Drarry- It Was All Just a Game (Old Version)

Chapter 50- The Morning After

The fact that he was ridiculously warm and there was something weighing him deeper into the bed was all Draco knew. Small puffs of air hit and separated on his neck, and something prickled his chin almost enough to tickle it- for once he didn't mind.

He wasn't crying. He wasn't screaming. And that's what made him open his eyes slowly. He slammed his lids shut at the light of midday pouring through drapes he'd never seen before, and moments later after readjusting, he opened them again. Examining his surroundings, his line of sight fixed itself on two interlaced hands. He furrowed his eyebrows slightly at it, and, as a result, moved his thumb to watch himself do it, to ensure it was his hand and someone else's.

The touch felt real.

Draco let his eyes follow the arms connected, and, at the wrist, he saw his Mark against the other's skin, and something boiled in his stomach that he couldn't quite pinpoint. Who would even stay with that thing on my arm?

Curiosity got the best of him and he continued his path to find a bare back half covered in a grey duvet just before the small of it, and he found a head of black hair up against him. Immediately, his stomach set on fire.

"Harry," his voice cracked, and he tired to lift his head but his neck kept him from it; suddenly he realized how sore he was. He took his other hand, which lay numbly on Harry's back, and ran it through the raven strands. "Harry," he whispered again.

Harry opened his eyes and closed them. He grunted at the sun.

Oh no, what if Harry hates me for what we did last night.

Wait... there was such a thing as a last night....

Oh Merlin, last night was amazing.

Harry tried to open them again, but it stung, so he buried his head in Draco's collarbone. "Hmph."

"Harry," Draco's eyes watered. He just felt overwhelmed. Throat closing, he reached with a shaky hand and grabbed Harry's cheek only to make him to look. "Harry, don't you dare go back to sleep." He didn't say it as a warning, but as a precaution, to rip off the bandage: if Harry was to hate him, he may as well leave at the fastest and least painful opportunity.

Harry raised his head and looked him in the worried eyes with his own squinted ones.

"Draco Malfoy. I have spent the past ten months living on nothing but stale pieces of bread and spoiled fruit in a tent with no heat or insulation, slept on a wooden cot that was too small for me, if not on the ground in a forest with the taste of mud in my mouth when I woke up because my nose was too stuffy to breathe through- thank you, by the way, for managing to make me cry for the length of those ten months. I have lived with a Know-It-All and Neanderthal who didn't once give me a bit of privacy for more than fifteen minutes without the fear of me killing myself due to either the anxiety of getting hacked into bits onsite by Snatchers, being swallowed whole by a snake, or perhaps because my heart's been ripped out of my chest by the only thing that I unconditionally love.

"And then I fought a war on nothing but undiluted adrenaline and a piece of moldy cake given to me by the brother of the first man that I'd ever considered like a father to me, who by the way, my psychopathic boyfriend almost had to murder but then he saved my life anyway so it all worked out in the end. I saw countless friends of mine slaughtered in a malicious massacre, to which I still can't even begin to comprehend, and I have the burden on me for the rest of my life because I know I could have saved them if I'd just been a little bit faster or a little bit more careful.

"I. fucking. died, Draco Malfoy!

"But then I came back to life- do you know how exhausting that is?"