Chapter Text
Everyone’s eyes were grey. They were that way from birth. They were bland and singular and identical to every other person in the world. It was a soulless grey. That is, for all but two.
Legends spoke of how the grey eyes were like an illusion. They merely masked the colours of everyone’s eyes. Everybody could see their own eye colour, and that of their soulmate.
That’s how Draco knew he was in trouble. He had grey eyes. They were different shade, but they were still grey. There was no striking colour to lure his soulmate to him, like his mother supposedly had. It was just grey, the same grey, unless inspected closer.
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They were so green.
That was the first thing Draco noticed about the boy. He carefully took note of other smaller details as he dragged his eyes from the other boy’s. His hair was messy, and his robes didn’t quite fit. He had big round glasses, but he kept squinting behind them as though they were horrendously outdated, in more ways than one. He had a small nervous smile but there was a kind of strength behind it.
But more importantly than any of that, were his eyes. They were the most beautiful shade of green he had ever seen. They sparkled like emeralds but had a softness that could be attributed to more of a grass green. His eyes were so beautiful.
“Are you off to Hogwarts as well?” The other boy, having apparently only just noticed him, turned.
“Uh, yes.”
“That’s great!” Draco announced, much to the other boy’s confusion. “I’m Draco by the way. I came here with my family. My father is off getting me a broom. I wanted him to get me a racing broom, but he said I wouldn’t need one…” he rambled on. He didn’t usually ramble he noticed absentmindedly. He wanted to put his mate at ease, but it didn’t seem to be working as the boy cowered, somewhat subtly, into himself the more he spoke. He paused, notice the boy’s unease and was just about to ask what was wrong or if there was something he could get him, before the boy spoke.
“I, I’m meeting someone. I have to go,” the boy stated before running off.
Draco just watched, confused, pain and disappointment evident in his features. He longed to see the green-eyed boy again, longed to make him smile and laugh, longed to make him happy.
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He held out his hand to the boy on the stairs of Hogwarts, his gaze still encapsulated by the other boy’s emerald eyes.
His brain, apparently noticing the lack of attention he was paying to… well anything, decided to revert to his automatic, formal, pure-blooded dialect. To put it more simply, he acted like a stuck-up prat. He didn’t mean to, really, he didn’t. He would curse himself later for ever speaking those words and making such a terrible impression, but speak them he did.
“…better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.
“I think I can I can tell the wrong sort for myself, thanks,” the other boy replied curtly, avoiding his outstretched hand.
He watched crestfallen, as his soulmate walked away, with some other bushy-haired girl and the young Weasley. That wasn’t how it was meant to go. His soulmate… was his. He had to be. Someone to love, someone to love him. This wasn’t happening, right? It was all just a nightmare.
If only he believed the lie.
But that’s all it was.
A lie.
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The years passed.
The war spanned out around him, surrounding him in darkness. Maybe it was a good thing Harry had turned him down. He didn’t want him in this. He didn’t want him in any part of this. He didn’t want him near him.
Okay, fine. That last one was a lie. He was dying to be near his Soulmate, but he couldn’t afford to put him an any more danger than he already was. He would do anything to protect the boy, even distance himself.
So, he kept watch on the dark forces at work, and mingled among them as their own. He watched the green-eyed boy and taunted him.
Taunting Harry was somewhat bittersweet, but he knew he had to, for various reasons. He loved the way those green eyes would settle on him whenever he made some snide remark, and he had to make sure no one suspected them of being close. But, more importantly, he always tormented him more on the days the boy looked defeated. He hated those days. He needed to see a spark of fire return to the boy, he had to do something. It killed him just to watch.
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Draco started, turning around at the sound of a shout. His eyes were swollen. Absently, he noted the salt-water running over his lips. He didn’t have much time to consider it though.
For a split second, the other boy’s eyes were burning. The usual emerald alive with a fire not unlike those brought about with floo powder. It was terrifying, but Draco couldn’t bring himself to feel afraid. He didn’t believe there was a single thing that he wouldn’t let the boy standing opposite him do to him.
