Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters...just for the record.

Rating: This is rated M for graphic descriptions, violence,and all-around depressing material.

Summary: After the final battle, Draco Malfoy asks something of Harry which the hero doesn't know if he can fufill. The savior of the wizarding world comes to a wretched realization about what Draco's asked of him, and wonders what happened to the world where people used to laugh and smile.

A/N: I think this story is pretty much self-explanatory, so there isn't really anything I need to clarify. This little one-shot was just something that came to me while washing dishes this evening, so I got to my computer and wrote as quickly as I could. I apologize for any spelling errors, I haven't gone through this piece with a fine-tooth comb for that kind of thing yet. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it...!

What Is Right, And What Is Easy

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

And then silence. There was nothing left. The grass and trees had been burned to dust, their ashes melting in the rain that was now pouring down on the smoking battlefield. Charred bodies lay still, the rain washing away dirt and ash, revealing the witch or wizard that died fighting for their cause. People were standing up, although they were so few you could count them all on one hand. There were many injured on the ground.

At the edge of the field, stood a small rise with four small lumps on it's crest. Harry Potter stood, frozen, observing the scene that lay out in front of him. Tom Marvolo Riddle was there as well, his red, unseeing eyes staring blankly at the gray skies, a charred hole in his chest that was still spurting blood onto his black robes. Two feet away lay the Dark Lord's loyal servant: Lucius Malfoy, killed by his own master. And lying on his father's chest, hands laid gently over the hole that also penetrated Lucius' heart, was Draco Malfoy, tears of grief running down his pale face. And beyond the small hill lay bodies; some dead, some dying, and a few alive. To Harry, it was one vast expanse of death, and he found himself wishing he had died with his many friends who now littered the battlefield. Everyone was gone. Remus, Hermione, Ron and the rest of the Weasleys, Neville, Cho, Seamus and Dean, Luna, the Creevey brothers, Minerva McGonagall…the list went on an on. Out of the handful remaining, he only recognized Mad-Eye Moody, and the rest were random aurors and Ministry workers that he had never met.

And then, of course, there was Draco Malfoy, just several feet away from him, showing more emotion than Harry had seen from him in the last seven years. Just minutes before, Voldemort had sent the killing curse in Harry's direction, but seeker reflexes made the boy jump out of the way, leaving Lucius to take the blow. All three males had frozen, Harry, Voldemort, and Draco, watching the Death Eater fall to the ground in a swirl of silver-blonde hair and black robes. Seconds after the man had fallen to the ground Harry had screamed, "Avada Kedavra!" And a jet of green light slammed into the Dark Lord, who was still staring in horror at the man on the ground. That left the two teen boys, Draco on the ground, sobbing over his father's dead body, and Harry, staring blankly at the battlefield. No one from the battleground made any moves to approach the figures on the hill. He felt utterly alone, with no sounds reaching his ears except the soft cries of his rival. Because there was not much else to look at, Harry glanced down at the crying boy with pity in his eyes and sadness in his heart. All thoughts of hate for the boy had left him the instant he looked at Draco's silver eyes while they watched his father die. There was a despair and sadness there that Harry could not even imagine, but at the same time there seemed to be relief. The Chosen One shook his head just a bit, reflecting on Malfoy Junior. He would never understand the blonde-haired boy.

At the small movement of Harry shaking his head, Draco looked up, sparkling tears mixing with the rain that was dripping off his hair and onto his face. The despair was still there, Harry noticed, but the relief had gone.

"Harry…" Draco whispered softly as the breeze caught his hair and plastered it over his eyes which were locked onto Harry's. The easy thing to do would have been to walk away; away from Draco, away from Voldemort's and Lucius' corpses, away from the stench of death and fire, away from the battlefield, away from the wizarding world altogether. But there was always a difference between what was right, and what was easy. So he couldn't leave. Draco's pleading eyes were holding him there.

Moving slowly and stiffly, Harry knelt down to his enemy of so long.

"Yes?" He whispered back, not taking his eyes from Draco's molten silver ones. There was a pause before the teenage boy opened his mouth. And when he did, Harry almost didn't believe what he was hearing.

"Please Harry, kill me. Please," The Death Eater begged.

"Wh—what?" The Golden Boy asked in shock. "Why me?" If Draco hadn't been so depressed, he would have rolled his eyes. But now tears simply flowed from them.

"Because you're the only one here. Please. What's to live for anyway? I'm a Death Eater, I'll be thrown in Azkaban; tortured. You know it. I have nothing Harry; what you see now is what I am. Just a shell. A bloody, death-cursed shell. Please… kill me," Draco asked again, one thin hand coming up to brush the wet hair out of his eyes. Harry didn't move.

"Draco, you don't know that. There's more to you than this—"

"No. There never was. I was just a tool; alive only to serve the Dark Lord, living only to die whenever he chose. That was what my existence was for. He's gone now, I have nothing. My father's dead as is the rest of my family or anyone I cared about, the rest of my kind are either dead or dying. It's just me. In a way, you have nothing as well," The boy reflected thoughtfully. Harry continued to stare at Malfoy, entranced and enchanted by his words, unable to turn away or interrupt. "You were born to kill the Dark Lord. You have. You've lost everyone who cared about you; you outlived your purpose." Finally Harry found his voice.

"I know," He spoke softly, "But I'm not going to kill myself because of it."

