Title: Grey

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the clothes on my back and maybe some pocket lint.

Pairing: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione (implied)

Rating: R or M. NC-17. You know. The Adult One.

Warnings: Language. Cussing. Excessive use of f and d words. Slash. Gay man sex.

Summary: Harry's broken after the war, but maybe Draco can fix him.

Author's Notes: I had this really freaky dream about Harry and Draco and snakes and swimming pools and babies, and when I woke up I wrote this oneshot. I still liked it this evening so I`m posting it. Even though it has nothing to do with snakes and swimming pools and babies. Thanks to VenustusLovesJames for recommending a song quote for this fic!

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Grey

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone up there will find me
'til then I walk alone

Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day

I stand alone and contemplate the meaning of existence. The newly dawned sky is as grey and stormy as someone's eyes. Snow falls.

I should go back. I'm missing breakfast.

Not that it matters. Everyone is so damn accommodating, so eager to do anything and everything for me, to thank me. Me, their goddamn hero; the goddamn Boy Who Lived.

And why shouldn't they? I died for them. Died, and came back broken inside, slowly breaking apart piece by tiny piece a little more every day.

I laugh, a bitter, sharp sound in the silent snowfall. I don't want this, didn't ask for it. But no one's ever asked what I want, and I never seem to get what I ask for.

For one moment the world around me spins out of focus and then in again.

I stare at the rebuilt walls before me and I wonder if this is what it's like to lose your mind, slipping steadily from sanity. Slowly enough to feel it, fast enough that you can't stop it any more than you can stop grains of sand running through your fingers.

I hear footsteps behind me and don't bother to turn. I know who it is. My shadow.

He's followed me before, as relentless in his pursuit of me as I was of him just two short years previously. I can't blame him. He owes me his life and his freedom, so I guess he feels obligated to pay the debt.

"Hey," he says. "You fancy freezing to death, do you?" The words are laced with sarcasm, but the softness of his volume takes some of the bite out of them.

I stare at the sky that's the colour of his eyes and don't look at him.

He stops behind me, just at my shoulder, a scant inch shorter than his own. Close enough to touch, far enough that I know he'll never close the gap on his own.

Do I want him to? I don't know. He's the only person in the castle who doesn't treat me like I'm made of glass. Maybe I wonder sometimes what would happen if he touched me.

"Can you really afford to miss lessons?" I ask, sharpening my words like swords, and I feel him wince.

"I might not get special treatment like the Boy Who Never Fucking Dies No Matter What," he spits and I smile, "But my brainpower is such that a few missed lessons aren't going to hurt me."

"Oh, I don't know about that," I say, shrugging, trying to hide the grin that arrived with his words. "I think you may have overestimated your abilities."

He scoffs and says, "Can you really afford to be missing lessons?" He tossed his head and his hair catches the light. It glows. I stare out of the corner of my eye. It's like a blond halo ringing his head. "Unlike me you were dropped a lot as a child," he continues, in a tone of mock pity, "And consequently a few missed lessons will leave you hopelessly lost."

I shake my head, still careful not to look directly at him. "Malfoy," I say without real heat. "Bugger off."

"Nah," he replies. "Much rather stand here and annoy you."

I lean back and allow a slow smile to overtake my lips. We continue to insult or curse at one another as the snow falls around us, and it isn't until my teeth are chattering enough to interfere with my speech that we finally head back inside.

I walk ahead, he trails behind me, silent. There. My shadow.

Without him, I think, we would have lost the war. So why is it that nobody treats him the way they treat me, why do they avoid him like the plague?

I wish we could trade places.

I tell him so and he laughs so hard he leans against the wall for support. I break my routine and look at him; he's wiping tears from his eyes.

"You don't know what you're saying," he says to me.

"No, you don't know what I'm saying," I say to him.

He snorts and shakes his head again.

"You messed up your hair," I point out loftily, and watch him scramble to fix it without a mirror. I laugh. He scowls.

