Happy Birthday!

[dysonrules]

Title:  Reflections in Balcony Doors
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Genre: Angst
Words: 1058
Rating: PG-13
Summary:  Harry makes grim reflections.  This was written for ruinithilbirthday, and I made angst for her, even though I hate it and it makes me depressed.  In retaliation, I wrote another one, so she gets two birthday fics for the price of one!  Happy Birthday!!!  Cross-posted on harrydraco

Reflections in Balcony Doors

 

            It was entirely Harry’s fault. The fact that he was completely to blame did not make him feel any better; in fact, his subconscious seemed to be having a grand time using guilt as a red-hot poker, since it kept flaring to the front of his mind every few minutes with a fresh burst of agony.

            My fault, my fault, my fault…

 

            When Harry did manage to banish the relentless thought, the one that took its place was the equally helpful If only…

 

            If only he had not picked that stupid fucking fight with Draco. If only he had not let it escalate into another screaming match. If only he had not bellowed, “Fine!” when Draco had threatened to find someone who would appreciate him. If only Draco had not stormed out in a devastated, defiant rage. If only Harry had come to his senses sooner. If only he had arrived at the club in time to stop Draco from talking to the handsome, dark-haired stranger. If only he had said to hell with pride and tore the Slytherin out of the man’s grasp and begged forgiveness…

 

            Harry leaned his head against the cold window pane of the balcony door. His hand was cold from gripping the glass wherein the ice cubes were slowly melting into his drink. The drink that Harry desperately needed, but had not touched because all the alcohol on the planet would not begin to drown the pain.

 

            If only—

 

            He turned and savagely hurled the glass across the room. It shattered against the wall and Harry watched the liquid stain the wainscoting that Draco had painstakingly painted—by hand—in order to ensure its perfection. The dark rivulets looked like blood. 

 

            He turned back to the balcony door, fighting nausea. Dwelling on if only did no good because Harry had done none of those things. Harry had arrived at the club just as Draco was leaving with the handsome, dark-haired stranger. The dark-haired, light-eyed, magnetic stranger that Harry arrogantly assumed Draco had chosen simply because of his resemblance to Harry.

 

            blood blood blood blood blood

 

            Harry rested his forehead against the glass once more and stared out at the last crescent shard of the sun touching the horizon. Soon it would be full dark. Soon Draco would be here. He tried to stop thinking. His breath fogged the pane and he concentrated on that, watching it mist and fade, mist and fade. It was a memento of everything in Harry’s life. There and gone. There and gone. Leaving nothing but a hole in his heart that grew with every passing moment.

 

            Harry knew the exact instant when the sun disappeared, announcing the arrival of night. Somewhere out in the dark/cold, Draco’s beautiful eyes would be opening.

 

            If only—

 

            Harry had not stopped Draco from leaving with the stranger. Harry had gone home in a fucking useless, self-pitying fit of jealous rage. Harry had lain blindly on their bed staring at the ceiling while somewhere across town the dark-haired, handsome stranger was opening a vein and forcing Draco to drink. While Harry lay on his bed thinking vengeful thoughts, cosmic revenge was purging Draco’s humanity and leaving something just as beautiful, but cold and lifeless in its place.

 

            By the end of the third night, Harry’s rage had gone, leaving only a cold knot of fear and a desperate, begging, pleading, praying need for Draco to return.

 

            And Draco had…

 

            Harry had awakened from a fitful, tortured sleep to a gentle tapping on the balcony door. The same balcony door Harry now fogged with his frightened breath. Mist and fade. Mist and fade. He concentrated on the glass, unwilling to remember, unable to stop.

 

            Let me in, Harry, Draco had said, looking like a gossamer angel enveloped in pale moonlight. I need you, Harry. Let me in. Let me in.

 

            Harry had gone to the doors, raced to the doors, flinging covers aside, and joyfully grasped the handle with words of thanks spilling from his lips. Words that had turned to bile in his throat; his hand froze on the metal handle as unwelcome clarity slammed into his brain, forced into his consciousness by years of surviving by instinct alone.

 

            The unwanted logic that demanded to know why Draco was on the balcony. Draco would never Apparate to the balcony. He had never even stood on the balcony. He hated the fucking balcony. He had called it a glorified architrave and grinned in smug superiority when Harry had to look up the term. Draco Malfoy would walk in the front door, toss his cloak on the end of the sofa to annoy Harry, and bellow for Potter if he were in the mood for a fight. He would never, ever stand on the balcony and whisper, Let me in, Harry.

 

            A split-second was all it had taken and Harry had lifted his hand from the latch. Looking back, he believed he would have opened the door anyway, when need overrode logic, but in that timeless moment, Draco’s face had changed. The beauty of his features had transformed into an expression of rage no human countenance could contain.

 

            Let me in. The voice was enthralling, seductive, and altogether terrifying. Harry had backed away and the thing that had once been Draco Malfoy glared balefully, hissed, and gone, leaving Harry Potter to sink into a stupor on the floor when he’d found his legs could no longer support him.

 

            That had been last night. Last night Harry had backed away from the door, but tonight… tonight he would open it. Because he had not slept a jot, and somewhere along the way his tortured mind had rationalized that half a Draco was better than no Draco at all. That a cold, soulless, blood-drinking creature wearing a beautiful Draco-skin had to be better than never seeing his face again. It had to be. Even if Harry would never again see the morning sun glint off the platinum hair, or watch him throw back his head and laugh in delight on a summer afternoon. It had to be.

 

            And if it wasn’t… if it turned out to be too much to bear, then the sharpened length of hemlock that lay under Harry’s pillow would put paid to that last, flickering, foolish ember of hope.