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Harry hears, distantly, the sound of the front door opening and closing, then the careful sounds of Draco making his way up the stairs towards their bedroom. Even though the sounds are muted - as if he’s underwater, or maybe on the other side of a long tunnel, or standing beside Dumbledore in an empty train station - he notes the noises with surprising clarity.
It’s important that he notes the noises, because that means that Draco’s home, which means that it’s time.
Time for what, you ask? Time for a fucking reckoning.
Harry would like to say that this entire scenario is one hundred percent un-staged, and that the unadulterated rage he felt (still feels) is the only reason he’s sitting in the middle of his and Draco’s bedroom, with the bed pushed haphazardly aside to make more room on the floor for the countless pieces of parchment that he’s torn from every crack and crevice of their house.
The papers spill from the closet where he tore them from the boxes on the top shelf; from the dresser drawers where they were placed behind socks and boxer briefs; from the end-tables where they were hidden under journals, pens, cups of half-drunk tea. It’s almost artful, like Harry has laid it out like this on purpose.
He didn’t, but it’s not like he hasn’t had time to clean up. He’s had time to cool down, to think things through, to maybe make a little bit less of a scene than he’s been accused of making in the past.
It’s not entirely surprising to realize that he wants Draco to find him like this, in the ruins of their bedroom.
(Hermione always says he has a flair for the dramatic, and Harry’s finally starting to think she may be right.)
When Draco walks into the room, he obviously doesn’t realize what’s happening. It should make Harry angry - well, angrier - but his ire has distilled over the hours into a sharp point, honed with the express purpose of hurting Draco just as deeply as he’s hurt Harry.
Harry will be vindicated.
“Harry, what's all this?” Draco asks as he steps into their bedroom, carefully avoiding stepping on paper or parchment, face still lit up from whatever wonderful day he's had at work. “Have you had a go at organizing your paperwork like I suggested months ago? You know, for one of the richest wizards in Britain, the state of your financial files are deplorable, and -”
“I saved every letter you wrote to me.” Harry says, reveling in the way Draco’s nostrils flare at the interruption. “Every single one of them, even those first ones from sixth year, after I accidentally cut you to ribbons in the girls’ bathroom.”
The smile freezes on Draco’s face, and his eyes are quick to go hard, calculating, suspicious. Draco has always been good at faking smiles, and Harry has never been good at being able to tell. He’s never really needed to, before now.
It’s funny how things like that change so quickly.
“Harry? What are you on about, love?” Draco asks, setting his bag and scarf neatly on the chair by the door, like always.
The normalcy of it all makes a laugh choke it's way up Harry's throat and out his mouth without his permission - it comes out sounding strangled and forced.
“From the moment I read them,” Harry answers, brandishing the letter he has clutched in his hand in Draco’s direction, “I knew you were mine. Well, maybe not right away - there was a lot of shite for us to sort through at first; we fucking hated each other. The letters were still how I knew, though. That you loved me. That I loved you back. You said you were mine, you said -” Harry opens the letter in his hand, reads verbatim off the page “- you said, ‘I am yours, I have always been yours’.”
The parchment crackles and snaps under the pressure of Harry's fingers.
Draco actually has the decency to look a little taken aback, like he didn't think Harry would react like this.
Harry’s starting to realize that Draco might not really know him as well as he thought.
“Harry,” Draco says, shrugging off his jacket and taking a step towards Harry, “did someone tell you -?”
But Harry can't actually stand to hear Draco speak at the moment. He can't handle the fact that Draco is going to try and talk his way out of this, lawyering his way out of trouble like he's still at work in front of the fucking Wizengamot, so Harry interrupts again.
“Do you know what Ron told me when I got your first letter, after I basically stalked you through sixth year? He told me to be careful, that you'd ‘do what it takes to survive’. You know - I know we've joked about it in the past, but I really think he’s a fucking Seer. All his prophecies have come true,” Harry bites out, absently smoothing out the parchment he cracked in his too-tight fist. The parchment knits itself back together under his fingertips, and - oh, good. He's angry enough to be doing accidental magic. That’s fucking great.
“Love, I know you're angry, but if I can just explain -”
“You know, you're so fucking eloquent!” Harry knows that he’s yelling a bit now, that his eyes are a little wild, but he can’t really help himself. “Your words, they just - they flood my fucking senses. They leave me defenseless against you. You probably still have no idea what that means, for me to be defenseless against anyone. And for what - for this? For love? It seemed worth it, at the time. It’s gone and bit me in the ass now, though, hasn’t it?”
Draco is starting to look stricken now, like he's finally realized he's done something he can’t talk his way around.