"Funny, Potter," he says.

"It is, isn't it?" I agree and he scowls some more.

Back in the eighth year's common room, I sink into the sofa by the fire. My shadow follows me, rubbing his hands for warmth. The room is empty except for us, for which I'm grateful. Everyone's in lessons. The room is decorated in muted colours, black and silver and white and gold. Interhouse unity. What a crock.

"Fucking cold out," my shadow observes genially.

"Quite a mouth on you," I observe dryly.

"And oh, the things that mouth can do," he quips, winking suggestively.

I don't smile at the fire and don't feel a tinge of red stain my cheeks. In another world I do. In a world where things like that matter. He chuckles.

"So, Potter, now that you've half frozen yourself, do you have any plans other than thawing by the fire?" The voice is sarcastic again, but the curiosity is real.

I lean forward and don't answer.

"I know some fun ways to get warm," he purrs lewdly, and I choke.

"Malfoy, do you even listen to yourself, or do you just open your mouth and what comes out comes out?"

"Actually, it's more that when I open my mouth, what goes in goes in," he replies a trifle viciously, and I don't gasp.

"Malfoy!"

He laughs, sounding pleased with himself.

"Do you ever think before you speak?" I demand.

"Of course I think," he replies, affronted. "It's you, Potter, who haven't the mental faculties capable of rising to my wit and charm."

"More like I've no wish to degrade myself," I sniff. He roars with laughter.

"You? Degrade yourself? Oh, Potter, that's rich. You're already degraded," he assures me.

"Doesn't stop you from staring at the goods," I reply, a trifle vicious myself. This is the only time I feel alive, when I'm sitting or standing and trading barbs with him and getting flustered by his lewd comments.

"Wouldn't you like to think so," he answers me loftily.

Eventually the exhaustion comes creeping back and I rise abruptly. He stares at me as I ignore him and head for my room. I'm the only one with my own room but I don't complain. At first I wanted to but I've come to appreciate it. It lets me be alone.

The room is decorated in typical Gryffindor fashion, to make me feel more at home. All red and gold, but mostly red. But I live in a world where colours don't matter, where they make me feel physically ill.

I throw myself down on the bed and close my eyes and think of grey. Grey, grey skies, and stormy eyes.

I sit between my two best friends, feeling uncomfortable. I know they'd rather be sitting next to each other so why they insist on flanking me is a mystery. It makes me itch.

They're treating me like I'm broken, but I am broken so I guess that doesn't matter.

They talk about me like I'm not there and I pretend I don't hear and everything's great, really. Except that it fucking isn't and I don't know what to do to get it back to the way it used to be.

"Are you okay, Harry?" A bushy head appears in my line of vision and I wince.

"Are you okay?" – the question of my life. Everybody asks it. Everybody wants to know; but not really, because they already know I'm not okay and that's why they're asking, but they're all hoping for some miracle so that when I smile and say,

"I'm fine, Hermione."

I'll miraculously be fine and they won't have to feel bad for me anymore. They won't have to feel guilty about being fine, being whole, when I'm not and I'm broken.

Class is dismissed, I missed the whole thing; I zoned out again.

On the way out the door I stumble and bump into my shadow.

"Oi! Watch yourself, Ferret!"

"Malfoy, try to look where you're going!"

My friends, protecting me from a perceived threat.

"It's okay guys; it was my fault. I bumped into him. Sorry, Malfoy." I try to fix things, quickly, before my shadow gets upset. Not because I'm afraid of anything he says but because if he gets too upset he might start keeping his distance again and I don't want that. I can't have that. So I apologize.

My friends are gawking at me; I guess I don't react to anything much anymore outside myself and it's thrown them off.

But I'm staring at my shadow, he's smiling and his eyes are so grey and it's beautiful. I can't for the life of me remember why I don't let myself look at him.

"Your eyes are so grey," I say to no one in particular.

