On day one after fucking Malfoy deeply and desperately before being ordered to leave, Harry felt foul. Mercilessly, he was catapulted into the middle of his hotel room, a standing position when his brain was not yet fully awake. Instead of trying to catch himself against the bed, he let himself drop to his knees without putting up a fight. Waiting for his body to catch up with a new November 3rd, Harry placed his palms against the corner of the bed, then dropped his head to his hands. The bed was perfectly made, the sheets tucked in primly, as if he hadn't just laid there until a moment ago. Lethargically, Harry blinked at his fingers against the white sheets, trying to pull apart the threads that made up yesterday's events.
Memories of Malfoy, his hectic flush, his anger, his threats and venom and his helpless little moans draped over Harry like a blanket, soft at first, then heavier, stifling, pinning him into place and keeping him in a choke-hold. Harry closed his eyes against the relentless beige of the hotel room and the morning light squeezing into the gap between the black-out curtains. He couldn't think of Malfoy's face, of the memory of him surrounding him, without guilt squeezing at his ribcage. Without getting caught on Malfoy's anger and dismissal. On Malfoy's certainty that Harry hadn't cared, that Harry did this all the time, which was entirely Harry's fault and couldn't be further from the truth. And then there was something else entirely: "Did you want me in school?" Malfoy had asked. "Did you think about fucking me?"
Had Malfoy thought about it, back then?
The question chased Harry through the streets of Strasbourg. Trailing behind unsuspecting Ministry employees, performing his wretched duty, Harry's brain pulled open drawer after overstuffed drawer of memories from school. Malfoy holding out his entitled little hand, tense and posh and infuriating, then spitting venom when
Harry hadn't taken it. Malfoy's eyes piercing into the back of his neck during lessons, a sneer contorting his pointed face whenever Harry met his eyes. Malfoy racing after the snitch, talented and frantic and harassed, like it was personal. There were hundreds of memories of Malfoy stuffed away messily in Harry's head, spilling to the forefront of his mind in a gushing river, flooding him from the inside as towers of ashen clouds flooded him from the outside.
One of the witches he hexed let him accompany her to her flat and he walked her past the threshold, as he had twice before. He let her confused and disjointed prattle about her many sisters wash over him, and while he'd quite enjoyed talking to her when he'd been here before, today he found it was impossible for him to follow her familiar train of thought. The coffee she made him was watery and though she'd asked him twice she forgot to add milk and Harry folded his legs into his body on her kitchen chair, taking sips from his tepid coffee and feeling altogether dismal.
If he were able to speak to Hermione, she'd tell him she'd known all along. 'Oh Harry. Of course Malfoy liked you in school," Hermione would say, nodding at him with discerning eyes and thumbing through a book in her lap, as if Malfoy liking Harry didn't tilt the world off its axis. Sometimes, Harry wondered whether Hermione truly had known so many things before him, or if knowing everything had become so integral to how she understood her identity that she pretended whenever necessary.
Hours later, at Krutenau with Emerence, Harry's mind finally escaped from the buzz of Malfoy-related memories crawling out of the woodwork. Using scraps of wood and plastic and metal, Harry assembled picture frames the size of a fingernail. After, he carved miniscule patterns into the wooden frames with a wood burner, then sprayed some of the frames golden, inky black or silver with traces of green discoloration. Emerence talked about the presence of copper in sterling silver, about how it reacted to moisture in the air, and Harry managed to listen and learn. A memory of Malfoy blowing on a paper crane, sending it fluttering towards Harry through a crowded classroom, was tugging fiercely at his attention, but Harry pushed it aside and focused on Emerence, letting her knowledge lull him into contentment.
YOU ARE READING
Cut From the Sky
Fanfiction"I'm stuck in a time loop, reliving November 2nd. This is the 111th time I've lived through today." Draco stilled. His moody eyes, the tension in his hands where he gripped onto his umbrella, the careful mask of blankness flickering over his face...
