Work Text:
First try at writing a Drarry story (if you don't count my goofy crack fic, "We Can Fix That."
Note: Some content paraphrased from Book 6, Chapter 24: Sectumsempra
I hope you enjoy this!
Draco Malfoy was up to something.
For weeks Harry had been watching him, tracking his movements, attempting entry into the Room of Requirement to catch him in whatever project had him so preoccupied. Harry would follow the little dot with Malfoy’s name on the Marauder’s Map, sometimes late into the night.
Ron and Hermione had lost all patience with him, openly calling it an obsession.
Harry insisted it was vitally important that he get to the bottom of it—that Malfoy was almost certainly involved in something dangerous.
“And what do you plan to do once you prove that theory?” Hermione would ask with forced patience.
“Depends what it is. Suppose I’ll take it to Dumbledore if it’s something bad enough.”
That had mollified her to some extent. But the truth was, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
In all honesty, part of the thrill was simply the chase. He couldn’t get his mind off the possibilities. But there was another element to his constant Malfoy-watching that he couldn't bring himself to tell Ron or Hermione: a quiet, persistent part of him was actually concerned. For months now, the Slytherin had looked unnaturally pale and hollow-eyed, and it was only getting worse.
Harry had long considered himself an expert in all things Malfoy. He had always made it his business to keep at least one eye on the prat. But this was bigger than anything Malfoy had been involved in before. Whatever was going on, it had changed him.
What bothered Harry most—though he hated to admit it—was how entirely neutral Malfoy had been acting toward him as of late. In previous years, Malfoy had hardly left him alone. He baited him, sneered at him, sought him out. This year, he’d barely spared Harry a glance.
After years of explosive rivalry, the sudden silence felt wrong. In a dangerously honest moment, Harry wondered if he somehow missed it—missed the sharp, familiar edge of their dynamic. Malfoy had been a fixture of his Hogwarts life since the very beginning. Now, whatever dark task had claimed him had pushed Harry to the periphery, making him matter less.
That shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did.
The discovery happened out of habit. Making his usual detour along the seventh-floor corridor, Harry checked the Marauder’s Map. At first, he couldn't spot Malfoy and assumed he was tucked away in the Room of Requirement again. Then he saw it: the tiny, labeled dot standing in a boys’ bathroom on the floor below, accompanied not by Crabbe or Goyle, but by Moaning Myrtle.
Harry only stopped staring at the unlikely pairing when he walked headfirst into a suit of armor. The loud crash brought him out of his reverie. Hurrying from the scene before Filch could investigate, he dashed down the marble staircase. Outside the bathroom door, he pressed his ear against the wood. Silence.
He quietly pushed the door open.
Draco Malfoy was standing with his back to the door, his white-knuckled hands clutching the porcelain sink, his blonde head bowed low.
“Don’t,” crooned Moaning Myrtle’s voice from one of the cubicles. “Don’t… tell me what’s wrong… I can help you…”
“No one can help me,” Malfoy said. His whole frame was trembling. “I can’t do it… I can’t… It won’t work… and unless I do it soon… he says he’ll kill me…”
Harry froze, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. Malfoy was crying. Actually crying. Heavy, silent tears spilled down his pale cheeks into the grimy basin. Malfoy gasped, taking a shuddering breath, and looked up into the cracked mirror—catching Harry’s reflection staring back at him over his shoulder.
Malfoy wheeled around, drawing his wand in a flash of panic. Instinctively, Harry’s wand was in his hand. Malfoy’s hex missed Harry by inches, shattering the wall lamp beside him; Harry threw himself sideways—Levicorpus! flashed through his mind—but Malfoy blocked the jinx and raised his wand again.
“No! No! Stop it!” squealed Myrtle, her voice echoing violently off the tiles. “STOP!”
A bang echoed through the room as a bin exploded behind Harry. He shot a Leg-Locker Curse that ricocheted off the stone wall and smashed the cistern beneath Myrtle. Water erupted everywhere, splashing against the floor tiles. Harry slipped, his footing giving way just as Malfoy, his face contorted in sheer desperation, shrieked, “Cruci—”
The spell marked For Enemies in the Half-Blood Prince's book flashed through Harry’s mind. He raised his wand, his mouth shaping the violent incantation—then stopped. The words choked in his throat.
