All Life Is Yours To Miss

Chapter 25

Draco wakes on Monday morning to find that he is still in his chair. He stretches out his stiff limbs and rubs his cold feet against the hearthrug, looking down at his lap to see a towel with a Stanley-shaped impression in it. Stanley himself is nowhere to be seen, and Draco can only assume he has had the good sense to jump down some time in the night and seek out a warmer place to sleep.

That being said, the living room is surprising humid and airless. With the exception of his feet, Draco is actually rather warm and uncomfortable, and a glance out the window reveals that the weekend's sunshine and frost have disappeared, leaving behind a heavy, grey sky and a general feeling of griminess.

"It's supposed to be October," Draco mutters, tapping the ancient barometer that has hung next to his fireplace for as long as he can remember. The needle refuses to move and he walks away from it, scowling. He has always hated this sort of weather and he can't believe it is daring to show itself so close to winter.

He showers more thoroughly than usual, but by lunchtime, he feels as though he might as well have not bothered. His students seem to be as squirmy and fractious about textbooks and stiff collars as he is, and he finds himself barking at them more than once, blocking out the voice inside his head that is demanding to know how shouting will help. Bizarrely, Jasper Bracknell is quiet for the entire lesson, just staring at Draco from time to time and then calmly looking back at his book, and somehow this only makes Draco feel more irritable.

His four o'clock flying lesson is particularly gruelling; none of his students want to stand out in the soupy, crackly air any more than he does, and even the usually-enthusiastic ones are sullen and grouchy. He ends the lesson ten minutes early, much to the delight of the first-years, and traipses inside to eat dinner under an oppressively grey ceiling. The kitchens are always warm, but tonight when Draco walks inside he hits a wall of heat that makes him grimace.

Seemingly unaffected, the house-elves abandon their tasks and swarm around the table, gigantic eyes swivelling to fix upon Draco, and when Kreacher clears his throat and asks Draco to name his favourite dessert, he thinks he might just pass out from shock. Or lack of oxygen.

Having lost several hours' marking time the previous night, Draco decides to take a stack with him to the hospital wing, because the idea of not visiting Harry again is just somehow very wrong.

"Sorry I wasn't here last night," he says, releasing Stanley from his basket and placing him on the bed. "It's Monday the fifteenth and the weather is ridiculous."

Draco abandons his dressing gown and rolls up his pyjama sleeves, glaring out at the clouds he knows are still there, just sitting around and keeping the heat in, pressing it down on everyone and hiding away in the darkness. He can hear himself inside his head and he knows he sounds like a madman, but he's too grumpy to care.

"I hope you don't mind if I do some marking. I can't really afford to get behind at the moment."

Harry, of course, says nothing, but Draco wonders what he would say, if he could, about Stanley's vigorous investigation of his pyjama breast pocket. Amused, he curls up in his chair and sets to work, self-inking quill tucked behind one ear. He reads and frowns and shakes his head, scribbling notes and corrections and occasional bits of praise. Every now and then, he comes across something so bizarre or just so very wrong that he has to share it.

"My project for next term will be to turn a moose into a stock cube," he reads, eyebrows raised. "Just one? Seems rather wasteful to me. What do you think?" He looks at Harry over the top of the parchment. "I bet you think... Malfoy, do you even know what a stock cube is?"

In the distance, a rumble of thunder causes Draco to glance sharply at the window, and Stanley to fall off the bed in surprise. Draco sighs and picks him up, replacing him next to Harry's hip.

"I do, as it happens. I bought them at the Tesco because they were cheap and they looked like food. I did exactly what it said to do on the box, and it was very odd. It was like meat tea. I think he'd be better off with the moose, really."

Draco puts the piece of parchment aside and reaches for another, trying to keep his mind on his task as the storm grows closer. The problem is, he's not thinking about Transfiguration. That's fine; he's not worried about that. He can do that. He's thinking about the thing that is beginning, when he lets it, to drive him to despair.

"Winston bloody Camberwell," he sighs to himself.

Draco tips his head back against his chair and drops his quill into his lap.

"I realise you're probably sick of hearing about this, but I really need your help. Which is ridiculous, because I know you can't give it to me, even if you want to, but here I am anyway, Mr Futility. If I can't make some progress soon, he's going to lose any faith he ever had in me and he's going to give up. What would you do?" Draco asks yet again, as lightning flashes across the sky followed by a rather menacing roll of thunder.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he says, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know how to... fucking hell!"

This time, the lightning illuminates the whole room and the thunder, only a fraction of a second behind, seems to explode right over their heads. Stanley clicks in terror and burrows his way under Harry's sheets. Seconds later there is another flash and a bang, followed by the welcome sound of fat, heavy raindrops splashing against the windowpanes. Draco gets up from his chair and gently touches Harry's forehead with his fingertips, finding it warm and sticky.

For a moment he rests his hand there, staring at the spattered glass, before he impulsively flings both of Harry's windows wide open.

"Feel that," he whispers, standing with his hands on the damp sill, leaning out and lifting his face into the downpour. Cool air swishes into the room, bringing with it the electrified scent of the storm, and Draco cups his hands, catching the rain and letting it slip through his fingers, returning to the bed and pressing wet palms to Harry's hot forehead. He goes back to the window and leans out again, repeating the process until Harry's skin begins to cool and his breathing becomes slow and even.

Draco can't be sure, but he suspects that Harry is sleeping, or at least resting peacefully, so he leans quietly out of the window for a few minutes more, allowing the deluge to soak his hair and skin and to wash away the last traces of his bad temper. When the thunder and lightning move away from the castle, Stanley pokes his antennae out from under Harry's sheets and waves them around as though checking to see that the danger has passed.

"It's alright, you daft beetle," he whispers, leaning back out and inhaling deeply.

He thinks Harry would have enjoyed the storm. It's nothing more than a feeling, but that's all he has to go on at the moment, and besides, Harry is a storm. His life is manic, wild, passionate. It's brightness and friends and nature and all those things. Without knowing it, Draco has meted out perhaps the cruellest punishment possible for a man like Harry-to be still, to be silent, to be alone. Locked up in his own body and lying, day after day, in a sterile infirmary with no means of communication.

Communication, Draco thinks, hearing the word over and over as though it has lodged itself in his head. Communication. Irritated and riddled with remorse, he shakes it away. Wet and breathing hard, he drags himself away from the window and sits on the edge of his chair, staring at Harry. He doesn't think he has ever wished harder for a person to talk to him, but nothing happens.

Eventually, he picks up his parchments and quill, straps Stanley back into his basket and leaves. He wants to stay, but there are no stories in him tonight and his heart is sore and heavy. On the plus side, by the time he gets back to his rooms and crawls into bed, he knows exactly what he's going to do about Winston Camberwell.