disclaimer: jk rowling owns everything, though i'd like to think she'd loan them to worthy individuals in a "play nice and return un-beheaded" sort of way. well probably not, but hey.
warnings: slash. slash.... more slash... slashier... oooh. H/D
    much snippetness and randomness and "what the hell -is- this plotless thing, anyway"ness.
    bewarned.
a/n: for once -not- really connected with timeline of present fic i'm writing. if it doesn't sound at all like h/d -tell me-. i'll cry but i'm a big girl, i can take it, heh.








          ~the missing moment~


And a thousand angels on a pin could dance, you would find them... and a thousand nights could go by, and each night another hope. Nothing would change. The world revolves as it always did, known or unknown, steady upon its axis. Harry knew the way things were-- he'd always known, the moment he saw him. Each day he'd believed change was possible, or even desireable, was a day stolen from himself, a day he'd tried gladly forgetting who he really was, and what he had to end up doing. The sun rose in the morning, and set in the evening. And he hated the boy who would never be a part of his world.


It had to be like this.... He'd given everything he could. He'd tried, and he'd failed, and he knew when to give up. He told himself this over and over-- part of winning was knowing when to quit. It didn't quite make sense, but it had to. He didn't know if he believed in free will or in destiny. He tried to think he didn't have a destiny, but everyone seemed to try pinning one on him anyway. He had no evidence, really, that what he wanted mattered. He got what he really needed. He'd gotten love, and recognition, acceptance, comraderie. It was really childish to want his wildest dreams to touch upon reality. He should've known dreams were best left to night-time and forgetting-- he should've known, when Dumbledore had found him, and took him away, that time. If he was meant to have his heart's desire, he would've had nothing to see in that mirror except himself.


"We lost our innocence long ago, didn't we?", he said suddenly.


"Speak for yourself, Potter. I never had it," the wooden reply came.


"No. I suppose you didn't. When did you ever think you were free to choose? That's the essential innocence, isn't it?"


"No need to wax intellectual about any of this. It's pretty simple, really, isn't it?"


"Ha. Well... I suppose everything is simple in the end. I suppose the game still remains for us, and who are we to pretend we could stop playing, isn't that right, Malfoy?"


"I'm not playing. I'm part of the game. I control the game."


"You think you do, don't you? That's the problem, isn't it? You and your illusions of control...."


"None of this matters. I want you."


"You don't," Harry said, shaking his head calmly. "You can't. Not like this. Who do you think I am? Some skewed reflection? Some hated mirror image you can't escape? Is that what you think?"


"If you believe that...."


"I don't. I just want you to tell me. I need you to tell me. Show me."


Draco advanced, lithe and confident and unstoppable. He stopped inches from Harry, his head inclined, his hand dashing out to seize Harry's chin, turn it to the side. "You're mine, aren't you."


Harry wrenched his head away, hissing, "How dare you? How dare you say that?"


"You are mine. I am yours.... I am alone, but I'm doomed. I can never escape you."


"Don't be so sure. You're making that choice, right now."


"What do you know?"


"What, indeed?"


"Enough. You know enough of me."


"I don't think so. And neither do you, Draco. Neither do you."
~~



Is there a reason that the past ultimately, has to permanently change us, Harry thought. Does it have to encapsulate us? What is there to do, now that all the roads seem either taken or blocked. The exits deserted, all the alarms set off. What remains? Who are we, now? I know we can't be what we were, but what does that make us? Why is this so bloody hard? Why can't I see even ten steps ahead of me? What am I missing here?


"So what is it," Harry said. "What's the missing piece of the puzzle? What are you hiding, Draco?"


"Nothing. You know everything you need."


"Oh no. You don't get away with that. You haven't done nearly enough. You haven't even tried. We haven't even started. This is all bullshit. Bloody nonsense. We haven't done anything right since the time we started, Malfoy. This has all been an elaborate play, with two-bit hacks as players. We can do better than this. I know we can."


"You're delusional. I'm telling you the truth, finally. There's no way out."


"You expect me to just take that? What kind of fool do you take me for? Wait. I don't want an answer," Harry said, ruefully.


"There aren't any secrets or loopholes this time, Potter. We are trapped. Get out if you can."


"You're bloody insane, you know that?"


"Well, you don't have to hang around, do you."