He swerved violently. “Expelliarmus!”
Draco’s wand flew from his grip, landing squarely in Harry’s left hand. Knocked off balance by the force of the Disarming Charm, Draco stumbled backward until his shoulders slammed into the damp tile wall. He stood there staring at Harry, his chest heaving, entirely defenseless.
Harry stood in the center of the flooded room, holding both wands, his mind racing back to the dark spell he had nearly cast.
Sectumsempra – For Enemies.
He looked at Malfoy. The Slytherin was trembling, tear tracks cutting clean lines through the grime on his face, eyes wide with raw, unadulterated terror. Malfoy had been a second away from casting an Unforgivable. That should have been enough for Harry to write him off as a lost cause. But then he remembered his own attempt to cast the same curse last year at the Ministry; he’d been completely desperate, broken. Looking at Draco Malfoy now, he couldn’t say his rival looked much better.
My enemy? Harry thought, looking at the terrified boy still pushing himself back against the wall. Hardly. Not compared to the real monsters.
Slowly, deliberately, Harry lowered both wands.
The room fell quiet, save for the rhythmic rushing of water from the burst pipes.
Malfoy broke the silence first, his voice hoarse and stripped raw. “Why did you stop?”
Harry met those guarded grey eyes. “Because I’m tired of fighting you,” he said quietly. “And I didn’t come in here to duel.”
Malfoy tracked him like a cornered animal. Slowly, maintaining total visibility, Harry stowed his own wand into his back pocket.
Malfoy’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “You’re even more of a fool than I thought, Potter.”
“Maybe,” Harry said. “But at least neither of us is committing murder tonight.”
A brittle scoff escaped Malfoy. “As if you’re capable of that.” But the sharpness was gone, replaced by a deep, unsteady hesitation.
Harry took a quiet step forward. Then another. He stared Draco straight in the eyes. “If I give you back your wand, do you promise not to attack me?”
Draco scoffed. “You should know not to ask such a foolish question to a Slytherin, Potter. Your survival skills really do leave something to be desired.”
“It’s a good thing I wasn’t put in Slytherin then. Well? Do you promise?” He held his gaze.
Finally, Draco nodded.
Harry flipped Draco’s wand in his hand, offering the hawthorn handle back to its owner.
Malfoy narrowed his eyes at him. “You are really going to give it back, just like that?”
“Take it as a token of trust.”
When the blonde still hesitated, Harry sighed. “Just take it, Malfoy.”
Tentatively, as if expecting the wood to burn him, Malfoy snatched the wand back, pressing it tightly against his chest. He stared at Harry, his usual armor momentarily shattered by the surprising peace offering. He turned away, and a moment later his expression hardened back into a familiar, icy mask.
“What do you want, Potter? Come to spy? To gloat?”
“No,” Harry said quickly. “I mean… well, I guess I was kind of spying, but it’s not what you think. I was certain you were up to something, sure, but I was also kind of… worried.”
Malfoy snapped his head back around. For a fraction of a second, total astonishment broke through his mask before he flattened it with a sneer. “You? Worried about me? Don’t make me laugh. You despise me.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Of course. We’ve been enemies since day one.”
There was that word again.
“We’ve fought,” Harry corrected, taking another half-step closer. “Relentlessly. You’ve been a complete arse to me and my friends. We’ve been at each other's throats. But you’re not my enemy, Malfoy. That title is reserved for Voldemort and Bellatrix. And Pettigrew.”
Malfoy’s eyes widened and then his expression shuttered completely.
“Potter, did you forget? Only moments ago I nearly cast–” his words caught in his throat and he looked as if he were seeing ghosts. “I nearly cast an Unforgivable on you. How can you even bear to be in my presence?”
“Did you mean it?”
“What?”
“Bellatrix,” Harry bit out, “told me you have to mean it to make it really work. She told me that when I tried cursing her with that same spell and failed.”
Draco’s eyes found his and widened impossibly, as if something fundamental he had understood about the world had shifted and nothing would ever be the same.
“Well? Would it have worked, do you think?”
“I… don’t know. No, probably not,” Draco admitted. “I’ve never…” he gulped. “I’ve never been able to truly cast it. It always made me sick. And you–” He just shook his head, the lingering adrenaline seeming to drain out of him, leaving him hollowed out and shaking where he stood.
