You haven't lived until you've died.
At least, that was the way Harry Potter thought of things now.
It had been two months after he had died. There had been a lot of funerals. A lot. More than he felt comfortable attending.
Surprisingly enough, Draco Malfoy had attended most of them. He stood there stiffly in his immaculate black robes, looking sleek and very alabaster. Harry had fondly dubbed him the 'alabaster bastard', although he thought it wasn't as much fondness as sort of an acid need to give Draco a nasty nickname. 'Ferret' was outdated.
He didn't even know who the person being buried was, it was a member of the Order's brother. Harry felt awful for not knowing, but the fact of it was he was very tired, very strung out, and hadn't been able to sleep a straight night since he had killed Voldemort. So perhaps they could forgive him. Whoever they were.
Harry looked up at the sky. The sun was glinting through the grey, but it wasn't warm. It glared on his glasses and he glanced down again, feeling detached from reality as he looked around and Arthur Weasley spoke, talking about the man's life and his various good deeds. Harry felt the guilt shift deeper inside him. He had probably been somehow responsible for this person's death too.
Harry sighed and glanced over at Malfoy again. He thought it was funny how uncomfortable Malfoy looked. Why should he? He didn't have to carry all this guilt around him. Harry's eyes moved to Malfoy's left forearm.
Malfoy sensed this and glanced over at Harry. Harry raised his eyebrows and they continued to connect eyes for a moment until Harry cleared his throat and nodded briefly and Malfoy, returning the nod, broke the gaze.
Ginny wasn't there. She hadn't been anywhere since he had broken up with her. After he had died, Harry had begun to separate his life into two parts -- before I died and after I died. Ginny fit in the first part, and there was a great gorging chasm separating the two. She had been too cheerful, anyway. Harry didn't need cheer, he needed someone to spend long hours brooding over drinks with.
The service was over and people began to drift away, Disapparate, and just generally disappear. Harry lingered briefly, and so did Malfoy.
Malfoy traced a finger over the oak casket. "Did you know him?"
It took Harry about half a minute to even realize Malfoy was talking to him. Damn, he was out of it. He cleared his throat briefly. "No, I didn't." He looked up at Malfoy, who was smirking.
"I did. Hestia Jones's brother," Malfoy said. "Wilfred."
Harry had a sort of internal battle with himself, where half of him really did want to keep talking to someone who had probably been affected as he had, and the other half wanted to scream at Malfoy and curse him and ask him why the hell he was talking to him in the first place.
"How?"
"I don't know," Malfoy said. His eyes darkened for a moment and he seemed to think "oh shit, this is Potter I'm talking to," before he continued, "I just had heard."
Harry felt very, very lonely at that moment. Was everyone dead? He glanced at Malfoy. He wasn't that evil, Harry reflected. Just foolish and greedy and reckless.
Reckless, a bit like you, then? his brain thought, unwarranted.
Shut up, brain, Harry admonished himself.
"So, what are you up to these days, Potter?" Malfoy's voice was incredibly bitter at the beginning of the sentence, and he seemed to realize this and cloak the rest of his words in blankness.
"Auror," Harry said, and then realizing that didn't make sense, added, "--ing. Auror... ing."
"Figures," Malfoy said, but it wasn't particularly mean. Wasn't particularly nice, either, but what did Harry expect?
Neither of them seemed to want to leave.
"I've seen you at the... other funerals," Harry started up again. "Why?" He hoped that didn't sound as abrasive as it did in his head, but it probably did. Oh, fuck it.
"Closure?" Malfoy suggested, still running his hands gently over the casket as if he were feeling it up, or something. Harry felt himself blush slightly for some reason.
"Why are you?" Malfoy remarked, rubbing a petal of the roses between his fingers.
"Boys, we're about to put him in the ground," a very burly man with ruddy cheeks and surprisingly clean fingernails said as he approached the casket.
Malfoy dropped his hand. "All right," he said conversationally. "Want to get a drink, Potter?"
"You're talking to me?" Harry said blankly, unable to fathom why Malfoy would want to have a drink with him.
"I don't see any other Potters," Malfoy said, a drawl creeping into his voice. "Yes, so we can continue this conversation." He didn't seem to expect Harry to argue this, and in fact, was already preparing to Apparate.
"Where?" Harry asked.
"Hog's Head," Malfoy said, and noting Harry's look of surprise, added, "Yes, Potter, that's what I said."
And he was gone.
"Hello," Harry said awkwardly to Malfoy as he hooked his cloak up and walked in. There were few people there, just some shady characters at the bar and a man in a cloak at a table, who Harry's heart stuttered at. Voldemort's dead, stupid, he told himself.
"Hello," Malfoy said vaguely as he adjusted his shirt collar. He sat at the bar and motioned Harry follow suit.
"So, what I was saying earlier," Malfoy said, motioning the pubkeep over.
Harry had already forgotten.
"Sherry," Malfoy told him.
The pubkeep scrutinized Malfoy. "You look a little young, sonny."
Harry suppressed laughter.
"I assure you, I'm of age," Malfoy said gracefully.
The pubkeep, who was decidedly toothless, gawked at Harry a moment. "Potter," he said in wonderment.
"Yes, I'm quite aware of who I am, thanks," Harry said sourly. "Er... some mead or something."
"Right away," the pubkeep replied, disappearing into the back room.
"I didn't know you minded that bullshit," Malfoy said, his voice overly casual.
"What?"
"The whole 'ooh it's Potter just hold on a moment while I piss myself with joy and find parchment for him to autograph,'" Malfoy said, his tone almost ridiculously even.