It's not like Harry has ever been under the impression that loving Draco has ever been easy . Draco is abrasive and moody and morally grey in a way that leaves most people firmly uncomfortable. He's ambitious to a fault, stunningly cunning, absolutely devoted to his work - he's a fucking Slytherin, through and through. He's a pointy, angsty little git that makes Harry want to tear his hair out at least three times a day.
Never once has Harry regretted choosing Draco to be his husband, to be his heart and his home.
Until now.
“So. I'm re-reading these fucking letters, right?” Harry continues, gesturing so emphatically that a few letters around the room pick up and hover in the air, fluttering anxiously. More accidental magic. “I'm reading them - all of them - searching and scanning for every line where you were actually mine. Because I remember being certain of that, the first time around. I read your letters, and I felt things that made my world burn.”
Harry's words are starting to come out faster and faster, and his chest is starting to feel choked in a way that tells him he's lost his grasp on whatever scraps of calm he’d had a few minutes ago.
Draco is still just fucking standing there, and one arm is halfway extended towards Harry, as if he wants to touch but doesn't know if he’s allowed.
(He’ll never touch Harry again.)
Is this what the Sorting Hat meant, when it tried to sort Harry into Slytherin? Or is this what Tom felt like, every time he pulled one over on an enemy? Harry never thought he would want to feel anything like Tom, but in this moment all he wants is for Draco to hurt.
Harry tries to take a deep breath to get himself together, but it catches during the exhale and comes out strangled, like there’s a Chocolate Frog caught somewhere in his esophagus.
“But you… you published them,” Harry manages, after a moment. “That's why I found letters I hadn't ever seen before: you pulled out ones you wrote but never sent. Or maybe -” Harry barks out a harsh laugh at this new thought, “- maybe you wrote them just for publication! They're not meant for me, they're meant for the public eye.”
Harry takes a second to scrub his hands through his hair, over his face, down his neck. His skin feels like it’s on fire - like there’s lightning zinging down his veins, begging to be unleashed. It’s his magic, he knows. He’s never had great control.
(If he doesn’t blow up the block with accidental magic by the end of this conversation, he will be genuinely surprised, and a little proud.)
But despite his poor control - or maybe because of it, because he’s never had great impulse control, either - Harry just can’t stop himself. It’s self-destructive and unhealthy and downright mean to keep doing this, but Harry literally can’t make himself stop. Draco isn’t hurting enough yet, a desperate, mean voice whispers inside his head, and then Harry is speaking before he’s even aware he’s made the decision.
“You told the whole fucking world how you managed to get Harry fucking Potter into your bed! You laid out instructions for how to woo me; you went behind my back and published my deepest fucking fears, you profited off of my trauma! You ruined our lives!”
Harry's chest is heaving now, eyes full of unshed tears, and Draco's face is doing that horrible twisting thing it does when he's desperately trying not to feel emotion.
(Those four small words echo around the room.
You ruined our lives, as Harry scrubs unwanted tears from his eyes.
You ruined our lives, as Draco sinks neatly to the floor, as if his legs won't hold him upright anymore.
You ruined our lives, as Harry takes a deep breath, and continues.)
“Do you know what Hermione said, when she saw the book in Flourish and Blott's? She compared you to fucking Icarus. ‘He flew too close to the sun’, she said.”
(I don’t know who that is, Draco whispers.)
“You are obsessed with your legacy,” Harry insists. “You’re fucking paranoid - you worry about what people think about you all the time, you never shut up about it! You’re always so fucking worried about yourself, like you haven’t done enough to make up for all the shitty things you did in the war, like people still want to attack you.”
Harry suddenly has another horrible thought, one that would have taken him out at the knees had he been standing. “Was dating me just a ploy to help your reputation? Was that all I ever was to you? You thought, I know what will help me get in the public’s good graces again, I’ll fuck the fucking Chosen One? Was this your plan all along, publishing our love letters? Did you ever love me, really?”
Harry is sobbing by the end, barely able to get words around his heaving breaths, his stuffy nose, his choked throat. He can’t see Draco anymore, not past the tears in his eyes and dripping down his face, but he still buries his head in his hands to avoid whatever horrible expression Draco must be wearing.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there, sobbing in the ruins of his and Draco’s bedroom.
Because his own brain actively dislikes him, it puts all of Harry’s happiest memories with Draco on a loop in his head.
Soft mornings in bed, where Draco is lit up silver beneath the covers; afternoons in the kitchen, where Harry chases Draco away from his pots and pans until they’re both breathless with laughter; evenings beside the fire, curled up in each other until it’s hard to tell whose limbs are whose; nights under the stars, where all Harry can feel is Draco’s hot mouth and fingertips like firebrands against his skin.