“I don’t believe you would have either. Even if you’d completed the incantation, I don’t think it would have felt like that. I think you have to be a truly sick bastard to make it feel that way.”
“You… you’ve had it cast on you?”
“Multiple times,” Harry confirmed softly.
Draco stared at him then, looking like he wished to say something but wasn’t sure how, but a moment later he swayed on his feet, his knees visibly buckling.
Harry reached out an arm automatically to steady him. “Malfoy—are you alright?”
Malfoy recoiled against the wall, white-knuckled. “I’m fine, Potter. Don’t touch me. What do you care, anyway?”
Harry swallowed past a sudden tight knot in his throat. Why did he care? Because watching Draco Malfoy—usually so sharp, proud, and infuriating—reduced to a shaking mess in a flooded bathroom felt entirely wrong.
“I told you,” Harry muttered. “You’re not my enemy. You’re my classmate, and you look like you need help. Do you… do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk about it?” Malfoy repeated the phrase as if it were in a foreign tongue.
“I know you’re going through something,” Harry said, holding his ground. “I can guess what it is. If you need… if you need someone to vent to, I’m here.”
A harsh, humorless laugh burst from Malfoy. “You’re the absolute last person on this earth I would confide in.”
“Because it’s about Voldemort?”
Malfoy flinched hard at the name, flinging his gaze away. “Leave me the hell alone, Potter.”
“I’m serious,” Harry pressed, a strange, stubborn fire kindling in his chest. “If it’s about him, I’m probably the only person in this castle who actually gets it. I won’t judge you. And I won’t tell if you ask me not to.”
Malfoy turned back, his storm-grey eyes searching Harry's face for any sign of betrayal. “You’re lying. You’ll run straight to Dumbledore, and the Dark Lord will find out. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill my mother—”
“I won’t tell a soul,” Harry said firmly. “I swear it.”
“Why would you do that?” Draco’s voice cracked. “Why would you care what happens to me?”
“Do you want me to start listing reasons why I get it?” Harry asked, his tone softening just a fraction. “I can tell you what it feels like to be tied to a gravestone and have your blood used to help Voldemort build himself a new body.”
Draco blinked, startled.
“Or what it’s like facing him while he’s literally living on the back of a teacher’s head. Or fighting a memory of him while a sixty-foot basilisk tries to eat you.”
Draco stared at him in open shock. “I thought… I thought those were just rumors. Not… not actual experiences.”
“It’s all true. It all happened,” Harry said. “So yeah, I can keep a secret. And I know what it’s like to be at the mercy of that madman.”
Draco looked at Harry for a long, silent moment. The lingering pride seemed to drain out of him all at once, leaving only bone-deep exhaustion. He sank back against the wet tile and let out a long, shuddering breath.
“He lives in my house now,” Draco whispered, the words coming out in a sudden rush as the dam broke. “Did you know that? He took over the Manor last summer. It’s not my home anymore. It’s a prison. My father failed at the Ministry, so now… we’re being punished. He gave me a task to make up for my father's mistake. But it’s impossible. He knows it’s impossible. He just wants us to suffer before he finishes us off.”
Draco’s knees finally gave out.
Harry moved without thinking, catching Draco by the upper arms before he hit the wet floor.
For a second, Draco froze, solid and rigid against Harry’s chest. Harry’s hands gripped Draco’s arms firmly, feeling the fragile line of his shoulders beneath his damp robes. A strange, sharp current ran through Harry—a sudden spike of awareness that made his breath hitch.
Draco scrambled back as if burned, pulling his arms in close, though he didn't retreat far. A dark, startled flush crept up his neck, dusting his pale cheeks. He kept his eyes locked firmly on Harry's tie.
Harry looked around the wet, destroyed bathroom, then drew his wand. With one precise flick, he sealed the burst pipe, cutting off the rushing water. With another, he transfigured a fallen, broken bench into a comfortable couch.
“Sit down,” Harry said gently. He sat at one end, leaving plenty of space.
Draco hesitated, looking down at the sofa as if expecting a trap. Then, slowly, his legs gave out and he sank onto the cushions, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands.