"I always minded it," Harry said defensively. "It just seems inappropriate now."
"Well, if Potter finds it inappropriate," Malfoy said, sipping the sherry the pubkeep slid to him.
Harry looked at his mead. "Well, what would you have me say?"
"Why have you been attending the funerals?" Malfoy swiftly redirected the conversation.
Oh, right, the question from earlier.
"It's my duty," Harry said, fully aware of how ridiculous that sounded.
"I see," Malfoy said, snorting with laughter.
Harry just grunted and took a drink.
"I would have thought you'd go into Quidditch or something."
"I was never that good," Harry replied.
"No, you were that good," Malfoy said. He paused. "Did that come out the way I think it did?"
"Bitter? Yeah, a bit bitter," Harry replied, amazed at being able to banter with Malfoy like this. He supposed drinking didn't hurt.
Malfoy looked down for a minute, and Harry was aware of the way his white-blond hair slid across his forehead when he did. Harry shook his head and took another drink.
"You think being an Auror is also your duty?" Malfoy said, a bit later, when they were thoroughly tipsy.
"Yes, of course," Harry mumbled into his mead. "Everything's my duty."
Malfoy chuckled. "You're funny, Potter. Really. You don't have to play the hero. You just like it."
"No?" Harry said, aware of his voice slurring slightly. Stupid Malfoy, being all stupidly tolerant of liquor. Damn him. "What's all that Chosen One shit, then?"
"Just shit."
"Sure put me through a lot of hell for just being shit."
"I guess it did," Malfoy mused.
"Why did you put me through so much hell?" Harry said, fully aware he probably wouldn't ask that question sober.
Malfoy smirked. "It's my job, Potter."
"It's too many people's jobs," Harry said.
"Who's the bitter one, now?"
"Both of us," Harry said softly as he turned around on his barstool. "It's getting late," he remarked.
"I don't want to go home, for some reason," Malfoy said. "I hate going home after a funeral."
"I know what you mean," Harry agreed. "It's all dark and you start picturing your own funeral."
"Complete with bagpipes," Malfoy said drily, and it was so out of nowhere Harry began to laugh.
"We could just walk around Hogsmeade and bother the locals," Harry suggested. He couldn't think of anything better to do, and Malfoy was reminding him a lot of Fred Weasley right now, which was partly filling in one of the many holes in his chest.
They wound up sitting in front of the post office in the pitch darkness, listening to the faint noises. It was a brisk summer night and neither of them were cold.
"And then you got in the Triwizard Tournament," Malfoy slurred, and Harry interrupted, "But I didn't want that either."
"But you did it," Malfoy said. "Cheers."
"Yeah, but then everyone was mad at me."
"Yes," Malfoy mused.
"And then you made badges," Harry said accusingly.
"Those were funny, though."
"They weren't funny at all. And now they're kind of morbid because of Cedric." Another dead guy, Harry thought.
Malfoy was silent for a moment. "I still have one," he admitted, pulling his knees up to his chest and glancing over at Harry in the dark.
"I miss old Hogwarts," Harry said. There was a lump in his throat. "With Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore was all right," Malfoy said quietly. "We were too hard on him. Old Muggle-loving Dumbledore. He was all right."
Harry smiled in the darkness because he knew Malfoy couldn't see.
"Anyway," Malfoy said, standing up and stumbling, "I should probably get home, somehow."
"Wait, wait," Harry said. "How's your love life?"
"My love life?" Malfoy said, sounding amused as he leaned against a pillar to pull his shoes on.
"Yeah, that's the one thing we didn't talk about," Harry said.
"It is charmingly non-existent."
"Mine too," Harry admitted.
"I thought you were hot and heavy with a Weasley," Malfoy said.
"Ginny."
"Does it matter which one?" Malfoy said, sitting down again.
Harry chuckled. "Yes, they're all men, aren't they?"
"Reason number one my love life is nonexistent," Malfoy said, the slur more pronounced.
Harry tried to puzzle that one out. It didn't...
And then it hit him like a hippogriff.
"Oh!" Harry said. "That explains a lot, actually." Again, something he wouldn't say sober.
Malfoy seemed to take it well, though. "What about you, Potter?"
"What about me?"
"You always seemed like a discontented homo dating women, to me," Malfoy said. "I don't know. I must be drunk, right?"
"Yeah, but..." Harry pondered this. It was a possibility, certainly. Was it true?
Maybe he could pretend for one minute. One night.
Two very fucked up boys.
Harry leaned over and kissed Malfoy in the dark.
"What--" Malfoy spluttered as Harry drew away.
"Don't talk," Harry panted. "Just, uh, you'll ruin it," he said, leaning in again, and holy shit, it was hot. Harry's spine was wracked with near-painful tingling, and his hands wrapped around Malfoy, who was almost cat-like in his approach, Harry's mouth warm and cared about for once in a long time.
They rolled around on the steps, until they reached a feverish pitch and rolled off into the grass and Harry was pressing himself against Malfoy, the arousal wracking his dick like two invisible giant hands were squeezing it. He shuddered and Malfoy let out a small cry as he thrust up against Harry.
"We can't have sex here," Harry spluttered as he pulled away from Malfoy for a moment. "For one, it's public, two, I don't know how it works."
Malfoy grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him down again for an extremely hot-blooded, needy kiss. "How about I show you how it works?" Malfoy panted, unbuttoning Harry's pants as he spoke.
"That might be okay," Harry purred.
That might be okay.