snapshot

Month three of fics! I skipped a lot more days than usual, but it was a fun month!

I’m Not A Hero (tw mentions of war, death) 《 March 1  》

Someone 《 March 3  》

Two in the front 《 March 3  》

Creatures 《 March 6  》

Run 《 March 8  》

White Rose 《 March 9 》

Metamorphosis (tw suicide, MCD, death) 《 March 16  》

I could be him 《 March 16  》

Remake 《 March 19  》

Live to tell《 March 28  》

Vibrant《 March 31  》

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: "ᵂᵃˢᵗᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵒⁿ ᵐᵉ" ᵇʸ ᴮᵀˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ˢᵗᵉᵛᵉ ᴬᵒᵏᶦ

~

“‘Don’t waste your money on me,' he says. Why doesn’t he get that I enjoy spending some of my cursed family’s money on him?”

“I don't know, but he was like that even when we were younger. On the first train he bought the entire sweets trolley  for me, and then nearly sobbed when he found out Mum made him a jumper. A jumper,” Ron says. 

“That’s our Harry, so completely backwards,” Hermione says fondly.  

“I heard my name,” Harry says, approaching the table and throwing his arms around Draco’s neck.

“Hey! You weren’t supposed to be here today, mate.”

“Ron, the three of you ran off to Diagon Alley without me! What am I supposed to do by myself?”

“Draco left you a note very specifically telling you that you were to entertain yourself,” Hermione points out. 

“Besides love, we’re bonding. Didn’t you want us to ‘grow closer as friends’?”

“That was four years ago! You can’t keep excluding me!” Harry whines. Hermione is very poorly covering a laugh. 

“We can and we will,” Draco says. “Now get your head off of me.”

Harry sulks away before apparating, and the three at the table laugh.

ᴴᴾ ᴾᵒᵖ ᵖᵘⁿᵏ ᶠᵉˢᵗ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: "ᴰᵒ ʸᵒᵘ ᶠᵉᵉˡ" ᵇʸ ᵀʰᵉ ᴿᵒᶜᵏᵉᵗ ˢᵘᵐᵐᵉʳ

~

“Don’t you feel the weight of the world?”

“I do. It doesn’t mean I asked for it.”

“Harry, please,” Hermione pleads. But he won’t stay.

Ron stands at her side, both of them teary eyed.  Harry would feel bad for leaving them, but the hand in his reminds him that he isn’t alone. 

“Harry, mate. I get that it’s been utter shite with Umbridge recently, but you can’t just run away.”

“Do you think that’s all there is to it?” a voice growls from his side. Harry squeezes once, and the temper soothes. 

“What do you expect me to do, Ron?” he asks. “Fight him again? Fix this world? I’m a bloody teenager, Ron! It shouldn’t be my job to fix problems I didn’t cause!” 

“But that’s how it is, Harry! If you don’t fight him, then who will?”

“You, Hermione. You and Ron have been by my side for 5 years, you can surely handle him by now.” 

“But Harry-”

“Harry has made up his mind,” Draco says coldly. Harry smiles at the hard gaze in those silver eyes and the warmth of the palm against his own. “He doesn't need your input.” 

“You weren’t supposed to find us anyway.” It was the truth. Clad in all black with the invisibility coat and map in a pocket, Harry and Draco had planned to flee the castle in the night, had planned to fly on a thestral to Grimmauld Place, had planned to take a portkey to their secret house in America. But Ron had heard Harry cast the petrifying and memory charms on a too-curious Neville and followed.  

“Harry”-an arm reaches out and grasps his other wrist- “Please listen to us. We can help! We can do this together, the three of us, it doesn’t have to be you alone!”

He shakes Hermione’s grip and leans further into Draco. 

“But it does have to be me, Hermione. It’s always been me, and it’s just not fair. I have my own things. I don’t want to fight this war.”

“So you’re going to leave the rest of the Wizarding World to fall?”

“I’m sure you and Granger could figure it out, couldn’t you, Weasley?” Draco’s gaze has gone from neutral to simmering, and right now all of the heat is aimed at his friends. 

Harry squeezes his hand, and Draco turns to meet his eyes. “It’s time.” They pull out their wants, casting an Immobulus at both of his friends. “Bye, guys.”

He turns and leads his lover away. He hears the sobs and shouts of his friends. It hurts, when his name is the one being screamed, being wrenched from their hearts. 

But he has to let them go, has to let this world go. 

Doors are opening, Lumos is being cast, people are flooding the corridors. No one seems to move. Neither of them had bothered to throw the cloak on, and he can feel hundreds of confused gazes at his and Draco’s back. He looks at the stone walls one more time, lets his eyes meet Hermione's anguished one's one last time. 

