This story was born around 5:40 am 10/1/08 and it took me about three hours to prepare it. This is posted by itself and on my Ultimate Collection, on its own it will receive more chaps so go read it
Warnings: T rated for safety, slash, major character death, not mine, ...etc. Flame me if I miss something.
15 Sentences
Night Before
I watched him furiously to the ignorant eye and heart-brokenly in a fast speed to the knowing write out his fifteen sentence monologue to give to Harry. I was clueless, for once, as to why he was scripting out only fifteen sentences; Ronald and nearly all of our former class of Gryffindor was going to be there and he knew better than to possibly ignite my husband's fury by giving a less than adequate speech. Especially at tomorrow's services.
But he came down on me in a fury that he had to write this, so I conceded knowing that he would get the job done as it was only the two of us that could really do honor to Harry tomorrow. That was a week ago, and he was still revising and editing and making additions to his words. I was fearful that he might not finish it in time, at least until I hear his quill drop.
I watched his head meet the table and smiled softly. I waved my wand to blow out the fire and shut the door quietly biding him goodnight. I'm sure he heard, he was probably just pretending to make my ever curious eyes go away. In our older ages, we had seen and done everything just about. I wanted to hear the one last meaningful masterpiece from him before I could be ready to pass on.
Day of
The crowd was giving only a quiet murmur, no doubt wondering who was going to be delivering the ceremonial testimony appropriate to all wizard or witch deaths given by a close confident or family member in some way be it kin or in-law. They were expecting Hermione, maybe even Ron, to preform such a ceremony. They being the majority of the gathering: Gryffindors. Here and there had some Slytherins, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws; even more scattered were people that went to a different school other than Hogwarts and people that Harry deemed worthy of having a presence at his real funeral.
So it was with some nervousness that Draco made his way through the crowd up by the podium. He pointedly did not look at Harry's casket, preferring to have tunnel vision until he could properly mourn. Once he was properly situated, he cleared his throat and put a 'sonarus' on himself wandlessly. He didn't really need to as everyone was already quiet as a snaffle, but it helped end his nerves. Not that he had any reason to have any, he was as beautiful as ever.
Time had not changed him much, it gave him a grace only time can. His hair was thinning perhaps, and turned silver like his father's, but it was cut long to past his shoulders. It was worn in Harry's favourite style: back in a ponytail with two equal strands free to roam his angelic face. His back was still straight from all of the posture lessons he was subjected to and his body had little wrinkles. In fact the only real wrinkles he had was laugh lines and ones from furrowing his eyebrows in his early years. He pretty much looked only about 103. His vision and other senses had not diminished due to magic; ironically, Harry's was a sharp as a fine tuned predator before he died at age 156. (He beat Merlin by nearly a year.) However, Draco was still here at 157 and so was all of his friends; some even pushing 160 and others as young as 89.
"You all know who I am, what I've done, so please, if anyone has any objections to me speaking for Harry object now or forever hold your peace." He scanned the crowd and none surprisingly, Ronald Weasley stood up with help of his cane.
"I object. Why can't my wife give the testimony?"
Draco was half tempted to say 'because she's a mudblood' but refrained from doing so. "I'm sure Harry would want me to give the testimony, besides, I am the only one with a completed script. So, sit back down Mr. Weasley, I overrule you." Snickers came from his loyal snakes and a few others, giving him a confident smirk.
"Now, I wrote 15 sentences about the real Harry Potter using as many words as I can. You will understand later my reasonings for this. But as for now, deal with my humour and supreme wisdom." He paused to clear his throat one more time.
"You can't ever possibly hope that you can use fifteen sentences to describe Harry Potter- and likewise me..." He shook his hair as if to demonstrate and earned a few laughs. "Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived-Because-He-Would-Not-Die-Even-Under-Extreme-Pain-Emotionally-Or-Otherwise." No one laughed there, remembering the reason why they were here.
"Even if you didn't include the sentence above as one- which I am- you can't describe all of his traits in just those few amount of sentences: he's brave, he's strong, he's weak, he's shy, he's abused, he's modest and humble, he's adorable, he's small, he's skinny, he's daft, he's joyful and optimistic, he's hardened, he's terrified, he's lonely, he's suffocating at all the people near, he's a parslemouth, he's young, he's old, he's this and he's that, he's everything; he's Slytherin; Gryffindor; Hufflepuff; and Ravenclaw; but only at certain times." He cracked a smile at his own joke, some of the Gryffindors looked upset that their Harry was associated with Slytherin again.
"Harry is too complex to describe in mere fifteen sentences; why, some people even believe he's the center of the universe-not I, though.
"I believe that Harry is all that and more- just not the center of the universe because I am, so he's only like a major planet or sun..." Some people laughed at his obvious vanity and he chuckled shortly too. "because he is; and I know this because I'm one of the very few people that he he shows his real self to- he might probably kill me for outing him like that if he were still alive- but, if you give me a dictionary I'll bet that every single one of those adjectives can apply to Harry at least once in his lifetime of change and maturation.
"The Sorting Hat was half right when it wanted to put Harry in either Slytherin or Gryffindor..." Many gasped at that fact and he grinned evily as he continued on. "- yes, he told me, did you expect him to keep that kind of thing a secret from me?!- Harry held too many traits of each House in him to be in just one or two or even three; Harry was built for all four." They accepted this fact more readily than the previous one.