"Yes well, you've made sure of that, haven't you."


"Like you couldn't tell I was lying."


"Well. Actually I couldn't."


"It's not like I wasn't obvious, Potter, by Merlin, I tried every trick in the book to get your attention," Draco said, sullenly.


"In the kindergartener's manual, you mean," Harry said, smirking now.


"Oh sod off."
~~



They met for the last time, in their usual room, in the Astronomy Tower. The sun was rising on a cold winter's morning, and their breath was forming intricately swirling clouds in the still, cool air. The last year and nothing had changed. They were leaving for home, for the break, tomorrow, and nothing had changed. The weight of the future was becoming unbearable, deafening and blinding and immobilizing. The weight of the past was best not even considered, but they couldn't help considering it. They couldn't help returning to it, over and over again, all their mistakes, their battles, their miscalculations. Together or separately, their sense of failure lent itself to a futile sort of obsessive analysis. It wasn't fun, but it seemed inevitable. Here they were, in the number one snogging spot in Hogwarts, wasting their time enumerating the ifs, ands, and buts. As per usual.


"Do you not hate me for wanting you? Do you not think I'm a hopeless wanker?"


"Do you not pity me for not fighting you, anymore? Do you not think I'm a desperate loser?"


"No...," Draco whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...."


"You're just sorry for yourself, aren't you. And it's a bit late for that, anyway, isn't it?," he said, his mouth thin and resolute. "If you needed me you would've sought me out. You knew what you were doing, didn't you? Didn't you? What did you think, that I was secretly knowing what you actually meant? That I would always react exactly as you wanted? Am I a puppet to be discarded and then played with again?"


The other boy's face fell, and he turned away, his shoulders stiff, his posture defeated. "If that's how you want it...."


"How dare you?! How dare you say this has anything to do with what I would've wanted? This never had anything to do with what -I- wanted, it was always about -you-, wasn't it? What -you- could handle and what -you- found wrong and what -you- found right. You say I'm always with you, but that's such a cop-out. -I'm- not what's with you. Your fantasies are with you," the dark boy spit out.


He could tell his tirade was driving the other to the brink of tears, but he was beyond caring. This had gone on long enough. He was tired. Hurting one another's feelings was now matter-of-course. How could they avoid it? Where could this possibly go but to hell, considering how stubborn they both were?


"I just want you to know that I do care about you, I really, really do...," the blond boy whispered, seeming to be swallowing tears.


The dark-haired one closed his eyes, trying to fight his own pain, failing. "Why did it have to come to this? Why did I have to end up being like this? This... is just... so wrong...."


"It would never have worked out anyway," the blond said, petulantly. "You know it, don't you."


"I don't know that. I don't know anything. Though obviously you do. Obviously you know enough, don't you, enough to redeem or destroy. It's all in your power. All I can do is accept it or deny it, but the choice is ultimately yours, isn't it?," the dark-haired one said bitterly.


"I don't have any power," the other whispered, hardly audible. "I can't do anything. I can't even move. I'm pathetic. What are you doing with me?"


"Nothing. Paying you back for the living hell you made out of my existence by not leaving you alone, I guess, since that seems to be what you really think is inevitable, you bastard."


"I just... want you... I lied... I lied about everything... but I'm not lying now...."


The dark haired boy looked at the smaller-looking, fragile form sitting on the chair, still half-turned away from him. His voice was mostly flat, with breaks and dips at strange points. He felt his heart constrict and his throat tighten. He reached out, touching the other's shoulder. The boy jumped, his eyes wild all of a sudden. He turned, breathing heavily, to face his avowed object of desire.


"Don't touch me!", he cried. "Don't touch me... touch me... only if you mean it...."


The hand dropped, its fingers spreading, to rest on a knee, the eyes closing. He was so tired, so very tired of fighting the other, and himself. He wanted to give in again, feel the burn, let the passion mend the ragged edges, smooth the raw, fragile connections. He wanted to feel the relief of finally being able to communicate without impediment. He wanted to feel the other's desire, fresh and fiery against his mind. He wanted to lose himself in the rightness of it, the ease of the joining of such disparate parts to form such a seamless whole. It was dense, and hot, and loud inside him, the clamor to let go of reasons and consequences. This had always worked before. He could just let it work again. The morning would be different, but... every morning was new, wasn't it? Couldn't he prevent what he knew was coming, just because he knew it? Harry saw his folly, and wished he didn't, at that moment, more than anything. The edge of his passion was cutting into him, driving him close to paralysis, unable to resolve his conflicting desires. He just wanted things to make sense again.


