Two Sides of the Same Coin(DRARRY)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"That's life for you. … Always someone loving some thing more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can hurt you no more." - Ray Bradbury

Harry rolled over in bed and yanked his sheets up to his chin, balling them so they fit more comfortably beneath his head.

For once, it wasn't nightmares keeping him up. No, it was a different sort of vision altogether. A vision as pale and bright and penetrating as the the rays of moonlight angling in through the window by Harry's bed, the magical midnight light slanting across his face and spotlighting the sole occupant of his mind's stage: Draco be-still-my-heart Malfoy.

Harry closed his eyes and the white light of the moon crystallized behind his lids to form the image of Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy as he had looked in the breathtaking moment between when Harry had first kissed him and when he'd kissed Harry back: his lips pink and parted, the tarnished silver eyes ever-so-slightly widened, his ivory cheeks – smooth as the midnight moon seen from earth – flushed, sharpening his eyes and making him look excited and alive in a way that made Harry's fingers and toes tingle. The more enthusiastic tufts if his hair – a slightly more golden hue than his skin – were already mussed, though Harry had yet to lay a hand on it, and the combination gave Malfoy's looks a decidedly capricious and impish edge. The effect they had on Harry was magnetic and intoxicating and provocative, and if Malfoy hadn't leaned forward right then, Harry felt sure he would have thrown himself on Malfoy like the desperate, horny, smitten gay teenager he was. Even now, hours later, Harry's pulse quickened at the sight, evocative even captured in memory, and he ached to feel Malfoy's body against his once more...

But before Harry could get carried away, the image of kissable Malfoy was usurped by the image of just-kissed Malfoy – the one who pushed Harry away looking sick to his stomach and frantic with panic. That image, in turn, set Harry's stomach twisting unpleasantly and he violently tossed over to his other side, knowing even as he did so that the effort was futile.

It had been thus all night.

Malfoy's abrupt departure, after what they'd been eagerly engaged in doing just seconds before, had taken Harry's snogging hazed mind and sent it reeling in the opposite direction in such a mad, disorienting fashion that he'd sunk to the floor and put his head between his knees. It had taken long minutes of slow, purposeful breathing to calm down enough to even lift his head again, and then the sight of the empty half of the doorway where he'd had Malfoy pinned just moments before triggered a vivid sensory memory that had sent Harry's world spinning again and he'd had to start all over.

Somehow, he'd eventually gotten to his feet.

Somehow, he'd worked aggressively enough to produce evidence for the progress of two rather than one.

Somehow, he'd made it back to Gryffindor and into his bed.

He wasn't sure how; he didn't remember much of it.

Somehow, he hadn't fallen to pieces.

That is, until he'd closed his eyes and the two contrasting specters of Malfoy had risen behind his closed lids and refused to leave.

To be honest, it was the second specter he was having the problem with. The harrowed, horrified Malfoy of color-drained countenance who'd shoved him away and run and never once looked him in the eye.

The thing was, though he and Ginny had actually shared several rather enjoyable snogs (under he circumstances; it became clear later why their sessions never quite fully consumed either of them), Harry had never kissed or been kissed like that in his life (Cho didn't even bear comparison). Those minutes with Malfoy had taken his breath – and all coherent thought and muscle control – away. It had shown him with intoxicating thoroughness what was meant when it was said that snogging set you on fire. He had been burning, and Malfoy had been the source both dousing and stoking the flame.