[Fic] Dawn is a Feeling

Title: Dawn is a Feeling
Rating: PG
Pairing: Harry/Theodore
Word Count: 494
Summary: Sequel to All Our Yesterdays. Theodore watches Harry sleep.


It was very early, though many would have thought very late. Theodore was awake and watching Harry sleep.

And what was he doing there? The former Slytherin in bed with the former Gryffindor. But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? The spy in bed with the hero. The turncoat in bed with the leader. It should not have been Theodore’s place, by all laws could not have been. But who worried about laws anymore? The world was mad, after all.

That was the usual refrain: the world was mad. The world was mad, so why pause, why consider, why question? Live from one moment to the next because who could tell how many more moments there would be? Don’t think in terms of when, just how. The future is a distant, almost forgotten dream, the past nothing more than shadows at your back. Live right now and don’t waste your time being afraid.

That was how Theodore made it from one day to the next. He clung to Harry and Harry to him, the one solid thing in a sea of horrors, and it helped. As long as he didn’t think too hard. But who had time to think about anything beyond how to survive, anyway?

Theodore was quite certain, at times like this, when it was dark and perfectly still in the pre-dawn hours, that he was as mad as anyone else.

Desperation. That was the only word to describe this hell they were damned to. Fighting so hard, so very hard, for a future they would likely never see. Theodore going to the Death Eater meetings, feigning loyalty, hurting and killing for him, and then vomiting later when none of the others could see. Harry suffering in another way, killing and fighting and hurting himself, all in ways that Theodore could never completely understand. Together, they fought the darkness and nurtured a very small flickering light between them.

It wasn’t love. But it was something. And something was better than nothing.

He tried sometimes to think of what he would do when the war was over. But all of those plans from before were gone. They were impossible. Even if he lived, the world would be so completely remade that those old plans wouldn’t apply. It didn’t matter which side won, the end result would generally be the same, the details the only differences.

Theodore wasn’t on either side. He didn’t believe in either cause. But he believed in Harry, who was strong despite all of his own self-doubts, who never backed away, who never left anyone behind. Believing in Harry saved him because he had to believe in something and he couldn’t believe in himself.

And as the first cold lights of dawn broke over the horizon, Theodore looked at Harry and thought that he was beautiful. And maybe, just maybe, that made Theodore beautiful, too.

No, it wasn’t love. But it was enough.