Scars

Chapter 1: Draco

By: Eartha

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and associated characters are the property of JK Rowling.

Scars. Draco knew about scars.

It was best, he knew, to have them in places people didn't see. Scars should be hidden behind shadows and securely underneath one's robes.

His father taught him that.

Draco also knew what caused scars.

The long white thin lines of the cutting curse. The deep, angry and ragged cords of the tearing jinx. They were as familiar to him as the lines of his hands.

The round, raised circles, however, were new to him…

"Malfoy, what are you staring at?"

Startled grey eyes stared into intense green. Harry Potter glared at him from the opposite bed, as if daring him to say something.

They had been here, together, for some time. Two weeks to be exact. Those were the first words Potter had said to him in days.

They generally tried to avoid each other. It was not animosity so much as a distinct sense of discomfort. The bitterness of school rivalry had left them long ago. Time together without any other human contact could do that.

However, they were still tense around each other, as if waiting for a hex, jinx, or curse to come when the other's back was turned.

Draco had defected to the Order a month ago. He had shown up, bloody and half-starved, at the gates of Hogwarts. Voldemort's latest punishment had lasted for three endless months after his failure to kill Dumbledore. He could not even remember the last time he had seen daylight before his desperate escape. It had been his mother who had helped him leave. She had….

Draco shivered.

No, he didn't want to think of what happened to Narcissa.

Some scars, he knew, left no visible mark at all. Those were the most painful.

Feeling the hard gaze still on him, Draco realized that he had zoned out after Potter had asked his question. Too much time left in solitude had made Draco awkward. His Slytherin cunning had deserted him along with his pureblood pride, leaving simple and plain honesty behind.

"Scars." He replied, staring right back.

Potter's eyes narrowed for a second, but then softened as he turned his eyes to Draco's torso, scanning the crisscrossing mess. Some were red and angry, still swollen from the recent abuse. Others, however, were faint and long since healed.

Potter's next question caught Draco off guard.

"How long?"

Draco did not know how to answer that question. How long since what? How long had he been staring? Or, Draco inhaled quickly at the thought, how long ago was the first time? The first hurt that caused that first long, thin, white line to appear?

Seeing Draco hesitate, Potter, with gaze averted, answered his own question.

"The first time I can remember, I was four." Green eyes stared out into the distance, as if searching for an old memory. A sad, ironic smile twisted his countenance.

Draco listened intently. He wanted to hear this story. He wanted to know that the golden boy wasn't so perfect after all. He wanted to know that Potter knew pain just as well as he did.

Potter continued, "Aunt Petunia had had some important guests over for an afternoon tea, and my cousin Dudley was put on display like some sort of overstuffed teddy bear, with frilly collar and all. I, of course, had been placed in my cupboard, and told to keep my mouth shut, or else…."

Draco furrowed his eyes, wondering why the precious child had been stuffed into a closet as if he was some shameful family secret. Shouldn't he have been the one on display, the golden child, the boy-who-lived? What was so spectacular about his cousin?

"I was hungry. I don't think I had been fed that day, or the day before. I'd probably been blamed for breaking one of Dudley's toys," Potter's eyes hardened at that statement.

Draco had once glimpsed Potter's cousin, a fat lump of a boy with glazed watery blue eyes and straw-like hair. He had not been impressed.

"Dudley was always breaking his toys. He had a whole other room devoted to them, like a graveyard. Every once and a while, I would steal into the room to grab something to play with. Dudley was always very protective of his stuff, no matter if he never played with it or that it was broken. I had a few precious items that I had been able to keep without his notice. A small plastic soldier without a leg. A stuffed bunny rabbit with the stuffing pulled out of the head. They were my treasures…"

Draco watched as Potter stared out into the distance with hand slightly lifted, as if attempting to grasp a forgotten toy.

Things were not adding up well in Draco's mind: scars, withheld food, cupboards, and broken toys. This was a part of Potter that he had never known. And yet, looking back, he remembered seeing a frail, skinny, short boy alone on the train platform with ridiculously oversized muggle clothing. He had thought that Potter was just a weak, sickly boy. His constant fainting and headaches throughout their school years had seemed to play into this reasoning. But, he had always ended up looking better after a few months at Hogwarts. And, Draco knew, whether he wanted to admit it or not, that Potter was not weak.

Slowly, Potter dropped his hand and continued with the story. Draco was almost afraid to hear what was next.

"Dudley was leaning towards the teacakes. I had been watching him through the small air slat in my cupboard. I was so hungry, that my eyes just fixated on that little cake. I wanted it so badly…" This time Potter was clenching at his stomach, as if feeling those long ago hunger pains.

Draco knew how it felt to be without food. Voldemort had seen to the fact that he would suffer as much as possible. Feeding him sporadically with half-rotten food was one of his favored methods of breaking him. He had never felt so physically weak in his life.

"Suddenly, it was just there. In my hand. I was so surprised, I hadn't even realized that Dudley had begun to cry. I remember just staring at the cake. I was afraid to eat it." His eyes turned to meet Draco's then. They were unreadable. Pools of darkness, filled with emotion and pain, neglect and hurt. Unable to withstand the onslaught of emotion, Draco was forced to look away.

"I wasn't allowed such luxuries. Teacakes weren't meant for freaks."

Potter said the last word with such venom that Draco visibly flinched.

"Several hours later, my uncle opened the cupboard to let me use the restroom. He always let me have ten minutes to brush my teeth, wash, and use the toilet before he locked it again for the night. I still hadn't eaten the cake. It was there in my hand when he opened the door. He was livid. He accused me of stealing food from them, as if they had starved without their little teacake. I remember him unbuckling his belt, and the first quick, hot flash of pain. I dropped the cake. He stepped on it, ground it into the floor with his shoe. Another flash of pain, then nothing. I woke up two days later by my Aunt's insistent shaking. She told me that they were leaving for preschool in 10 minutes and to get cleaned up. My back was bruised pretty terribly, I could hardly move. And, on my side were three small puncture wounds with dried blood." Potter rubbed the side of his ribs where three barely visible small round scars were left as a testament to his abuse. Then, pointing to his forehead, he said, "besides this one, those where the first scars I can remember."

It occurred to Draco then, just what those unidentified small white marks were that he had seen littering Potter's body like some strange form of Dragon Pox. They were scars made from the small clasp of a belt buckle.

Draco's breath hitched as he realized the amount of beatings that Potter would have had to endure to gain that exact number of small round circles.

No, he realized, Potter was no stranger to pain.

As Potter stared into the distance, lost in whatever other painful memories he surely had, Draco once again wondered what had possessed him to accept him into the Order. And he knew it had indeed been Potter, the leader of the resistance, who had allowed it. Surely, someone who had experienced such pain in his life would have little sympathy for one of the people who had caused some of that pain. If it had been Draco himself who had had to decide, he would have probably thrown the wretch back to the streets to suffer and die alone.

Draco wanted to know. He wanted to know why Potter would have let him live, why he would have accepted him into his sanctuary, why, even, he would have told his childhood enemy such a personal story.

And so he asked, "Why?"

Slowly, Potter's eyes turned to his own, as if to determine what he meant by the question. Then, his green gaze slid back over to the sickly modern art that was Draco's chest and arms. He did not, however, focus on the raw wounds left so recently by the Dark Lord that stood out in such deep contrast to the fair coloring of his skin. Instead, his eyes stopped at thin lines, hidden by shadows. The ones underneath his arms, thin and white, almost invisible.

Potter quietly replied as he stared hard at those old wounds, "Scars."