Beautiful World ~ 𝑫𝑹𝑨𝑹𝑹𝒀

Chapter 27

"My name is Harry Potter and I live on Privet Drive. I am fifteen years old and in three days I'll be sixteen. My mother and father died when I was just a baby and I have a scar to show for it. Oh, and one on my forehead too, that one you could see if you looked at me. The other is not so visible and only I and a few others know it is there.

Should I be frightened? Should I be scared? Would Draco be scared? He's not afraid of anything.

My name is Harry Potter, and I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

Draco, Draco, where are you?"

The quill was shaking and he set it down with utmost precision, tilted exactly diagonally on the piece of lined notebook paper he'd been writing on.

Harry didn't know if wizards believed in God. Did they pray? It had never been covered in any of his classes, nor had Ron ever mentioned it. Did Harry believe in God? At times like this, it was easy to answer no, a bit easier to answer, "No, but I might. I might, if only He could do something to make this hurt less. Then I'll believe. If he proves it. If he's listening, he'll prove it."

And that's just what Harry did.

He had never prayed before, to any god. If there was a god, he reasoned, they were too busy to listen to the prayers of a little boy locked in a closet. He used to wonder, as a child, if prayers would even matter. How would they get out of his closet and find their way up to God if he didn't have a window?

But now, three days before he was due to turn sixteen, and sitting alone in a darkened bedroom, Harry closed his eyes and clasped his hands and whispered in a voice husky from disuse, "Please, God, please. I'll do anything you want me to, I'll be grateful, I won't be scared, and I'll be good. I'll stop being so angry and I'll stop fighting you and hating you for everything that's happened lately. I'll forgive my mother, I'll forgive Dumbledore, I'll do anything. Just please, please, let him come for me. Please..."

His hands were trembling, his throat was tight, and Harry listened for any sort of sign that God had heard. There was nothing. Not a whisper. The house was dead silent.

Harry hated God then more than he ever had before (for even when he wasn't sure he believed, he still felt that, if there really was a God, life was so unfair that he could not be a very good sort of god). He fell back onto his bed and glared upwards, as if, were there really a God, he would feel Harry's furious stare and be cowed by it.

Perhaps He was. Or perhaps, perhaps, He'd been looking after Harry this whole time.

There came a scratching on the window.

Slowly, slowly, afraid to hope, Harry sat up and turned towards it, holding his breath. There was nothing there, but the scratching came again; something had smacked into the window. A pebble.

"Oh god," Harry breathed, whether in thanks or relief or disbelief, it didn't really matter. It all came down to the same.

He hurried to the window and wrenched it open. Draco was standing below with a handful of pebbles, tossing them at his window.

He grinned rakishly. "C'mon, Harry," he called softly. "Let me in!"

Harry nodded jerkily and dashed from the room and down the stairs. Uncle Vernon snorted in his sleep but Harry didn't care. Draco was there. Draco hadn't forgotten him.

He slipped out the backdoor and for a long moment, stood on the step staring at Draco in the moonlight, as if making sure he was really there, that it wasn't a dream.

It wasn't.

If there had been a swelling of music and bird song, if dawn had suddenly burst upon them then, Harry would not have been at all surprised. That was how it felt inside then, and any and all doubt in the existence of God and angels disappeared in an instant because how could there not be any such things as angels when Draco was standing right there, grinning at him?

"Oh god," Harry said again, and then he was off the steps and tackling Draco, leaping into his arms. Draco staggered, surprised, and he caught Harry against his chest, unbalanced. They spun a bit, and tumbled to the ground, Harry landing on the bottom with a grunt.

Draco was laughing before Harry even caught his breath. "Missed me, did you?" he asked warmly.

"Missed you?" Harry cried, because 'missed' seemed too flat a word to describe what he had felt when Draco hadn't written, hadn't shown up.

And then he was crying, unable to help it. Happy tears, or at least, bittersweet ones.

"Oh, hush," Draco said softly, smiling in an incredibly tender way and rubbing his cheek against Harry's, closing his eyes.

"I thought you weren't coming," Harry whispered, touching Draco's face with trembling fingers.

"I promised I'd be here."

"In a week. What happened?"

"I was just detained is all, I'm sorry."

"You're here now. Everything's alright, everything in the world is alright, you're here now." He smiled brightly, and Draco laughed softly and kissed him softer still.

"Everything in the world?" he teased a moment later, and Harry nodded emphatically.

"Everything."

Draco, smiling still, sat up and pulled Harry up with him. They sat that way in the grass for a moment, studying each other, grinning at each other, and for a minute or two, both could almost truly believe that everything was right in the world. How could it not be right? They were together, the sky was an endless expanse of stars, fireflies glittered all around, and they were together. What could ever have enough power to tear apart the skies and the perfect night that smelled of grass and forever and a bare hint of rain? What could ever be strong enough to tear them apart? Nothing, because to be torn apart, you had to let go, and they both knew that they would never, never let each other go.

The moment faded and Draco took Harry's hand. It didn't matter if a moment would pass, because another always came to take its place, after all. "Where do you want to go?" he asked.

"We're going somewhere?"

"Everywhere. We're going to see the world." He smiled, that careless, reckless grin he seemed to have developed over the month they'd been apart, and Harry was lost in it.

"Anywhere?" Harry said.

"Pick somewhere."

There was a moment there when a choice rose up before Harry. He remembered Dumbledore had made him promise to stay at the Dursleys, so that he could find him if there were any developments. There had been a few reassuring owls, but nothing concrete. Still, three days... Something could be found to help in three days. Chances were slim, however. And then there was Draco, offering to show him the world. Had he checked the books at home? Did it matter?

It suddenly became clear to Harry that he would rather spend three days with Draco and die at the end of them then spend three days with the Dursleys on the off chance that he'd live.

It was a decision that his mind skittishly refused to acknowledge the consequences of.

We're in the formal gardens. So Draco Malfoy would spend one of his last nights on earth in a formal garden? He smiled a bit as the words whispered through his memory. "The Malfoy Formal Gardens," he said.

Draco seemed to stiffen, his eyes sliding away skittishly. He bit his lip, and Harry reached out and touched it with a soft fingertip. "It's alright," he said uncertainly. "I didn't mean it."

"No," Draco said, shaking his head and smiling at him, his distraction gone. "I want to show you my gardens. You've never seen more beautiful gardens anywhere."

"I remember, you told me." He grinned, impishly. "I want to see the snapdragons."

Draco shot him a menacing look and took his hands. "Shut up, you," he said, his other hand reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a large, ornate ring and slipped it onto his finger, and they both disappeared, leaving Privet Drive far, far behind.