Veritas Vos Liberabit [Drarry Fanfiction]

Veritas Odium Parit

April 1999, Scotland

... can't you feel it... the way his blood is singing to you in his veins... the way his skin is begging to be torn apart and his flesh devoured... you want to, don't you?

The creature grinned to him, lips stretching almost comically, saliva dripping from its mouth. There was a dangerous glint in its emerald green eyes. They were wild and glossy behind the cracked lenses. The creature looked exactly like Harry himself. It had his spectacles, his bloodied clothes from that horrible day at the Orphanage, his unruly mop of hair. And yet he knew that it couldn't have been him. Harry was there, strapped to the passenger seat, unable to loosen his restraints as it, another Harry, bloodthirsty but yet not a monster, hovered over Draco's body.

He wasn't breathing. His skin looked almost gray in contrast to his brightly colored polyester jumper. His neck was bent unnaturally, it seemed grotesquely comical. His platinum blonde hair had a streak of crimson in it. It was splayed wildly over his forehead covering a deep wound. That was the way they found him, slumped over the steering wheel, wand broken and a thin strip of blood at his mouth. That what Harry had seen on the still muggle photos the police had provided.

The Mercedes wheeled off the road and into the concrete barrier. They said the death wasn't instant... He suffered a severe concussion and his lungs were crushed by his broken ribs. And he had spent agonizing minutes delirious, helplessly gasping for air before suffocating.

Harry woke up with a sharp cry. He sat up in his bed in the Gryffindor dormitory. His pajamas were sticking to his back uncomfortably and his chest was rising and falling, going through a mechanical motion of trying to breathe. He couldn't feel air coming into his lungs. Harry was still completely entranced by the horrific nightmare. It looked so real as though he was there, in that car, at that moment...

His eyes darted wildly over the burgundy and gold upholstery, comforting and familiar. The smell of lavender on his bedsheets, the crackle of the burning wood from the furnace, and light snoring coming from Ron's bed were meant to lull him back to sleep. And yet he couldn't even close his eyes. In the morning he had to attend the funeral, Draco's funeral.

***

July 1999 Port St. Lucie, Florida

The room looked as though an erumpent ran through it when he came back from breakfast. Two nurses were going through all of his belongings, emptying the drawers full of his nick-knacks unceremoniously onto the bed, pulling off the bedding, and ripping into the pillowcases. One of them took him by the arm and half-dragged him into the small bathroom attached to the room.

"Here!" she said, handing him a plastic container, "We need your urine sample, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco gave her a disdainful glance and took the cup. It was always so humiliating to have to go in front of somebody for these muggle drug tests. They clearly did not trust any of their patients enough to let them even piss into the container in private.

"If there are any traces of substances present you will receive a warning and some of your privileges will be revoked," the nurse explained monotonously, making sure that Draco wasn't doing anything suspicious. "Is it clear, Mr. Malfoy?"

The blonde nodded and passed her the sample. He knew damn well that they would find something. Those pills, that TJ had given him, were definitely drugs. Draco took a whole handful of them last night. He did not expect to be alive the next day and be back at the Rehabilitation center to suffer the consequences.

He stood there and watched disinterestedly as his sparse personal items were thoroughly searched and some of them were confiscated. He was glad that he had managed to hide a newspaper clipping of him and Harry standing in the garden at St. Barbara's smiling to each other over some private joke. It was taken on that Halloween, the night when Draco stole a kiss from Potter.