Slow Burn

Dark, Dripping

He hated how he felt the need to do this, he knew it made him feel worse, but he thought he deserved it. Slowly, Draco brought the small, silver blade to his left arm, right where the hideous Dark Mark tattoo was. He watched a small dark red trickle of blood escape from his forearm. A couple of small tear drops leaked from his eyes as he watched the blood run down his arm, he was about to do it again when a heavy knock came on his door and he heard Harry's voice asking if he was in there.

"Yea, I'm in here just a minute." Draco's voice came stumbling out, he quickly wiped away his tears, grabbed a tissue, wiped up the blood with it, and pulled down his sleeve. He took a deep breath before opening the door to Harry. They had moved in together after the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry was always trying to take care of him, it was sweet, but he didn't think he was worth it.

"Dinners ready," he said with a small smile, "you okay? You're eyes look kind of red?" he asked noticing the sadness of his face and putting a hand on his shoulder. Harry was aware of Draco's depression, but he didn't know he had been doing anything, and Draco wanted to keep it that way.

"Yea, yea, I'm fine, just allergies, must've been a cat outside the window or something." He answered, he hoped he hadn't used that excuse before, he had made tons of excuses for his reddened eyes, allergies, weed, dust in his eye, itchy eyes, to name a few, but he didn't remember what ones he used, which sometimes put a hiccup in his plans.

"Alright." Harry said frowning, "come on, I ordered Chinese, made sure to get your favourite." he added leading the blonde boy to the kitchen.

They lived in a small second floor flat in London, they both worked in the ministry, Harry as an Auror and Draco in the Department of Mysteries. They both led a pretty normal wizarding life, as normal as it could be when Harry was basically a celebrity.

The pair ate in silence, both using chopsticks, Draco, masterly, Harry, struggling. He rolled his eyes at Harry's awful chopstick skills, "How many times have you used these exactly?" he asked with a small laugh.

"Only like five times, with you, and you never taught me." Harry answered, sticking out his tongue. "Teach me now?" he offered holding out the sticks towards Draco. He took the sticks from his and showed him best he could how to use them, not like his efforts prevailed, Harry was just terrible at using chopsticks, they laughed the time away, chatting, finding weird ways to use chopsticks, and eating.

In that moment he felt happier than usual, he always did with Harry, but he knew, that night when he went to bed, it would be a bad one, his mood would drop, and he would end up staying up all night, staring at the ceiling.