I get even more incredulous stares, including one from my shadow. I frown. I liked the smile better. I turn and walk away to Charms class. Or Potions. I really don't know which one is next. They're all the same to me these days anyway.

My room is my sanctuary. The one place no one will follow me, where I can be alone. They follow me in today. I turn and hiss at them and they jump back, suitably frightened.

They don't leave.

I slump against the bed. I'm too tired to act crazy enough to scare them away. For now, anyway. I might as well listen to what they want.

"You alright, mate?" The redhead asks me, his face a mask of concern. I shrug.

"You were defending Malfoy. Malfoy, Harry." I glare. The girl cuts in.

"Harry, that's the most you've spoken in days." No, it isn't. But they don't know about my shadow and me. About our conversations and insults and the thinly veiled sexual innuendos. I shrug again.

"Harry, we're not leaving till you talk to us."

I sigh. "I want to be alone," I tell them. I speak slowly, carefully. "That's why I come into my room, to be alone." There. I spoke just as much now as I did earlier, and it wasn't in defense of my shadow this time.

I smile then, the ghost of triumph on my lips. They stare.

"Harry, you're… you're smiling. Smiling, Harry." I smile at my shadow all the time. But they don't know that. And so my pathetic excuse for a smile has them over the moon.

I just nod and they whisper excitedly to one another as they leave me be. I hear, "Maybe he's coming out of it!" repeated more than once.

"Can I sleep now?" I ask. They nod and agree and practically fall over themselves in their eagerness to go and tell someone else about how I'm "coming out of it", whatever that means.

I lie back on the bed and close my eyes. I think once more of grey. I think of that smile. I feel the corners of my own mouth turn up at the memory.

Back outside again, staring at the wall. I feel my shadow coast to a stop behind me, and I already know what I'm going to do differently today. I turn and look at him.

His short hair is blond and perfectly coiffed. His robes are black and immaculate, his green tie perfectly tied. His face is pale, pale skin just like the rest of him – what I've seen of the rest of him, which isn't much, sexual jokes notwithstanding. His lips are full and pink and his eyes are the deepest, purest grey.

He looks startled at first, then he smiles. Oh, that smile. He closes the gap and touches my shoulder, gently, with his hand.

Suddenly I'm on my feet and I grab him. He cries out, probably frightened of what I mean to do, that today's the day I've finally tired of his insults and lost it.

I grab that pale face in my hands and crush my lips to his. He freezes. I take the opportunity to deepen the kiss, worrying his bottom lip with my teeth and sliding my tongue along it. He moans and I slip my tongue in his mouth, and suddenly I'm not kissing him anymore, he's kissing me, we're kissing each other, and this is so brilliant I can't even think. His left hand rises and cups the back of my neck, his right grabs onto the small of my back. All it is is teeth and tongues and when he pulls back and draws his breath in, I give a whimper that's more of a whine; a high, needy sound in the back of my throat, begging.

He obliges me and dips his head back for more. My eyes all but roll back into my head from pleasure. We're pressed flush against each other and I can feel the flat planes of his chest through his robes because neither of us is wearing a cloak. I snarl, there are still too many layers to suit me, and I press closer. I feel hardness against my hip and I buck into it, grinding against it, and it's his turn to make a keening sound.

I break away suddenly, abruptly. He swears and stumbles, tries to grab me but I skitter out of his grip. Not like this. Not here. He stares at me in disbelief and I will him to understand.

I turn and walk away, back into the castle. After a long, pregnant moment, he follows.

Back in the common room I hesitate for just a few moments by the fire. He moves to sink into his usual chair but I turn on my heel and march towards the stairs. His shoulders sag, disappointment evident in the curves of his body. I pause on the stairs.

"Coming, Malfoy?"

His head jerks up and he stares at me, eyes wide. Then he smiles and it's like the sun. I smile back and turn, heading up and he scrambles to follow me.

