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Percy scratched frantically at his notes with his quill. He had a million things to say about the Polyjuice Potion regulations that had been drafted the day before, and he needed to record them before he forgot them. The commotion of the staff outside his office door was nothing but white noise. Percy had become adept at drowning it out over his years at the Ministry.
His left forearm began to itch, and he twitched, the fingers on his left hand curling into a fist. He continued writing, trying to ignore it, but as always, the mark on his arm was too distracting. He dropped his quill, scratching at the skin furiously through the fabric covering it. He bunched the end of his sleeve in his hand, determined to keep the Dark Mark that marred his skin hidden.
It wasn’t something he’d asked for. No, but his soulmate had. Percy still remembered the horror of the skull and snake etching itself into his skin with him unable to stop it.
His was a fainter pink than those he’d seen on the arms of Death Eaters, and it had never turned the stark black of an activated mark, but there was no hiding what it was if it was seen. It was why he’d worn nothing but long sleeves for close to a decade. He couldn’t have anyone knowing that his soulmate was a monster.
A knock on his office door startled him, sending the quill he’d just picked back up clattering back to the desk.
“Come in,” Percy stammered, uncharacteristically thrown off from his usual confident work persona.
Draco Malfoy pushed the door open, his eyes flickering around the office as he stepped inside. Percy subconsciously clenched his left hand into another fist.
“Mr Malfoy,” Percy said, standing from his chair and shifting his left arm behind his back. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Draco had never been the Ministry staple that his father had once been. In fact, Percy had never seen him inside the Ministry’s walls, and the man was clearly uncomfortable in his office, shifting from one foot to the other as he hovered just inside the door.
“I’m sorry,” Draco replied, his voice hesitant and almost fearful, a far cry from what Percy remembered him being like at school. “It’s just… I have something important to say, and I knew the Minister wouldn’t see me.”
He wasn’t wrong. There was a proper protocol for setting up meetings after all, and as far as Percy could tell, Draco hadn’t followed it. Someone must have let him in despite the rules. Percy didn’t question the lapse in procedure though. Something about the dark circles under Draco’s eyes had him intrigued enough to hear the man out.
“Sit down,” he urged, motioning at the chair across from his desk.
Draco did so, his eyes still scanning the office like a first year arriving at Hogwarts for the first time. Percy didn’t know what he expected to find. There were few personal touches in the office. Most of the walls were taken up with books on law and wizarding history. Aside from one picture of Percy’s family during their long ago trip to Egypt, the office could have belonged to anyone.
“What’s so important that you were trying to get to the Minister herself?” Percy asked, levelling Draco with the usual cool expression he used when trying to appear impartial to what was happening.
Draco scratched at his head as he considered his words, letting his left sleeve slide down his forearm and reveal a glimpse of the Dark Mark branding the skin. Percy’s eyes latched onto it as if he’d been waiting for it. Noticing his gaze, Draco dropped his arm self-consciously, tugging down his sleeve much like Percy had a few minutes previously.
Draco’s discomfort was quickly forgotten, however, as he stared at Percy with a heavy look. Percy was captivated, unable to move as Draco spoke the last words he’d expected to hear.
“I think the world is going to end next month.”
Though Draco’s voice quivered, there was a force to the words that told Percy that Draco, at least, fully believed the statement to be true.
“The world?” Percy repeated dumbly. “Ending? Why would you say something as ridiculous as that?”
Draco let out a short, nervous laugh.
“It’s kind of a long story.”
When he didn’t immediately continue, Percy motioned for him to do so. Leaning forward as he drank in every detail of Draco’s story.
“It’s no secret that people didn’t want to hire former Death Eaters after the war,” Draco said, his gaze on the edge of Percy’s desk. “And I didn’t want to go through the humiliation of trying when I’d only be rejected. My family has more than enough money to last a lifetime, so I decided that I would find my own ways to occupy my time. For the past decade, I’ve been conducting research.”
He glanced up at Percy as if expecting a reaction, but Percy didn’t give him one until he continued.
“At first, it wasn’t anything complicated. It was just a way to occupy my time. However, over time, I kept getting deeper into certain topics, the kind that are studied in the Department of Mysteries. My family once had a Time-Turner, before we were forced to turn it over to be destroyed, and I found myself drawn to the study. I wasn’t expecting what I found.”
He trailed off as if recounting the story had become too much. Percy cleared his throat before speaking himself.
