A quick bit of housekeeping before the fic: I do not own, or stand to profit from, either the J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe or the Fray text included herein. If either party or their representatives have issue with anything contained, I will remove the story immediately.

Otherwise, enjoy!

How To Save His Life

Step one you say we need to talk

He walks, you say sit down it's just a talk

He smiles politely back at you

You stare politely right on through

The man sitting across from him looks older than he remembers. It's reasonable, all things considered, but it's the first thing he notices. It has only been a year, but it feels like more. The transition has been rough.

Some sort of window to your right

As he goes left and you stay right

Between the lines of fear and blame

You begin to wonder why you came

Sitting in silence, the doubt begins to creep in. "Why am I here?", he wonders, "What can talking really do at this point?"

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

Finally, after buying another moment by taking a sip of the tea that is rapidly going cold, he speaks. The words come out in a rush, a jumbled mess of feelings and explanations and declarations. His voice begins to break toward the end, but he regains control, returning his face to the mask he is known for.

Let him know that you know best

Cause after all you do know best

Try to slip past his defense

Without granting innocence

Lay down a list of what is wrong

The things you've told him all along

And pray to God he hears you

And pray to God he hears you

After a pause as long as the silence that preceded his speech, he finishes with, "I just miss him so much."

As he begins to raise his voice

You lower yours and grant him one last choice

Drive until you lose the road

Or break with the ones you've followed

Something about those last words gets to Albus and he begins to speak with a passion that had absent since the end of the war. Because they are in a cafe he cannot truly raise his voice, but he comes as close as civility will allow.

He will do one of two things

He will admit to everything

Or he'll say he's just not the same

And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Albus doesn't say anything the blond doesn't already know. He knows that their meeting is a painful reminder of who is gone. He knows that discussing it now will not undo what has happened. He knows that there was no other way. He knows that Harry had a purpose that was larger than the two of them. He knows.

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

And would I have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

"You know if there was any chance that you could've done something, anything, I would've asked. You know that, right?" Draco asks, a final pleading question. But Dumbledore doesn't respond, he simply gets up and walks away. Draco simply stares forward, tears welling in his eyes.

The jingle of the bell on the cafe door brings him back to the moment and he becomes very aware of the bustling energy around him. There's something very disconcerting about the normalcy of the world around him. But, wasn't that what they were fighting for? So that everyone could live as they had? We won, Voldemort was defeated, he reminds himself.

As he stands to leave, to walk into the sunny street, he whispers, "I would've done anything, had I known how to save his life..."