the chariot 12-20

16

But if Draco had slept at all, it didn't feel like it. He had been tossing and turning all night. His eyes were sometimes wide open and then sometimes horribly aware that they were closed. He could not get into a comfortable position. He always seemed so conscious that he was either lying on his left side, so then he would shift and lie on his right. The pillow felt too lumpy, the pillow was too flat. The pillow was too high. He was too hot; he was too cold, the mattress too hard.

And the hours had passed somehow - fitfully.

It was soon to be morning he supposed, though the room was still dark and he couldn't be quite sure. He lifted the curtains back a bit and glanced at the window. It was coming up to daybreak it seemed.

His eyes felt grainy and stung, and his head was pounding painfully. He felt lethargic and his body was protesting as it does when it feels it hasn't been rested properly. He tried to close his eyes again and go back to sleep but they now refused to.

Why was he feeling so dreadful? What had happened?

And suddenly as if drenched with a generous dose of icy cold realisation he remembered.

Harry.

Harry.

The fight yesterday afternoon.....

Draco felt a sharp feeling of alarm take hold of his body.

Oh no....

He broke out in a cold sweat and it became all too clear. Horrifyingly clear with acute awareness. He had made a horrible, horrible, terrible mistake. His heart split open with panic.

What had he done? He'd lost Harry.

All that shouting and Harry's face.....

He had really gone and done it hadn't he? Oh my god....His breath lodged in his throat and he lay still as his heart clenched painfully.

He recalled standing in the room in the aftermath of the argument. How frightful he had felt and now felt again with renewed force. It was extremely obvious to him now in his waking moments that he couldn't have made a worse decision. It had felt wrong doing it, he had felt wrong for the rest of the day yesterday and now he had woken up and everything still felt wrong. And now he knew why.

How could he have yelled and shouted at Harry like that? How could he have done that to him? It was amazing to think that all week he had been having thoughts about finishing it with Harry and Thursday night he had lay awake for hours going over his decision. He had been convinced at that point, that he was doing it for the multitude of reasons that had plagued his mind constantly beforehand. And now after having done it – he had been wrong. How was that possible? What a sickening feeling.

He had told Harry that he didn't care- but I do care, I care so much... and yet yesterday he had let Harry think he didn't. Why would you do that? How can you be so stupid? So fucking insensitive?

I can't lose him, Draco thought utterly dismayed.

His perfect justifications had now left an empty pot, all but with one exception of a tiny kernel. He had deliberately yet still unknowingly kept it back. He had probably chosen to ignore its existence all together. Having preferred to smother it in all the rubble at first and then pushing it away so deep that it couldn't have even yelped out if it had tried.

But now in all the emptiness he could clearly hear it and feel it.

You were scared of it, you repugnant git. And he was quite right.

His withdrawal from the relationship had partly been because he was scared. Pathetic admission from a seventeen-year-old boy, he thought ruefully but true nonetheless.