By The Light Of A Dying Flame ~ Drarry Fanfic

Chapter 27: Draco

The bed was empty when Draco woke up, the sheets twisted around him, his body naked and sore. The curtains were open, the light dim behind a blanket of dark clouds, casting the world in shades of gray and steel. Dry blood flaked off his skin, floating onto the bed like rusty ash, patches of it staining the covers. His mouth tasted like he'd drunk cups full of seawater. On the nightstand, Potter's glasses were gone, but the wet, bloody t-shirt was still lying on the floor. His side of the bed was cold.

Draco pushed himself off the mattress with stiff limbs. He cracked open the door to check for anyone in the hallway before creeping to the bathroom. As he squinted at himself in the mirror, a pit formed in his stomach, and his father's disapproving eyes flashed through his head. His hair was longer than it had ever been, bright white curls free of the slicked back look Lucius had preferred for him. Dark crescents had formed below his eyes, as if someone had pressed their thumbs deep into the sockets and left behind bruises. Dry blood stained the skin around his mouth and in streaks across his chest and neck. He twisted to examine the rest of his torso and found scratches up and down his back from Potter's fingernails.

Once in the shower, he scrubbed his hands over his chest to rinse off the blood. As his palm skimmed the silvery Sectumsempra scars bisecting his sternum, he shivered, remembering the way Potter had kissed that very place the night before, as if his lips alone could heal the damage that had been done. Draco wished that were possible—that Potter's hands mapping his skin, his tongue tracing the lines of his body could somehow erase the past seven years.

But he knew that wasn't possible. Potter had been so angry last night; the rage had radiated from his skin like searing heat off the summertime pavement. And maybe Draco had been imagining it, but he swore that when Potter had finally managed to tear his green eyes open, they'd flashed, for the briefest moment, a deep red. Draco had no idea what sort of curse was plaguing Potter, what sort of terror he drowned in while he slept, but no matter what Draco did, it was painfully clear Potter would never let him follow into that darkness. Potter would go it alone, and Draco would be left behind, alone and useless and a waste of space.

Potter may have been furious—with Draco, or Voldemort, or the world, Draco didn't know—but Draco hadn't been angry with Potter. He'd been angry with himself, for ever believing the two of them were patching together something that could exist beyond the confines of this war. Potter was never going to trust him, and nor should he—what had Draco really done to earn that trust? Potter's own question from the night before continued to rattle around his brain. Would you really be here if you didn't have a price on your head? He truthfully didn't know the answer. He thought of his mother, perhaps dead alongside his father or trapped in the Manor and not knowing if her only child was gone, just like her husband. If Draco had the chance to return to her, even if it meant returning to the Death Eaters, would he take it?

The water began to turn cold, so Draco shut it off and wrapped himself in a towel. When he returned to the bedroom, he absentmindedly selected a jumper and a pair of trousers from the pile Bill had brought Potter earlier in the week. Bill's clothes fit Draco better than they did Potter, but Draco quietly adored the way he had to cuff his jeans and roll the sleeves of Bill's shirts, the way his body slotted against Draco's as if Draco were a crescent moon bending around him.

As Draco made his way downstairs, he heard Fleur's melodic voice singing in French from the kitchen. Bill had gone on a scouting mission the night before and wouldn't return until the afternoon. Draco wondered if Fleur worried for him each time he left, or if the past year had frayed everyone's nerves so entirely, their capacity for concern had narrowed to only getting from one moment to the next. She seemed eternally shiny, like a star that wouldn't wink out, but Draco didn't miss the way her bluebell eyes constantly slid to the door when Bill was gone; the way she clung to him with whitened fingers when he returned, and kissed his scarred face with sweetened reverence.