𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆

Part 12

Metaphysical

I fear I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose here in this lonely place
Tangled up in our embrace
There's nothing I'd like better than to fall

-- Sarah Maclaughlin, Fear

Harry's eyes flew open in the middle of the night, unsure of what had woken him. Draco lay silent and unmoving against his back, his arm draped over Harry's waist, his even breathing tracing vague but familiar patterns on the back of Harry's neck. Harry stroked Draco's arm, noting that his movements in the night, even this deliberate touch, had ceased to waken him. The first time he had spent the night, Harry suspected that Draco hadn't slept at all. The first several nights, he had jumped awake every time Harry shifted, rolled over, coughed. If Harry cried out in his sleep (which he did with some regularity; partly a result of the images he still received from Voldemort, and partly from his private ghosts which still haunted him), Draco was awake before his shout ended, gripping him protectively, always unsure if some beast had crawled in through the window, a Death Eater was rapping at the door, or if he had himself done something to elicit that strangled scream. Draco would wrap his arms around him, press his lips against his neck, still half asleep. Sometimes he would whisper words that made varying degrees of sense ("Where?" "Don't go." "I'm sorry." "Shhhh.") Harry traced his fingers along the bony ridge of Draco's forearm from his wrist to his elbow, and slid his palm slowly back down to his hand, which was pressed limply against Harry's chest. I suppose he's getting used to it, Harry thought. The idea pleased him. Even in sleep, Draco knew his touch, and did not fear it.

He couldn't get the vision of Draco's glowing body out of his mind. Harry knew about the scars, of course. He had found them years ago, in a dusty office at Hogwarts in the middle of the night. They had confused him at first, but he had realized that these wounds had probably been ceremonial. His several encounters with Voldemort, and Death Eaters generally, had prepared him for the fact that the blood of some could be useful and valuable. Now, after spending years working in the field, the scars surprised him even less. Surprised him less, but horrified him more. That knife had cut Draco far deeper than the scars could ever attest; it had scratched cruelly into his soul and left it broken, it had ground twisted words onto his bones, where now, tracing his hand lightly over Draco's arm, Harry imagined he could read them like Braille. Pain, hatred, cry, destroy, ruin, break. Harry had known that there were scars, and that there were many of them. Although they were mostly invisible, a careful touch would finally reveal them all, one by one; thin seams against Harry's tongue, small outcroppings in the well-mapped geography of Draco's skin. Even now, after nearly five months of exploring this pale, wiry body, Harry still found new scars, and lavished great attention on them when he did. He had wanted to claim them, redefine them, he wanted to embrace them and accept them the same way he was trying to embrace and accept Draco himself.

He sighed, rubbing Draco's wrist, feeling the certainty, the mundane reality of those hard bones, that comfortable skin. He had seen a silver spiral on that wrist a few hours before, sitting on a stem of a long, wavy line that wound from his elbow to his thumb. He had seen glowing lines on Draco's flesh that now bore no marks at all. For a moment, he had been witness to marks that robbed Draco of his blood, his dignity, his innocence, but did not have the courage to leave an imprint on that brave skin. Marks that had bled and healed clean, as if their presence could go unnoticed. Harry could no longer distinguish between where Draco had been betrayed and where he had been let alone; his whole body was a scar.

Draco had revealed the glowing marks only momentarily. He quickly put his shirt back on, shivering a little, and sat down again next to Harry on the couch. In a casual tone, he went on to explain some details about the goblin spell, the process by which the blood would be transferred, and so forth. Ron and Hermione said nothing. He ambled forward, positively blasé. "Something like this would be dangerous on two fronts; first, because there's a possibility that the wrong characteristic was tagged, an obstacle which must have been overcome, or else would wouldn't be having this conversation. Second, the biological implications of transferring someone else's blood into your own veins...well, the possibility of rejection, I imagine, would be huge." Hermione nodded encouragingly, biting her lip. Draco sighed. "Well, in any case. I suppose we've figured out the how. And that's a great relief. I've been sweating over this goddamn question for weeks. No one was even close on this one." Harry noticed that he could see the glow of silver lines under the sleeve of Draco's shirt slowly fading. Draco did not look down. "Now," he continued. "I wonder who it was."