He leaves the Wizarding World with a crack.

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: ⱽᶦᵇʳᵃⁿᵗ

~

Everyone says that after the war, his eyes are haunted.

They say the emeralds are darkened with his ghosts, tainted with the blood of his schoolmates and family and friends.

But they don't know what Draco does. That when they’re together, his eyes are the most vibrant things he’s seen.

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: "ᴸᶦᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵗᵉˡˡ" ᵇʸ ᴹᵃᵈᵒⁿⁿᵃ

~

Their mark has been burned into my skin, into my mind, my heart. 

But I'm not one of them. I work with the Prince, hearing what should not be heard and doing what should not be done.

 I was not expecting to hear this.

If I live to tell the secret I have learned, then it might be the end for them yet. I have to get to them.

 I have seen hope once. It shines in the emeralds we call eyes, in the blood in his veins we call tainted. 

It could all be taken from me any minute, he could be taken from me any minute.

 For the lord knows what I am.

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: ᴿᵉᵐᵃᵏᵉ

~

“They should have just left it as it was!” Draco rants from his seat in front of their telly, where he had made it his personal goal to watch every classic film. 

“I know, I know.”

“Why do people think they can just remake everything? Like this bloody Disney corporation!”

“They do own the originals,” Harry says.

Draco’s glare is redirected from their screen to him. 

“Have you even seen the new Cats, Potter?”

Harry has. Draco made him watch it multiple times, and then proceed to rant through each viewing. 

Harry sighs, preparing himself for hours more of rants.

I know I don’t post much other than my writing, but I feel like I need to say this real fast.

If I write something and you see me tagging it with trigger/content warnings: please tag those when you reblog.

I know usually tumblr will block it if the tags are on the original post, but sometimes it doesn’t work, and I really don’t want to hurt someone by having them stumble upon it without tags.

Please do this, it should only take a few seconds of your time to add the appropriate tags.

~

Harry doesn't know how he got here, standing on Draco's porch, the rain a constant thrumming in his ears. He doesn’t know why Draco is inside, or why he’s upset at him. 

“Where’s my Harry Potter? Where's the bloody Gryffindor who protects those he loves because he loves them, not because he needs it for the fame? Where'd he go?” 

Draco’s glare is so violent it lights him up from the inside, but Harry knows there's disappointment, heartbreak, lined in those silver pools. He knows Draco’s expressions, he knows everything about this man in front of him. 

“I don’t know you anymore, Potter.”

The use of the last name stabs him in the heart more than anything. These last few years he’d just been Harry, or love, or my darling, in the most tender of times. In these last few years he’d grown closer, they'd grown closer. 

“You need him,” Harry says. “I could be him.” 

“I don’t want you to have to try to be him,” Draco says, almost pleadingly. “I don’t want you to try to be him, Harry. I want you to just be him...just be you.”

Harry doesn’t understand. Of course he is himself, he has never changed. But Draco is the fourth person to have told him he’s changed. Hermione and Ron said almost the same thing when he left their home for the last time a few months ago, and Luna had told him as much when she saw him in Diagon last week. 

“I just want him back...” Draco’s voice is so broken, so devastated, that it tears at something deep within Harry’s chest. Tears are streaming down his elegant face. 

“He can’t come back. He won’t come back.”

“Well,” Draco says, retreating back into the house, wiping at his eyes. “Let me know if he does.”

Harry stands on the porch so long that he can no longer distinguish the rain from the tears on his face.

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: ᴹᵉᵗᵃᵐᵒʳᵖʰᵒˢᶦˢ ᵀʷ: ˢᵘᶦᶜᶦᵈᵉ, ᵐᵉⁿᵗᶦᵒⁿˢ ᵒᶠ ˢᵘᶦᵈᶦᵈᵉ, ᴹᶜᴰ

~

We all know the story of a caterpillar turning to a butterfly.

We don't all get wings. 

You know this well.

You wish you could stay with him longer.

You jump from the tower, planning to leave it all behind. 

But at the last moment, you wish you had wings.

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: ᴮˡᵒᵒᵐ

~

When Harry speaks in front of the Wizengamot, a seedling appears in Draco’s pocket. 

When Harry shakes his hand in 8th year, the seed grows into a sapling. 

When Harry hugs him, tears on both their faces, the sapling in his pocket turns into the bud of a white rose.

And when Harry kisses him for the first time, the white rose blooms. 

~

He meets Harry’s gaze and nods. 

“I’m ready.”

“Let’s go.”

They stand up from their respective tables, ignoring the questions of their friends, and make their way towards the doors to the hall. Once there, they link hands, and run. 