“And you think you’ve discovered that the world will end next month?” he asked for confirmation.
Draco gave a short nod of the head.
“I didn’t believe it at first. I didn’t want to believe it. But I’ve run the same experiments over and over again, and each time, I get the same result. I don’t know what your Unspeakables have found. Perhaps they haven’t even looked for something like this, which meant I couldn’t keep the information to myself. People deserve to know. That’s the only way to stop it from happening.”
Percy took a deep breath, shifting in his chair as he considered the information. He shouldn’t have trusted such an outlandish story from anyone, least of all a Malfoy. Draco, though, was sitting hunched in his chair as if the weight of the entire world had been placed on his shoulders. In that moment, he hardly looked like a Malfoy, and it was clear that he believed what he was saying, even if it wasn’t true.
“I’m the Senior Assistant to the Minister,” Percy replied, his own shoulders straightening at the reminder. “If the Unspeakables had so much as suspected anything like this, I’d have heard about it by now.”
Draco nodded slowly.
“If you haven’t, then I’m glad I came. I want to share my research with the Unspeakables. If they could see it for themselves—”
“All research done in the Department of Mysteries is strictly controlled. I cannot allow you that kind of access.”
Draco’s whole body stiffened, and he growled with frustration.
“I don’t need to know anything about what they’re doing,” he stressed. “I just want to give them what I have. That’s all. Once they see it, they’ll know I’m correct. There are more people there, and many of them have far more experience than I do. They stand a much better chance of stopping the goddamn apocalypse than I do on my own.”
Percy froze, his ears ringing. “End of the world” hadn’t shocked him quite as much as the simple word “apocalypse” did. He cleared his throat and tried to conceal his discomfort despite his new inability to look directly at Draco.
“All I can promise is that I will speak to the Minister on the issue,” he said with a polite incline of the head. “You may go now, Mr Malfoy. I know how to contact you should we need to speak again.”
Draco hesitated a moment before nodding and rising from the chair.
“Just please promise me you’ll tell Granger,” he pleaded one last time before hurrying from the office, leaving Percy to watch him go.
The head Unspeakable gaped at Hermione and Percy, her long brown hair bouncing as her head swivelled back and forth as if they were a two-headed monster prepared to attack.
“Why, that’s… That’s impossible,” the woman stuttered. “The end of the world… That’s absurd.”
Hermione gave a short nod and collapsed back in the chair behind her desk. Her beliefs had been confirmed, but Percy wasn’t satisfied.
“Have you looked into it?” he asked, taking a step forward from his spot behind Hermione’s desk to get a better look at the woman. “Have the Unspeakables done that kind of research?”
The head Unspeakable, so used to operating with little oversight, sputtered with indignation at the inquiry. After several moments of outrage, she seemed to decide that answering was the best response.
“The Department of Mysteries operates many different experiments about time in an attempt to understand such a mysterious phenomenon. We do not, however, have any experiments on the end of the world at the present time. That being said, if time were going to end, one must assume that one of our many experiments on time would have at least hinted at such an outcome. There has been no indication that time is about to end.”
Percy’s brain told him to accept the answer. The Department of Mysteries was staffed by the best of the best. Draco had only a basic Hogwarts education, no matter how diligent he might have been with his experiments.
“Mr Malfoy has offered to let you see his experiments for yourselves,” Percy said. “Perhaps you could look over his findings and discover where the flaw lies.”
Fire sparked in the Unspeakable’s eyes.
“We’re not a fact-checking committee,” she spat back, decorum momentarily forgotten. “That is outside the realm of our responsibilities. We have far more important business than reviewing every bit of research conducted outside of our department.”
Percy stared the woman down for a moment until he was sure she wouldn’t break. He turned to Hermione instead, who didn’t look any more convinced by the idea than the Unspeakable.
“Minister,” Percy began, careful to use her proper title in front of their company. “Isn’t it prudent to at least double check when there are such large stakes?”
Hermione sighed and ran a weary hand over her eyes.
“With all due respect to Draco Malfoy,” she began, her voice wry, “he was never a top student at Hogwarts, and even as a Malfoy, his resources to run such experiments would be limited. I believe it’s clear enough that Mr Malfoy was mistaken, and it would be best not to waste Ministry resources on something as outlandish as this.”
Percy would have been on her side when Draco had first walked into his office, but something felt different now. His mind had been turning over the words since Draco left. Only Percy had seen how determined the man had been to speak his truth.