“Sectum Sempra!”
Pain filled him, just before he was enveloped in darkness.
He awoke, what he would assume was not long after, but he wasn’t really the best judge of time at that moment.
“Draco…” he heard his godfather murmur. He knew they were alone. He never sounded so close or so weary unless it was just the two of them.
“Severus, what happened?” he asked, his question only just passing as a greeting.
“I found you in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom torn to shreds by Potter. He should watch himself-”
“No. Neither of us will cause him any harm,” he said pointedly.
“Explain.”
“His eyes are the most beautiful shade of emerald green you could imagine,” he smiled. There was a pause.
“I will do what I can,” he heard his Godfather sigh.
Draco didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. He knew that his Godfather would watch over them both. It was unspoken, but it was there.
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His breath hitched. If Harry noticed, he didn’t comment. Maybe the boy thought - ignorantly - it was a result of the fiendfyre rising around them, almost certainly about to kill them all.
It wasn’t that though. Logically speaking, it should have been. They were all about to die for Merlin’s sake! But, no. His heart had other ideas.
His heart was palpitating, his breath came out quick and short. Harry had never been so close. He really, really wanted to curse, over a million things. He wanted to curse over the ridiculousness of his heart; over Voldemort starting this stupid war putting his mate in danger; over Harry being so freaking handsome; over his body just refusing to do anything he told him if the boy was within a ten-metre radius, obedience that got worse the further into that radius he was. And, right now? Well he was about to implode.
It didn’t really matter though, Mr. Oblivious stayed true to his name.
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“Well, Draco?”
The boy’s face was swollen.
If he hadn’t been studying said face for years, memorizing each and every curve, he might not have recognized it. He had though. Not only that, green eyes bored into him. There was no way it was anyone else. It was Harry. It was his Harry.
There was only one thing for it.
“I’m not sure.” The other boy’s eyes snapped to attention focussing on his. He watched as a million things passed behind those green eyes, but he didn’t have time to process them all.
“What do you mean you aren’t sure? If this is the boy, the dark lord will forgive our mistakes. Take another look,” his father called from behind him.
“I don’t… I don’t think it is.” He knew his voice was cracking he just hoped it wouldn’t betray him too much. There was no way could hand over his mate to the dark lord. He would sacrifice himself first if need be. He really hoped it wouldn’t come to that though.
He felt and heard his aunt come in like a jolt of electricity as she announced the two other people she had found. Having been convinced of their identities given the companions obvious traits, the three were quickly locked away downstairs with his cousin, Luna.
A little while later, he was able to excuse himself unnoticed by the rest of his family and head downstairs. As he walked in he noticed three things: 1, Harry was watching to door - watching him; 2, Luna had a rather curious look in her eye as she watched Harry; 3, Hermione was watching Harry out of the corner of her eye as she tried to talk Ron down from whatever it was he was getting upset about. What had they all seen in Harry? He shook his head to clear the thought. He could agonize over the boy later. Right now, he needed to make sure there would still be a boy to agonize over.
“I managed to get your wands, but it won’t take them long to notice you are missing-” Draco cut himself off suddenly, stuffed the wands into his jacket, and then continued as though he had never paused, “-filthy mudbloods, and mudblood lovers. You’re all a disgrace to wizarding kind! You should be grateful our Lord will be putting you out of your misery soon enough. The world will be a better place without your miserable little selves in it,” he sneered.
“What are you doing down here Draco?” he heard a voice call from behind him. He had been expecting it, hence his change in attitude.
“I have a few scores to settle with this lot. Call it… repaying a few debts, blood debts,” he grinned sadistically. He knew he looked sadistic. He had been studying the look ever since Voldemort started living in his house, whether he wished to see it or not. It was becoming a little too easy to fake emotions now. He thought though that it was a shame it never worked on one person… Said person was now staring at him, smirking coldly, playing the part, but his eyes were still soft, forgiving even. It hardly mattered. If you had not spent half your life staring into them you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, and the blundering idiot of a man beside him, quite evidently couldn’t.
