19 Years (HP - Drarry)

Chapter 42: Scars

Harry grumbled under his breath, but wiggled out of his robes, wincing as he pushed them off his shoulders, and then un-tucked his shirt. Draco felt his breathing hitch, and his mouth went dry - both of which he studiously ignored. He was going to make sure the reckless idiot wasn't going to die, and then he was going to bed. In the morning, if said reckless idiot was still alive, he was going to kill him.

"Here," Harry said, voice muffled as he heaved his shirt over his head and turned away from Draco, exposing a nasty series of bruises down his left side and scattered across the pale expanse of his back.

Draco gulped, then steeled himself, dipping his fingers into the salve and tentatively touching them to Harry's skin.

"Merlin!" Harry exclaimed, jumping slightly. "Are you trying to freeze me? Warm it up first!"

"Yes, your majesty," Draco spat, but he cast a quick warming charm over the jar and the salve on his fingers before touching them to the first bruise.

Neither man spoke as Draco applied the salve, and he quickly lost himself in the surreal experience of massaging the minty salve into Harry's pale skin. It was dotted with freckles, which surprised him, and scars, which did not. Oh, some of them did. He recognized a few of the more distinctive ones - left by particularly nasty Dark curses that he'd had directed at his own pale skin, more than once. He tried not to think of the times he'd used them himself. He focused quickly back on Harry's skin, not willing to break down here as he knew he would, if he let his mind travel that familiar path of regret.

The scars that surprised him were different - older. The neat stripes hadn't been caused by magic, and they were too faded to have been acquired during the war, anyway. It had been two decades, but those scars were slow to fade. These... these Harry had to have gotten as a child.

Images assaulted him, then. Harry, as he'd first looked, small and pale and... yes. Not just gangly. Malnourished. Draco's fingers stilled as he flipped through the memories. How Harry filled out, each year, until he looked almost human, beneath those horrid oversized clothes. How he returned after summers at home, nothing but skin and bones, flinching at odd moments. How he never complained; took all Draco's jibes about his exalted life and didn't let on how very far from the mark they were.

He'd heard the rumors, of course. Back then and more recently. There had been plenty of exposés after the war. The faux-journalistic drivel that Draco did his best to ignore. There had been plenty about him, too, and not all of them true. Some were, and those were memories he didn't care to dwell on. But, as usual, he'd been unable to ignore Harry.

He'd devoured those articles, disappointed when Harry himself never deigned to grant interviews. Never commented on them. Draco had taken that as further proof that these "journalists" were grasping at straws and had resorted to making up a tragic backstory for their heroic golden boy. He'd never imagined that the horrible things they'd said had been true. Even after Harry confirmed some of it - the far-from-exalted home life, the malnourishment and emotional abuse... He'd assumed the rest was like the stories they'd started printing of him, when the juicy details ran dry. Lies and slander and sensationalism. Not... this.

"Malfoy?"

Draco jumped, eyes raising to meet Harry's. Damn. He'd not planned on making eye contact - he was going to take care of the damn injuries, and then escape to his room and have a nice breakdown. But now that he was looking into those impossibly green eyes...

Draco felt himself melt, and he was gratefully that he'd been forced to kneel to take care of Harry's injuries, because he really didn't think his legs would support him right now. His veins fizzed and his breath caught painfully in his throat. He was lost.

Harry looked away, coughing. "Er. Thanks, Malfoy. I - that's all of them, I think."

Draco stared at him blankly for a moment. "Oh. OK. Um. I'll just..." he closed his eyes, despising himself, then forced the steel to return to his backbone as he rose smoothly to his feet, dropping the jar of salve on the bedside table. "Be sure to see Madam Pomfrey in the morning, Potter. Some of those look rather nasty, and I'd rather not be accused of letting the Savior of the Wizarding World die.

He injected as much venom as he could into the title, and felt a small, vindictive part of himself rejoice; the rest of him - too fanciful by half - withered as the strange light dimmed and faded from Potter's too-green eyes.

"Right," Potter muttered. "Would hate to inconvenience you."

Draco didn't answer - he didn't trust himself to speak without letting the apology trip off the end of his tongue. He nodded stiffly then turned and swept out. Snape, he thought absently, would have been proud.

—

Saturday, December 16, 2017

He hadn't spoken to the git since.

At least, not until today, when Astoria had informed him, in no uncertain terms, that he would be helping them with the play. That afternoon. And, once Ginny had dragged in an unwilling Harry, they'd unleashed their ridiculous revenge.

Apparently, their idiot sons had determined to audition for - and win - the roles of Romeo and Juliet. Of course his son would be Juliet. And of course he and Harry would be asked to stand in for their sons while the girls worked out how best to stage and adapt the thing for two male leads.

Draco was not going to survive this. The only bright spot in his increasingly gloomy future was that Harry would go down with him.