You Won’t Lose Me To Thunder Or Lightning

Salomé 1919 by Max Oppenheimer

the day you were sentenced to azkaban

When I saw this fantastic piece by @longdaytogo I couldn't stop myself from writing - look at Harry's face! Draco's tension! The hands! So, here's 1.3k words of artsy, self-indulgent angst wrapped up with a hopeful ending. If you like it, thank my betas, @wecanthavenicethingx and @starlitsilvereyes for making it so much better, and being so encouraging that I was able to share it 💜 Read on ao3, or below!

The day you were sentenced to Azkaban, you were all alone. Your father had already been taken away to a life in prison, starting with a year of solitary confinement; and your mother had been sent back to the Manor to begin her house arrest. You were on your own, stoic and pale and thin and drawn in the chair in the center of the room, darting glances around the court and staring at the floor in turn. You flinched when the Wizengamot announced your fate; five months in Azkaban, a strict parole after that. You were silent, just bowed your head and trembled, but the Wizangemot chastened you anyway, reminding you of your crimes, and outlining exactly how severe your punishment would have been if you had been a year older when you took the Mark, one of them shuffling their papers and mockingly wishing you a happy birthday a day in advance; you didn’t say anything, so I did, standing up because I couldn’t stay seated anymore and trying to protest, so tired of all the hate and vitriol that hadn’t stopped even after everything.

Hermione stopped me, of course. She pulled me back down onto the bench and she and Ron kept me there until the Wizengamot had all but filed out, trying, I’m sure, to keep me from making any more headlines or forcing the court to give me an official censure. But once the worst of them had left the room, and only a few plum-coloured hats could be seen at the door, I broke free, and reached you before the Aurors coming from the edges of the room did. You were still standing from when you were required to out of decorum for the magistrates, and your hair had fallen across your face, so I couldn’t see the look on your face, but I could still imagine it. I’d seen it on enough other faces during the previous few years, and by that point, I knew exactly what despair and fear and panicked isolation looked like.

We had both been children, caught up in a war from the first year of our lives, and I felt that youth more in that moment than any before. I was so young and powerless, you looked so small and fragile, and I wanted to cry for how tired I was from being angry all the time for all the problems that hadn’t yet been resolved. I don’t even know what I thought I was going to do, why I was approaching you in the first place - you were just all alone, standing there, and looking at you in that moment felt like looking into a mirror, because that was how I felt too, even surrounded by so many people. Everyone else seemed to have their name intertwined with someone else’s; Ron-and-Hermione, Molly-and-Arthur, Bill-and-Fleur. Ginny and I had never really been Harry-and-Ginny, we hadn’t been given the time to forge that link properly, and it fizzled out before we could solidify it; when she moved on to be Ginny-and-Neville, I was left alone as just Harry. And in that moment, when I saw you standing by yourself in the middle of the room, you were just Draco, just like me.

I didn’t go up to you because I wanted to become Harry-and-Draco (although I am so glad to be linked with you now, our names connected on every legal document and letter we sign), I just walked over to you because you were all alone and I was too, and it made sense in that moment that we should be all alone together.

I think I started trying to apologize, for not doing more to help you, for how the Wizengamot treated you, for my part in our petty, schoolboy rivalry; I think I started to tell you that it would be okay, that it would only be a few months, and the dementors were gone now and so it wouldn’t be fun, but you would be alright, but I don’t think I got any of those words out of my mouth.

You shook your head, a small no, and the sight of the tears pooling in your eyes silenced me before I could begin. You were so absolute, so determined to be proper even after everything, and you told me… you told me no. You said, “Thank you, Potter, but you’ve done more than anyone could have asked of you already.” Your lower lip trembled a bit on the last word, despite your best efforts, and I couldn’t stop myself from acting once more, despite my best efforts (although I didn’t really try my best to stop myself).

I hugged you, and you trembled like a leaf, frozen other than the little tremors that wracked your whole body. You kept your arms stiff at your sides, and I could feel you tightening your chin where it pressed into my shoulder, determined not to let your tears or defenses fall.

It took a few moments, but then you inhaled, deep and shuddery, and you grabbed onto me like we were still fleeing the Fiendfyre, and I held you back, just as tight. I saw the Aurors start moving in again, coming to take you away, and I pulled you even closer, watched them falter with uncertainty as I held you and let you cry out your tears and put yourself together again.

I didn’t cry, but I did a good deal of self-repair for myself while we stood there. You were holding me like I’d never been held before, like you needed me, like you wanted me to be there, like you cared about me and wanted to give as much comfort as you were getting. I thought, at the time, that might have been wishful thinking on my behalf, just more of my loneliness striking out at an empty void, but I was so glad to hear you tell me, later, whispering under cool linen sheets on a hot summer night that you felt the same way then. I just wanted to comfort you, and be comforted myself, in a way I hadn’t previously known.

A few moments more, and I started to think too much. I could see the Aurors moving again, and their motion in the corner of my eye made all my thoughts come back, moving too fast and looming too big to focus on them. I didn’t want to let you go, and yet I was going to have to, I would have no choice in what happened yet again. I wanted to keep giving you comfort, I wanted to let you take everything you needed, while you held me right back, and that was warm and safe and terrifying, because you were Draco Malfoy and I was Harry Potter, and I didn’t know what that meant anymore.

(I know what it means now. But we weren’t Draco-and-Harry then. There were still two more years ahead of us before we got the first letter addressed to Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, together, and it was another ten months after Luna’s baby shower that we even talked about making that link permanent. It took us five years from that first hug in the Ministry for us to return there to sign our names on the license that made us legally Draco-and-Harry Malfoy-Potter.)

I held you, and I held you, and I held you. I didn’t figure anything out then, and I don’t think I fixed any problems in those too-short seconds either, but I felt better, even as we clung to each other tighter still in the moments when the Aurors reached us and started to gently pull us apart.

The day you were sentenced to Azkaban, I watched you walk away between crimson-robed Aurors, and I started counting down to December, when I could see you again, and when things might start to feel alright.

A slowly collapsing prairie home.

I have buried myself in desire

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