Fic: How to be a Hero (H/D, PG)
Title: How to be a Hero
Author: Essie
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: H/D
Rating: PG
Warnings: Swearing, fully DH-compliant (set long before the epilogue would start affecting anything)
Word count: 2,285
Summary: Draco goes to visit the terribly wounded but not yet dead Snape in the hospital wing the evening after The Battle of Hogwarts and runs into everyone’s favorite Chosen One.
Disclaimer: Characters are the property of JK Rowling, et al. This was created for fun, not for profit.
Author's Note: This was a pinch hit, written in a day, for hds_beltane. lunadragon asked for H/D, some form of Snape, flawed characters, and no smooth sailing relationship. Concrit is always welcome. Thanks twistedm for the beta!
The murky blues and grays of twilight filtered through the tarps that had been hung over the high, shattered windows of the hospital wing. Candles lined the walls, and the artificial light cast irregular shadows over the ragged faces of the wounded soldiers. It was strange to think of them that way. Most of these people were no older than Draco, and in sleep, their bodies broken but their faces relaxed, they looked younger still. Draco did not want to think about how there might have been something he could have done to prevent some of this. He certainly did not want to think about how, with one small tip of luck, his could have been one of these unlucky bodies. Or one of those unluckier still.
Draco shied away from his morbid thoughts and turned his attention to the man he had come to see.
Severus Snape.
His favorite Professor, trusted mentor, The Dark Lord’s right hand man.
And, according to Potter, spy for the Order of the Phoenix. Not that Draco had the energy to care today. The man was alive. And that alone was enough for Draco to forgive Professor Snape the world a thousand betrayals over. Alive despite the suffocation, exsanguination, and crushed midsection. If Draco hadn’t known the stubborn bastard, he might have left him for dead too.
Draco’s eyes raked over the mostly slumbering room, before coming to rest on the Professor’s sickbed. He wasn’t alone. A familiar thin figure was slouched in a chair at Snape’s side. Speak of the Devil.
Draco made a half-hearted attempted to summon up the comforting distaste and burning hatred Potter used to evoke in him, but it wasn’t working. Draco hadn’t really expected it to. He was too tired, he told himself. But he was even too tired to pretend that was all there was to it.
“How is he?” Draco croaked.
Potter glanced up, his green eyes exhausted -but still so bright- set against the dark lines of his face. His glasses were askew, and he had at least a day’s worth of stubble. Streaks of dirt clung to the creases of his skin and caked his clothes. His hair was a disaster. Draco suspected he hadn’t showered since before The Battle.
Draco couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Madam Pomfrey says he’s going to live. He’s not awake yet.”
“Oh.” It was a stupid thing to say, but Draco chalked it up to shock. Not that it mattered. Potter appeared to have lost interest in him already.
Feeling awkward, suddenly very aware that he was in a room with not only a war hero, but the man who had saved his life, Draco’s movements as he pulled up a chair on Professor Snape’s other side and sat down were clumsy and unsteady.
They sat in silence for several moments, and Draco had no idea what he was supposed to do now. Hold the Professor’s hand? Talk to Potter? Why had he come? He was useless here. It seemed he was useless everywhere.
“I was never fair to him.” Draco startled at the sound of Potter’s voice, which sounded deceptively calm for someone who had died and defeated The Dark Lord only a few hours earlier. It took Draco another moment to process what Potter had said, and by that time Potter hadn’t said anything else, and the silence was becoming uncomfortable for Draco. Was Potter expecting an answer?
“Life’s not fair,” he managed. It was something his parents used to say to him when he was little. One of those clichés of infinite wisdom constructed to make small children do as they’re told.
“No. It’s not.” Draco could hear the darkness in Potter’s voice, and he could only imagine what was going through the other boy’s mind. Memories of the past year flooded into Draco’s thoughts, and when he spoke again it was more to distract himself than it was because he had anything to say.