“Finish up,” the man half grunted. “Your parents want you upstairs when our Lord arrives.”
“And so it shall be,” the blond replied smoothly, his smile still in place. He listened as the footsteps trudged back up the stairs. It felt like it took all day, but after a while he heard the upstairs door close. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well done,” a voice said, startling him from his internal monologue.
“Congratulations to you too Harry. You played your part splendidly,” he almost smiled, but refrained. “Now, here are your wands. Get out of here before that buffoon comes back. I’ll see you on the battlefield…” he paused, “I would… appreciate it, if you didn’t kill me during… you know,” he continued hesitantly.
“No worries, Draco. We will inform everyone that you are off limits,” the green-eyed boy replied, seemingly without a second thought. Did the boy ever take a second thought? How was he still alive?
He absently noted Granger nodding in the background. The Weasley was pressing his lips into a thin line, but it seemed closer to consideration than objection. Luna, just looked like… well, Luna. Always off following her own train of thought, observing the world around her in a way that others couldn’t. He sometimes wondered what it would be like to be Luna, to be in her head. But, the thought never stayed long.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” Draco said at last, nodding to himself.
“To freedom,” Harry said, raising his now-returned wand, the others echoing it, and with that they were gone.
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Harry… was… no. There was no way.
The Chosen One couldn’t be dead. Granted he had almost died every year from the teachers and Voldemort and so on, but that was his thing, almost dying. He couldn’t die.
He really wished he believed he could believe his lie, but as he felt his eyes turn black, like a shadow overtaking his life, he knew once again a lie was all it was. Oh, how he hated his miserable life.
He could hear his mother calling him, and absently he walked across the grounds to her. It was more lifeless and automatic than anything. He wasn’t really concerned where his body was taking him. It just didn’t matter anymore.
A sound interrupted Draco’s depressing train of thought though, and there he was. He was as messy-haired and as defiantly green-eyed as the day he first met him. Without a second thought - not thinking, brilliant, he was becoming more like the mop-head every day - he called out to Harry and tossed him his wand. He probably should have done some thinking, because now he was wandless, in the middle of a war, surrounded by people that wanted to kill him.
Out of the blue, two bodies appeared around him, and he moved to try and attack them or slip away or something, before realising… it was Granger and Weasley.
“This is for Harry, mind you,” the Weasley said to his right, as eloquent as ever.
“Get inside with the other Slytherins. They are down in the dungeons with the younger years. Go!” Granger said, giving him a quick as she shoved him towards the castle entrance, and for a split second he thought he saw a trace of a smile and something that might have been relief cross her face. What on earth was that about? He took one last glance at Harry, before rushing inside and downstairs to the others. He had done all he could.
It wasn’t until he passed a mirror, that he stopped dead. His eyes, they were grey again. Of all the- Of course. If anyone was going to stop their soulmates heart and then promptly rise from the dead to fight the Lord of Darkness, it had to be Harry. Show-off.
Regardless, he was more than a little happy.
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He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he first went down to the dungeons, but he now found himself filing back up the stairs with a cohort of younger years, and the few Slytherins that had stayed behind to keep them safe.
A student had come down to let them know that it was safe again and that Voldemort was gone. The younger students had pleaded to go back upstairs to try and find their families, and though Draco was afraid of what they would find waiting for them, the vote was unanimous. So, up they went.
Relief efforts were being made in the dining hall, as it was the largest open space. The wounded had all been brought there after Voldemort was defeated and between Madam Pomfrey, and the able-bodied, they were trying to get them all patched up. Not everyone could be patched.
Draco passed countless families crying and holding on to one another or their deceased loved one. A group of red-haired individuals were sobbing around a body. He hated the fact that he knew what that felt like, and he hated the fact that so many were feeling it.
Several of the children split off from their group as they walked, usually when they saw their family, or sometimes, when they saw their bodies. Nobody was going to make it out of this war unharmed.
The few that remained with him towards the end of the loop of the hall were herded off towards Headmistress McGonagall.
