pain shivering through harry's voice, the fear that struck sharp at the ends of his sentences, it was unlike anything draco had ever heard before. there was a time he would have relished in the sight of the precious golden boy's vulnerability, would have delighted in his misery, clutched the proof of his broken image in his fists and offer it up to the highest bidder, desperate to affirm himself by shoving potter to the ground. but now that draco was faced with his anguish, confronted with traumas he could never fully understand, he wondered how he could ever want for such a thing. the truth of it was heartbreaking.

harry looked as though the faintest wind could blow him away, like he was one step away from falling apart, and draco's heart squeezed in his chest.