Harry watched him in the quiet space. The distance between them on the couch suddenly felt miles wide. He shifted closer, pulling his knees up so he was turned toward Draco.
“Thanks for telling me,” Harry said quietly. He frowned, processing the horror of it. “If the task is impossible, he’s obviously setting you up to fail, like you said. Have you considered asking Dumbledore for help?”
Draco raised his head, dragging his hands down his face. “Are you insane?” he snapped, though there was no real venom behind it. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Dumbledore can protect you. He can hide you and your mother.”
“We’d be fugitives. Pariahs. My family name would be completely ruined—”
“It’s better than being dead, Draco!” Harry’s voice cut through the damp room, sharp and fierce.
Draco flinched at the sound of his first name. He turned to look at Harry and found no deceit—only raw, fierce sincerity.
“He wouldn’t help me,” Draco whispered, his voice trembling. “I'm a Malfoy. I’m… I’m everything he and his merry band of Light wizards hate.”
“He would,” Harry insisted, leaning into the space between them. He reached out, his hand hovering just an inch over Draco’s arm before he pulled it back. “And if he did hesitate, I’d make him help you. I’d speak up for you.”
Draco swallowed hard, his breathing shallow. “You’d do that for me? Why? After everything I’ve said to you? After all the awful things I’ve done?”
“Because you’re a victim in this stupid war, the same as I am,” Harry said. “And you may be a prat, but you’re not evil. You don’t deserve to be lumped in with Voldemort and his goons.”
“How do you know that? You don’t really know me, Potter.”
“I think I know you pretty well,” Harry mumbled, feeling his face heat up instantly.
“Oh?” Draco murmured, turning to face him fully. “Like what?”
“Nothing. Forget I said anything.”
“No, now I’m curious. What, pray tell, does the great Harry Potter think he knows about little old me?” Draco smirked, a flicker of his old fire returning to his eyes.
Harry swallowed hard, and when he spoke, the words spilled out of him as if he’d just barely been holding them in.
“I know you love Potions, and that you’re insanely particular about arranging your ingredients in perfectly even lines before you even light your cauldron. I know you prefer your morning toast with marmalade. I know family means everything to you. I know you take the long, quiet corridors back down to the dungeons when you want to be alone. I know you go up to the Astronomy Tower just to look up at the stars when you think the castle is asleep. I know you love to fly—and that you’re brilliant at it. It’s probably the only time you don’t have to play a role, where you can just be free and be yourself underneath it all… And I know this year has been breaking you. You’re not eating, you’re barely sleeping, you’re pushing your friends away… Everything you used to love has stopped bringing you joy. You’ve even stopped tormenting me, because none of it feels like it matters anymore.”
Harry finally ran out of breath. As the silence settled, the sheer weight of what he had just confessed crashed down on him. His face burned as if he'd been hit with an Incendio charm. Nervously, he braced himself to look up at Draco, expecting absolute disdain, laughter, or outrage at how obsessively he'd been watched.
Instead, Draco was staring back at him with an expression so remarkably open and vulnerable that Harry had never seen anything like it on his face before.
“How do you know all that?” Draco asked softly, carefully. “Are you… have you been stalking me, Potter?” A subtle smirk threatened to bloom into a full grin.
“Why are you looking at me like you like the idea?” Harry asked warily.
“Because I must admit, I do.” Draco’s grin broadened. “Why, Potter… you wouldn’t happen to have a little… crush… would you?”
Harry snapped his head away, feeling entirely exposed—his unspoken thoughts laid out in the open air. He should never have opened his mouth. Malfoy was going to hold this over his head for the rest of his life.
“Potter. Look at me.”
Harry reluctantly opened his eyes, bracing himself for the lethal insult. But Malfoy wasn’t sneering. He was searching Harry's face with intense, focused curiosity.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you like me like that?”
“I… you don’t understand,” Harry stammered. “I started watching you because I was sure you were up to something, but then… when I saw how awful you looked, I just got concerned. I knew whatever you were wrapped up in was dangerous, and I couldn't drop it because… because I don’t want you to die,” he admitted quietly.
Draco stared at him, stunned into stillness. The arrogant posture fell away completely, leaving the truest version of Draco Malfoy Harry had ever encountered.
