'I felt that there was more truth in the verisimilitudes of fiction than in the assumptions of history'

L Hunt

Harry and Draco felt themselves rushing across an eternity of space. They landed softly, on a black carpet of nothingness. They stared about the huge cavern; doorways crowded every aspect of this place and they could see worlds filled with colours and characters through every archway.

Draco was already moving towards an doorway; they all seemed to be vying for the position in front of him. Harry noticed that some doorways were blinking out of existence, while new ones were appearing all the time. He and Draco seemed to be drawn to different archways and Harry was becoming distracted from his analysis of the place by the strong tug of doorways to unknown worlds.

Harry snapped quickly out of his reverie when he noticed Draco was about to step through an archway he felt no tug from whatsoever.

"Draco we need to stick together!"

Draco shook his gaze away from the archway and looked back at Harry and nodded.

"ok," He breathed "come with me." He held out his hand towards Harry.

Harry shook his head. "I can't feel that one. Lets find one that draws us both in."

Immediately archways began to jostle one another and the boys caught glimpses of hundreds of fantastic worlds each one pulling on them. Draco gripped Harry's hand suddenly and moved forwards. Harry allowed himself to be dragged onwards towards worlds that held his attention firmly, and once again Harry and Draco were consumed by light, as they stepped through a portal into a new world.

--

It hurt. It hurt to breathe. A feeling like all his veins were on fire rushed through Harry. He cried out and sunk to his knees. His breathing caught sharply and he couldn't hear Draco's panicked voice or feel his arms trying to hold him. He screwed his eyes shut tightly as tears rushed out of them and he screamed. His hands clenched into fists and pushed against the stone as he leant forwards and pushed his forehead against the stone; he could feel his scar burning and he felt like his head would split in two as he pushed it harder against the ground.

Harry's screams streamed from his lips like a river of raw emotion and filled Draco's ears as he knelt beside the other boy trying to contain him. Harry was writhing about and Draco could feel the tears building in his own eyes: he was helpless. There was nothing he could do to help Harry: he wasn't responding, Draco didn't know what was wrong with him and there was nobody here to help. He pulled at the other boys robes desperately as Harry pushed his face into the floor still screaming.

"Harry! Harry! What's wrong! Harry, speak to me!" Draco was crying now, screaming urgently at the tortured boy.

Harry and Draco watched their alternate selves, unseen. Harry bit his lower lip and cringed and Draco had tears building in his eyes.

"It's actually almost as painful as it looks" Harry said through clenched teeth, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he sank to his knees, exactly as his other self had done only moments earlier.

"Is there nothing we can do to help him?" Draco whispered desperately, unable to tear his gaze from the tortured harry before them, until he noticed his own Harry had fallen to his knees beside him "Is there anything I can do to help you?" he said sinking quickly down beside his Harry.

Harry's breathing slowed and his crying turned to a quiet whimper. Harry could feel the pain ebbing away, but it was not replaced by any pleasant feeling; it was not replaced by anything at all. All feeling was waning and he knew he was going to die. He wanted to speak, but his vocal chords felt torn by his earlier screams. All he could do was lay there, on the cold stone which was warmer, now, than his skin. His breath was ragged and fading, it dragged through his dry throat, across his bitten and searing tongue and out of his cracked and arid lips. Draco had rolled him gently in his arms, so he was looking up at the crying blonde boy, which was also painful to behold.

"Everything's going to be ok, Harry. He's gone now and you're going to be ok. People will come soon and they'll make you better: just hold on. It'll be ok." Draco said shakily, through tears.

Harry stared up and rolled his head from one side to the other weakly. The movement caused the tears that had filled up his eyes and been blurring his vision to roll down his temples and into his raven hair. His breathing jerked a little and Draco held in his own breath as though this would restore Harry's.

He wiped away the tears gently and began to whisper "I'm sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry! Please don't die! Not now, please, not now! please Harry, don't die!" Draco pleaded, his voice braking loudly over the silence, as he looked at the boy scarcely breathing in his arms.

Draco looked up from his helpless position next to his writhing Harry and saw the alternate draco clench his fists, throw out his chest and hurl a tortured and remorseful howl skyward: harry had died.

"Harry! I've got to get you out of here! you'll die if we stay here!" Draco started trying to lift Harry, but Harry reached out a quivering hand; his palm covered Draco's mouth, his fingers touching one cheekbone, his thumb pressed onto the other. He shook his head silently when Draco stared questioningly into the familiar emerald depths. Harry clenched his teeth and his eyes rolled back into his head as another cry left his lips.

