Stay With Me

Chapter 9

"Draco?" Harry knocked gently three times on the bedroom door but was greeted with silence. "I'm sorry... I-I know you're napping but I just... I needed to set my mind straight." he hesitated, waiting for a response. 

He knew that Draco had asked to be left alone but their conversation on the stairs had left an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. Draco hadn't reacted the way he envisioned, all the other time's Draco's secrets had been exposed, Harry was met with anger and tears, but this time the distant suffering in Draco's eyes was replaced with an eerie calm. 

Something wasn't right. 

"Draco?", he knocked again, leaning closer to the door, expecting to hear a muttered curse at any moment. "Can we talk? Just for five minutes and then you can tell me to sod off and I'll leave you alone for like... a week..."

The house felt uncomfortably still, he could hear the beating of his heart in his chest, an uneasy sinking pulled him down. "Can I come in?"

He pressed on the door and to Harry's surprise, it creaked open which was unusual as Draco often kept his door locked. He peered around the door to see Draco resting in his bed. "Hey, Draco... you awake?"

Harry realised how awkward it was approaching Draco while he was asleep and for a moment he hesitated, wondering if it were best to just turn around and leave, but something drew him closer.

First was the potions bottle, a sleeping draught.

Then the unnerving stillness of Draco lying on the bed, unresponsive to his voice. 

The skin on the back of his neck prickled. The sun outside dipped behind a cloud and suddenly the colour drained from the room, Harry's chest sinking along with it. 

He strained himself to take another step forward and as he did, his heart slammed and a sickness twisted in the pit of his stomach. He smelt it first, the mess of blood that had pooled at Draco's hip as his left arm lay limp out beside his body. The cut sliced through the dark mark and Harry stared at it, paralysed in disbelief like his limbs had stopped working momentarily. 

But adrenaline shot through him like a knife in the heart and he scrambled onto the bed, kneeling at Draco's side. Draco was still, sleeping peacefully and nothing was waking him up. 

Harry grappled clumsily at Draco's arm, holding it up feeling the dead weight wanting to pull him down. The blood pooled over his hands and fingers, trickling onto the bed below and Harry gasped, strangled cries turned to sobs as the horror in his arms came to reality.

Flashes of past trauma ignited in his mind of all the deaths he'd witnessed

Sirius floating through the veil. 

"oh my god--"

Ron's agonising cries as he slumped over Fred's body. 

"Draco!--"

Snape struggling through his final breaths. 

"Please-- Draco! no, no, no--"

Cedric crumpling to the floor in a flash of green.

"Not again. I can't go through this again."

He pulled Draco into his body, one arm behind his neck, the other applying pressure to the wound despite the flood of red bleeding out onto the bedding. It was warm and damp and it stained Harry's entire arm. Draco's head lolled against the cradle of his arm, his face so tranquil amidst the devastation.

"No.. no no no- please- please be okay- oh god- Draco-" Harry began sobbing, tears streaming his face and dripping onto Draco's body, a throbbing pain thundered through his head and his ears were ringing, desperation so severe that nothing felt real anymore.

He pulled Draco in tighter, "Help!-- p-please! Draco... please don't leave... ple-ease d-don't do thi-s-", his cries grew more pained, words merging together into a mash of syllables that became incomprehensible. His body shook with every hiccup that caught in his breath, pleading and crying and hyperventilating through the shock.

"Draco... Draco..." Harry cried, his heart ripped in half, "Draco! C'mon, tell me you're awake- Please- I can't do this again, I can't do this again--just wake up... please... why did you do this?" he grabbed Draco on both arms and held him, squeezing, shaking, anything to wake him up but Draco's body was slumped in his embrace as Harry fell apart, begging him to hold on.

He knew he had to get to St Mungo's but the sheer shock rendered him frozen, unable to bring himself to apparate, and even if he could, the energy required to do so with another body was severe. He tried to muster the will to move but panic was holding him in place, stealing valuable time. 

"Fuck... Draco... I need you to wake up... please... please stay with me... hold on for me, we're--we're gonna help you, okay? We're g-gonna get y-you through this--" he uttered through strangled breaths, a desperate cry tore from Harry's throat as he held Draco in his arms, limp and lifeless. A dead weight. His eyelids drooped closed, as though he was sleeping peacefully. Harry felt how fragile Draco was beneath him, he looked so gentle, so weak. 

He rocked Draco in his arms and sobbed, the lens of his glasses smeared, his face damp with tears leaving him unable to breathe through the hoarse cries that tumbled from his lips. He pulled Draco into his body closer until their foreheads were touching, begging him to wake, his whispers melting to inaudible sound.

"Stay with me-- stay with me--" 

In the pool of blood, Harry cradled Draco's lifeless body, stroked the strands of blonde from his sleeping eyes and held him. Just held him. 

"Please... stay with me."

***