“You’ve really been that worried about me?” Draco breathed softly.
“Yeah,” Harry admitted, his cheeks burning, though he refused to look away this time. “My friends think I’ve gone completely barmy. They tell me I’m obsessed.”
“Obsessed, are you?” That familiar, sharp gleam returned to Draco’s silver eyes. “Are you telling me that I’m your obsession?” he asked softly, moving closer into Harry's space on the couch.
Harry gulped, giving a small, helpless shrug. As he looked up, his breath hitched. The distance between them had evaporated. Draco was leaning forward, sitting just inches away.
Harry could feel the faint, uneven warmth of Draco’s breath against his lips.
Draco’s gaze flicked down to Harry’s mouth, then back up to his green eyes—a silent, electric question hanging in the air.
A wave of heat swept through Harry, bringing instant clarity to every month of tracking dots on a map, every stolen glance across the Great Hall. It was all leading to this moment.
“M-Malfoy, what are you—?”
“May I?” Draco whispered.
Unable to form words, Harry gave a quick, jerky nod.
Draco reached out, his hand coming up to rest against the nape of Harry’s neck, his fingers knotting loosely into the fabric of his collar.
Shaking slightly, Harry stared into those liquid silver eyes, not quite believing what was happening.
Draco leaned in, closing the final inch between them.
Their lips met in a quiet, soft press. Harry gasped softly into the touch, his shoulders dropping as he leaned into the blonde. Neither pulled back. The damp, ruined bathroom seemed to vanish around them, leaving only the quiet pulse of warmth between them until they slowly parted, just enough to breathe.
Harry stared at Draco, his green eyes wide, his hand hovering near his own mouth as if trying to process reality. “You… you just kissed me.”
“I did,” Draco whispered, a faint, tender smile curling his lips. “How was it?”
“It was… amazing,” Harry said honestly.
“I can’t believe you let me,” Draco breathed, a breathless laugh escaping him. “I thought you hated me.”
“I don't,” Harry said firmly. “I really don't.”
Draco looked down at where their knees were bumped together on the cushions. “I suppose I’m starting to believe you. I suppose you’re not in the habit of snogging people you hate.”
“No,” Harry said, a real smile finally breaking across his face. “Not usually.”
Draco looked back up, a spark of his old spark flashing in his eyes. “And you… prefer blokes, then?”
“Yeah,” Harry admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “I mean—I’ve only ever kissed Cho before, and that felt… mostly wet and confusing. This was different.”
Draco’s mouth tilted into a slow, sharp smirk—the first true smirk Harry had seen on him all year. “So you’ve never had a proper snog, then?”
Before Harry could retort, Draco caught the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck and pulled him back in.
This kiss was deeper, firmer, and sent a jolt of heat straight down Harry’s spine. Harry groaned softly, wrapping his arms around Draco’s waist to pull him flush against him. Draco shifted, deepening the kiss with a sudden, desperate intensity that left them both breathless.
For several blurred minutes, the world melted away.
Then, as Harry reached up to brace Draco’s arm, his fingers caught the edge of Draco’s left sleeve, pulling the fabric back slightly.
A flash of dark, writhing ink caught the dim light.
Draco stiffened instantly, yanking himself backward as if burned. The warmth vanished from his face, replaced by pure, bitter horror.
“Don’t,” Draco choked out, scrambling off the couch and violently pulling his sleeve down. “Don’t look at me.”
“Draco, wait—”
“I’m branded!” Draco yelled, his voice cracking with intense shame. “I’m his property. I’m filthy.”
Harry stood up immediately and crossed the room to where Draco stood hunched in the corner. Without hesitation, he wrapped his arms securely around Draco’s back, hugging him from behind. Draco fought the hold for a second, his body rigid, before his resistance broke. He let out a long breath, eventually lifting his hands to rest over Harry’s arms curled around his chest. Another moment passed and when Harry continued to hold him, he allowed himself to lean back into Harry’s solid frame. He closed his eyes. This felt... safe. Safer than it had any right to. He didn't particularly want this moment to end.
“I already knew,” Harry whispered into his hair. “I figured it out weeks ago. It doesn't change anything. You didn't want it.”
“At one point I thought I did,” Draco admitted. “But I was an idiot. I had no idea what it really meant. And now I can’t get it off.”
