分卷阅读33（2 / 2）

“The paper. They talked about you and Ginny all the time.” Draco claws at the dark mark and then realizes that Harry might feel the motion, so he switches to twisting the sheets between his fingers instead. “Are you so upset this time because it’s me?”

Until the words were out, he didn’t realize how much this mattered to him. How much it bothered him, that even after everything, all the things Harry said and did and all the times he protected him, a part of him still thought of him as that jerk from school who wasn’t worth his time, a kid who got wrapped up in things that were way over his head without realizing it and was now just another person for him to reach out a helping hand to. That maybe, just maybe, even with everything, the thing that was keeping them apart was not how much Draco was afraid, but rather the fact deep down, Harry knows who Draco is and that he would never really want him. And if that’s the truth, Draco can’t even find it in himself to blame him for it.

“No.” He can hear the rustling of blankets that meant Harry was jerking back awake, maybe propping himself up on an eyebrow and turning over to look at him, eyes squinting to make the fuzzy outline of Draco’s face a little clearer. Draco doesn’t know for sure. He won’t turn and face him. “No, of course that’s not it. Of course it’s nothing to do with you.”

If this were different, hands would be reaching out to him, holding him, and maybe Draco would not be so afraid just to turn his head to the right and see if Harry is telling the truth. If things were different, they wouldn’t need to be having this conversation.

“Then what?” There’s heat in the back of his eyes, and hiding in his throat, and his fingers are trembling again, so he clutches the sheets tighter, half afraid he’s going to rip the fabric. “Why are you so upset?”

“Because it was about me.” Harry says, and then there are hands on him, one of Harry’s hands on his shoulder and the other still on the bed for balance, and this time, Draco really does to look at him. “Because we had this nice night, this great night, and it wasn’t supposed to be about anything bigger than you and me dancing. And now it’s been made into this huge thing, like it meant something it didn’t, and it makes me feel like…like…” He falters, searches Draco’s face, and Draco can see him swallow. “Like I was supposed to be doing something different. That we were doing something wrong.”

“Do you think we are?”

“I didn’t.” Harry’s eyes are wide. “I don’t want to be. Do you think we are?”

“Sometimes.” Draco broke eye contact and looked at his arm instead, went to trace all the freckles together. He liked doing that, when they were both drifting off to sleep. “But rarely.”

“It looked like something it wasn’t.” Harry said, and it was with the tone of someone who was trying very hard to convince themselves that a lie was the truth. “That’s all that was.”

“It looked like something because it is something.” This was a leap that Draco was not prepared to take—he had never been very good at not getting hurt in the landings. “And they just saw it before we did.”

“We can’t be something.” It pains him to say it, Draco can tell, but that doesn’t change the fact that it still stings, to be turned away even when you weren’t offering anything. “You said that yourself.”

“But I still want it.” They are so close that they only have to speak in whispers, and Draco wonders who they were kidding, why they were pretending, how this was any better than just taking that chance and dealing with the fall out. If he were a braver person, he would lean in and kiss him. But he’s not. He’s the kind of person who looks to save himself before anyone else, who always has escape routes and back up plans, and he will not do something that has the potential to cause him so much pain. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” His hands are in Draco’s hair, now, and he is kind of on top of him now, and there is something digging into Draco’s ribs but he doesn’t complain, just takes what can be given to him, takes this one time, this one kiss, even if it breaks everything, even if it’s the last time he ever got to touch Harry like this. When they break apart, it feels like falling, and there is nothing there to catch him, but there are worse ways to break. “You have to know that.”

“I don’t.” Confessions come easier in darkness. “I’ve tried telling you, I don’t.”

“You have to,” Harry repeats, a murmur on Draco’s skin, and even though he knows this means nothing, that it is just a continuation from the strange feeling that had been left over from the night before, that in the morning there will be awkward silences and awkward grins and a promise to forget this even though they never will, he does not stop it, even when it might have been smarter (safer) to do so.

Chapter 26

Harry

There’s a full scale fight going on in Diagon Alley and even though he was in the middle of a duel and curses were whizzing by so close to him he could feel the wind on his skin, all Harry can think about is that this really isn’t what he wanted to happen when he was trying to gather enough nerve to tell Draco that it was over.