"You're not faced with a lifetime of torture in Azkaban, you didn't just witness your father's death by the man you were born to serve, and your world is still fastened to you by several threads. Mine crashed to the ground when this whole war started. I don't think you understand where I'm coming from." Harry paused, Draco had pointed out several true facts. The boy's whole life had just been deemed meaningless with the fall of one man: Voldemort. And now, there was nothing left for him to do except die in Azkaban. Pity welled up in the Gryffindor's heart for the boy who was born to fight in his father's war; for the boy who was forced to choose the path to the dark. If Draco had been left to choose for himself, instead of ordered by his father, things might have been different. Malfoy and Harry might have been friends, Draco might not have joined Voldemort, Draco might have had something to live for after the final battle. After the defeat of Voldemort.

Harry found himself hating Lucius as he pondered on Draco's words. Lucius: the manipulative father who cared nothing for his own son's life, only for that of his master. It was sick, the way the Malfoy family worked. Formed on the need for power, not of love. Draco was never raised with love, he was raised with power, taught power, fed power, made to want power. Never love. The boy who had grown to a young man had never known love. He had been forced to live for power, and now, he would die because of it. Harry shook his head for the second time in the last five minutes.

"I can't kill you, Draco. I can't," He said. It seemed such a waste of life. A broken life, but a life nonetheless.

"Harry, please. I—Draco Malfoy—am begging you to kill me. I want to die!" The Slytherin cried, fresh tears overflowing in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks again. Without thinking, Harry reached out and brushed them away. As soon as his hand touched Malfoy's skin, the boy flinched and closed his eyes. This Malfoy is so different from the one I know. He's completely broken. I never thought that a Malfoy would let someone else take their life; then again, they all gave their lives and souls to Voldemort, so I guess there isn't much of a difference, Harry thought as his hand dropped back to his side. Without warning, Draco threw himself at Harry, his slender arms wrapping around Harry's shoulders and his head burying itself in the Gryffindor's neck as racking sobs consumed him, shaking his frail body so violently Harry wondered if the boy wouldn't hurt himself.

"Look at me, Harry. Look at what I am! Look what I've been reduced to. I can't take it anymore, oh god, I can't take it anymore….Please, kill me…oh god, just kill me…" The blonde-haired boy choked out between sobs, never loosening his hold on Harry. It took several moments of shock before Harry reacted by wrapping his arms around the Slytherin boy. Was Draco always this small? He wondered subconsciously, as he gripped the boy's shoulders.

"Kill me."

"I can't, Draco. I can't kill you."

"Yes you can. Just let me die, just let me die…" Draco trailed off. Harry pressed the boy to him harder as he drew his wand. Without touching the tip of his wand to Draco, so the boy wouldn't know he had pulled it out, Harry closed his eyes and rested his head on Draco's. He could feel the crying boy's chest rise and fall erratically with his sobs, and his shoulders shake with a mixture of sadness, fear, pain, and the cold. How could things come to this? Where death is the only release? The only bit of freedom someone has? For several months, Harry had been speculating on ways to kill Draco Malfoy. But now that he was faced with a shattered teen in his arms, and his wand just behind that teen's neck, he found he could barely bring himself to do it. It didn't matter that it was Draco Malfoy anymore, what Harry saw was just another victim of this war, just another tool, a pawn, used for a cause that had never proven itself. And things had come so far that this victim was pleading for Death's embrace, pleading for a release from a torn world that held no love.

Summoning the last of his courage, Harry raised his wand again and whispered, "Avada Kedavra," in Draco's ear.

A jolt of green light burst from the wand, slamming into Draco's prone back and sending both boys rocketing backward onto the ground. Harry's head smacked into something hard and brittle; he felt it snap in two, and Draco's lifeless body landed on top of him. Harry looked at Draco's face in morbid fascination. A look of complete calm and peace was gracing the teen's features and his blue lips had formed into a serene smile. Draco Malfoy had found peace, but only in death.

Harry hadn't cried once that day. Not when Ron went down next to him, his red hair splattered with blood, not when Ginny had died in his arms, a vicious wound crossing her chest. He hadn't cried when Remus screamed the cry of a wolf as he dropped stone cold to the ground, Bellatrix Black's face sneering at him several feet away; and even as Hermione had thrown herself in his path, taking a curse that was meant for him, he did not cry. But now, with Draco Malfoy's dead but content body lying on top of his own, Harry Potter cried, tears gushing from his green eyes and raining down his cheeks. When he turned his head sideways, he saw the tip of Voldemort's wand underneath his head, and he knew that was what had snapped when he had fallen over with Draco. Voldemort's wand was lying in a pool of blood, which meant that Harry was also lying in it.

It was a bit ironic, Harry thought, that after the final battle, he was laying in Voldemort's blood, his head pressed against the Dark Lord's broken wand, and the body of his once-rival on top of him. It was ironic how he had felt the worst killing Draco Malfoy today over anyone else; it was ironic how he was now sobbing because he had killed Draco and because Draco had wanted to be killed. It was ironic how the survivors of the battle had now cleared the area, apparating themselves and the injured away from the field, leaving their savior alone on a hilltop, surrounded by three dead bodies.

Harry felt Draco's weight in his arms, and realized he was still clinging to the Slytherin boy. With another choked sob, Harry gently moved Draco off of him, positing the pale boy on the ground. With a grim smile, the hero of the wizarding world brushed the blonde hair out of Malfoy's face, letting his own hot tears splash onto Draco's cold cheeks.

Yes, walking away definitely would have been the easier thing to do. But it wasn't the right thing.

Thank you so much for reading everyone. Comments and feedback are extremely appreciated...so feel free to drop a note! Thanks!

The Wykkyd