By The Light Of A Dying Flame ~ Drarry Fanfic

Chapter 11: Draco

Draco was shivering.

This Muggle house was bloody freezing, and he still didn't have a shirt; but the shivering was more than that. His teeth and fingers ached, as if a deep chill had burrowed beneath his flesh, infecting his bones. Panic, like bright snow reflecting the early morning sun, glimmered below the surface of his skin. The same sensation as the night before, and he feared it may well become permanent. The eggs he'd made sat heavily in his stomach as he made his way upstairs and into the bathroom. Really, all they'd done was remind him how little he'd eaten the past few days. Not that he had much of an appetite in the Manor before getting himself stuck with Potter, but at least he'd had the option of eating.

His nose scrunched in distaste at the sight of Potter's clothes stuffed into the bin, and as he peeled off his own trousers, the displeasure only deepened. Never had he been this filthy before (barring a mismanaged prank he'd tried to play on Pansy third year involving Hagrid's dungheap). He unraveled the bandages to reveal the splinch wound—it had begun to scab over, and dry blood flaked off the pale skin around the gash like rusty ash.

When he stepped into the shower, he hissed as water splashed onto the wound. He turned his back to the flow, letting it warm his stiff muscles and slough off the sweat and dried blood. The stinging of his chest slowly became unbearable, and although the heat of the water was the best thing he'd experienced in ages, he didn't stay in the shower long. He felt distinctly vulnerable standing naked in a Muggle toilet in Merlin-knew-where without his wand. Goose pimples rose along his arms and legs once he stood in the cooler air. When he'd wrapped a towel around his waist, he finally lifted his eyes to the mirror.

A cut striped his left cheekbone, and his skin was paler than he'd ever seen it, almost translucent, purple veins carving a path through his forearms and up his neck, interrupted here and there by gashes from the fallen chandelier at the Manor. The freckles that were normally too faint to see now stood out like blotches of ink across his nose and cheeks. The word unkempt rattled through his mind in his father's voice, and he stumbled out of the bathroom, away from his reflection.

The jeans he found in an open drawer of the dresser, while slightly too short on Potter, were uncomfortably so on Draco, falling only to the middle of his shin as if he were a young boy experiencing a particularly violent growth spurt. He snagged a jumper hanging in the closet with reindeer sewn across the front, shaking his head at the ridiculous pattern. He folded the jumper and tucked it under his arm before heading back downstairs.

Potter was sitting upright on the couch, his head tucked into his chest and eyes closed. He looked almost like a child, vulnerable during sleep in a way he wasn't while awake, his ragged hair covering the scar on his forehead and glasses slipping down his nose. Draco's eyes latched onto the hawthorn wand held limply in the hand resting on Potter's thigh, and something like hunger flared in Draco's chest. His fingers itched to snatch the wand away.

But.

If he did take the wand, what good would it do him? He couldn't go home—not with the Dark Lord calling for his head. He couldn't go to Hogwarts, with the school under Snape's control. Which meant: without Potter, Draco was well and truly on his own.

Draco stumbled as his body tried to step forward of its own accord, not seeming to keep up with the spiraling line of his thoughts, the jumper sliding to the ground and his leg bumping against the coffee table, which sent a ceramic figurine of a little boy holding an umbrella clattering to the floor. Potter jolted awake, flying to his feet, the hawthorn wand out in front of him and pupils dilating as they attempted to focus on Draco. His green eyes trailed Draco's body, flicking to the shattered figurine before rising back up to his face. "Alright there?"

Heat flushed through Draco, and he straightened, raising his pointed chin. "Perfectly alright," he said.

Potter lowered the wand and bent down to pick up the jumper, holding it out to Draco, who snatched it from him. "Need new bandages?" Potter asked, gesturing to Draco's chest. When Draco nodded stiffly, Potter stepped around the coffee table and walked toward the kitchen. "Come on, then."

Draco followed him as he used the wand to flick open one of the kitchen cupboards, a red box sliding out and floating down onto the counter. Potter flipped open the lid, revealing an assortment of creams and items Draco assumed were medical supplies for the crude healing methods of Muggles. Plucking out a roll of white bandages and a tube of cream, Potter unscrewed the lid and held it out to Draco. "Smear some of this onto the wound."

Draco gingerly accepted the tube, squeezing some of the contents onto his fingers, his lip curling at the sensation as he rubbed it onto his chest. He expected the cream to sting as did essence of dittany, but it left only a tacky residue on his skin like paste.

Potter unraveled the bandage and waved it toward Draco. "Do you want to do it yourself?"

Draco glanced down at his chest and then up at the bandages, recalling the sharp stabs of pain last time he had tried, and shook his head. Potter came closer, pressing one end of the bandage against his sternum before moving around Draco to wrap it under his arm and across his back. His breath skated across Draco's skin, warm and soft, and Draco shivered, his jaw clenching. When Potter stood in front of him again, he paused, his eyes tracing Draco's chest, an inscrutable expression crossing his face like a cloud passing in front of the moon. "It doesn't look that bad," Draco said, glancing down, "does it?"

Potter's eyes lifted to meet his, and he shook his head. "It's just—" he started, then swallowed, "the scars."

"I know it'll scar," Draco snapped, but he noticed the way Potter's fingers were hovering just above the three silver lines crossing his sternum. He traced one with his own finger, Potter's eyes following the movement, the skin there slightly raised. His hand closed into a fist as he saw Potter's martyred expression, and irritation surged within him. "For fuck's sake, they're just scars."

Potter shook his head, but he resumed wrapping Draco's chest, tying the bandage tightly before stepping back. "Scars are important," he said, bitterness writhing beneath the words. "They have meaning."

"Not to me," Draco said, but from the hardening of Potter's expression, the way he shook his head just slightly and turned away from Draco, they both knew he was lying.