The shadow of a Dark Mark on Percy’s forearm itched again, and he excused himself quickly, tugging on his sleeve as he left.
For the next two weeks, Percy felt increasingly close to breaking. He swore that Draco had said that the end would come in a month, but part of him wondered if he’d misremembered that bit of information and cursed himself for not taking notes about such a crucial detail when he was typically quite thorough.
How much time did he have left? Decades? Or mere weeks?
Either way, he felt useless. Hermione had made it clear that Draco’s claims weren’t worth the Ministry’s time, and everyone except them and the head Unspeakable remained in the dark about Draco’s claims.
Percy tried to put the same faith in the Unspeakables as Hermione. It should have been easy when he’d once put blind faith in the Ministry even as it fell to Death Eaters, yet he couldn’t shake that haunted look he’d seen on Draco’s face.
Sitting alone in his flat in the glow of the fire, he allowed himself to inspect the shadow of a Dark Mark on his arm. Home was the only place he allowed himself to look at it, and even then, he did so rarely.
He didn’t like seeing it. Most of the time, he pretended it wasn’t there. It would have been better to have no soulmate at all than one who had allowed themselves to be branded with such a horrid mark. Percy had done many things during the war that he regretted, but at least he hadn’t become one of them.
Yet with the threat of possible death upon him, his old curiosity about the nameless soul tied to him had reared its head.
In the aftermath of the war, he’d been one of the Ministry officials in charge of persecuting Death Eaters, a position he only achieved by concealing the mark on his arm. He’d been thorough in his job, not once revealing that part of the reason he was so passionate about the work was that he was looking for something—or someone—very specific.
Over the three years it had taken to close every case, Percy had found only one possible match for his mark. Only one Death Eater claimed to have been branded during the same summer Percy’s own mark had appeared.
It had been easy enough to avoid Draco Malfoy after he was pardoned and his case was closed. Percy had almost forgotten his own suspicions until the man had been standing in front of him again looking terrified.
A knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts. He ran a hand over his face as he stood and groaned, tugging the sleeve of his jumper down to cover his mark.
It could only be his family.
He’d lost touch with the two close friends he’d had during Hogwarts and couldn’t remember when he’d last spoken to either of them. Most of the people he spoke to were nothing more than work acquaintances who he might occasionally go out with after work but that was it.
He wasn’t expecting one of them, but he was expecting even less to find Draco Malfoy on the other side of the door, the circles under his eyes several shades darker than they’d been the last time Percy had seen him.
His right hand shot out to clasp his left forearm tightly. He felt caught off guard and exposed despite having hidden the mark before opening the door. The intrusion left him more furious than he knew was rational.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“I haven’t heard anything from you,” Draco said, running a hand through his hair and making it stand on end. “I had to know. It’s driving me crazy. Did you tell Granger?”
“Of course,” Percy said. His face flushed red. “I didn’t get to my current position by keeping such dangerous information to myself. The Minister herself spoke to the Unspeakables, and they declared your worries unjustified. If you have anything else to say, I suggest doing so through the proper Ministry channels, which does not include showing up at my house in the middle of the night.”
“It’s only 7:00 pm,” Draco retorted with little emotion. “Please, can we just talk about it a little more?”
He made to step forward, but Percy blocked his path, closing the door until there was no space between it and his body.
“I have no interest in inviting a Death Eater into my home.”
Almost immediately, his stomach roiled violently at the disgust in his own voice. His own Dark Mark tingled as he watched Draco’s right hand grip his left sleeve. The blond deflated as he averted his eyes to the floor.
“I don’t care what you think about me, Weasley, but this is kind of a matter of life or death for the entire world. What will it take to get you to listen to me?”
It was quiet for a moment before Percy answered, using all of the little energy he had to make his lie convincing.
“Why would I believe a former Death Eater performing experiments for his own amusement when it was contradicted by the best minds the Ministry has?”
Draco didn’t answer his question. His eyes flickered over what little of Percy’s skin he could see, and Percy knew that he was looking for marks left by a soulmate. It took all of Percy’s strength not to draw attention to his left arm.
“You haven’t found your soulmate yet, have you?” Draco asked. He didn’t wait for Percy’s answer before continuing. “They’re out there somewhere though. Do you want to die before you meet them? Or are you okay with them dying along with everyone else?”