"Nice room," he observes. "It looks like Godric Gryffindor threw up all over it." He freezes, clearly worried about having gone too far, but I burst out laughing and he relaxes.

I throw myself down on the bed and he comes and sits next to me.

"So what do you usually do in your room?" he asks. "You spend an awful lot of time in it."

I shrug. "Sleep."

He snorts. "That's it? Blaise and Nott bet that you spend most of the time wanking."

I chuckle, a low throaty sound, and he looks at me appreciatively.

"Haven't wanked in a long time," I state, dryly. Shrug. "Don't need to anymore."

His smile falters. "Not… ever?"

I shrug. "I guess I forgot about it."

He looks incredulous. "How can you just forget about wanking?" He seems appalled.

"I died," I say, suddenly. He stills next to me. "They talk about how I survived the killing curse again but I didn't. I just came back. I came back broken, and they don't know how to fix me."

"Well, fuck, Potter," he says. And then, "I'm sorry."

I shrug again. "You didn't break me," I point out.

He takes my hand in his and squeezes it. I smile, because it feels nice, and he smiles back and soon we're just sitting there smiling at each other. Which is stupid, but we can't seem to stop. We talk some more, for a few hours all about inconsequential things.

He leans in to kiss me again, a brief salty touch of lips, after pointing out that it's dinner time. His stomach is rumbling. Mine isn't. Food stopped being important a while ago.

"You coming?" he asks, and I shake my head.

He hesitates. "I'll bring you a plate," he offers. I smile. He's not the first one that's offered, but accepting before would have meant allowing people into my room and I can't do that.

Except with him. He's different. He's my shadow.

"Okay," I say, and he smiles again.

I lie back on the bed when he leaves, and think of grey.

I whimper into the darkness, the way I do every night.

Green light flashes.

People die.

Someone screams.

I open my eyes, confused by the smell of food. The moonlight stretches through the window and shines in the hair of my shadow, sitting in the overstuffed chair. Sleeping. I smile. I want to touch him.

I rise and move to get off the bed. My foot catches on the plate sitting on the floor by my bed. It bangs loudly and skits across the floor and he wakes with a jerk.

"Hey," I offer.

"Hey," he says, and stretches. "I was waiting for you to wake up. Do you really sleep that much?"

"No. Normally I sleep more," I explain.

He laughs. Then he sits up straight and scowls. "Potter, must you throw the food I painstakingly worked to bring you all over the floor?"

"I didn't know it was there!" I protest, flushing.

"You should have done. I told you I was getting it for you."

"Sorry."

"What were you getting up for, anyway?"

My cheeks burn and I don't answer.

He shrugs, then snuggles into the chair with a yawn. "Night, Potter."

"The bed's more comfortable," I offer, before I can stop myself. He opens his eyes and raises his brows so far they disappear behind his fringe. I blush furiously. "Well it is," I say waspishly.

"If you're sure," he begins, and I snap at him.

"Of course I'm sure. I offered, didn't I?" I growl.

He smiles, and rises out of the chair to come stand by my bedside. I climb back in, under the covers this time, and scoot over to the other side of the bed. He follows me. I turn over and face him.

He smiles at me, lying on his side, with his head propped up in one hand. I smile back.

He kisses me again, hesitatingly, because this is different. We're in bed together, kissing. I kiss him back so he knows it's okay. We nuzzle at each other's lips and nip and lick and suck.

Soon the kisses turn frenzied.

Wild.

Passionate.

Intense.

He's sliding my jumper off and I'm pushing his robes off and all I know is I need more; more of his skin under my palms and I need deeper, more intense kisses than the chaste ones we started with. We undress each other franticly in the moonlight.

Our tongues brush and twine and we roll about on the bed, groping and rubbing and rutting against each other. He breaks away once he's got me pinned and begins to trail kisses down my neck. I'm making that whining sound again and I don't care; I don't care because it's not enough, not nearly enough, I need more.

"Fuck me," I beg, and he stills.