It’s all ruined, now. Stained. Infected.
When he comes back into himself a little more - when he can at least breathe without wanting to cry - Harry unwraps his arms from where they’re wrapped tightly around his waist, and chances a quick glance up at Draco.
Draco looks devastated.
His eyes are wide and uncertain, his pupils are pinpricks, and there are visible tear-tracks on his cheeks. He’s shaking slightly, one hand tightly pressed over his mouth like it’s all that’s holding him together at the seams.
Suddenly, Harry is tired. He’s weary. He’s exhausted in a way that’s bone-deep, in a way that he’s experienced before but desperately hoped he would never have to experience again.
(He’s tired of being the one who is sacrificed. He’s tired of being the one who has to come back to make things right. He’s tired of having to leave peace behind.)
Slowly, he unfolds himself and stands. His knees pop, his thighs creak, his back protests - he feels old. He must have been curled in on himself for ages.
Draco doesn’t seem to notice the movement until Harry’s almost to the door, but when he does, he lurches to his knees as if to follow Harry from the room. “Where are you going?!”
Harry laughs, bitterly. It’s little more than a huff of air, it’s literally all he can manage at the moment. “I’m removing myself from the narrative.”
“What?”
“I’m leaving. I’m getting the fuck out of here, and I’m not coming back. I’m going to let all of them -” Harry gestures widely, trying to convey the words the public with a movement “- wonder how I reacted when you broke my heart. They’ll never know for sure, and if you try to tell them - fuck you if you try, honestly, but hopefully they won’t believe anything you say.”
“But-”
“No. You don’t get to have an opinion about this. The world had no right to my heart, Draco. The world had no place in our bed. They don’t get to know what I said to you in confidence, and you should fucking know that.” Harry doesn’t bother wiping away the tear that escapes from the corner of his left eye, travels down the crease of his nose, and drips off his chin.
Harry barely even thinks the thought that’s rattling about in his head and all the parchment and paper scattered around the room rises and convalesces in the air, hovering and fluttering in a tight ball. Slowly, one corner of one piece starts to burn. The rest catch in a matter of moments - it will only take a few minutes for all of it to burn.
(Harry thinks, absently, to that time just before third year when he accidentally blew up his Aunt Marge. There are perks to saving the Wizarding World, he knows, but he didn’t think one of them would be an unlimited pass on accidental magic. If he were anyone else he’d have Aurors descending upon his head right now. He would know - he used to be one of them.)
“You took away my choice, so I’m taking away yours, I guess,” Harry explains to the crack in the floorboards by Draco’s right knee, abruptly feeling something close to shy, as if Draco is suddenly a stranger. “I’m burning everything you could use to redeem yourself. You can’t - I don’t want - you don’t get to keep them, the letters. You’ve lost the right to them. You’ve lost the right to everything we shared - I kind of wish I could take the memories of us from you, too, because I don’t think you deserve to remember that I loved you.”
Harry sighs, and places one hand on the door jamb. His eyes - desperately avoiding Draco now, though he was so keen to see him in pain before - wander and land on the room across the hall. The door is open slightly, and Harry can see the tarps and brushes on the floor, the soft green of the newly-painted walls.
They were turning it into a nursery. The green matches your eyes, he can hear Draco say inside his mind, and laugh that accompanied it.
(He tries to put thoughts of happy families and fussy babies out of his mind, but it’s hard to forget the image of Draco dancing around the living room with Ron and Hermione’s youngest, Hugo, in his arms. They sparkled in the afternoon light, laughing raucously at whatever tripe Celestina Warbeck was crooning about on the radio.)
“I want you out of the house, too.” Harry finds himself saying, fingers tightening around the doorjamb until it creaks. “I’m leaving, I - I won’t be here, not for a long time, but I don’t want you here while I’m gone. I’ll call Hermione - you’ll have to have your things packed by the time she gets here to change the wards. You can sleep - well - I don’t really care where you sleep, honestly. Not at Ron and Hermione’s, because I’ll be there, but. You can sleep in your office, or something, I guess. I don’t care.”
It takes a little effort to convince his fingers to release the doorjamb, and convincing his feet to take that first step is a little difficult, too. The second step is easier, though.
Harry only looks back once before he walks away for good.
Draco is still on his knees.
(He seems not to notice his own hitched breathing, the tears on his cheeks, the expression on his face.)
The ash still hovering in the air floats lightly to the ground, then stills.
The silence is deafening.