Title: Light
Author: MorganMuffle ()
Source work: Canvas by Glock
Rating: Pg-13
Summary: Harry, Draco, angst, 6th-year
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: have had a lot of trouble trying to write anything that does justice to Glock's picture and I'm not 100% happy with this but I'd rather she had something. Hope it's alright.
When Draco returned, after the summer of their fifth year, Harry knew something had changed. There were still the same old insults, the same lame comebacks and stupid fights. Yet, somehow, it all affected him more and not just that, it affected him differently. There was still the same ferret like look, the same hard edges and cruel eyes and yet Harry found even his appearance had changed. Once, many years later, Harry tried to describe the change and the closest he came was that it was as if someone had switched on a light inside Draco. Suddenly everything was clearer, brighter, harsher and more real.
Their sixth year went the same way as the other five had. Work, friends, Hogsmeade weekends, threats from the ever growing forces of dark. Harry's insults towards Draco now centred more on Draco's father, who was on the run after escaping the wizarding prison he had been assigned to (not Azkaban after all as that was too "unsafe") than on Draco�s own allegiance. Draco on the other hand seemed to lose the orphan taunts, his insults were more generic and childlike, except of course his assault on the nickname of "The Boy Who Lived". They had a few set piece fights in the corridors, a Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch match to the death and several classroom sparring matches dotted throughout the year as usual of course but in a moment of rare clarity Harry had recognised that sometimes his fights with Draco were the only things that kept him sane. Moments like this were few and far between however, usually Harry just tried to get by day by day and left the grand thoughts and statements to Hermione and Dumbledore.
The summer came and with it the usual battle against evil. It was so heartbreaking to think that this was the sixth summer he had faced evil and survived, so Harry didn't think about it. Harry didn't think about Lucius lying dead at his feet, he didn't think of the fleeing Voldemort, he didn't remember the way Dumbledore had twinkled and he most certainly did not see flashes of the dead students in his dreams. Hannah and Justin, foot soldiers aged seventeen. Terry, caught by a curse meant for Cho. The tiny first years, in the wrong place at the wrong time, who barely knew what it was to live. Blaise, the surprise ally of the year, the quiet but ruthless Slytherin who had ratted out too many friends to survive. Lavender... his house mate.... Lavender for Merlin's sake. No, Harry did not think of the cost of his sixth summer at Hogwarts, and he definitely did not consider what next year might bring.
In the last week of his sixth year all Harry did was fly. He wasn't hiding, wasn't running away, wasn't avoiding Ron or Hermione or Neville or Professor Lupin or any of the others. He was just flying, plain and simple. High above the pitch he was alone with his broom and the wind, and his blind rage. He never noticed the figure in the stands. As Harry flew, chasing after an imaginary snitch he would never catch, he blinded himself to the world around. He chased after the joy of his first Quidditch match, winning the Cup, fighting with Malfoy for supremacy of the game. He shut his ears to the cries and he shut his heart to the pain. So many deaths...
Suddenly Harry caught sight of a flash of gold and dived towards the stands. A headlong rush into the darkness, oblivious of any danger to life or limb. What did it matter if he crashed, what did any of it matter. He had lost so many of the people who should have protected him, so many of the children he should have protected. He had nothing to keep him sane, nobody to question him, nobody to laugh at him, no one to disbelieve the myth of the wizarding world�s saviour. Since Draco betraying his father to death he had felt lost. He was trapped in an endless cycle of well wishers, of careful inquiries and sideways glances. He was drowning in the carefulness of his friends. Reaching the snitch was all that mattered now. Too late he remembered that he had left the real snitch behind tonight. Too late he realised his dive was straight into the stands, hard and dark.
When Harry awoke he blinked and gazed at the brightness above him. Leaning over the injured seeker was Draco. To the broken Harry he looked like a star, a piercing beam, an angel shining with a terrible light. As he looked into the blinding light he began to make out Draco�s features. Draco leant even closer to Harry and cradled him in his arms and whispered insults into his hair. He called Harry an idiotic Gryffindor hero, told him that killing himself playing Quidditch would help no one, told him that The Boy who Died Alone on a Quidditch Pitch didn't have any sort of a ring to it. Draco insulted Harry�s Quidditch kit, he compared his intelligence to that of a Flobberworm and pointed out that even Crabbe didn�t try to fly into the stands. As he listened to Draco�s words, searing through his self pity, Harry thought he glimpsed the Snitch lying beside them in the grass.
Isaiah 9:1: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone".