The Scent Of Malice | drarry

thirty nine | meltdown

It was during one of Harry's nightly study sessions that all Hell finally broke loose.

He was revising Astronomy with Hermione (it was still not his best subject, even with Malfoy so often absent from the class these days) and it was going rather well.

The lights were flickering prettily orange over their work, they each had a mug of cocoa to sip while they worked, and Hermione was testing Harry on material for a test the following afternoon.

"True or false, a planet can travel through space without a parent star?" she asked, taking a slurp of her drink.

"Er, true," Harry nodded. "It would be referred to as an unbound planet, orphan planet, wandering planet, starless planet, or sunless planet. It's not very common, though, and it means the planet has been ejected from the planetary system."

There was a sudden slamming sound as the library door was wrenched open so hard that it bounced against the frame, and then Harry's own 'wandering planet' hurled himself into the room like a blonde whirlwind, ramming his shoulders into bookshelf after bookshelf and leaving a loud trail of destruction behind him.

A pot of ink cascaded from a desk followed by a flurry of spattered parchment, and whole shelves were wiped clear of their books with the force of his angry body.

"Mr. Malfoy!" Madam Pince exclaimed in a horrified tone, looking as though he was casting Unforgivables in all directions. "This is outrageous behaviour, I demand that you leave my library at once!! Professor Dumbledore will be hearing all about this!"

Draco ignored her, slamming hard into the next bookshelf so hard he yelled with pain; it teetered in place before toppling right over and sending damaged books in a tidal wave over the ground. Then he lunged for a vase of carnations on a nearby desk and sent them smashing down to the floor, laughing maniacally at the damage.

Madam Pince yelped and kept back to avoid the explosion of glass, but Draco was oblivious, already onto the next breakable thing.

"What the fuck is he doing?" Hermione hissed, horrified to see so many of her beloved books so broken.

"He's having a fucking breakdown," Harry replied in a horrified daze, desperate to give in to his reflexes and rescue Malfoy like he always used to, but utterly helpless and frozen to the spot.

As Madam Pince shrieked and squealed and other students watched on in disgusted awe, Draco began to dance on the wreckage he'd created, trampling the vase-soaked books and carnations with shoes that probably cost more than all the damaged works underneath them, and he laughed joyfully.

Glass pierced through his soles, but if it penetrated all the way through he didn't react, and instead began casting spells to whip the paper up in a blizzard around his head.

"Don't you see what I'm capable of?" he yelled, and Harry knew the question was aimed at him even if Malfoy's gaze wasn't. "Do you think you can ignore me now? This is my latest artwork, it's the best I've ever done!"

Shallow breaths crashed against his ribs, and Harry's words rocketed around his brain faster than he could read them.

"I'm in love with you," he'd said last Christmas, "I'm in love with you, and I hope you know."

Malfoy hadn't allowed himself to hear those words since that night, hadn't dared to accept such softness because how DARE Potter talk to him like that, with such kindness and open adoration? How dare he say he loved him when his own mother couldn't?

"Darling," Potter called him, "Come to bed, darling," he'd say.

And he'd said other things too, like "I will spend the rest of my life searching for someone who makes me feel alive like you do", and the other day, before he ruined everything, "You should always have good days".