Temptation on the Warfront

23

Text
"After all this is over, after Voldemort is dead — I'm going to date Draco Malfoy. So please — you might as well get used to it now."

Would they have really gotten used to it though? Would his two best friends have ever accepted somebody who they saw as lost, beyond hopeless for the cause they fight for — the cause they bleed for? The cause that will leave Hermione with a vile word scrawled into her skin forever, a scar no amount of magic will ever be able to heal.

Later on, when Harry has endless hours to himself, and nothing to think about other than the things he bottles away while the sun still shines, he will wonder whether time really heals. He has a scar, Hermione has a scar, and Draco Malfoy has a scar too. But if there is anything Harry has learnt from being who he is, it is that while all the world may see is that scar, the right people, the people worth fighting for, see nothing but skin. Nothing but chances.

He gave Draco that chance, and maybe Draco gave him one too, but when the nights are full of nothing but worries of what's to come, Harry will wonder if maybe instead of chances, it is about choices.

His thoughts will get too much for him, and he'll squeeze his eyes closed and hold onto the Hawthorne wand — the wand he stole right from Draco's hands — hands that were about to kill him — and he'll give himself over to the smell of cedar and apples, the memory of a boy who is so far away, so unreachable. Maybe Draco was always out of reach, maybe Harry had been deluding himself when he thought what they had mattered, maybe everything was just a farce.

But then Harry will look at the small wooden Quidditch Pitch sitting on his bed-side table, the gift he has tried to destroy, and the gift he has stopped himself from destroying, so many times. And all he sees will be the forehead without a scar, the boy without a past, just a future, the boy Draco Malfoy must have seen.

And Harry will realise that he hates him, that he hates Draco so much, but he loves him too. He loves him, and it tears Harry apart.

Everyone is gasping for breath — their hands grappling at eachother, their voices begging to know whether everyone is okay.

Harry barely hears them, barely focuses on anything other than the rushing in his head and the cold dread in his body.

Because he's not okay.

Because everything he thought he knew — every intricate detail that withstood time and hate and rivalry, every touch and every kiss that held him and Draco together, has now been pulled apart. And Harry is left on his hands and knees in a dark railway tunnel, trying desperately to put the pieces back together — but he can't, because the most crucial part is missing. Draco Malfoy is back there — back in the aftermath of chaos and death and blood. Blood he spilt.

Someone's calling his name — far-off and hazy, as though Harry's underwater. There's a warmth on his shoulder — a hand, and when Harry shakes his head and forces himself to surface from the sea of confusion and betrayal, he sees that it is not Ron or Hermione by his side, but Luna.

He knows he should ask her whether she's alright, and how everybody else is, but Harry finds he can't speak. Luna carries a lit torch in one hand, the flame lighting up her face. She is pale, starved, no doubt, but she still smiles.

"Come on, Harry. Let's go meet the others." She offers her hand, and Harry takes it, lets her help him to his feet, because Luna is kind and trusting and accepting. She doesn't expect him to say anything, doesn't expect him to be anybody other than Harry, and it is like she's telling him that this is enough, and that she's sorry for his loss. Because he has lost something, Harry realises, something incredibly important, and if he thinks about it too hard he knows he will lose what little strength he has left.