He, with no children left to guide, and no family to find, disappeared down a hallway, out of the way and invisible. He considered offering Madam Pomfrey assistance, but he didn’t think he had a lot of fans at that moment, considering everything.
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The sky had turned dark, and there was a cold breeze blowing through the Astronomy Tower. It was a comforting darkness though. It was a darkness filled with stars and the occasional cloud, not a darkness of a dungeon or a Dark Lord. It was a soft darkness. Gentle even.
“I wondered where you had gotten to,” a voice said from behind Draco. He knew Harry was there. He had been there for the last few minutes. He wasn’t sure how he knew but there it was. “I didn’t see you in the great hall.”
“I left after taking all the younger students back. I didn’t stick around. I don’t think I am everyone’s favourite person at the moment.”
“Fair, but there was at least one person down there that wanted to talk to you.”
“I’ll talk to McGonagall later. She’ll have enough on her plate with all the other student-”
“No, you idiot,” he heard the boy say, and looked up only to find him smiling a little ironically. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, I guess you have found me. What can I do for you Potter?”
“No, I just…” Draco watched, transfixed as the raven-haired boy struggled for the right words. Draco turned to stare out into the distance again. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The words were almost incoherent.
“What?” he asked at last, muttering the most ineloquent line that had ever crossed his lips in living memory.
“Why did you tell me about my eyes?” Harry asked at last, and then shook his head before continuing. “Or about yours for that matter?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said at last, with a small indignant huff at the end. He didn’t take charity, and most certainly not if Harry still couldn’t tell the difference between his eyes and everyone else’s.
“What colour are my eyes, Draco? Draco? What color are they?” the boy persisted, and finally becoming somewhat annoyed, he answered, truthfully.
“Well if you must know they are the most beautiful shade of emerald green with a soft grass undertone and little flecks of gold through them, but they burn like fire when you are upset! Happy?” he blurted, before clamping his hand over his mouth, realising a little too late, what he had just done. Harry just let out a low chuckle. He loved that laugh. It was soft and a little carefree, as though they hadn’t both spent their lives in the middle of a war, and almost died practically every single day.
“Your eyes are more unique than mine.” Draco froze. He thought his heart might have stopped but he wasn’t paying much attention. “They remind me of the night sky, full of clouds with little bursts of starlight poking through every so often.
“I never really picked you as my Soulmate,” he paused, and Draco swore it was the most uncomfortable pause ever in the history of pauses, as he braced himself for the oncoming rejection, “mostly because I thought you hated me, but I have always loved your eyes. I loved the way the bursts of starlight become lightening when you are agitated. I guess… I just thought that to someone else, those bursts of lightening and starlight might have had a colour, a colour I could never have the privilege to see. But when you locked eyes with me, your parents’ voices questioning you in the background, I knew. I knew it had to be you.”
Well, if his heart hadn’t stopped before it certainly had now. This was such a stupid idea. It was a terrible, completely idiotic idea, wrought with flaws.
He was going to do it anyway.
Turning around to face Harry, Draco melted, and before he knew it his hands were wrapped around the back of the other boy’s head, pressing their lips together.
It was perfect. Okay maybe a little wet, and he hadn’t figured out what to do with his tongue yet, but otherwise… He imagined living his entire life just for this moment. It would have been worth it.
He hoped it conveyed all the emotions he was unable to say, and from the way Harry pushing back against him he figured the message was getting across. He could always kiss him again if he missed anything…
“You know…” Harry murmured into Draco’s hair as they separated, “we should probably talk about this. That isn’t to say that I don’t love kissing you, but I would like to know what we are now.”
“Harry, I have been in love with you for years, but I know that you haven’t. So, it’s up to you. Whatever you like. Whenever you ready. I am drawing the line at casual dating with multiple people though,” Draco added sternly, at which Harry just laughed.
“So, boyfriends then?” Harry smiled, and Draco swore he felt his throat close. Instead of answering he pressed his lips to the green-eyed boy once more. “Is that a ye-” Harry was cut off as Draco enveloped his lips once more, pressing his tongue on Harry’s lower lip, deepening the kiss. Damn he loved this man.
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