"Are you –" he starts, pulling back to look into my eyes. I lock eyes with him, stare into those endlessly stormy eyes and beg.

"Fuck me, Draco. Fuck me."

That's all he needs. He's already hard; we both are, but instead of rutting now he pulls back, draws away and I mourn the loss of contact. He spreads my legs, whispers a spell, and I feel a slick finger penetrate me. It hurts and I can't remember for a moment why I wanted this.

I gasp and arch my back; he whispers "Shhh, Harry, it's alright, just relax." I try to relax and gradually the burn fades and soon he adds another finger. In and out, in and out; sliding his fingers back and forth, his gaze never leaving my face. I whimper under the power of his grey, grey eyes.

Soon he adds a third finger and I gasp, especially when he touches this one spot and oh. Oh, now I understand why people do this. I remember why I wanted it and I begin to move with him, gasping and shuddering as his fingers slide in and out.

"Fuck me," I gasp again, "Draco, please."

He pulls his fingers out and I feel him lining himself up at my entrance. He slides in and it burns and I gasp again. He stays still while my body adjusts to the feel of him, and gradually begins to move, soft, gentle movements at first. I hiss around the burn, but it's fading, and then there's that spot again and oh. Oh, oh. I cry out and he pauses and I say, "Don't stop!" and he starts again, faster this time.

"Harder!" I beg. "Harder!"

Soon he's moving fast and hard and I'm writhing beneath him, everything feels so intense and incredible and I'm babbling, calling his name over and over again. "Draco, Draco, Draco!"

"Harry," he whispers, staring straight into my eyes with his oh-so-grey ones. "Harry." And I'm coming in between our stomachs and he's coming inside me, and dear god, I have never felt so alive.

He collapses against me, and kisses me once more. I kiss him back and clutch him to me. My heart is thudding in my chest and I can't stop thinking how alive I feel.

"Wow," he whispers, kissing me again. "Wow, Harry, just… wow."

"Yeah, wow," I echo vaguely, and he laughs breathlessly.

We cuddle into each other as we drift off to sleep.

I don't dream again.

"Harry James Potter!"

I'm rudely awakened by a scandalized sounding voice. I feel arms around me and for a second I stiffen, then I remember and relax. It's only Draco.

Draco. Somewhere in the night I stopped thinking of him as my shadow and started to think of him as Draco.

I glance up. "Morning Hermione, Ron," I say, and smile broadly.

Hermione is looking absolutely shocked, and Ron looks positively green.

"Malfoy, Harry?" he manages weakly. "Why… why Malfoy?"

I chuckle. "Cause he was my shadow."

Ron looks confused, but Hermione looks even more shocked. "Harry, you remembered our names," she says. "You laughed."

I chuckle again. "Guess I did, didn't I?"

"What happened, Harry?"

"Draco," I reply promptly, gesturing towards the sleeping lump behind me. "I'm… I'm less broken with him, Hermione."

I hope she understands, and from the look on her face she looks like she does, a little. Ron still looks fairly nauseous. "Malfoy," he mutters mournfully.

"Are you coming to breakfast?" asks Hermione.

I hesitate. "When Draco wakes up," I decide.

"Malfoy," moans Ron.

"Draco," I snap, getting annoyed.

"Hmm?" He opens one bleary eye.

"Shhh," I turn over and kiss his forehead. "It's alright."

Hermione decides to be discreet and shut the door. I hear Ron moan, "Malfoy," one last time before it does, and roll my eyes.

"Honestly, Ron," Hermione says before the door clicks shut, and I chuckle again.

Truth be told, I'm still a bit nervous about the idea of going into the Great Hall and seeing all those people. I still don't feel entirely myself, the way I was before. But I don't feel empty and crazy anymore. And that's all due to the blond currently sharing my bed. I kiss him again and snuggle back under the covers to wait for him to wake up.

For the first time in a long time, I believe that I'm going to get better.