Draco can hear the hall screaming behind them, and can hear the swarm of students following them. He has his shrunken trunk in his pocket, Harry’s hand in his, and he feels light as a feather. 

He remembers  their conversation last month, when they had realized they couldn't stay like this. 

“Let’s just run and not look back. We can’t be ourselves here. They’ll tear us apart if you give them the chance.”

“I know, love. Let’s go.”

It had taken one owl to Charlie Weasley and ten minutes to pack their trunks. They took three weeks to gather everything else they needed, to spend time with their friends before they left.

And now they run away from the school, the world, the past, the responsibility. 

“Forever will be you and me,” Harry says, panting but smiling. Draco smiles back, and pushes his legs faster.

They run, and run, and run.

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ

ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: ᴹᵃᵍᶦᶜᵃˡ ᶜʳᵉᵃᵗᵘʳᵉ

~

It just took one spell.

All he had to do was say the words, and his thestral would show itself, and save him from the closing doom.

But he couldn't. Not since that day six months ago, when the light of his life went out forever.

He couldn't bring himself to cast it.

His last thoughts were on the emerald green eyes of his love when the cold sunk in. 

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: "ˢʰᵒᵗᵍᵘⁿ" ᵇʸ ᴳᵉᵒʳᵍᵉ ᴱᶻʳᵃ ᴿᵒᵘⁿᵈ ² ᴱˡᵉᶜᵗʳᶦᶜ ᴮᵒᵒᵍᵃˡᵒᵒ

~

“Slow down!”

“Never!” Harry says, having to yell over the roar of the wind in his ears. He looks over to the passenger seat, and sees his own grin reflected on Draco’s face. 

He feels a hand grab at the edge of the seat, and suddenly, Hermione’s face is shoved between theirs. 

“Slow. Down!” 

Harry hears Ron laugh from the back seat, and Hermione gets pulled back. 

“Where too, navigator?” he asks, smiling so much it almost hurts. 

“Anywhere!” Draco yells back, and his heart swells. 

Ron cheers from the back seat, and Harry allows himself a glance to the mirror. Ron’s smiling as brightly as the rest of them, letting his hand hang out the window. Hermione’s trying to brush her hair out of her face, where the wind keeps throwing it, but she is smiling too. 

Time is flying, and so are they, and Harry loves it more than anything in the world.

ᴰʳᵃʳʳʸ ᴹᶦᶜʳᵒᶠᶦᶜ ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗ: "ˢʰᵒᵗᵍᵘⁿ" ᵇʸ ᴳᵉᵒʳᵍᵉ ᴱᶻʳᵃ

~

Harry loves standing on the coast, looking out at the red-painted bridge, his lover by his side.

They’re so far from his home, so far from all the burdens and responsibility and fame. 

He keeps his want in his back pocket just in case, but he hasn’t had to touch it for two weeks. 

He keeps his love even closer, always within arm’s reach, within the reach of his heart. 

He’d told them before. “If you need me you’ll know where I’ll be.”

Out here he doesn’t have to be a Saviour. 

Out here, he can just be a someone.

~

“My hero,” Draco says fondly as Harry hands him a cup of cocoa. Harry knows he means it with love, but the wounds of the war still bleed sometimes. 

“I’m just a man, Draco. I’m not a hero,” he whispers. It comes out more broken than he thought.

Draco softens, putting an arm around him. “I know, love. I know.”

Suddenly it’s all too much. It’s like the days right after, the guilt and devastation tearing through him, Draco having to be the one to hold him together. 

“I was stuck with this life. I had to do this.” the tears are flowing freely now, as Draco holds him. “I’m not a hero!” Harry screams, the sobs tearing their way through his chest. 

I’m not a hero I’m not a hero I’m not a hero over and over again.

“I know it hurts love. We’ll carry on. Like we always have.”

“How can I carry on, when they’re dead? I couldn’t save them!” Harry cries. “I couldn’t save them! I’m not a hero, I couldn’t save them!”

He feels Draco’s hands run through his hair, feels his steadying heartbeat against his, and lets the screams just turn to silent sobs.

“I couldn’t save them,” he murmurs. 

After a while, he hears Draco’s voice. 

“They’re dead, Harry, but their memory will carry on. Just like we will.” 

Monthly Collection! February is over and done! I did a much better job of sticking to 50 words this month, I think!

Before you go  (tw: brief mention of self harm)《 Feb 2  》

Miracle   《 Feb 5 》

Breaking the Fourth Wall   《 Feb 9  》

A Microfic?   《 Feb 11  》

The Blondes  《 Feb 12   》

New Year      《 Feb 17 》

Verklempt   《  Feb 19  》

Let Go   《  Feb 23   》