Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Pairings: Draco/Harry, Ron/Hermione

Warnings: mentions of past abuse, suicide attempt, self-harm, language.

A/N: This story was written for hd_hurtfest on LJ.

Please don't let yourself be put off by the warnings, for there is a bit of angst, but it's also a sweet story, and it has a happy ending! :D

A huge thank you to my lovely beta/cheerleaders/friends CleopatraIsMyName and Iwao for helping me through the writing of this story! :D

The title comes from the song by Keane that I was listening to over and over during the writing of this fic, and that has a certain echo to it!

Somewhere Only We Know

It was just a matter of shutting down from everything.

It wasn't even that hard anymore. He was so used to this that it wasn't as straining as it had been the first few times.

The very first time, he had tried to fight it. He would laugh today at how naive he was then if there was ever anything positive like laughter left in him. A surge of misplaced pride, some kind of arrogance probably and Draco had fought, defended himself. Life had been quite merciful up till then for him, so there was no reason it shouldn't continue. He had escaped death, he had escaped prison, he would escape this as well.

Only he didn't.

In here he had learned patience. In here he had learned submission. In here he had learned to forget. He had learned to shut his mind and focus on mindless little details. The noise a droplet somewhere in another corner of the room made every time it hit the cold stone floor. The slit in the opposite wall that brought the only source of light in the room when he was left alone in it for hours. He had learned to see in the dark, to make out every single detail of the small room. He had learned to not let his mind wander to dangerous places. Like his previous life. His family. The people he had loved. The people he had been scared of. The people he had despised even. He didn't let any of that enter his mind. Ever. This was no place for lively things. This was a place for fear, for humiliation, for filth and for blood. He would never associate this place with anything alive.

This was a place of death.

And so he shut his mind. He became really good at it. Nothing that He did to him could ever touch him now. It couldn't. Every time He tried to reach him, He failed. And it would have made Draco happy had he still had room left for this kind of feeling deep inside. But no. Nothing left there either. He was dead inside.

There had been the problem of the body. Especially at the beginning. The body had not been as easy to shut up as the mind, curiously. It refused the pain inflicted. It refused to comply and rebelled, fighting the aggressions. But it was a losing battle. The mind tried to tell the body: You cannot win. In the end, the body had surrendered as well. It became completely insensitive. It couldn't feel anymore. It just lay there. It enraged Him to no end. He had liked it very much when the body had been responding.

But no matter how hard He slapped, kicked, cut, hurt, violated, the body wouldn't react anymore.

There was a void in his stomach. It was empty. Draco was used to being empty in this way. He knew his body had learned to survive - at a very slow pace - on almost no food. The pain had been fierce at first. He had spent days bent in two just from the pain his empty stomach sent all over his body. And then he had got used to it. Like everything else, he had learned. He had learned to not rely on food. To not expect anything of it. He realised that he could live on a piece of bread twice a day. He could. He had done it up till then. But now, things were getting tense down there. And that's when Draco realised he had not seen Him today. Nor the day before. There was no emotion behind this fact.

So when he heard noise upstairs, and voices (yes, voices, plural), he did as he always did. He curled up tighter in his corner and waited.

Somehow the animation around him, the loud voices, the many people standing there, talking to him and staring at him upset him. It was too much. He had been on his own for so long - except for His daily visits - that it was overwhelming. Too loud, too bright, too much at the same time. He felt himself go. His body shut down once more, taking his mind with it this time, and soon it all went black.

When he regained consciousness, he wasn't in his corner anymore.

He wasn't dead.

That fact neither made him happy nor sad. It was just that, a fact. He wasn't dead yet and he wasn't in his corner anymore.

The room had nothing special. It had bare white walls except for the cheap painting hung slightly askew on the wall facing him, depicting a blond woman reading a bedtime story to her similarly blond son. There was a chair on the left of the bed on which he was lying and some potions on his bedside table.

He was in a hospital room.

And he smelled weird. He had been so used to the smell of blood and filth down in his corner that he had forgotten any other smell existed. They probably had cleaned him while he was still out. Why they had bothered, he didn't know. Because no matter how much they scrubbed him, the smell of Down There remained in his nostrils, like a constant reminder of what he truly was, his entire being reduced to that ever present stink. But he didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore, really. No deep cleansing of his body, no healing of his wounds, no care of any kind, nothing would erase what had been done to his body and soul. There was no hope left for him. Hope was for the living. He was not part of them. He just waited for everything to stop at once. For his body to stop functioning. He had been close Down There, he knew it. But close wasn't enough. He wanted it all to be over and done with at once.

And then, maybe, he would be free.

They tried. They insisted. They healed his wounds. They forced the potions down his throat. He spat them out with as much strength as he had left, which wasn't much, but he spat nevertheless. He didn't want their food, he didn't want their potions, he didn't want any of this. He didn't want to feel better. He just wanted to be empty. He needed to be empty. He revelled on being empty. Empty meant freedom. Empty meant the end of it all. Empty meant it would be all over and he could just remain the bad memory of a pathetic Death Eater who only got what he deserved. Scum like him didn't deserve to live, they didn't deserve second chances.

He should have known that someone would think differently.

And he should have known it would be him.

It had always been about him.

From the very beginning.

He knew it was him the second he entered the room. He did not see him, he did not hear his voice, no, it wasn't any of that that told him who had entered the room.

It was his magic.

It's his magic Draco recognised. Potter's unique, incredibly potent magic engulfed the room and encircled him like a hurricane for a fraction of a second. The moment it took Potter to rein it in and take control of it again. Potter's magic had always touched him like no other. Unsettled him. Irked him. He didn't know why, but Draco had always been incredibly responsive to it, attracted to it even. Potter's magic lured him like a Siren's chant.

