The Crimson of Valentine's

Warning: Contains male/male relationship, blood and pain. I made this R – courtesy of wingks.
Disclaimer: Don't own them.
Dedications: To S-star because she 'made' me write this fic. This was written for her TIME challenge.

This is not your flufly Valentine's Day fic, so beware.

Valentine's Day indeed. Ha-bloody-hah.

Love is in the air; lets mould it into one big heart and spread the warmth around.

Right – very funny.

•

There is only one way to describe how today started – crap.

Firstly, the shower was cold, icy cold. Then, I realized that the boxers I picked up from the foot of my bed were not even mine after I wore it. Plus, they had already been used. Peachy, just peachy.

When I get down, the common room is decorated with garish roses. Can you believe it? R-o-s-e-s.

Ron is already awake (the shock) and with Hermoine. (Wow, surprise of the century.) Gee, it would really take the effort of a genius to guess what they were doing during that period of time. After all, it is Valentine's Day.

I hear Ron mumbling something about how I look really cheerful.

Fine. I look at him, plasticify a smile and attach it onto my face.

Now he is saying that I look creepy.

Whatever. I never did come down to blow sunshine into the asses of people who cannot make up their minds.

Turning, I leave the room.

After all, I might catch a disease from those flowers. These days, you really can never be sure.

•

Something annoying with red hair is at my elbow during lunch. Three guesses whom, and the last two do not count. Sometimes you wonder why some people just cannot get blatant hints when they are staring straight into their faces. Perhaps their noses are slightly too big.

Just then, the Slytherins walk in, fashionably late as usual, with Malfoy in the lead. That prick is full of his usual charisma, trademark smirk splayed across his face. It must have been all the red that has been hanging around me the entire day, because when I look at Malfoy's face, it occurs to me how pale he is, and how pretty he might look if there was a little blood to contrast the whiteness.

Enthralled, I stare, and Hermoine says something about my food getting cold, but I ignore her. It is getting so easy nowadays, when the initial guilt of pushing away my friends has faded off. After all, I found how obscurely different I am from them.

The Gryffindors – they are the anti-fake. And me? I am the one with the faux heroism, the forged smiles and the false loyalty. If the price is right, I may even sell my soul. It does not even matter to whom.

Malfoy notices my gaze and he serenely puts down his utensils. Placidly he returns my stare. There is a smug look sketched upon his face, but it does not bother me because it is his eyes that captivate me. The pools of silver, with spokes of golden-fired wisdom standing erect in the backs of both eyes, dazzle me.

I do not lose myself in his eyes – for I cannot. Those orbs are so clear that they reflect me instead. So I see myself – the Gryffindor-Slytherin that would not fit into either house. The epitome of hypocrisy, the god of tinsel-thread woven lies. And I hate him so bad for it.

I do no think he cares though, for he hates me just as much. He simply glares apathetically at me and because I am Harry Potter, I do not break the gaze.

Seamus prods me, asking me if I intend to touch my food. I ignore him, (obviously). Hermoine starts to ask if I am feeling alright but I smother he concern with a stitched-up grin of mine. I feel the corners of my mouth stretching and turning lazily upward. Somehow, I cannot help but wonder if this is what it feels like to be a clown.

Ginny says that I look a little scary.

What is with them and their "oh-you-look-so-eerie" speeches today.

•

I guess Malfoy and I must have been scrutinizing each other for a very long time. People are starting to file out of the Great Hall and the food on the table is slowly dissipating. It did not matter then, it did not matter now. The world and its occupants are worthless. In Malfoy's eyes, the world does not fade away; it simply never existed before.

Slowly and discretely I raise my wand and levitate a crimson rose out of its vase. Dumbledore had seen to it that roses be placed on all the tables. I let the rose glide and drop onto his empty platter. He smiles, a secret curve gracing his features for a moment, and then like a wound closing upon itself, it was gone.

Without breaking out eye contact, he picks up the rose with his right hand and presses it against his left. He does it so hard that the thorns pierce through his flesh and I can tell because red marks start to appear. Never once did he flinch and not once did his gaze falter even as his life's liquid started to seep through his porcelain skin.

My eyes never leave those silver irises but my calm is shattered. I am distinctly distracted by how the rose looked like it was bleeding onto his wrist. Strangely, I am hypnotized by how the blood oozes out from the wounds in shiny oval droplets until they grow too heavy and trickle down, outlining his starkly green veins.

Somehow, he is more beautiful than anytime before.

•

The seconds flit away in front of my eyes and still he does not drop the rose. I can see how his alabaster skin is not flawless anymore – marred not by the Dark Mark but the red lines that crisscross like rivulets of hate; a mockery of the meaning of Valentine's Day. It is so characteristic of him, to scoff at the second most powerful emotion precedes hate.

It rips me inside, but I cannot take my eyes off him – and I will not.

The scarred beauty in front of me burns an intensifying image into my eyes, photocopying myself into every memory cell in my mind so that all I know is that in his eyes, his crystalline eyes, I am transparent and flawed. Like his bleeding wrist, I am so grotesquely imperfect.

