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Harry very well knew that he was obsessed with Draco Malfoy.
He checked the map again that showed Draco alone in Myrtle's washroom, while making his way there, hidden under his invisible cloak.
Draco, because somewhere between fifth and sixth year, he had become Draco from Malfoy, was looking at the mirror, holding himself up on both his hands while trying to breathe. The moonlight reflecting off the mirror painted Draco's already pale face imbued in a silvery glow. His eyes were red and swollen, the skin beneath them almost blue as tiny nerves made themselves known through his translucent skin. His breathing was hurried, but what did catch Harry's eyes was the intensity of his gaze, almost hateful in the mirror.
This was not the boy who had preened, pranced and poked Harry for his amusement the last 5 years, as entertaining as his father's peacocks (that Sirius had shown him in a Pensieve when he had pranked them Gryffindor colours in his youth), but a caged animal. Harry had seen that look on his face several times during his stay at Privet Drive.
Draco was clenching the sink bowl harder, his breathing becoming more ragged when Harry took his cloak off. In a show of quick reflexes, Draco had his wand out, pointed at him while turning while Harry cast an ever-reliable Expelliarmus, catching Draco's wand as it flew through the air, pocketing it with his own.
"What do you want Potter?" Draco snarked, but his tone was tired, already defeated without a fight.
Harry wondered how to respond when Draco let out a self-deprecating chuckle, leaning his hip against the counter, "If you're here to kill, do get around it. I don't wish my last moments to be spent wondering if you ever comb your hair."
This was classic Draco, confronting and rude even when at a disadvantage, like a scorpion. "This is the first time this year that you have actually insulted me."
"I wasn't aware you were keeping notes. Why did you miss me listing all your faults?" Draco ran his mouth but was still a bit subdued. That wouldn't do.
"Yes actually," Harry said, walking up to him until their toes were almost touching. Draco was looking down at him. His eyes were more grey than the silver hue it got when he smiled.
"The ministry has accepted that you were right, the papers are calling you the Light Lord, and you're getting private lessons from Dumbledore. Is that not enough attention on you that you also want mine?" Draco's tone was almost acrid.
"The ministry is only concerned with itself, the papers are still lying and Dumbledore wants me to defeat a dark lord without becoming one myself. Their attention is unnecessary and unwanted. Yours on the other hand has become a habit. There is no competition in the school." Harry whispered, his voice even. He had heard Sirius threaten Flecther in the same tone. Glancing up, he noticed Draco's eyes were slightly blown, his lips open in a gasp.
"Will you? Defeat him? Become a dark lord?" Draco whispered. His body twitched slightly, mostly his arm, and in a move that was probably the Marauder's blood running through him, Harry took Draco's arm, turning around so it loosely wrapped around him. Harry could lean back against him, but he steadily his weight on his own feet, enjoying the proximity as Draco exhaled in his ear. Spreading his palm to clasp Draco's fingers between them, Harry dragged the sleeve of his sweater down his forearm. Draco twitched again, another breath of warm air hitting his ears as the serpent mark became visible. Harry ran a finger through the snake, noting the hum of power, Voldemort's in it.
Draco shivered unsteady on his feet in the little space between the counter and Harry, when his free arm came to hold Harry across his shoulder from the back. Draco exhaled again, this time breathing out on Harry's hair.
"If you have to serve a Dark Lord, would you rather stand in front of him, or beside me?" Harry asked almost nonchalantly as if he wasn't creating an absolute conundrum in Draco's head.
"If you had to kneel, would you prefer to kneel for me?" Harry spoke again, and for a second Draco was scared. His tone was free of the usual sputtering though it had tampered down since their third year.
Draco felt a hum of magic from his palm that held his, from his fingers going to him. Draco's magic which had been subdued and chafed since his marking suddenly sparked, as if a parched throat reacquainting itself with water. The steady thrum went all inside him, like a steady replenishing brook until breathing became easier.
"What is happening?" He asked his voice smoother than it had been since summer.
"Your precious lord channels his powers from his followers' marks. Your magic is sustaining him. He is leeching off your magic and it's making you unstable." Harry said, half-awed and half-horrified. If the marks were somehow disabled Voldemort would be much easier to kill.
Suddenly, Harry's thrum of magic in his veins stopped and the loss haggard Draco. He hadnt noticed but his magic had been weaker, more stretched. Now he knew why.
"When father was arrested, he claimed the manor and kept mother as a hostage for me to behave." Draco found himself saying, Harry's magic still in his veins. He felt slightly loose-lipped from the power.
"We will free her," Harry said resoundingly in the way he said and did things. The one that was more the saviour, than a bespectacled boy with bad fashion.
"He put his fingers in my hair at the wards of the manor and made me kneel until he was accepted," Draco said again, this time his other hand clenching at Harry's robes on his chest.
He recalled the feeling of the fingers in his hair. No one except him and his mother had touched his hair and Voldemort's fingers on him had made him nauseous. He had to swallow down bile as he was forced on his knees in his own house. Harry's magic, flared around him, like a shield holding them both in. The raw power, similar to his mother's made him feel clean. Harry's fingers clenched around his as well, as the other had left the sleeve to pat at Draco's fist on his heart.
"I will hold you by your pointy chin and lift you up until you're taller and you can lord it over me," Harry said almost petulant, more boy now than saviour. Draco let out a weak chuckle and his strength left him, as he leaned on the very sturdy and broad shoulders of the boy who lived.
"He marked me."
"I will unmark you." Harry's tone was steely, more Slytherin than Griffindor and vaguely Draco recalled the hatstall.
His mind, limbs and lips all were loose. After spending the last 7 months in a constant state of vigilance, it was as if his body had given up.
Was this why he was the saviour? Because his mere presence comforted him, the atlas on his shoulders was suddenly gone.
"It was a burden. I didn't think I would live." Draco let out, all his pieces that were broken suddenly bare.
"Share it with me." Draco nodded sluggish inhaling Harry's shampoo. He'd have to get him a better one.
Both his arms, already around Harry wrapped themselves across his torso, still holding on, and a pointy chin made its way over a shoulder. Such bad posture would have his father and tutors cursing at him, but his father was in prison, he had been asked to kill the headmaster and he had cruciatus thrown at him almost every day in summer. The saviour would save him.
"I would." He whispered sleepily.
"Hmm?" Harry asked. The sputtering he had missed, as his fingers held onto his.
"Kneel for you." Draco was glad Harry couldn't see his face. He was sure it had never been pinker.
"Draco", Harry whined almost coquettish, a dip of his chin on his shoulder a response to go on. Not even Pansy was as good as saying his name. He was only defeated by his mother.
"I would kneel for you as well."
His eyes rolled shut.