Draco shook his head quickly, upon hearing this searing scream "No! Harry, you don't understand! I've just seen you die! If you stay here-"Draco said pulling Harry's hand away from his mouth and over his shoulder in an attempt to lift him again.

Draco realised as he hauled Harry up, that he was lifting a dead weight.

"Harry! Speak to me! Harry!" he cried lowering the boy back to the floor. Draco began to panic and gripped Harry's robes firmly in his fists "Harry! You can't die!" he shouted at the barely-breathing boy.

He stared at Harry's dead eyes and almost stopped breathing himself. His mind reeled and Draco hung his head and cried. Here, although he could still feel other stories and lives tugging on him, he knew he loved Harry. And this hurt, even though he hated Harry in so many other worlds and had him in even more, in this one, he was gone forever.

"Well, that was the most painful of all my slow painful deaths so far." Harry breathed.

Draco stared, wide eyed, as Harry sat up, quite obviously alive. Draco stared over at their alternate selves and saw draco still crying over the still-dead body of harry. Draco opened his mouth and no sound came out, he only gaped at Harry.

Harry smiled slightly at Draco's shocked expression "Do you remember dying, Draco? In other stories, do you remember feeling your own death?"

Draco nodded slowly still staring wide-eyed at this talking corpse.

"The feelings may be stronger here, but it's still just a feeling, a memory, a part of me dying. I feel his death in me, but I've still got a lot of other lives enforcing existence on me!

"It's strange, though... this story has no tug on me anymore. I feel nothing from here, just my other lives tugging at me, like in The Ether." Harry muttered to himself as Draco stared about, no longer listening.

"but it felt so real" Draco whispered "more real than anything in The Ether has ever felt. More real than anything I've ever felt." He stared at the grieving draco transfixed.

"'better than life'" Harry said thoughtfully.

Draco only looked confused, before turning a harsh glare on Harry "not really!" he spat "I mean, I didn't particularly enjoy that experience, did you?" his words and harsh tone pulled Harry out of his reverie.

Harry shook his head "No, it's a muggle thing-"

"figures! I knew muggles were all just bloody... screwed up!" he said accusingly: he was still quite hurt and shaken from Harry's death and was still feeling extremely strong grief from the other draco. "that," he cried pointing at the corpse and the weeping boy, tears welling in his own eyes "is not better than life!"

Harry knew that Draco's irrationality was coming from his empathy with the draco of this world, so he focused on all the lives in which he and Draco loved one another and took the weeping boy in his arms. Draco leaned into Harry's chest and cried.

Harry cradled his head and whispered to him "Draco, it's ok. Hush, Draco, hush." He stroked the soft, silver hair gently for a few minutes until the sobbing subsided a little.

"Listen to me, Draco" Harry began, taking Draco's face gently in his hands and raising the boy's head until he was staring into his liquid mercury eyes "I'm not dead, Draco. Concentrate on your other lives! What you're feeling isn't real, no matter how it feels now!"

Draco shook his head, still staring at Harry "Every other life is faint compared to this, Harry. I know you're dead. I know it. I held you in my arms while you died... twice in one reality!" his eyes looking into Harry, and Harry could see him visibly breaking "And it hurts so much!" Draco whispered hoarsely, through rasping breaths and forming tears.

"Tell me it didn't feel real while you were dying! Tell me you didn't feel the pain that had you screaming and writhing on the floor!" Draco cried angrily, turning to Harry, his breath uneven while he tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back more tears.

Harry began to panic: Draco was being swallowed by this reality, he couldn't comprehend anything but the feelings it was feeding him. Harry decided now would be a good time to leave this world. He wrapped an arm around Draco, threw one last look at the other draco's hunched and broken form, and led his Draco away from the terrible scene.

"where are we going?" Draco asked from his trance-like state, as Harry half carried him down a passageway.

Harry thought about this question: he didn't know the answer. He knew where this passage lead, from his dead self's memory, but he didn't know how to get back to The Ether, which was where they were going.

"Away." He said finally.

Draco was exhausted from crying and his mind was reeling from knowing Harry was dead and being carried down a passage by him at the same time. Draco paid little attention to the surroundings as his frayed emotions consumed him.

Harry, on the other hand, no longer had any emotional engagement with the story and was finding it difficult to concentrate on the surroundings. He had to focus on this world, so he could find a way out and take Draco with him. Without Harry to lead him, Draco would never leave this place. And so Harry stared intently at the walls of the passage, searching for a door he knew would be appearing on his left any moment now. He noticed, as he concentrated hard on the walls, that they were slightly blurred, before the door appeared on the left. Harry had no clue what was behind this door: his memory told him it existed, that he'd walked passed it many times, but he'd never opened it, he'd never been through it. But he couldn't hold on to this reality any longer, he couldn't concentrate: he had to try it.