“You were unfair to him. He was unfair to you. You treated each other like crap, but hey, at least you’re both alive. That’s something.” His face twisted into a bitter smile, but when he glanced up at Potter he saw a real one reflected there. It changed the whole structure of his face, and Draco was reminded sharply of a teenage boy smiling at his new girlfriend during the last few weeks of school. Had that only been a year ago? It felt longer.
“Yeah it is, isn’t it?” Draco didn’t answer; he was still somewhat captivated by the way the candlelight reflected off Potter’s glasses. “He saved my life, you know?”
“Did he?” Draco shrugged, unsure of how to respond to that.
“Yeah,” Potter was looking at Professor Snape now “Dozens of times. Too many to count. Course I hated it. Never wanted to believe he was trying to help. I’m sure I made it difficult for him to want to protect me. He never stopped though.”
Draco smiled. “Sounds familiar.” It was only after he had spoken the words that Draco realized they could have applied to the Professor or to Potter. “He did the same for me.” Potter gave him a fleeting smile. Draco braced himself and took a breath. “I-I never thanked you. For saving my life earlier. So-Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Potter looked him straight in the eye, but Draco glanced away. Potter’s eyes always felt too- Green.
Draco remembered seeing those eyes at the Manor, hiding in a red and distorted face, a boy kneeling before him in tattered rags, thin as a rail, with mangy hair to his shoulders. But those eyes - unmistakable. He remembered the Granger girl screaming under his Aunt’s wand, just like all the others, so many, writhing, screaming, crying, and it was his own wand casting the curse.
Until Potter took it from him. And used it to defeat The Dark Lord. Effortlessly, it seemed. No one had even screamed.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted, and felt burningly foolish once the words were out. He looked down at his feet, embarrassed.
“For what?” Draco thought Potter’s voice sounded critical.
He didn’t know what for. For everything. For not being good enough, or clever enough, or brave enough. For being a useless pathetic waste of a wizard, who couldn’t even- He didn’t know. He never knew anything, did he? He used to wish he was of age, but now that he was he’d never felt more like a child.
“You tell me.” He didn’t mean for it to sound accusing, but it probably did. Potter narrowed his eyes, and tilted his chin up slightly in that way Draco had come to recognize over the years as meaning ‘I will now display my moral superiority and Merlin-like wisdom by saying something achingly unhelpful.’
“I can’t, Malfoy. Only you can answer that.”
Right on cue.
No wonder Dumbledore had loved The Sanctimonious One so much. The Boy Who Lived Better Than You. Oh, he liked that.
Draco snorted. “Wouldn’t want your advice anyway.” It was probably a lie. Draco fixed his gaze resolutely on Professor Snape’s face, and concentrated on pretending Potter didn’t exist.
“If-” Potter began, causing Draco to mess up and cast a look in his direction. “If you were apologizing for anything you’ve done to me then, I suppose I forgive you.”
He didn’t think he had been, but if Potter was prepared to put an end to his unwarranted loathing who was he to argue.
“Thanks.”
When Draco chanced looking up again, it was to find Potter staring at the space over Draco’s shoulder, a faraway look in his eyes. Potter looked as tired as Draco felt, and Draco wondered if it was more exhausting to be the hero, or the insignificant cannon fodder. He suspected both roles sucked.
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
Potter snapped out of his daze and looked at Draco. He shrugged.
“I slept all day. And there’re things to do.”
“Things like sitting around next to a Death Eater’s bed?” Draco quirked an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
Potter’s voice was so sure, not a drip of defensiveness or sarcasm. Draco didn’t know how to respond. Maybe that was the upside to being the hero; you always got to be sure. Even when the world was falling apart around you, and you were probably going to die any second, you got to stand on that solid conviction that you were The Good Guy, that what you were doing was Right. It had never appealed much to Draco before. It seemed narrow and small, and unbelievably self-important to believe that only your point of view was the correct one, that everything you did was exactly what you were supposed to be doing. To somehow think that you weren’t just one of the scared little nobodies running around with no purpose as the universe tossed you this way and that. But as he looked at Potter now, he supposed it might be comforting. Stupid, but comforting, to always be so sure.
