Restoration
________________________________________________________ For the @hp-fearfest prompt - From the Deep || Buried Rated M | 204 words | cw: implied necromancy, character death, illness, gore, grief. ________________________________________________________
Three broken fingers. Six exposed nail beds. Skin of his knuckles surrounding their seeping wounds like ill-cut drapes. He spits soil onto dewy grass, droplets glistening upon their blades, his bare flesh stinging against the frigid night air. A familiar hand open and reaching, pulling him upwards and away from the grave he just crawled out of. Hands that had often cherished endless, archaic tomes, loaned from the library of his ancestors. Slender fingers traced every line, eyes scrying over every page for an answer. They would flash silver in their slow burning mania, and Harry could no longer soothe it away with words, nor with the soft caresses they had grown so accustomed to. Not while the ill-fated curse ate him away from the inside and out, weathering him into the husk of a saviour, once so revered for both strength and persistence. “I can fix it,” Draco would say in false certainty, smile wavering in the morning light of their rooms while long fingers encircled a frail wrist over plush blankets, the sweet scent of decay lingering between them and growing stronger every day. “I’m good at fixing things.” Harry had never doubted him. He just wished he could have stopped him.