“then why are you leavg?”
her eyes are kihe perso out jt beae he didher sars, and this girl who ed to turn heads everywhere she went has o hide herself i pe she an fd, so drao fielli everythi belong and how he is forever ied to harry and the offha harry akes, how he is he liits are or what les he is rossg or if he is expeted to go “and i’ terrified,” he ends with, ursg hiself fro sayg so uh to this girl he barely even knows, but at least she is not thkg about the stares or her sk or the war, jt hi and his troubles “terrified that he doesn’t waill, that i read this all wrong, and i an’t even ask hi, beae i’ sared the answer is no”
“so it’s better to run away?”
“it’s better to be the ohe w hollow, but they are true, he knows it “leave before you a”
“it’s not y pe,” she says, jt like every ives advie without bei he loves you i know he loves you, beae i’ve wathed hi, wathed the people that he ares about, a the all the sa way, like he would burn away anythg his path to get to you and when a an loves you like that, he’s not gog to want to leave you behd f the world” vehe table, and she is so uh sarter than he rebers fro hogwarts “there’s nothg for you to be afraid of”
“but there’s so uh left to lose, when you know what it’s like for sooo love you like that” drao said, the w his outh, blisterg his tohe “it’ll burn you up”
“trt ” her left hand reahes up her right ar ahe sars g around her, like she had the orized the “there are worse ways to go”
it’s another hour before he fds his way bak to harry
≈h ” he drags drao to hi, out onto the e floor
“it’s not a slow shs, but he still wants to sit dowhis night has beeg “and you said you hate aype”
“it sounds like a slow so wasn’t a slow song it was heavy tal gny was three feet away fro the and atually head bangg, with na swayg beside her, a vaguely beed expression on her fae “i don’t know what you’re listeng to”
he loves , drao thks, awo of the are, slow g this roo, and it’s like the rest of the buildg is fallg away, burng away, na and g disappearihey jt don’t atter, really, ohe do
“are yht?” harry looks onerned “or, i a? beae na said that you see sad, ahat na is nht about thgs”
drao thks about the hoe london, about the worry that’s ade a ho his stoah he thks about how he is afraid to leave what he is ofortable with, hoe wasfeels like theirs, like they both have an equal share he thks about how worried he is that he will always be harry’s debt, no atter how uh they love eah other, beae you annot be saved by soo feel a bit like you t ake it up to the any way you an, and how uh he does not want that hangg over his head for the rest of his life
but he also thks about ve their sars, her iheirs is a burhere are worse ways to go than out a fsh of fire a is worth it, that they’ll get past those thihey love eah other arohis ss that the world has left the
(aybe ost likely but that had he night before, when he paked all his lothes with a wave of his wand ao s of the hoe with jt beae it would hurt less, but he ould o halfway dowairs before he turned around ao bed, sh with silent sobs, hot tears streag down his fae and drippg dows)
“of ourse i a” he knots his fihe fabri of harry’s shirt “we’re golden”
chapter 39
harry
when he was you upboard uairs and w if he wet out, thkg oeps reakg over his head and the spiders treblg on the eilg he had no way to trak ti other than the hunger pas r his stoah, and he was hungry all the ti bak thehe dursleys had all left for so faily outg and harry was left there, alohis was, of ourse, before they added the lightbulb), it was like the o of ti did all
≈here was his, this yellowed, py attress and his too big jeah the splihe ti he had lost his head ao w his way out to the hallway (his fgers had bled for onths after), like he was existg a bk hole, sope where no one would hear his sreas, where if he had died like ver askg hi to do, no one would ever eveed
(like shrodi, herioold hi, oh year, when she fihe questions about his life the uggle world that she and roo kold her, the worry ahe never endg pai of hi one long rh of aion, like you exist and you doi, beae until that door opehg but your own d to deide, no sensory put to red you that you are alive, aared at her, dubstruk, bef yes, yes, that was it so gd that it had been put to words that ade so sort of sense)
t