Permanent Failure
May. 28th, 2010 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanTitle: Permanent Failure
Word count: ~500
Characters/pairings: Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny
Rating: R
Summary: Draco hated the scars at first. They’re a permanent mark of failure.
Warnings: angst
Disclaimer: The boys belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: This was my third (and final, I promise!) ficlet written for this week’ssortinghatdrabs. The pairing was Harry/Draco and the prompt was scars – we all have them.
Scars – we all have them. Every member of my almost-lost generation carries their own marks of the war.
I hated mine at first: white lines across my chest and neck, interrupting my flesh. I already felt cripplingly vulnerable, crumbling under the weight of my responsibility and the knowledge of my helplessness. To be half-killed while I cried – the shame burnt in my stomach afterwards, while the curse wounds slowly knit.
I hated Potter even more that year: he was Quidditch captain and I couldn’t eat from fear. But he’d disappeared into the mental mist that now surrounded everything outside my narrow, hideous situation. I thought of Mother and Father and the Dark Lord and Dumbledore and Snape, with an occasional thought for Vince and Greg. That claustrophobic terror didn’t allow for school rivals. But I couldn’t even beat him; Snape had to save me.
For the next eighteen months those scars were proof of my failures.
It started to change after Potter was captured and escaped. The Dark Lord descended on us like a black storm. A dozen spells hit me; the light had barely faded from one before his high voice was calling the next. They hurt and attacked and burnt.
Limp in bed that night, after Mother had sneaked in to heal me, I worked my fingers carefully over new skin, learning the marks I was left with. Nothing was as deep – as effective – as Potter’s curse, and over the years they faded. Only a few remnants were left by the time Harry and I got together at Terry’s twenty-first.
He stumbled against me in the hall of Terry’s flat, and I stumbled into the wall. Harry followed. The kiss was sloppy and drunken and involved too much tongue, but I was kissing Potter and that was too bizarre and brilliant for me to stop.
He shuddered at the sight of the scars when he pulled my shirt off, and lowered his head to press damp kisses along the raised lines. He was wincing and apologetic at the very sight of them.
Nine months of fantastic sex, Quidditch matches, joking and hexing and learning far more about him than I ever realised there was to know. By the end, he’d stroke my chest and trace the scars when we lay in bed with an expression far from that wincing guilt.
Then Ginny Weasley came back from the continent.
Harry wanted the white picket fence with roses round the door, the vivacious wife, the three children and a crup. I was a fling while he was young, not the start of a new life: the call of cosy Weasleyness was too strong. He didn’t understand I would have been constant too, that there were other ways to inextricable bonds than childhood comfort.
He should have done, after all that’s been between us.
I wear the scars proudly now: Harry’s mark on me, and the only lasting thing he ever gave me.
Word count: ~500
Characters/pairings: Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny
Rating: R
Summary: Draco hated the scars at first. They’re a permanent mark of failure.
Warnings: angst
Disclaimer: The boys belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: This was my third (and final, I promise!) ficlet written for this week’s
sortinghatdrabs. The pairing was Harry/Draco and the prompt was scars – we all have them.Scars – we all have them. Every member of my almost-lost generation carries their own marks of the war.
I hated mine at first: white lines across my chest and neck, interrupting my flesh. I already felt cripplingly vulnerable, crumbling under the weight of my responsibility and the knowledge of my helplessness. To be half-killed while I cried – the shame burnt in my stomach afterwards, while the curse wounds slowly knit.
I hated Potter even more that year: he was Quidditch captain and I couldn’t eat from fear. But he’d disappeared into the mental mist that now surrounded everything outside my narrow, hideous situation. I thought of Mother and Father and the Dark Lord and Dumbledore and Snape, with an occasional thought for Vince and Greg. That claustrophobic terror didn’t allow for school rivals. But I couldn’t even beat him; Snape had to save me.
For the next eighteen months those scars were proof of my failures.
