Draco is staring straight into the sun, and Harry is sitting cross-legged behind him, eyes barely open, leaning against a tree. Without opening his eyes too much, it seems like Draco's hair is blazing, not like a halo, but like the sun itself. Harry doesn't have to lift his eyes to be blinded anymore. Draco stretches a hand behind him, and rests on it as he stares unseeingly upwards, not saying a word. Harry looks at that hand, those fingers, long and pale and immaculate, and the urge to touch becomes almost painful, but he doesn't. The hand seems enclosed, untouchable, not so much pure as distant. Far away, as if seen through a telescope, even though it is only inches from Harry's knees. Harry doesn't remember the last time either of them had said anything. They'd been sitting there, in silence, for hours it seems, and the sun has been turning more and more orange, bronzing and then melting into red as the day dies around them.


Harry throws caution and thought to the winds, finally, his eyes tearing from looking at the ring of sunlight raging around the soft strands of pale gold hair. His heart feels painful and distinctly uncomfortable in his chest, and he feels as if he would explode if he sits still any longer. There isn't really any good reason for this, but there doesn't need to be. It has been too long. He feels as if he is losing something vital, something irretrievable, as the glow around Draco fades, as the sun sinks below the horizon. The silence between them has built to the point where it has become a ringing in his ears, a buzz racing heedlessly across the surface of his skin. It feels as if a scream is gathering in his throat, yet he is incapable of letting it free.


Draco stiffens, and makes no sound, as Harry jolts him, closing his arms tightly about his waist, holding him from behind. The air seems to ripple around them, the tension reaching a crescendo. Draco bites his lip, tasting blood, but gives no sound, and makes no movement. Harry squeezes harder. Draco closes his eyes, feeling a strange fullness in his throat, and no sound could escape now even if he tried. It is an unpleasant and unfamiliar sort of sensation, but Draco can't find it in himself to break free from Harry's hold at this moment. In a flash, his eyes open, and he realizes he fully hates Harry Potter, right then. Hates him beyond words, beyond reasons, beyond everything. The feeling is omnipresent, saturating the air he breathes, sinking into his skin like ink. He hates him, and the object of his hatred is most likely oblivious, and he can't even tell him. He can't even tell him, right then, and he could've hated himself for that, but there is no room for that extra emotion in him.


Harry's breath is harsh and hot against his neck. Draco shivers, suddenly cold. Staring into the sun isn't helping, and it's all seeming horribly pale, and fading bit by bit, as the noise in his own head increases. He wants to turn around and throw Harry to the ground, with a well-placed punch to the jaw, the sound of a satisfying crack to assuage his ringing ears. He could feel it, a physical need needling his skin, piercing his every sense. Something-- something horribly dense and heavy and unnameable, is keeping him still, is keeping everything locked inside him.


Harry's fingers are now locked around his forearms, clenching around them tightly, his fingernails digging into delicate skin, on the verge of drawing blood.


"Draco," he says, and his voice is perfectly level, but he may as well have growled or screamed or hissed, for all Draco notices, because Harry's voice is almost all he needs to push him completely over the edge.


"No," Draco says, "No you can't, Potter." And he peels Harry's fingers from his arms, refraining from breaking them, though every nerve in his body screams at him to use force. If he let himself start, he would never stop. And he needs to stop. All of this needs to stop.


Harry does hiss, and grab Draco's shoulder, and pull harshly, twisting him around so they could face each other. The sun is setting in his eyes, the rays of it seeming to focus and disperse in all directions, as if they were a clear green prism. Draco wishes he could just go blind and get it over with, because he doesn't think he wants to be the one to send more green light into those eyes, to be swallowed and cast out, changed, broken into pieces, nullified. He has a distinct vision of himself disintegrating in the fallout, the raining of green sparks setting him on fire, even as the light went out. He would not survive the casting, he knows, but he is starting to be beyond caring. The curse is a scream, ringing in his head, bell-like. His mouth moves, shaping the words, tasting the syllables, in complete silence. He doesn't know why, but thinking of it always comforts him, though it shouldn't. He should just say it, not clutch it to his chest like a baby. If only he could get it out, through all the phantom noise. So many things he could be saying, and he doesn't want to know what any of them are. If he said one, he'd have to say them all, wouldn't he? What if he can't pick just the two, he thinks. Draco doesn't want to find out.


He can barely hear when Harry says "I don't love you," quite distinctly. Harry has that look in his eye, intense, almost maddened, like when they had fought, not so long ago, their wands speaking for them, the magic twisting and tangling between them. It had been tying itself in knots, buckling under its own burden, even as it lashed out with power, the spell-words sharp as razorblades, cutting their tendons, snipping at their strings, so that winners or losers, they still fell to their knees. That look, that meant either kisses or fists. Draco had always known that look. He'd been the one to perfect it. It isn't much, as far as suspense, anymore. Soon, soon, Harry would snap, and launch his body full-on at Draco, and his mouth would dive straight at his, unerring and not to be evaded, looking fit to kill, but always letting his moans betray him. Harry was always weak, when it came to this game. He'd never seen it through. He'd just wanted. Draco, on the other hand, realizes this is the last thing he wants. A curse is a curse. The fact remains, he hates Harry Potter with everything he has.


"Don't you," Draco says, quietly, with just a hint of his usual sneer. Harry stares, brought up short for a moment, the fierce light flickering. So easy. His eyebrows furrow slightly, and he seems just the smallest bit uncomfortable. The sun has set, and Harry's eyes are opaque, almost completely dark now, all pupil with no light escaping. He looks away. "You want me," Draco says, with finality.