"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I don't mean to give you the wrong idea. I don't know what it is. I slip sometimes. I mean it, just... not the way I should. You don't really mean it the way you should either, do you."


"I do mean it!" The voice was sounding more and more ragged to the dark boy's ears, and he could feel it. If he took one more step, things were going to break. Break so far, there was no telling if either of them could ever put themselves back together again....


"No. I don't care anymore. It -hurt-, those things you did. You can't take them back. You can't just explain them. Those years of hating-- those don't go away in hindsight. You can't paint over them with pastel colors. They're ugly and they're here to stay." He took a deep breath, steadying himself. " -You- aren't ugly, Draco," he said, "and -you- will always have hope for a beautiful future-- but you can't just say, the past wasn't really what it seemed-- yes it's always different for everybody, everybody has a different idea of what was -really- going on, so what. That's always how it is. For -me-, it was as if your reality didn't exist. For me, it didn't. And that's just something you'll have to deal with."


There was only silence. The blond boy looked more and more remote, and soon he would turn and leave, not saying anything more for who knows how long. The other was getting desperate, desperate for a way out, a reaction, a solution-- something he'd missed, something vital only a response from the object of his pain could add. His words tumbled out faster, stumbling over themselves, tinged with a kind of hopeless honesty.


"I can't tell you the future, even if you think you can tell -me- the future-- and the past. I can't say where we'll be, or what we'll become. We can only be who we are, isn't that true, Draco? I am who I am," he said, almost angry now. "You have to deal with that. I'm not who I would've been, had you been honest with me or yourself. I'm not that person. And -you're- not that person either. You are Draco Malfoy, The Boy Who Lied, and if you thought there was a good and noble reason, or a selfish and cowardly reason, it doesn't matter, does it. What's past is past."


"I never made any promises," the blond said, finally, so quietly it was almost swallowed by the raging silence suffocating them both.


"No. No you didn't. And I never expected any. What the hell did you think I wanted? Do you think -I- know that? Why can't you... why can't you just do what you want?"


"I can't. I just, can't."


"You want it, don't you. You want me to leave you to your fate. You want me to be just like everyone else. You would finally be complete in your self-made destiny. Your dark sacrifice to yourself. Well, you're welcome to it. I'm done with this." Please tell me you don't want this, Harry thought, finally. Or, don't tell me. Don't tell me. Show me. Please, please show me. No more words. No more, no more. Make me stay, he thought. Make me stay, Draco.


"Goodbye, then."


It hurt, still. Even knowing it was inevitable. Even knowing there wasn't really any solution, knowing if there was he'd have thought of it. It still seemed horribly wrong and unfair and cruel, and it wasn't even anyone's fault. Is it our fault, the things we do to ourselves, he thought. Is it wrong, really? Or is it just us?


He wasn't crying. He was empty. He stared at the door to one side, the window to the other. At that moment, it seemed everywhere he turned, was another exit. Another excuse to leave. He was just prolonging it-- he was just being stubborn. All he had to do was take it. Accept it, that even if both of them didn't want this, even if both of them were frightened and hurt by it, neither of them could prevent this. Wanting, even so much, didn't make any difference if one wasn't prepared to overcome oneself, become someone greater. Someone capable of moving against the current of oneself. Harry was only just learning the extent of the strength required of him. He wasn't at all sure he was able to rise to the challenge, but he knew he had no choice. There was no Dark Lord, no inevitable death waiting for him. He knew it was in his power to stop it, and he knew that knowledge lent him the responsibility. And that was the difference between them. Harsh. Inevitable.


His fingers clenching, Harry reached for the doorknob.


"I have nothing to give you," Draco had said, when they'd started. "I can't even give you myself, even if I wanted to."


"Don't die, at least," Harry said now, his voice a strange mixture of simmering anger and a coldness, already settling over him.


He didn't look back until he'd gone around the first corner, and even then, only because he knew there was nothing to see. And there wasn't. Swallowing the rest of his words, he lengthened his stride.
~~