Chapter Text
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I look around to find the source
Of all this fury
Our soul is a crystal fragile form
So easy to corrupt
I taste your human frailty
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::arc present: i'm still comparing your past to my future
Trapped in an endless maze, Draco tries to understand.
He'd thought that Prince Harry had loved him, and he's having a hard time reconciling the man he loves with the man who threw him in here.
-i hate you Harry said i never want to see you again-
- i love you he replied please tell me what has happened to you-
There is a monster down here in the maze. No one knows what it is, but Draco has a feeling about it. It's not a good feeling.
(Draco's feelings have never been wrong)
(Except about Prince Harry, a little voice reminds him)
There is an artificial sun down here in this underground maze. It sheds a dismal light upon the labyrinth and the insignificant beings contained within it, but Draco does not put much stock in it.
-you are insignificant his prince said you are merely a lowly servant-
-why the question graced his lips what have I done to deserve your hatred-
Falling.
A fall from grace, undeserved.
-I love you he tried to scream as he was taken away i thought you loved me too-
"Tell me, world," he whispers to himself as he edges along a wall, "Why must everything be so artificial?"
Everything is fake, a false cover for a hideous, uncaring world.
Rigid silicon and unbending metal and hard plastic.
The metal walls, the silicon sun, and the plastic face of Harry as he was taken away.
(Harry- even the word tasted sweet on his lips)
(Even after his betrayal- How could it possibly still taste so sweet when Harry had hurt him so badly?)
There is an old story about a Labyrinth, isn't there?
A Story about a fierce monster that ate children. Half bull, half man.
(But still more human than Harry the last time Draco saw him)
He would roam the maze, carrying with him a festering soul of hatred and loneliness. No one would ever love him or care for him. The world took away his humanity, and over time he became just what they were calling him:
An It.
There was no longer a heart, an ability to love. Instead there was only a frozen sphere of broken glass and pitted iron, a life devoted to death and revenge.
-don't send me down there he protested you know what happens to its victims-
-i don't care his prince said you deserve it-
-stop saying that Draco cried you can't mean it-
That is the curse of the Prince's labyrinth- it turns a person's heart into something dark and artificial. Devoting every waking moment to the search for a way out can turn a person into something devoid of soul, something inhuman.
Draco stops and lets his inner walls down for only a split second, just long enough for a single tear to fall down his scarred cheek.
-i do his prince said and turned his back-
Who could have guessed that something that had been so real and beautiful would deteriorate to this?
***
::arc past: it might be your wound, but they're my sutures
When Draco met Harry was at the funeral of both their fathers. Old friends since childhood, King Sirius Black and his manservant Lucius Malfoy had died in an attack on the palace.
Draco had only been nineteen years old. Dressed in his nicest clothing (it wasn't much- just a black button-down shirt, faded black slacks, and black leather boots), he first saw the grieving Prince by the mausoleum of their fathers. The young man- merely fifteen years old- had just been handed the responsibility of the entire kingdom and the news of his father's death in the same day. Nico felt sorry for the young prince.
As custom dictated, the other mourners left at dusk, leaving behind the two sons of the dead women to finish the vigil through the night. Kneeling at the grave next to the Prince of Briterica, Draco was ashamed to find himself noticing through his grief how handsome the prince was. The setting sun turned the Prince's hair a obsidian color and his emerald green eyes gained a bright sheen. His tailored black waistcoat fit him perfectly, and the thin chain of gold beads encircling his wrist that signified him as the Heir Apparent shone softly in the sunset.
The ceremony that sent the dead souls to the next life allowed for speaking after an hour, but only whispering. Surprisingly, Prince Harry was the first to speak. "Draco," He said, his voice hoarse from crying, "I can't believe he's gone. He was everything to me, the only friend I've ever had. I'm sorry about your father as well- neither deserved to die like that- but I can't believe-" His voice cracked and he had to stop himself for a minute so he could gather his composure, "-Well, I just can't believe he's gone."
In his haze of grief and other strange, alien feelings burning in his heart, Draco forgot about protocol and the rules in their high-tech society. He reached over and placed a comforting hand on the Prince's shoulder.
A raw, anguished sob escaped the sobbing man's lips at the touch of another human being. It didn't matter to the Prince that Draco Malfoy was the son of a servant, the lowest of the low; it only mattered that Draco had been the first person to see past the stoic, silently grieving Prince and into the young man who was stuck inside, screaming his heart in the pure anguish that can only be truly experienced when someone you love dies.
Draco knew what he was going through, could sense that he needed a human connection to keep him from withdrawing from the world, because he was going through the exact same thing himself.
"My Prince-" He started softly, his North Britannian accent showing through, but he was cut off by the Prince.
"Harry. Just..." Another sob, "Please call me Harry. I need someone to call me by my name, to remind me that I'm a person outside of my title."
"Yes, Pri-" Draco cut himself off and tried again. "...Harry." The name tasted so foreign on his tongue, yet so sweet and full of unfinished promises.
They continued whispering through the night, helping each other get through the vigil. Every time Draco spoke Harry's name his heart fluttered. Why? He wondered, I've only just met him. I guess it's kind of nice to finally talk to him after being separated all our lives by our stations and our mothers' wishes, but this feels different...almost special.