Harry looks up, quickly, something flickering in his gaze once again. "What does -that- have to do with anything?" he says, voice rising.


"Everything. It's everything." I can't stand this, Draco thinks. I can't stand you. I can't bear looking at you. I can't even bear mocking you anymore. I can't believe I'm this near you and I'm not spitting and hissing like my clothes were on fire. Your want is pure poison. Did you know that, Potter? Do you have any idea, how I loathe you? Touching you is torture. I'd rather stick my hand into a boiling cauldron. He thinks all this, but says nothing. It's all too obvious, and he has no answer for the obvious, and he couldn't live with it, but he couldn't very well escape it. If he did hate him so, what in the nine hells was he doing? Where was his wand? Where was the curse, fighting its way past his teeth at last? He was an imposter in his own skin. He hated himself most of all.


"I don't love you," Harry repeats, as if saying it again would help things. He says it emphatically, enunciating every syllable, as if they bring him some kind of twisted pleasure. As if he -wants- to be doing this, perverting his own will. Draco is almost certain he does. Of course he does. Bloody Potter, so much more perverse than any student of the Dark Arts ever dreamed of being. What a great joke it all was, really.


Harry's expression is one of intense, solemn concentration, as he takes Draco's hand into his own. They had managed to maintain their precarious sort of balance, neither of them screaming nor fighting nor tearing at each other's clothes and skin, breaking each other open with words and looks and their whole bodies, plunging into each other, but only in silence. It was always like this. Teetering on the edge, not looking down. The first one to look down was the first one to fall, though the other always follows not long after. If your chest is burning, your heart beating so fast it seems bound to rip free any moment-- if your vision is going dark, if your gut is clenching, and you feel like you're going to throw up any moment-- whatever you do, don't look down. That's the unspoken rule of survival.


Draco stares at his hand, clasped firmly in Harry's own, unbelievingly, as if it were a stranger's. He doesn't remember who he is, at that moment, and whom he hates. The sensation is back, that one of thick, choking unreality, that forces its way up his throat every time Harry touches him. There is a reason he likes staring into the midday sun, until his eyes burn and his throat constricts, parched and painful, his skin sizzling with electricity. There is a reason he relishes those simple moments, when they fight, clean and simple, drawing blood, the curses on their lips simple and unmistakeable for anything but what they are. Those are the moments he lives for, the moments he understands, because they have always been a part of him, as familiar as his own breath. He is purely himself, then, and he remembers. He remembers what he needs to.


"Fuck you," Draco says, his voice bitter like the taste of new blood seeping from an old wound. He seems unable to spit it out, even though the words left him, it's like they didn't, they just clung to the lining of his throat, impossible to swallow.


Harry doesn't hear him, which isn't surprising. His face is still, and he seems transfixed, by what, Draco couldn't begin to imagine. He is staring at a spot just above Draco's head, looking bedazzled. Suddenly, his gaze drops, and he looks straight into Draco's eyes. A small, sparkly thing shivers into life in Draco's gut. It's ticklish and hot, like a tiny sun, looking for release from its prison inside him. Or a Snitch, its wings tickling him as they rush upwards, sending prickles racing to every nerve in his body. It figures, because no matter what, this is Harry Potter, and he always gets the Snitch. Draco had been so close, so close. Just a little bit longer, and it would've been gone. Just a small space to insulate it, full of blinding light and silence, and it would be gone, and he would forget he was ever anything but himself. He'd swallowed it, he'd caught it, he'd hidden it inside him, he'd refused to open his mouth, he knocked Harry off the broom, he'd tried everything. Harry caught it every time. He really, really hates Harry Potter. He could feel the light of the other's eyes burning words onto his skin, and it isn't silent at all.


The sparkling thing tickles his tongue, brushing the back of his lips for a moment, and then escapes him, free to be caught. Draco waits for his bile to rise, for the sense of loss, so familiar and despised, to burn its path down his center. He is patient, all things considered. It is only a matter of time, before Harry catches it, and the game is over, easy as that, he thinks. It had always been just a matter of time, really. Each moment of his silence, another moment to bring him closer to its end. Draco waits, but nothing happens. Harry remains oblivious, though it's hard to tell because he's still looking straight at him, and distantly, Draco realizes that it's gotten rather hard to string thoughts together, and that he is tired of waiting. Harry always wins, doesn't he? Harry always gets what he wants, Snitches or not. But so does Draco. Harry's eyes are reflective, unreadable, yet, Draco is pretty sure, still oblivious as can be. Harry always smiles those weird, tiny smiles, at completely random moments, really. He can't see it. He can't see it! Draco feels like grinning. He won? He won! It makes no sense. It doesn't need to make sense, of course, as long as it's true. Suddenly, he feels much lighter, weightless almost, like he had the world lifted from him. Or perhaps it has escaped, into the cool evening air. Either way, he feels as if he could float away with the slightest breeze. He still has it to give, even though he'd lost it. As long as he doesn't think about it too long, that seems to make sense, yes. Everything is quite as it should be, in fact, Draco thinks.


"And I love you," Draco says, closing his eyes, in pain or acute, ridiculous embarrassment, he can't tell. He hears a rustle, and a soft exhaled breath, and then he thankfully doesn't notice much else for a long while.

~~