Gravestone

"I never expected you'd be here, Malfoy"

"Same here, Potter" he curtly nodded.

Despite how civil they both tried to sound, the edge in their voices was ever present and evident, the tension was there as thick as the surrounding fog, the years of pretence and training were futile as ever to hide the remenants of the iconic animosity.

The stone placards seemed to stretch endlessly around them, seemingly like the silence.

There stood 2 men infront of a gravestone marking yet another fallen one, there stood 2 men and a memory.

"What brought you here, Potter?, it isnot like you were on bloody good terms whilst he was alive."

"Maybe, you either, it isnot like you were close or something, Malfoy"

"You still haven't given me a plausable cause"

"I am simply paying my respects"

"A guilt complex. I see, noble Potter couldn't get over the fact he had wrongly condemned the gritty Snape"

Harry noticed he hasn't lost his atrociously infuriating smirk.

"And you, Malfoy, what brings you here?"

"Paying respects too, to the man who saved my damned life"

"You seem so bitter about it, not like it bothers me or anything" he couldn't help tugging a string really.

"Trust me, Potterhead, I amnot sure whether to rejoice or mourn over the subject either, it is much like your dilemma with Snape, how it would have been easier for him to have remained a traitor that you must hate than to have turned out a hero that you force yourself not to hate"

"I don't hate Snape" he chastised himself

"You don't like him either"

"He wasn't the easiest person to like, you know, plus it isn't like you like him yourself"

"I don't, I simply owe him, he was incapable of loving or being loved anyway" Malfoy pointed.

Harry knew better, Snape's heart was broken beyond repair, it was crippled, invalid.

"Still though he managed to risk his life for both of us"

"It is understandable why he did it for you regarding his history of unrequited love for your mother" Harry eyed him incredulously

"Don't give me that look, Potter, I do have some intel"

"Well, I guess he saw something salvagable in you as well, he wanted to spare you the same path he had tread"

"Maybe, or maybe it was Dumbledore's orders, It doesn't matter much though, still he had what he had done, that man was a paradox, twisted and knotted upon himself" Malfoy rolled his eyes.

"He was hurt and weary"

"Mother usually said he isolated himself, she said he was lost and trapped in a realm of loneliness where noone could reach him, where he didn't want out either."

It was relatively true, Snape had all his devoution pegging onto the one person who showed him kindness in his life, it was natural that he'd be devastated by the loss. Snape's defense mechanism was to numb himself, project his agony to those around him or worst project a loathsome image of himself to those around him as to repel them .. A form of atonement.

Only one person could see through this mess of a man: Dumbledore.

The wind was starting to blow with a malicious chill.

"I have to go, now, Potter"

"Malfoy"

Harry didn't stay long after, the cold was setting in rapidly after all.

Only an unechoic memory lingered in the fog, one engraved on a dull grey gravestone : Severus Snape, the half blood prince.