Percy gripped the edge of the door tightly as he stared at Draco.
“That’s assuming the world actually ends,” he responded, but he knew Draco heard the exhaustion and fear in his voice as clearly as he did.
“It will,” Draco shot back without pause. “We’re all going to die if you keep being as idiotic as everyone else in that godforsaken Ministry of Magic.”
“Get out,” Percy snapped, taking deep breaths to keep himself calm. “Now.”
Draco shrugged and stepped away from the door, but he wasn’t finished.
“You have clearance that could get you into the Department of Mysteries, don’t you? Sneak in one day when they don’t know you’re there. See if you still trust them then.”
Without waiting for a response, he Apparated away with a pop.
Percy felt as if a million eyes were on him as he hurried to the lowest floor of the Ministry. Of course, there weren’t. The Ministry was as close to deserted as it got, and he’d made sure the last Unspeakable had clocked out for the day long before leaving his office.
Even if he were caught, he wasn’t doing anything beyond his security clearance despite how sketchy it might have looked. If anyone found him, he had a long list of possible excuses ready, and all of them were rock solid. There was little to worry about, yet he knew what he was doing was wrong, and that was more than enough to make him feel guilty as he travelled lower and lower.
He’d only been in the Department of Mysteries once, and that had been in the day when it was full of Unspeakables. It was eerier in the night.
His stomach filled with a new sense of dread as he entered the department proper. He laid his wand flat in his hand and muttered a spell, letting it point him in the direction of the time room.
Upon entering, he was enveloped by the ticking of a hundred clocks. He stood in the doorway to orient himself. This room was new to him, and it took a moment to understand what he was looking at.
There were a number of experiments being conducted in tandem. A long table was littered with clocks in varying states of completeness. Taking a few steps closer, Percy realized that each were labeled with their purpose.
He wandered around slowly, reading whatever information he could find about what he was looking at. It took more than half an hour for him to find what he’d been looking for but had hoped not to find.
In one corner of the room that appeared darker than the rest, the largest of all the clocks sat. It was unlike any clock Percy had seen. The clock face wasn’t circular but instead a winding line like an unfurled tape measure. Percy squinted at it, trying to make out the small marks on its surface.
Looking around, he found the label. This one held less information than the rest, but the clock’s name was explanatory enough when he’d come with suspicions: Clock of the Universe.
Percy’s insides twisted into knots as he noticed a magnifying glass hanging on the wall. Picking it up, he analyzed the markings on the clock. He started at one end that seemed to mark the beginning of time itself. Following it down and around—struggling in places where the clock overlapped itself—he didn’t find a clock hand until he got to the other end. There, only a few marks from the end, sat a short clock hand.
Percy dropped the magnifying glass but didn’t hear it hit the floor. The ticking of the clocks echoed in his ears as he backed away from the offending clock in horror. His head spun, and he clutched at the long table in the middle of the room to steady himself, only to jump back a minute later when he felt his skin burn.
He’d accidentally placed his hand against the candle that he’d been using to give himself a bit more light, and some of the wax had dripped right onto his hand. Percy waved his wand at the offending candle in frustration.
The lack of light only intensified the ticking, and the sound had begun to make Percy nauseous. He ambled around, waving his hands through the air until he found the door.
He fled, not once thinking to light his wand and let it lead the way.
Percy tumbled from the fireplace, his robes twisted around his legs and his glasses askew. He blinked stupidly a few times in the dark sitting room of Malfoy Manor before his eyes focused on Draco slouched in an uncomfortable-looking chair of green velvet. He had a glass of clear liquid clutched in his hand and took a sip as Percy righted himself.
“You went.”
It wasn’t a question. Percy glanced at his hastily written letter which had been tossed aside on the table next to Draco’s chair.
“They have a clock,” Percy replied, his voice raspy and dry. “It ends in two weeks.”
“I told you,” Draco replied, his bitterness leaking through as he took another swig of his drink and cringed as it hit his throat.
“What should we do?” Percy asked, his panic rising and threatening to choke him. “Surely something in your experiments hinted at a way to stop it.”
Draco shrugged, looking far too calm considering the situation. It was a far cry from the man who’d been close to panic when he’d shown up in Percy’s office. He didn’t look the other man in the eye as he spoke.