It started to change after Potter was captured and escaped. The Dark Lord descended on us like a black storm. A dozen spells hit me; the light had barely faded from one before his high voice was calling the next. They hurt and attacked and burnt.
Limp in bed that night, after Mother had sneaked in to heal me, I worked my fingers carefully over new skin, learning the marks I was left with. Nothing was as deep – as effective – as Potter’s curse, and over the years they faded. Only a few remnants were left by the time Harry and I got together at Terry’s twenty-first.
He stumbled against me in the hall of Terry’s flat, and I stumbled into the wall. Harry followed. The kiss was sloppy and drunken and involved too much tongue, but I was kissing Potter and that was too bizarre and brilliant for me to stop.
He shuddered at the sight of the scars when he pulled my shirt off, and lowered his head to press damp kisses along the raised lines. He was wincing and apologetic at the very sight of them.
Nine months of fantastic sex, Quidditch matches, joking and hexing and learning far more about him than I ever realised there was to know. By the end, he’d stroke my chest and trace the scars when we lay in bed with an expression far from that wincing guilt.
Then Ginny Weasley came back from the continent.
Harry wanted the white picket fence with roses round the door, the vivacious wife, the three children and a crup. I was a fling while he was young, not the start of a new life: the call of cosy Weasleyness was too strong. He didn’t understand I would have been constant too, that there were other ways to inextricable bonds than childhood comfort.
He should have done, after all that’s been between us.
I wear the scars proudly now: Harry’s mark on me, and the only lasting thing he ever gave me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 02:13 am (UTC)But that makes me so sad in the end. :( I'm terrible- if it was me Harry would have stayed by Draco's side because PFFT Ginny. I don't have the will to not make them happy. XD But it was still a gorgeous ficlet! Nice work~
no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 07:27 am (UTC)Excellent writing, sweetie, makes me want to go rip a new one on someone for Draco ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 05:11 pm (UTC)BAD HARRY!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-29 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 08:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 12:19 pm (UTC)And because of the Eurovision party last night I have no words. *headdesk*
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:08 am (UTC)LOL, was this the thing of Nick's that relocated? Was it made of awesome?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:10 am (UTC)Also, the Pudding Party is on the wrong day! Le argh! I promised that evening to someone already. Much sadness.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:16 am (UTC)Aww, I'm glad you liked it! It probably helps that although I don't like the 'romance' between Harry and Ginny, I quite like Ginny herself.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:17 am (UTC)BUT I WANT YOUR CHEESECAKE.
;) D'you know that 'cheesecake' is slang for pics of pin-up ladies, btw? Ones with large chests.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:24 am (UTC)Thank you for the lovely comment :) And yeah, this could definitely fit with that scenario - I feel bad for Harry in this one, as well as Draco.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 01:11 am (UTC)I don't like Ginny at all. Maybe I did before the end of book 6, but it bugged me that she got with Harry and not because I dislike the pairing. She just never got over her hero worship of Harry that she had since she was nine years old and that makes me really disappointed in her. I thought she was evolving when she had a great time with Neville in book 4 and seemed to move on to dating other guys in the following books, but she reverted back to her hero worship. I feel like her potential was wasted and it makes me feel bad for her character. :(
...That was a huge rant, I apologize. XD When I write my story about Draco and being proud of his scars, I'll be sure to mention you in my notes! :D
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 11:31 am (UTC)No, I didn't know! So... what it is you want from me, then? ;D
no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 01:25 am (UTC)*giggles* Apparently I want you to bring cheesecake in a low-cut top!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 01:39 am (UTC)I like Ginny/Neville much better than Ginny/Harry, because the pairing includes her having to grow up and be better in the way I think she could - and like you, I hoped she would.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 10:29 am (UTC)Well, it's an odd request, but cheesecake in a low-cut top can be arranged...
no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 11:01 am (UTC)Ah well, no cute kiddies from the epilogue, but it makes me feel better about it. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-10 07:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-11 12:12 am (UTC)