"You need to eat."
"You hate me."
"You're dying. I can't hate you anymore."
This isn't what it should be, schoolboy's barbs. This isn't another clash between Potter and Malfoy, another tedious standoff. Potter's dead. Malfoy's not eating.
Those two events should not be connected.
Their hands move, graceless but beautiful, scrabbling, hot, searching unfamiliar flesh and unspeakable emotion. One moans, and that should ruin everything.
Both are falling in love, and that does.
Every Saturday Granger floos into Malfoy Manor. She drops a package of food off in an already overstocked kitchen and makes her way into the bowels of the Manor. In an unmarked cell she finds him. The door is opened, but he never leaves, never looks up from his pallet, from the shards of wood and bone he clutches close.
"You need to eat."
The manor is a tomb, the reluctant location of the end. Many died here. He died here. Voldemort died here as well, but Malfoy doesn't much care about victories.
"You need to eat."
"Granger…"
"I loved him too."
"You didn't love him enough."
They hold hands sometimes. It is rare, and Malfoy pretends to be bothered by it, but they hold hands and they are in love.
It is a well known fact that Potter died in Malfoy's arms. Some say Malfoy killed him. Others, others like Grangers, others who were there; well, they don't say anything at all.
"You need to eat."
"I don't deserve to."
"He asked you to, we all heard him. He was dying."
"I never could deny him anything."
A wisp of a smile, a bite of the meal placed in front of him. Progress.
The second Weasley has Friday duties. The seventh has Wednesdays. She makes things worse.
"Eat."
"No."
"I bet he never really loved you."
A blank stare, measured tone.
"You don't know anything."
"I know he loved me first."
"It doesn't matter. He loved me then."
A bite of food. He remembers how it felt.
The sixth Weasley blames Malfoy. They don't give him duty, but sometimes he comes along with the seventh.
"You never loved him."
A cool glance, empty.
"You know nothing of love."
"I know you didn't love him."
Seven stands aside, looking tired and bewildered by the state of things. She avoids looking at Malfoy's lap, at what remains.
Lupin has Tuesdays. He is quiet, hardly noticeable. Snape has Sundays. He too is despairing, and he too is broken, but he doesn't speak. Not to Malfoy.
"How could you hate him?"
Silence.
Malfoy doesn't press. He eats, and Snape leaves.
On Mondays Malfoy is left alone. He spends those days with his ghosts. His ghost. Potter. He asks Potter why no one has let him die. Why the people who hate him will not let him go.
Potter doesn't answer, but if he could, Malfoy thinks he'd say:
"It's because I loved you more than anything, and the residue remains."
"You need to eat."
No reply, strange.
"You need to eat." Louder this time.
Vacant eyes.
She's scared, shouting.
His fingers clutch wood and bone, and his eyes are empty.
Malfoy is dying now, really dying, and there is not much to be done.
They take him to St. Mungo's. He steals a nurse's wand, just like that, as easily as Potter would have. He attempts his escape.
Potter is not roaming this earth, not a ghost. Potter is dead, and there is nothing that remains except shards of bone and splinters of wand. They took those away from Malfoy, and he tried to escape.
Malfoy is dying, and no one can help, because Potter is not made up of wood and bone, and he cannot be repaired.