Playing the Hero

As I hurtle along the seemingly endless, stark white corridor with its blinding white lights, I vaguely try to recall when I have last been this utterly terrified. The only answer my brain seems to be able to provide me with is in the form of a series of mental images which flash across in quick succession: Dark Marks, Fiendfyre, hordes of screaming people running in no particular direction, and...burning red eyes, slits for a nose, long, thin fingers pointing a wand...

I turn right without slowing down and run towards the end of yet another corridor, praying frantically to whatever higher power watched over me; please let him be alright, oh God please...

I burst into the room and four sets of eyes turn sharply towards the door, stepping away from the bed as soon as they see that it's me. When my eyes fall on him lying there, still and unmoving, bare-chested, blood everywhere, pooling in the hollow between his collar bones; looking strangely young and frail without his glasses, it is all I can do not to allow my legs to give away beneath me, crumple to floor and scream hysterically.

Jesus Christ, Harry, why the fuck do you have to always play the fucking hero?

*x*

Ten years back, I'd asked him that question as we'd sat by the lake at Hogwarts, sharing a cigarette.

"Why the fuck do you always have to play the hero, anyway?"

Harry'd noted the casual tone of my voice sans any malice, because he'd grinned as he took a deep drag from the cigarette, holding it with his forefinger and thumb.

"What do you think I should have done? Stood by and let them beat the shit out of you?" he raised his chin slightly as he blew out a long stream of smoke, handing the cigarette back to me.

Our fingers had brushed; something had fluttered in my stomach.

"You could have fetched Professor McGonagall," I'd said lightly.

"She turned up anyway, didn't she," Harry'd given me one of those barely-there smiles.

"Yes, after you'd hexed those Ravenclaws," I'd tried hiding my own smile. Then he'd grinned at me, making me cringe inwardly at the way my heart had leapt.

We'd sat in silence for a few seconds before he'd abruptly spoken again.

"You need to realize that it's okay for you to pull out your wand and hex the bastards yourself if this ever happens again." He'd sounded grim.

"It's not worth the trouble," I'd aimed at sounding careless.

"Malfoy."

And he'd turned those brilliant green eyes on me. So, so fucking green. I'd gazed back, helpless and unable to look away.

"Stop being a fucking martyr," his voice had been low, but I could almost taste the fierceness in it. "You don't deserve to be beaten up by arseholes who think they're doing something noble by ganging up on someone who has a tattoo on his arm, put there by a mad man." I'd hoped fervently that he couldn't hear my heart beat speeding up. I'd been close enough to smell the faint scent of grass, mint and cigarettes on him.

As much as I'd dreaded my 'eighth year' at Hogwarts, those nightly smoke meets with Harry turned out to be something I'd begun desperately waiting for by the end of each day. Mostly we'd just sit side by side in silence, elbows brushing, finishing cigarette after cigarette, until we'd thought our arses would freeze and fall off.

Sometimes, we'd talk. About inane things like lessons, our new teachers; then about the war, the struggle to cope with the aftermath; and eventually he'd told me about Weasel and Granger and how Harry'd felt like the third wheel, like he was intruding and not giving them enough 'couple time'; and finally he'd admitted that the Weaslette was growing impatient at Harry's reluctance to resume snogging in hidden alcoves all over the castle.