But not today.

Today he didn't fall for Potter's magic. Today it didn't reach him. Nothing could anymore. Draco just lay there, immobile, eyes fixated on a spot of the ceiling and once again shut his mind. He raised the invisible walls that prevented him from being touched by anything from the outside. Even Potter.

Potter stayed by his side for Merlin knows how long. And then, a nurse came and sent him away. When it happened, the sun had long gone.

They tried to feed him again that night. Like the first few times, he rejected their attempts. He was very weak though, so it wasn't as easy. But still he managed to remain mostly empty.

He was so tired and hungry he couldn't think straight anymore. The thoughts seemed to pass through his mind at a very slow pace. He started to feel the first effects of his starvation. The dizziness, for example, made things awkward. It was as if he were floating constantly, navigating through different worlds, his vision troubled and his thoughts scarce and irrational.

He sensed agitation around him but it didn't touch him. He felt hands on his body, light in his eyes, voices blurting incoherent words, but he watched all that from far away. Very far away. He was barely a spectator of whatever was happening around him, because of him. His soul was slowly going away and he felt better than he had been in months. He thought that was it, that it was soon going to be all over at last. He closed his eyes, allowing himself a little bit of hope as he let himself drift away.

He woke up confused. It took a while for his mind to remember where he was. His vision was blurred. Was he dead yet? He blinked a couple of times and his eyes grew accustomed to the light in the room. Things slowly got into focus and he started making out details.

White walls. Cheap painting.

He wasn't dead yet. Nope. Not a chance.

He was in his hospital room again and his stomach didn't hurt so much. They must have found a way of feeding him while he was out.

He sighed and closed his eyes again.

Focus. The droplet. Count. Focus. Don't lose it. Count.

A door slammed somewhere upstairs. Another opened swiftly. The atmosphere in the room changed at once.

The sound of heavy steps on the stairs. Seventeen.

A clinking noise. Chains. His favourite tool. He was in a good mood then.

"Ready to get what you deserve, you filthy son of a whore?"

Draco woke up abruptly, his chest heaving, his body hurting and sweat running down his forehead. He closed his eyes and waited for his heartbeat to return to normal. This hadn't been real. He was not in his corner anymore. Breathe. It was just a nightmare. He turned to the window; it was still dark outside.

He couldn't go on like that. This was no life. Draco's life had ended a long time ago and he just couldn't take it anymore.

It had to stop.

He had to go.

Down There, the thought never ever passed through his brain. The first few days because he resisted and refused to let go, the days that had followed because he had accepted his fate and wasn't questioning it anymore.

But now... He had to find a way. It wouldn't be easy; trying to end things in a hospital full of healers would be tricky. But he didn't care. He had time. That's all he had left, time. He had nothing else to do after all. And he had learned patience Down There. Better start using it then.

He knew he could make it all stop if he really wanted. He smiled feebly. Even then, after all that had happened, he felt slightly thrilled at the thought of a new challenge. He knew he was a powerful enough wizard to end things if he really wanted to. He could, he kept repeating himself. He could do it. He could end it all. He had no wand but it didn't matter; he had been good at wandless magic, very good even.

He tried to think, but it was hard with his fogged, slow brain. He knew he could technically do it. There must be a spell he could use to-

There was. He had it. It was dead easy. He chuckled at his own poor joke.

It was possible. He could. Now. And it would finally be all over.

What was there left for him here anyway? For the first time in weeks, he thought back on what his life had been like those last few months: the war, the loss of his parents, the slow descent into hell, the things that had happened Down There. And what was awaiting him outside? He had no place to live, no one to go back to, no one who would even approach him.

He had nothing. He had no one.

Nothing left. Nothing to lose. Just the promise of an end to the ever present pain.

It was worth it, he decided.

He fixated on the ceiling once again and tried to focus. He had no idea if it would work because he was merely modifying an existing spell to use it differently. He closed his eyes and murmured the spell.

At first there was nothing.

And then he felt a tingle in his throat. It was almost imperceptible but Draco felt its effects rather quickly. The difficulty in breathing, the pressure, the pulse beating louder as a warning. Slowly, but surely, he felt his body let go, his soul let go, hell, he even felt his magic let go. All vital energy was now leaking from him in a gentle, constant flow and it felt amazing. It wasn't even as painful as he would have thought.

And then he started seeing things.

Beautiful things.

His mother's peaceful face, smiling at him, urging him to join her. He wanted to. Badly. He wanted nothing more than to set himself free and run to her open arms and stay there forever, comforted by her words of pure, undying love. The craving for her was so intense, so deep, so powerful that he gave in. He detached himself from his damaged body, from the pain, from his past, from every single thread that still linked him to what he had once been. He gently walked to her, serene, guided by her beautiful smile, her melodious voice, and-

The top of his body violently jerked as he took a huge gulp of air and opened his eyes before crumbling back down on his pillow. At the same time, he felt a prodigious pressure on his chest and realised someone was pressing their hands on it. He had no time to ponder what was going on though, as something incredibly powerful, a whirling amalgam of energy and strength and puissant magic entered him through the person's fingers, right into his lungs. It soon spread all over his aching body, running through every single vein, every single artery, down to each extremity, and then rushed back up to his heart, making him shiver violently.

As suddenly as it had started, it all stopped.

He then heard a loud thump and the pressure disappeared instantly. He was still trembling and breathing hard when people stormed into his room and rushed to the person lying unconscious on the floor.

Draco propped himself on his elbows, feeling amazingly well, all sensation of pain, dizziness, emptiness gone at once. And that's when he realised what had just happened.

Potter had, once again, saved his life.