Title: To be new again
Author:
felixfvlicisPairing: Harry / Draco
Rating: PG
Word Count: 365
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury / Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Unbeta'd. Written for
hogwarts365 prompt 173: "And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been."
Summary: Eighth-year. Harry and Draco deal with the aftermath of the war in different ways, but always find solace in their way back to each other.
Harry shivered, the warmth of the sun streaming through the windows of the Great Hall taking him by surprise, its luminous ribbons reflecting against his pale skin. He sat perched in front of Dumbledore’s podium, grey specks of dust latching onto the cherry oak finish, sparkling in daylight, overwhelming him with the memory of Draco’s slow, mischievous grin against Harry’s lips in the darkness, pressed up against the wall of the eighth-year common room, hushed, clipped confessions tumbling from his mouth, settling into Draco’s pale skin, patches tinged pink from the half-moons of Harry’s fingernails digging into his shoulders, carving the thin skin just beneath his jutting hipbones, a sheen of sweat illuminating their bodies in the moonlight, grasping for something more, seduced by the sweetness of change.
Draco paced around Snape’s classroom, body swaying in a pendulum-like rhythm with each step forward, resurrected casualties of war pulsing behind the round, silver-tinted lakes in his eyes. The weight of loss anchored him to the abandoned halls of Hogwarts, the place that birthed his boyhood dreams only to warp them so, until they were saturated with black ink, a welcome home for his dark mark, eventually overwhelmed by toxicity, forcing him to incendio the dreams he longed for, phantasms teasing his skin, their whispers elusive.
Silence enveloped Harry as he lay across the barren Hogwarts courtyard, his gaze transfixed on the bruised colored sky above, reminiscent of Draco’s eyes when his memories seized him, shackling him to the dark halls of the manor, echoes of Voldemort’s laugh surrounding him. The ache threatened to thrust him back to his cupboard, the chasm where Sirius lay, suspended between life and death, bury him in the vastness of the Forbidden Forest as Narcissa hovered, her murmured whisper sharp, begging for her son.
Eyes closed, Draco hovered above the nearly charred hoops of the Quidditch pitch, images of Harry’s glasses knocked askew, celestial sounds of his name tumbling from Harry’s lips, his heart seized by tomorrow’s seductive promise.
In the late evening hours, the atmosphere pulled them together, Dumbledore’s faint whisper the settling in the clouds --
“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”