AN: This was written when I was doodling ideas for my Viktor/Draco fic, and thought about white. Dedicated to PNC, because otherwise I wouldn't be writing anything at all.
Disclaimer/Warning: None of this shite is mine. I just stole the pretty boys that Rowing created and made them fall in love with each other. (Not very difficult, that). This story contains unsafe amount of BOYLOVE. If that icks you out, grow the freak up.
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On the day, he wears white. The first time I've ever seen him out of his Hogwarts robes, he stands out against the grass and the mud and crowds of black-clad mourners. Soft white, soft expensive cloth that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe and he knew it, knows it, stands wreathed in his money and his power and maybe (maybe) he's mourning, too.
Harry told me once, once when I wasn't listening, that maybe Malfoy wasn't really as bad as he made himself out to be. That the attitude and the insults and the hair was all part of one big elaborate ruse. Ron laughed, and I had to ask Harry to repeat what he said (his eyes were wandering, but maybe they weren't, maybe he was following Draco around the room maybe I wasn't paying attention).
White gloves white cloak white shoes, who needs white shoes? The world has fallen apart, blood in the mud and all I could think of was: it never could have been me. Harry's blood (when it came out) was rich, thick and plentiful. His blood came out too fast (his blood spilling on my hands I was not wearing gloves, wearing red gloves of his blood wiping it on my robes washing and washing and washing until I was bleeding I made gloves of my own).
His blood was rich, thick and plentiful. He bled like a hero with one pain-filled cry, one last attempt to hold it in failing. He fought his pain, his weakness (in the end I think he was fighting himself) he fought until the end, his blood in the mud and all that I could think was: I would be crying.
I would be crying for Ron (alive and alone) and the love we were never brave enough to share. I would cry for the children I would never get to carry, the birthdays I would never get to dread as old age crept into my bones and when Harry bled all I could think was: Oh, God, no, please don't take him, not now, not yet, oh, please, oh god no not Harry, anyone but Harry please god no, nononononono.
Harry did not cry for love, he did not cry for family he never got to know, never got to dream for and worry over, he did not cry for me and Ron and picnic lunches, sunlight smiles and quidditch matches. He cried once (pain, pain filling the area the blood left empty as it flowed out over my hands never going to be able to look at them without seeing it flowing a river plentiful) and then it was quiet.
He cried and I thought it was from the pain—"It's almost over, Harry." Dumbledore, gone. Snape, Minerva, Charlie, Ginny, Dennis. "You'll be okay, Harry, just hang on—I need a mediwitch over here!"
There was no one left, there at the end of all things. Alone in a burnt and bloody battlefield (it was not raining, blood made the ground muddy it squelched beneath my boots). I held you as you bled.
"Did it work?"
"Yes, yes it worked he's gone (you're fading before my eyes) it's okay, just hang on. It's all over."
"They're—they're all really gone?"
"Yes." All of them. Dumbledore Snape Minerva Charlie Ginny Dennis and everyone on the other side of the battlefield when the last spell was cast. The last spell of the war, they called it. The last heroic effort (it drained his wounded body dry and here he lies, congratulations).
I held him and waited for the mediwitch who never came and rocked him back and forth and tried to stop the bleeding and once, right before the end, he cried once. Pain, I thought, a painfilled cry (he knows it's over all of it's over here, at the end of the world). I thought it was because he was wounded.
They are all here, now. The witches and the wizards who placed their hope in a skinny boy who failed potions class and got lost in the hallways, they placed their lives in their faith in one small, pale boy who never could believe that they all believed in him.
Silence. Silence across the muddy field. We are burying him where he died, in the middle of the field—I fought it, me and Ron fighting them, but we were not strong enough. A monument will be placed over the grave. "So that we won't forget," they say. This is not how I want to remember him.
They are giving speeches. Standing with worn shoes sinking into the mud, patched robes hanging sodden and undignified. Brushing hair out of their faces, fidgeting and checking watches and staring at pictures of Harry on stands scattered around the crowd. The picture is silent and does not move.
"I didn't know he was so young."
"Such a shame. Such a shame."
"He was such a cute boy."
Among this crowd, this fidgeting murmuring crowd gathered to honor the savior of the wizarding world, Draco stands alone. Staring at the coffin. His hair is loose around his face, short bangs slow motion moving across his forehead. He is standing wreathed in all that his name gives him, and all I can think is: Harry saw him like this. Before he let his hair down and dropped the act and put on white robes and Harry saw him before he saw himself.
I think, when Harry cried, on the ground bleeding at the end of the world, he was crying for Draco, and the way his fingers are gracefully laced in front of him, the way the white gives his face color and vigor as the Hogwarts uniform never did. When Harry died, he was thinking of Draco's cheekbones and fiery eyes. When Harry cried, he cried for Draco, and for how it never could have been.
One the day we buried him, Draco wore white to honor Harry's victory over darkness. He left four red roses on the casket that he conjured out of four blades of grass he carried in his pocket. I asked him, years later, where the grass was from. "The lawn of Hogwarts, by the lake. Where the willow—the one that actually weeps—goes out over the water, and you can just see the beginning of the dark section of the Forest."
The roses were in perfect condition for nearly a year after the funeral. On the anniversary of his death (a new holiday), the flowers crumbled and their dust swept across the battlefield.
There is a plaque, underneath the weeping willow that reads "Just to say what I never said until it was too late." There is a border of roses, glossy grey stone that sparkles with the light that reflects of the lake. Harry saw him before he saw himself, it never could have been between them Draco cried when he died and I held him, too, held him (beautiful pain-filled man) and now when I look at my hands I think of him, I think of his love, and I think of the white he wore.
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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. If you have time, please review! It means so much to me to know what you think of my little warped ficlets.