“Show me,” Harry said gently.
“What? Why? It’s hideous.”
“Let me see it anyway.”
Reluctantly, Draco pulled his left sleeve up to his elbow, exposing the Dark Mark in stark, ugly detail against his pale skin.
Harry stared at the mark for a long moment, then reached out and pressed two fingers lightly over the ink, his other arm still looped around Draco’s waist.
A sharp, electric hum snapped between them—a thrumming vibration of magic, deep and resonant. Draco gasped, shivering at the magic pulsing where Harry touched him.
Releasing Draco and walking around him until they were face to face, Harry raised his other hand and touched the lightning-bolt scar on his own forehead.
“I’m marked too,” Harry said softly. “By the exact same monster.”
Draco stared at him. Hesitantly, at Harry’s small nod, he raised his hand and brushed his fingertips over the faint red line on Harry’s forehead. The same static warmth as before hummed through the air between them.
Something shifted in Draco’s gaze, an awareness that he was not quite as alone as he had thought.
“Does it… hurt?” Draco whispered.
“Sometimes,” Harry said. “When he’s angry. I see through his eyes when I sleep. So trust me—you’re not the only one forced to carry a piece of him around. I’m not running away from you because of a tattoo he forced on you.”
Draco looked up at him, his grey eyes shining. “Harry…”
Harry caught Draco’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Say that again.”
Draco stared down at their joined hands in surprise, then looked up. “What?”
“My name. You said my name.”
“I hadn't realized…”
“I liked it. Hearing you call me by my name,” Harry admitted. He paused, his heart thumping. “Can I call you Draco?”
“Oh. Well… yes. If you want to.”
They exchanged a quiet look as a soft tension settled back into the room. So much had changed in the last hour — they had done things and admitted things they had never thought possible. Neither was really clear on how it had happened; perhaps they had been riding the emotional high of the duel, just fully redirected.
But now that the emotions had settled, neither was quite sure how to navigate what came next.
“So… what happens now?” Draco asked quietly. “Do we pretend this never happened?”
Harry saw Draco’s defensive walls preparing to slam back into place. He cut in before they could.
“No. Absolutely not. Now that I’m getting to know this side of you… I want to keep seeing you,” Harry said softly. “You were right, by the way. I do like you.”
Draco smirked faintly. “Yes, I believe that was established quite clearly by the second snog.”
Harry rolled his eyes, feeling his face heat up again. “So… I’ll see you again?”
“I do believe we have double Potions tomorrow, Harry.”
“You know what I mean.”
Draco’s smirk softened into a genuine smile. “Yes. I’d like that. We’ve got to keep it quiet, though. No one can know. Absolutely no one.”
“Yeah. I don’t like hiding, but I understand. But once we’ve taken down Voldemort—”
“We, Harry?”
“We’re in this together now. I said I’d be there for you. I meant it.”
Harry took Draco’s hand and pulled back his sleeve. Daringly, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his arm, directly over the dark ink. Draco gasped at the audacity.
“You don’t belong to him, Draco,” Harry nearly growled, his green eyes piercing Draco’s with deadly serious promise. “And I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him and set you free for good.”
Draco nodded, unable to force words past the tight lump in his throat.
“Well then,” Harry said brightly, stepping back, the dark power he’d shown a moment before having been tucked neatly away. “Meet me tomorrow?”
Trying to suppress the foolish grin threatening to break across his face, and knowing he’d only half succeeded, Draco drawled, “As long as you can find somewhere less disgusting than a flooded bathroom.”
Harry laughed, the clear sound echoing against the damp stone walls. “Deal. How about the Room of Requirement? Same time?”
Draco raised an eyebrow. “I’ve spent far too much time in that place lately, Potter.”
“Trust me,” Harry said, giving Draco’s hand one last, lingering squeeze before stepping toward the door. “What I have in mind is a lot better than a dusty storeroom.”
At the door, Harry turned, giving him a quick wave before slipping out into the quiet corridor.
Draco stood alone in the silence of the bathroom, listening to the slow drip of water from the pipes—and realized, with a sudden, startling shock to his chest, that the suffocating weight in his lungs was finally gone.
I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know your thoughts on how I'm writing this pairing.