Beautiful World ~ 𝑫𝑹𝑨𝑹𝑹𝒀

Chapter 15

It was Friday, and the library was emptier on Friday nights than any other. Pince nodded stiffly at him when he entered, indicating that she'd been expecting him, and Draco was already there, books opened and scribbling quickly as he studied. He didn't look up when Harry approached the table.

"Hey," he said. "What should we study first?"

"I study best alone," Draco said, still not looking up.

"But Dumbledore said -"

"That we have to study together. Not that I have to help you." He finally glanced up and Harry saw how worried he looked. "I haven't got time to help you, Harry."

"I don't need help," Harry mumbled, irritated. He didn't comment on Draco calling him 'Harry' either. It didn't seem worth the effort.

Laughing dryly, Draco said, "Oh, trust me, you need more help than I could ever give," he said, and Harry knew he wasn't talking about schoolwork. He didn't care. Dropping his books, he made his way over to the reference shelves, scanning the titles. He'd been meaning to do some research and now seemed a good time for it.

He returned to the table a few moments later with a large, dusty book, sitting across from Draco and opening it, scanning the table of contents and flipping to page 154.

He was studying the large pictures, old pictures that were faded but still moving, when Draco spoke. "Shouldn't you be studying?"

"What happens to a wizard when they die?" Harry asked, instead of replying.

"Are you asking if I believe in Heaven?" Draco snickered.

"No, I mean, the funeral. What's a wizard funeral like?
Draco frowned at him. "What on earth are you reading?"

"'Wizarding Rites of Passage'," he replied.

"Why?"

"I've never been to a wizard funeral and I was just wondering what it was like, that's all." The pictures looked relatively like Muggle funerals, really. Coffins and bodies, tombstones and people weeping around an open grave.

"Interesting reading," Draco said sarcastically, coming to stand behind him and read over his shoulder. "Why do you care?"

"I just wondered is all." Harry shivered, feeling Draco's breath on the back of his neck and unnerved by it.

"Rather morbid, really."

"I don't think I'd like a regular funeral when I die. It's hardly dramatic enough," Harry mused out loud. "I mean, it's just flowers and people crying. Rather tacky, really."

Returning to his seat, Draco picked up his quill and asked, "Well, what do you expect? They're saying goodbye."

"It's just too quiet and calm."

"Death is quiet and calm."

"I don't think it would be. I think death would be... something that moved a lot. Something huge and complicated, way more complicated than this. Something with thousands of pieces that fit together perfectly, like a puzzle. When you look at a single piece, it doesn't make sense, but when the last piece fits it, it all makes sense."

Draco laughed. "Hardly. Death is the body shutting down. There's no puzzle, no great revelation. There's nothing."

Shivering again, though this time in panic, Harry whispered, "You don't believe in life after death? Even... even with all the ghosts around here?"

"That's different. That's not really death at all. That's when you don't want to die so badly that you refuse to understand that you've died. Oh, you might know you've died, but you refuse to be dead. I'd rather be dead than a ghost."

"You're wrong," Harry said with quiet conviction, his eyes welling up with tears.

Draco saw them. "Alright, whatever you want to believe, Potter," he said in a bewildered tone.

Pushing the book away, Harry turned to his studies, ignoring Draco for the rest of the afternoon.

***

That night, sitting on his bed and staring at the roof, unable to get the faded images from the book out of his mind, Harry felt that itch under his skin again. The one that led to a panic attack, the terror and need to prove to himself that he was real, to reassure himself that he was still here.

The knife was in between his mattresses and Harry slipped his hand under there and pulled it out. It was habit now; to keep from going mad, Harry would reach for the knife. It had evolved past proving that he was real and still bled. Now it was a way to pull the panic from his mind out and put it somewhere else, into his arm. It was a way of exorcising it, canceling it out. Proving that it was there and by facing it that way, destroying it.

He hadn't actually done it since before the night at the lake. Now, however, his hand was trembling as he ran the blade over his forearm in a curved line, splitting the skin. Blood welled out, more than ever; he'd never gone that deep before. He watched it run down his arm for a while before grabbing a cloth nearby and pressing it to the cut.

He fell asleep that way, cradling his bloody arm to his chest.