Title:  Sea of Holes (Love Ridden 11)

Author: Romie

Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's

convenient.

Rating:  PG

Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco

Spoilers:  none

Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Title stolen from Yellow Submarine.  Tom Stoppard reference.

Warnings:  features a same-sex romantic pairing.  Get over it.

Feedback: yes please, both on and off list

Summary:  Draco's been left to himself, so he gets all morose and depressed.  This one's a bit short, but the next is probably longer, so there's a compensatory factor at work.

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When I was a child, the stars were my family.  I'd look up at the night sky to find my ancestors gazing back at me, winking their approval from the inky blackness.  They could see me through clouds, ceilings, daylight - and they liked what they saw.  No matter my actions, they condoned me, accepted me.  Loved me.  They understood when others didn't; I never had to be alone.  I was a Malfoy, and that meant something.  It's not a purity of blood; it's a sense of belonging.  A silk thread in God's lace collar.  In the end, no matter whether my life was a success or a failure, I would join them in the heavens to watch the next in line.

 

I don't know whether that's true anymore.  I think I gave it all up when I decided to stay.  I'm not even sure why I did.  For the love of a boy who is too young to understand what love is, and too stupid to run away from me?  From my window, I can see him talking animatedly with his friends.  Same as always.

 

Is it perverse of me to want him to be scarred?  For my mark to blaze across his countenance as surely as the Dark Lord's?  For people to gasp as he passes, the change profound as a cloudburst, obvious as a missing limb?  I have lost so much, and gotten so little in return.  Harry left his pattern on me last night, but I've hardly touched him.  Same as always.

 

He hasn't told his friends yet; that much is clear.  I'm not surprised; he's never treated them very well, and they're too wrapped up in their own flirtations to call him on it.  If asked, he'd probably say he prefers to solve problems himself, not inconvenience others.  The truth is, he never learned how to trust people.  How to need them.  I've known him for almost seven years, and not once has he asked for someone's help.  He'll be so surprised when Death finds him, hooks a heavy iron breastplate under his ribs.  Perhaps I'll be foolish enough to try to save him.

 

Why does he do this to me?  I've asked myself a thousand times, but I've never found the answer.  His disease coats my throat and skin, a molecular barrier between me and sanity.  Though I scrub until I'm raw and screaming, I can't erase his influence.  It binds me here with satin chains.

 

He loves me.  I believe that - I have to.  Otherwise, how could he hurt me so badly?  If he was intentionally malicious, I could anticipate him, block him, cripple him.  I can fight my enemies.  His kindness is a weapon, his embrace a fist around my thorax.  Razorblades fly from his mouth and eyes, phasing through my cobbled shields to slice at the lies which hold me together.

 

There must have been a moment, at the beginning, when I could have stopped this.  I can't find it, can't guess when the decision was made.  I remember meeting him; could I have said no?  Was there a time when I could run away without leaving myself behind?  Fate couldn't be so unkind as to give me no means of escape, to decide my destiny at age eleven.

 

It's too late now.  I can only watch him as the ocean closes over my head, searching his eyes for one last glimpse of sky.