The Scent Of Malice | drarry

thirty seven | saving draco

Harry had never run so fast in his life as he did down those stairs and out of the castle, not caring how far behind him Pansy was as long as he could get to the Lake. He knew the way, and he knew what he'd find.

It was the screams that alerted him before he actually saw the accident, though. Terrible, awful screams of genuine fear, screams that twisted Harry's stomach to the point where he threw up a little in his mouth.

A large fire was flickering on a makeshift log pile on the far side of the Lake, and a few feet away Blaise and Theo and some other Slytherin boys could be seen dragging Malfoy's limp body out of the water and over the edge where the surface had iced up in the night.

"Draco!" Harry roared, and several heads flicked immediately towards him, though not the one he wanted. That one was still and limp and grey.

Theo's wand was out now, and he was aiming spell after spell at the centre of Malfoy's chest to shock him awake, and Blaise was bent over his body, his hands pressed over the boy's heart. He pushed down hard again and again and again, yelling "Come on, Draco, fucking come on!" in a voice torn and cracked with anguish.

Harry skidded down on the hard earth beside the boy he loved and knelt by Blaise, adding his own hands to the pressure on Malfoy's chest.

"He has to breathe, Potter, do you know how to make him breathe?!" Blaise asked as they pushed, his eyes wide with panic.

Harry nodded, and as Theo shot another bolt of light into the still chest, he leant over and pressed his mouth over Draco's.

And he breathed for him.

"Come on, you fucking moron," he snarled as he came up to take another breath before going back down again. "Breathe, it's not that fucking hard. Breathe. BREATHE, goddamn you!"

A dozen compressions that felt like thousands passed, a dozen breaths too, and then suddenly the frozen boy's body shuddered back to life and he coughed up what looked like buckets of tar-black water.

Harry collapsed onto his chest, not caring if it hurt the other boy, just overwhelmed with his own misery.

"I'm so fucking mad at you," he wept. He could hear Pansy still sobbing too, and a flurry of general panic around them, but he ignored it all. The only thing he cared about was the half dead boy in his arms, and the feeling of nearly losing him.

"I know you are," Malfoy rasped, black Lake water dribbling out of his mouth. He coughed and retched to force it out faster, wincing as he did so. "This burns."

"Good," Harry sniffed. "You're a moron and you deserve to feel pain for what you've done. Because I know this wasn't an accident, whatever you say."

He looked around at the gaggle of panicked Slytherins above them. "Would anyone like to prove me wrong? Say he hasn't been high, and he- what, slipped?"

Silence.

Harry nodded. "That's what I thought."

"He was in the fire first," Pansy whispered, tears dripping from her face to the earth with alarming speed. "He lit his hair on fire and then he leapt in the Lake to cool off. He was so high and out of control."

As Harry looked closer he could see there was still soot staining Malfoy's perfect blonde hair, and with that he completely lost it.

"How could you be so fucking reckless?!" he bellowed, and Malfoy cowered away from him into the ground. "You stupid, stupid prick!"

"Easy, Potter," Theo tried, but Harry shook his hand aggressively off his arm.

"This is me taking it easy!" he yelled. "You have no idea how badly I want to punch his stupid fucking lights out right now!"