“But, how do you know, Potter?”
Draco was graced with Potter’s patent ‘too stupid to function’ look. The one that, only a year ago, would have made Draco angry just to see it. Because how could someone that retarded be that well liked? Now it just made him feel oddly warm. It reminded him of a happier time, a younger time.
“Er…You’ve lost me, Malfoy. How do I know what?”
“How do you always know what you’re doing is right?”
“I don’t.”
Draco let out a disbelieving laugh, which cracked over his throat a bit on the way out. “Bullshit, Potter. You do. Just look at what you said to The Dark Lord. Acting all, Harry Potter knows best.”
“Yeah well that was easy. Defeat Voldemort. Had to be done. And I had a plan. Didn’t exactly take a genius. Doesn’t mean I always know the right thing to do. Hell, doesn’t mean I always do the right thing even when I know what it is.”
“No. You don’t get it.” And Draco was getting angry now. Irrationally. He could hear his voice rising. “It’s like how you know you’re a better person than me, because you did The Right Thing, and I didn’t.” He wasn’t trying to get into a fight here; he was just trying to explain, but of course Potter was a confrontational hothead and took everything the wrong way.
“No. You don’t get it.” Potter stood, and Draco thought it was because he probably liked to look down at people. “I don’t. Always. Know. The right thing. I fuck up, Malfoy. All the time. And I get confused. The best I can do is just try to do the best I can to get through, and keep the people I love safe, and the people other people love and-” Potter cut off, and took a breathe. “And it’s not like there’s a scale, you know. Who’s the better person number one all the way to six billion? And if there was I certainly wouldn’t know where to put anyone.”
Either Potter was just dense, or he was completely full of shit. Probably both.
“You wouldn’t? Right. No idea where The Dark Lord would go compared to, say, your Mum?”
“That’s different.” Potter’s voice steeled.
“How?” It was a challenge, and he knew Potter could see it.
“It’s different because-” Potter faltered and ran a hand through his disastrous hair.
“Because?” Draco raised a taunting eyebrow.
“Because you said ‘always.’ That’s how. There’s a difference between always knowing what’s right, and knowing that some things are always right. And some things never are.”
“But how do you know what those things are?” Draco asked, no longer challenging, but interested. Potter looked lost.
“You just know.”
Draco narrowed his eyes at Potter, because that was just not an answer. “Do I?” he hissed.
Potter’s expression changed and he did that superior head tilt thing again, but when he spoke his words were quiet and gentle. “Yes, Malfoy, you do.”
Draco almost fell out of his chair, because he didn’t expect to hear that, and because Harry Potter was looking at him like - he couldn’t describe it but it was made his heart beat very fast in his throat, and his mind short-circuit, and some part of him want to melt for joy, and the remaining majority want to run the fuck away. It was all very confusing. Potter thought he was - something. Something better than The Dark Lord. Or something worth looking at like that and-
Draco didn’t know what made him do it, but he stood so quickly he almost knocked his chair over, reached across Professor Snape’s bed, grabbed Potter’s face, and kissed him, full on the mouth.
Potter’s lips were chapped, and neither one of them moved. Too shocked, maybe. Draco’s eyes fluttered closed, and he tried to memorize every detail, because he was kissing Harry Potter. It was terribly surreal, and yet oddly real in the way that it was weird and he didn’t know what he was supposed to be thinking, and he could feel Potter’s stubble under his hands, and smell Potter’s unwashed skin, and taste Potter’s morning breath.
Draco pulled back, dropping his hands. Potter appeared to be frozen in shock, and Draco couldn’t stop the shit eating grin he knew was spreading over his face.
He quirked an eyebrow, “You sure about that?” Draco didn’t wait for Potter’s no doubt spluttered response; he just turned on his heel and strode out of the Hospital Wing at a brisk stroll.
After all, Draco thought on his way back to the dungeons, the best and undoubtedly the most important part of being a hero was getting the last word.
fin