June 2002

Being in love comes surprisingly easily to Draco Malfoy.

It's evident in the way he carries himself, the lustrous glow of his eyes despite the lack of sunlight to reflect it, the way he hums to himself as he performs the tasks they need to survive.

It makes him look softer, gentler almost. Like there's a lull of something inside him where once there was fire and noise.

And Harry can't get enough of him.

He kisses him every chance he gets, holds his hands longer than necessary when passing him food, runs his hands down his back when they bathe. There are days when he feels he really might overflow with all the feeling he has for Draco Malfoy, and the only way to relieve the torrent inside him is by touch, as often and as sweetly as he's able.

Because, as Draco remarks to him one night as they sat side by side watching the embers burn down, "We could die tomorrow in an instant and we might not even know."

The constant impending reminder of their mortality hangs over Harry like a dark cloud which might burst with thunder at any minute. He'd prefer not to feel its time-bomb presence so often, but it seems the only way it can be avoided is when he's on top of Draco, or underneath him, his mind fogged with ecstasy at the contact.

As a result they have sex often - at least twice a day, and then again in the night time. Sometimes it's just for something to do, as much as anything else, though the emotional closeness derived from it is incomparable to anything else on earth.

But their mortality is always there, in the back of their minds, taking up just enough of their hearts to hurt.

And it's even more present now, as it becomes clear that Harry's feet aren't healing like they ought to after his incident with the embers.

"That's the price we paid for our light that day," he shrugs, examining the angry-looking wounds, which have begun to seep and need changing more frequently than either boy can spare swathes of his robe.

"If we need to go anywhere, I'll carry you," Draco insists, but it sounds feeble even to his own ears.

Both of them know that, strong as Draco might be, there'd be no way he could ever outrun a group of Aurors with Harry in his arms. They'd both be dead quicker than they could get up, let alone run.

So for the foreseeable future, they're stuck in the same small radius of forest, and the days are beginning to drag further out, while the shouts grow closer.

"I feel so fucking useless," Harry admits one afternoon as Draco bathes his feet for the fifth time that day. "We're sitting ducks, Draco, you know that? Completely helpless. And it's all my fault! Me and my useless fucking feet!"

"Hey, no, shh," Draco shakes his head, sluicing cool water over Harry's ankles with practiced hands. "Don't upset yourself like that. I'll take care of you, see? You don't need to walk."

Harry looks up at him, green eyes watering. Their images are reflected before them in the water like a celestially beautiful painting, one which one could stand over and stare into in awe as the blonde reaches down to cup the brunette's face with a gentleness that could stop anyone's heart.

"I could love you for lifetimes," he whispers, but Harry shakes irritably out of his grasp, unplacated.

"We should have had lifetimes!" he explodes, rage pouring suddenly out of him with wilful abandon. "Why aren't you angry about this, Draco? I should be kissing you for the last time in eighty fucking years, not any day now!"

"You're allowed to be angry if you want," Draco smiles sadly. "I won't be, but you can. I'm just grateful that we even had this time together. It's precious, you know, Harry. Not everyone gets even this much."

"How can you not be even a little distressed?" Harry asks in bemusement.

Draco smiles again, and no tears glimmer in his grey eyes, only gentleness and love.

"How should I make you understand?" he muses. "I suppose I should ask you this: what exactly entitles us to grow old? What right do you and I have to old age when so many we knew didn't get that opportunity?"

Harry has no answer to that, but he feels less awful than before, so he lies back in the moss to contemplate the words.

"One day we'd have got sick of running anyway," Draco continues, and his tone is measured and calm. "We know what they want, Harry, and they won't stop until they get it. Once day we're going to have to give it to them."

"I know." Harry breathes a shaky sigh. "I know. I should have expected this for us, in a way - anything this incredible is too good to stay on earth for long. It's just ending a little quicker than I thought."

"Yeah, for me too," Draco nods kindly, "And I'll never stop hating myself for getting you into this mess, actually, just the way I'll never stop hating you in a way because you refuse to leave me."

"Did Romeo leave Juliet?" Harry asks. "Did Jack leave Rose, did Mark Anthony leave Cleopatra? Why should we be different?"

Them he kisses Draco long and hard before he can ask who those people are, knowing how little of Muggle history and culture he knows.

"You could never be unloved by me, no matter what you did," he says when he finally pulls back to look at Draco squarely in the face in all his godlike beauty. "And you can hate us both all you want, but I'll be forever grateful to you for everything we've done together. No matter how it ends."

"I'm just sorry I couldn't give you more," Draco says. "Really. You deserved a lot better."

"We both did, we both deserved better, and it really fucking sucks that we can't have it," Harry nods.

He's crying now, hot tears dripping down his skin and into the water, shattering the painted image of the two of them briefly with each drop before it can re-form on the surface.

"It drives me nearly to insanity that there are all these feelings inside me and I'll never find the words to express them to you properly in the time we have here," Harry sobs, his chest rising and falling beyond his control. "You might never know how much I feel about you!"

"No, trust me, I know," Draco whispers, pulling him in fiercely while he cries. "You don't have to tell me, I can feel it too."

Harry clutches onto Draco like a lost child, his fingers balling the fabric of his shirt into fistfuls as if that's a way to ensure he remains close and secure. Above these fists, his head presses two damp eye-marks into his lover's chest, and he heaves for breath as hysterics overwhelm him.

"Let it out, darling," Draco murmurs, sensing how tightly Harry needs to be held in return and responding accordingly. "Say whatever you have to say."

"My life is ruined," Harry wheezes frantically when he can catch his breath just a little, "Because even if we escape I'll just have to lose you again. No ex Death Eater escapes trial, let alone a Malfoy, we both know that. So one way or another I'm going to have to go without you in the end, and I think it might snuff out my fucking soul, Draco!"

"I know how you feel," Draco whispers hollowly into his hair. "It's terrifying, isn't it? And I know you want to do everything on earth with me and I do too, but I also know that despite everything you're right, and that our time together is really limited, so instead I'll settle for kissing you every night that we get."

Harry's sobs subside a little at these words, so Draco carries on, more forcefully than before. "I'll kiss you goodnight tonight and the night after that and any more nights we get after that," he swears. "And that little luxury is all I can promise you. But it isn't for nothing, alright?"

"Alright," Harry sniffs. And with that, and another of the promised kisses from the boy that he loves, a sense of surreal calm begins to wash over him in place of his panic.

It doesn't fade away again.

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a/n: thank you so much if you stuck with it this far, i hope you're enjoying it! please leave a vote and comment, we're right at the end now so let me know what you think is going to happen maybe ....

🤍🤍

~ paradisedraco