He wrenched the door open and, to his relief, saw endless blackness extend before him. He stepped through and pulled Draco after him.

They fell into The Ether.

Eventually they drifted through the directionless landscape to a point they identified as their origin: there was the portal they had left through.

"What the hell," Draco exclaimed "happened there?!" he looked thoughtful for a moment. "it nearly swallowed me, I'm sure of it... I've never been so confused in all my life! I think I could cope with The Ether forever after that" he stopped for a moment and felt the bombardment of a million stories "Perhaps not forever..."

Draco stared at Harry's blurry appearance and remembered the clearness of their figures from the other reality: he never thought he'd feel relieved to be back in The Ether, back in the ambiguity of uncertainty.

"I understand most of what happened, I think," Harry started "but I don't understand how that door led back here... or why some of the doors in the hall were appearing and disappearing"

"What about why we went to that story in the first place? Or why you died but managed to remain in the story? Or why the hell you said it was 'better than life'!?" Draco trailed off, a strange look entering his eyes "although... it wasn't happy, I know, but it was... well ... so real..." Draco's eyes glazed over, until Harry's ponderings pulled him from his thought.

"We chose to go there because it tugged on us most: it had the strongest emotional connection to us at the time, I think. I don't know why I stayed in the story: I know my other lives stopped me dying, but I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't found that door or concentrated so hard on the story." His mind drifted onwards over the possibilities.

"And when I said 'better than life' I was referring to a muggle game from a tv programme... it's sort of a concept with them... about reality not being real really, but feeling more real that real reality."

Draco just looked confused "I take it all back: I'm more confused now than ever before." Draco said flatly "Try that sentence again, with a more varied vocabulary!" he said laughing.

Both boys laughed briefly, then breathed a sigh of relief that they were free of their first real 'in-story' experience, before the ever-familiar, ethereal silence descended over the wide open space.

"I think," Harry said, staring at the shimmering blue portal "that we'll need to be more careful when we choose the next story."

--

Silence had reigned for a short time.

Draco felt full of vague emotions again; now he'd felt the clarity of emotion from a single being in a single reality, he longed for that feeling again. He could still feel that story tugging on him, he could distinguish it from all others, though it felt weak compared to the passion and fire in his memory, it was compelling. He'd hated it: it was so confusing and painful... but it was so real, it had a sharp irresistible, intensity to it. He concentrated hard on the memory...

"'Truth has no greater enemy than verisimilitude and likelihood'"

Harry's words drifted across The Ether and dragged Draco back with them, pulling him from his dangerous thoughts. His mind faltered and he looked up quickly, to find Harry staring at him.

"What?" Draco breathed quickly.

"Don't focus on it Draco: it won't do you any good. It wasn't real, no matter how it felt. We need to shut all that out, not let it in."

"Ok" Draco breathed deeply trying to put the memory from his mind "...how did you know what I was thinking?"

"I could see it... you were changing... and The Ether around you was... I don't quite know... shifting, I guess... Draco!" Harry shouted again as the boy's mind began to wonder back to the memory.

"Harry... couldn't we just pick a reality we like and... I don't know, sink into it?" came Draco's quiet, tortured voice. Harry stared at his pained eyes staring off into nothingness: they were filled with a desperate longing.

"do you mean just accept one of them as real?"

Draco nodded and turned his unfocused gaze upon Harry.

"I can't do that." Harry said simply.

"Don't you understand this is killing me! feeling something so real and then returning to this vague wash of nothingness! I need to feel, Harry! I know I'm supposed to be an unfeeling, uncaring Slytherin, but I can't do this anymore!" Draco shouted, his eyes blazing but wet with tears.

"I'd give anything to feel that real again." he whispered. Harry stared at him, afraid.

Harry tried to reason with Draco. He was deeply concerned by his response to, and obsession with, this touch of unreality. "Your feelings seem pretty strong right now... and that's not from any reality but this one, Draco."

"This is not reality: reality is how I felt when you died..." Draco snarled, then his eyes softened at Harry's hurt expression and the memory flooded over him again "when I knew I loved you and you loved me... when I felt something. That was reality... this is the least real thing I've ever felt."

"No matter how good, bad or intense it is, Draco, it's not real and it won't ever be real. I don't want a lie for a life and you shouldn't either. I want reality no matter how terrible it might be: I want the truth."

Draco sighed and suddenly seemed far more focused on the Ether and the present "I know you're right, dammit! Bloody moral standards... You're such a bloody Gryffindor!"

"That's not my fault... blame the author!"