Entry tags:

fic, harry/draco

Fic: Untitled, Harry/Draco, PG
Title: Untitled
Fandom: HP
Pairing: H/D; implied past relationship, mostly one-sided Draco obsession now.
Disclaimer: If it was mine, I wouldn't be ending things.
Summary: Post-war, Draco finally finds Harry.
A/N: Unbetaed, about 1000 words, I don't know where this came from. I GUESS I FELT LIKE WRITING ANGST.

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It's been months now, months of following Harry Potter in his quest, months of trying to help him, help them and being denied, months of being treated like a traitor by both sides and fearing for his life everywhere he goes, and Draco is tired.

He has come here, back to Hogwarts, as a last hope at catching Potter before he disappears, though he knows that hope is a small one. Potter is probably long gone by now, just a hero in the storybooks and a plaque on the wall of the Ministry. He's so convinced that Potter won't be here, in fact, that he nearly doesn't see him, even as he stumbles his way onto the pitch toward the lone, hunched-over figure of The Boy Who Lived.

"I thought you might be here."

His voice is much softer than he'd intended. Draco hasn't properly spoken to another person since Snape left, and Snape left much too long ago for him to think about. Potter doesn't seem to mind, however, and Draco is surprised by the lack of reaction in his tone.

"Yeah."

Draco waits but Harry doesn't look up. He's sitting in the middle of what was formerly Hogwarts' Quidditch pitch, clutching a broken, one-winged snitch in one hand and staring up at the sky. It's orange today, an eerie shade of orange that's tinged with burnt, broken magic and seems to hint towards blue. Someday the sky will be blue again, or so the Minister keeps saying, but Draco's sure Harry isn't admiring the colour. After waiting another minute, Draco takes a seat on the grass beside him.

He's not sure what to say now that he's here. For the past few months, his goal has been to find Potter; sure that, somehow, Potter would be able to make everything okay again. But he's been chasing Potter for too long to know what to do once he's caught him.

The silence stretches between them, and the snitch buzzes weakly against Harry's hand. Draco stares down at it, at the fingers holding it, and his chest aches a little over something he can't place. Harry's fingers look like those of an adult, of someone who has worked his whole life. Draco can see years of toil and preparation and patience in those fingers. He can see victory in Harry's hands.

"You won," he says finally, weakly.

Harry doesn't immediately reply, and for a moment, Draco thinks he won't. But Harry shifts, and something in his spine seems to stiffen as he sits up a little, before turning to stare at Draco.

In spite of his celebrated victory against the Dark Lord, there is something defeated in his gaze. Draco has always thought that Potter had a pained, tortured look to him, even when he smiled, but now it's different. Now Draco wonders if he'll ever smile again.

"This doesn't feel like winning," Harry says finally, and he drops his gaze to the snitch in his hand. He releases it, and Draco watches sadly as the little golden ball buzzes out of his hand and falls in a circular spin, bee-lining straight into the dirt.

"It's over," Draco says stubbornly, though he doesn't care to hear it himself. Too many people have died, too much of their world has died in and with the war. "He's gone."

Harry watches the snitch struggle against the dirt, and Draco half expects him to shrug, but Harry only says "yeah," and continues watching the snitch, dangling his hand out off of his knee as if he wants nothing more than to reach down and help it fly again.

Draco watches him and wonders what Potter will do now, where he will go, who he will be. He has never envisioned a world without Potter, but now he can't see where Potter fits into it. His part is done.

"What are you going to do now?"

Harry plucks the snitch from the dirt and stands, pocketing it as he does, and Draco stares up at him. He's just a dark figure against the orange sky, his face completely thrown into shadows, but Draco's sure he's looking down at him.

"What are you going to do?" Potter asks him, and Draco stares in blank surprise.

"You're going to get up tomorrow morning, and you're going to live. You're going to play Quidditch and win. You're going to find some way to make disgusting amounts of money. You're going to fall in love—" Draco's breath catches in his throat, but Harry continues, as if he's reciting something he has learned by heart, "—and you're going to live happily ever after in a mansion somewhere."

He pauses at this, and Draco can feel his hesitation long before he finally speaks up, in slow, mumbling sentences. "You're going to stop believing that you're a traitor, and maybe everyone else will, too. You didn't kill anyone."

Draco feels tears starting behind his eyes, hot pinpoints of tears that he's been holding in for months. He doesn't understand—he tried to kill the headmaster, and Potter defeated the Dark Lord, and now he's giving Draco a pep talk?

"What?" he asks, distractedly. "How can you—"

"I killed someone," Harry says evenly. "Loads of people. People whose faces I never saw, all to get to him, and then I killed him."

Draco doesn't say anything. He stares down at the hole the snitch had started to dig.

"If I ever see that you've gotten yourself arrested or something stupid like that, I'm going to be pissed," Potter says, after a beat. Draco looks up, but he's already started to walk away.

"Where are you going?" Draco shouts after him, twisting around to watch him leave.

Potter shouts his answer into the wind, and it's carried away on the breeze. Draco thinks he hears something about a hollow, but he can't be sure.