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..."