This urge overtakes me, and I want so much to taste the copper of his liquid, to swallow his perfection. I desperately want to make his flawlessness my permanent craving, my all. The shield that I can hide behind, the mask that I can put on, the drug that I am addicted to.

•

And it drips.

His blood flows like the electricity between us.

I have to look at him. So compelling are his eyes that to turn away now would be fatal.

Suddenly Ron awakens me from my fevoured trance. (Trust him to have such wonderful etiquette.) Ron and Hermoine practically drag me out of the Great Hall, but my eyes never leave Malfoy's. They are fixated on him, like a deer drawn to the headlamps of a speeding car.

As we reach the oak doors, I try to shove them away. But Ginny is there as well, and between the three of them, they pull me past the pillars outlined with roses and draw me away from my obsession.

Fuck Gryffindors.

•

I stun them with a spell, (in turn stunning everyone else that was there,) and rushed back into the Great Hall. Only to find that it was coldly empty. My eyes wildly roll around, searching for my toxic mirror. And I find it, encased adroitly in a corner. Malfoy is kneeling down like a wounded angel of love praying to the unfeeling gods.

Oh the irony of the situation.

He seems to have performed a charm that enhanced the thorns and the single rose if clasped firmly in between his wrist; intertwining thorns holding everything delicately in place. The light dances upon his crown and strikes my bones, making me shiver.

Nothing; there is nothing that can describe how exquisite he looks at that moment. The rose crushed between his slender palms as the thorns burrow deeper into his flesh.

I have to remind myself to breathe.

Suddenly, I know what I must do. Rushing to him, I snatch away the rose. He gapes at me, momentarily stunned. His flesh tears apart at my force and I envision his heartbeat vulnerably exposed for me to halt.

But that is not what I do. Instead I blithely place a few Healing charms, (for the sake of it) and force him to his feet. Then I kiss him, so harshly that it hurts, even for me. He bits down hard onto my lips but he does not push away. Between us, for a transpired moment, we understand each other like glass, and we savour the metallic tinge of my blood.

Then he steps away, and tells me there is a price to pay for saving him.

I told him I would pay.

•

Do you know what it is like when pain and pleasure collide with each other? Have you experienced the fatally intricate clash of the two? Do you know what it feels like when it is all you can feel, and all you want to feel?

Malfoy never promised to be gentle when he enters me. In fact I think he wanted to hurt me for remembrance and I let him, because he is that concealed demon inside of me. And that monster needs to surface.

He makes me bleed, a lot, when he digs his nails into my skin, when he bites into my neck, when he splits my opening. But it does not matter, and I do not care because all the time I am staring into his eyes, and I know that it is the price that I wanted to pay.

Then it is my turn, and I bury myself so deep within him that for one instant, I think we became a single entity, riding on the scarlet wings of agony. I did not apologize for hurting him, neither did he, for hurting me.

•

When I leave his private chambers at 11.59pm, 14th February, I have already fallen in love with the colour of ruby.

The blood dripping from my back, the blood snaking down my arms, and the blood staining my inner thighs feels like perfection. The intoxication is powerful - the feeling of being able to hurt someone, to make someone bleed for you.

This is the red that everyone forgets during Valentine's Day. But I remember. Malfoy and I, we remember.

Happy bloody Valentine's.

•

Art to my fics, including the three :Ddrawn to this fic (one by Mia for the challenge prize, the other two by Sherant) can now be found via a link in my bio.

I apologize that I cannot respond to reviews personally for this fic because life is currently very taxing, but I've been overwhelmed by the gracious response of the readers. Thank you so much, you are what makes me continue posting.

Much love goes out to :
TouchstoneoftheCharter for your kind words, lilypurewhite for your encouragement, Nemati for the support, Sailor Grape for your lovely review, wingks for pointing out the lovely parts, who cares? for dropping a much awaited word, unmei3 for your compliments, Silent Soul for picking out what you liked, MalfoySlave for your awesome support, Lythtis for the wonderful and detailed review, hypersensitive for your never-ending encouragment and Silent Stalker for the great review.
Thank yous also go out to LostGryffindor, firehoney, bakachan17, Sinilu Silverspell, sham-rocked, Lucy, Fantasy101, Relle, Queen-Seta/Remmy-The-Insane, bucki hulk/xyz, silverelvenfox, till-iburnout, Gurlinlove, Sweet Sorrow1, Kowareta-katana, Malfoyeress, Anne, silentwolf , angelkitty77, Al, JesPaiTha Liber Creperum-Liber Diabolus and CarminaBurana1

Edit: My story has been said to resemble Michael Serpent's fic. I can clarify, that I only read the fic when the reviewer Who cares? mentioned its similarity. An author hates to have anything plagarized, and I strongly feel for anyone who might have had that happened to them. However, I promise my readers that I will not resort to copying the story's of others. Michael, whom I have contacted has been very understanding and nice about this issue, and has said he recognizes that since DracoHarry has been written to death, there are bound to be similarities. He says there's no need for him to report me, or request that I take it down.

Yours sincerely,
The Author
•Shadafakup
Perfection is Beauty in Bondage