“I came to you because I wanted the Ministry to find a solution. Discovering a problem is a far cry from finding a solution to that problem. But it’s too late for that now anyway. You’re the only one who believes me, and if the Unspeakables know and have decided not to act, then it’s because they’ve already decided it’s hopeless. They’re trying to contain the possible chaos. The apocalypse is inevitable.”
Percy stared at Draco as if he were a puzzle that could be worked out. Draco still didn’t look at him as he took another drink. For the first time, Percy noticed a new, red mark on Draco’s hand. His heart twisted at the thought of Draco burning himself, and the spark of sympathy reminded him of his own pain not an hour before when he’d burnt himself on the candle wax.
His heart stopped as he glanced down at the red mark on his hand. It was in the same spot as the one on Draco’s.
Draco noticed his look and glanced between their hands himself, looking far too unsurprised at what he saw.
“You’ve known,” Percy whispered.
“You always wrote me notes as a kid about your siblings. They were there for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t hard to guess.”
There was a slight smile on his lips that Percy didn’t know how to interpret. He felt behind him blindly until he found a sofa and collapsed onto it. Draco stared at his hands as he continued.
“As you got older, it became even more obvious. You have a habit of writing notes on your hands, you know? I always wondered if you wanted me to figure it out, even once you stopped writing to me directly. You’d remind yourself of your prefect duties and, later, stuff for work. Even an idiot would have pieced together exactly who you were eventually.”
Percy gaped.
He’d known he always wrote on his hand of course. As a child, he’d loved the idea of writing to his soulmate, but they’d never written back. Eventually he’d given up on that idea, but the habit of taking ink to his skin had stuck with him. He’d told himself over and over that he wasn’t leaving clues for his soulmate, especially once the Dark Mark had appeared, but on some level, he’d known that was what he was doing all along.
“That’s why I came to you,” Draco continued, grinning at Percy in a way that made his stomach tighten. “Sure, you being so close to the Minister was convenient, but I also hoped you’d be more likely to listen to me. Even if you didn’t know, maybe some part deep inside of you would trust me because of our connection.”
Percy gripped his left sleeve tightly between his fingers.
“I think part of me did,” he admitted. “The rational part of me thought you were delusional, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that you were telling the truth.”
Draco snorted and shook his head.
“Well, too bad no one else felt the same way.”
It grew quiet between them, but Percy was surprised at the lack of awkwardness in the air. He’d spent years worrying about the Dark Mark on his arm and the idea that his soulmate was a monster, but sitting across from Draco while knowing their deaths were eminent, that no longer felt like as large of an obstacle as it had before.
“So, we’re soulmates,” Percy said slowly, ignoring Draco’s scoff at the statement. “And we’re probably going to die in two weeks—”
“Not probably,” Draco interrupted with a smirk. “We’re definitely going to die.”
“We’re definitely going to die in two weeks, which means I’m never being promoted, all of my work is useless, and we’ve only got one shot to find out why the universe thinks we’re meant for each other.”
Though the room was dark, Percy swore that Draco’s eyes darkened. His eyelids drooped as he watched Percy closely.
“We don’t have time for flowery sentiments, Weasley. Say what you mean or get out of my house.”
Butterflies tickled Percy’s stomach despite the situation.
“Will you have dinner with me?”
Draco let out a real laugh, not one of the dark chuckles from earlier. He stared at Percy in amazement, shaking his head.
“We only have two weeks to live, and you want to have dinner?”
He leant forward with another smirk, making Percy swallow and sit up straight.
“I think we can skip the formalities, Weasley.”
Percy nodded, hardly able to remember how to breathe as Draco stood from his chair.
Over the next couple of weeks, Percy lost track of time. He didn’t go back to his own flat, not even for a change of robes.
He sometimes left Draco’s house. He resigned from his Ministry position, all of his previous desires suddenly pointless. He visited his family, wanting to see them but struggling with the weight of his secrets.
Hermione knew of his reasons for resigning. She’d even offered him his job back should he want it again. Part of him wondered if she suspected the truth, on some level, because she kept Draco’s theories a secret from the rest of the family, but he didn’t ask. It was easier not to discuss it.
With Draco, things were different. Lying in bed together made it feel like they were the only ones who existed in the world. The coming apocalypse was of little consequence when he could trace the marks on Draco’s skin that he’d long seen on his own. The Dark Mark that had once been daunting no longer felt of consequence.
As they traced their fingers over skin, they whispered sweet words to each other that Percy couldn’t have imagined before. Impending doom could make you rethink a lot.
“You always singled me out at Hogwarts,” Draco said quietly as they laid in bed one day. “None of the other prefects breathed down my neck like you did.”
“Sorry,” Percy responded, biting his lip. “I think I did it on purpose. I told myself I wanted to be good at my job, but it wasn’t...just that. I liked when you paid attention to me.”
Draco smirked, and Percy felt the same familiar tug in his stomach that he’d just been remembering. Now, though, he knew the exact cause.
“Don’t apologize,” Draco said softly. His fingers ran over Percy’s chest, distracting him. “I liked it. That was how I realized you were my soulmate actually. I saw flashes of the notes you wrote on your hands when you were telling me off. It did make keeping my own hands hidden complete hell though.”
He lifted his head from Percy’s chest and raised an accusatory eyebrow at him. Percy could only smile in return.
“Sorry,” he said again, sounding anything but.
He had countless memories of the exact telling offs that Draco remembered, and it was hard to believe that everything he’d felt then had led to where they were.
Their connection had been there at Hogwarts, in the way Percy’s stomach had tightened and he had struggled to remember what the problem was whenever he was standing in front of Draco. He had thought he could never explore it. They were from two opposing parts of wizarding society.
“I didn’t suspect it was you until you got the Dark Mark,” he admitted. “You were the only person I knew who got it around that time, so I wondered.”
Draco hummed in acknowledgement, his hand dipping lower down Percy’s abdomen. It almost—but not quite—distracted Percy from his train of thought.
“If it weren’t for the apocalypse, would we even have gotten together?”
It was silent for a long time. Draco’s hand didn’t still; he kept tracing shapes across Percy’s stomach. Percy’s own hand found Draco’s hair, tangling his fingers in the locks as if it would keep him grounded.
“I don’t know,” Draco finally admitted. “We’re both a little stubborn, aren’t we?”
Percy gave a short laugh, jostling Draco from his spot on his chest. Draco shoved at him good naturedly and settled back into place, his hand flat against Percy’s chest.
“But I think we would have figured it out eventually,” he decided. “That’s what soulmates are supposed to do. Maybe it just would have taken us longer than others.”
Percy hummed in agreement and let his fingers trail down Draco’s spine until they got to the waistband of his sweats and he brought them back up again.
“How will it end?” he asked.
The question had been on his mind since Draco had first raised his concerns back at the Ministry, and their current conversation seemed as good a time to ask as any. If they were already doomed, there shouldn’t have been any harm in knowing how the end would come.
“I don’t know,” Draco whispered into Percy’s neck. “All I know is that time will end.”
He shivered, goosebumps erupting across his skin. Percy tightened his arm around his waist, bringing him as close as physically possible.
No more words were spoken for a long time.
Percy wasn’t sure when he noticed it. He’d gotten up that morning, and nothing had felt off. But eventually he’d noticed that his actions were slower despite his intentions to do them at a natural speed. He tested his movements, but no matter how fast he wanted to wave his hand through the air, it didn’t move as fast as he wanted it to.
Draco realized the same thing at almost the same time.
The two men stared at each other over the kitchen table, suddenly too nauseous to finish their breakfasts.
“It’s going to keep slowing until it stops,” Draco said, the full realization hitting him as he spoke the words.
Percy’s stomach dropped. They were quite literally going to die a slow death, and there was no way to stop it. It was one of the cruelest things Percy could imagine.
He wondered if others across the world were realizing the same thing. Perhaps the effect was still too small for anyone not looking for it to notice, but they all would eventually. He briefly considered contacting his family, but he had no idea how quickly the process would move, and doing anything suddenly felt like a useless exercise in fighting fate.
Instead, he and Draco fell back into bed. With their arms around each other, they tried to stay as still as possible. It was the only way they knew of to avoid the reality happening around them. Every so often, they shared kisses, long ones that they could pretend were meant to be as slow and lingering as they were.
There was only so long they could push reality aside however. Eventually, even Percy’s thoughts were happening slower than they had before. His awareness was dimming as it took ages to do what had once happened in mere milliseconds. He kept his arms tight around Draco but didn’t say a word, scared of what it would sound like as his mouth struggled to form words.
Draco’s eyes fluttered shut, and Percy’s followed suit. It was less painful that way. Nothing about Draco’s warmth changed, and Percy focused on nothing else as his awareness faded into oblivion.