"Maybe not so in his earlier years, but with all that the Wizarding World put on his shoulders- which I'm sure he was grateful for his mixed heritage for the reason of getting away from it all by living with muggles; even I don't want to be a pure-blood all the time- he had to grow traits to use to stand up to their expectations and further fall into Dumbledore's manipulations." He treaded carefully with this one, as Dumbledore was still a beloved figure many years after his death, and also because of his own admittance that earned him glares from other pureblooded Slytherins. He glared at them back until they were ashamed. Being old and powerful brought you great amounts of respect.
"Harry has done things no other Wizard, save Merlin and the Founders perhaps, has ever achieved- and some no Wizard may want to achieve.." A lot of Gryffindors and Slytherins caught this one. "and in such a small amount of time of only nearly eight years; if you are counting how long it took him to achieve these things and not his age when the last major action he did was at the ripeness of 18 years.
"If you still believe that Harry does not have these traits, well, you are dumb; take a look, for example, at me- these are all the words required but since you are dumb let me use up another sentence to prove it to you:
"I'm Draco Malfoy- Git Extrodinaire I'm sure at least twenty of you would like to add.." The twenty or so of people he spoke of snorted and laughed at him for that and he shrugged with a grin. "and I was Harry's long time arch-nemesis- I suppose I can be called Boy-Who-Lived-Only-To-Aggravate-The-Boy-Who-Lived-Because-He-Would-Not-Die-Even...I think you get the point.." He didn't want to be too risky here, it was Harry's funeral, and few in the crowd really appreciated his kind of humour. "until Harry changed that; and how would he be able to sway me over unless he held traits that I could admire?
"Now, I'm not trying to get out another revenge against him or settle the score or even undermine his position to you all if that is what you are thinking, I'm trying to say that many of you thought you knew Harry and could deliver this but really only Hermione and I can; we know the real Harry, you only know the Harry that he decides you should know which is why we need to explain that to you so many times, you insufferable half-brains!" He leaned back some and watched the chaos he created with a grin. Once he deemed long enough, he cleared his throat and continued once their chattering stopped.
" I may be getting off track by my passion to show you the 360° Harry, so excuse me and this sentence please; but now I think you are ready for my concluding debate:
"Many of you will say- former Gryffindors- that Harry's bravery shone out most of all, but this is not true; yes, Harry may have needed this in order to save us all from Lord Voldemort, but it is not his best trait as it makes him prone to rash decisions." He earned a lot of glares for this and gulped.
"The smarter of you- former Slytherins- may think that Harry's hidden cunning and slyness make his best trait, but as much as I hate to disagree, no it is not; Harry did use this to sway us over and would not be able to have without it and possibly lose the war, but he gets far too much distrustful and cynical of even friends that it is almost insanity to be around him." The tension eased a bit when he called out his own snakes.
"If I may say so myself..." He smirked succinctly because he had no reason required to say that. "Harry's best trait of all is love; as simple as that." He smiled softly and his eyes twinkled brightly. This was going to be the hardest part...
"Without Harry's love, he wouldn't have overlooked the hatred that lies centuries between us and he wouldn't have tried not to believe that were all were evil snakes especially when Snape was acting the way he had to around him; Harry might even have become the next Dark Lord had he not been blessed with such forgiving, saintly, love in him." He could tell most of the party here did not like Golden Harry accused of possibly being Dark, but they were too busy dabbing under their eyes.
"There is another reason that without Harry's love I would not be here..." He choked for a moment, trying to hold in his tears. His fingers clenched tight onto the podium and Draco hunched his shoulders as the wave of pain came back. He took a few seconds to compose himself and manually wiped his tears, stoically. He coughed and massaged his throat before deciding he was ready to continue.
"I doubt any of you know- not even you, 'Mione..." Here, he allowed himself a smile at being able to withhold information from the notorious Granger. "that these are my wedding vows to Harry..." He raised his hand to show the sparkling diamond and engagement ring on his right hand. Their wedding was a secret one, even to close friends. "...slightly changed to fit this sad and somber occasion though, to prove to you how much and why I believe that Harry had all of these traits that he is now buried with."
With a nod and 'finite incantum', Draco stepped down and walked over to the late Harry James Potter-Malfoy. He got to be their first as he was his spouse. "I'll love you forever, I'll like you always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be..." He sang sweetly as he stroked his lover's cold cheek before breaking down.
"Oh, Merlin, Harry! You're really gone. I miss you, I miss you so much. I can't live without you!" He sobbed, uncaring of how he must look. Hermione made her way over to him and made comforting motions on his back. Ronald also came over, looking very somber.
"Draco.." He whispered. "If you can't handle this, we'll have to escort you..." The threat was enough; Draco fixed his posture and stopped his caterwauling. But the tears still flowed.
"No, no, just let me finish my goodbyes; the realization just hit me, is all. I'll leave right afterwards, I promise." Ronald only nodded and patted him on the shoulder. Draco knew that him making such a scene was unacceptable; empaths in the room might suffocate and it made everyone more melancholy.
He gave his Harry one last kiss and left, humming the tune to the song Harry always sang to him.
Night After
Draco retired to his bed immediately and fell quickly into an easy slumber. His dream consisted of visiting special moments in his long life, e.g. his wedding, the proposal, Hogwarts years, the day his father gave them his blessing, the day his mother was pregnant again, the day Voldemort died, the day of their first date and so on, before it faded away to a white scenery.
"I'll love you forever, I'll like you always..." Harry's voice echoed and he spun around. He realized that he didn't have any chronic aches from his old age and looked down to discover that he wasn't 157 anymore. His hair was blond-silver and longer and fuller, his face was smooth, and he wore his tight clothes again. Draco looked at his perfectly manicured hands and estimated that he was around 19 years instead. He smiled and decided he liked this dream.
Suddenly two hands wrapped around him at his stomach and pulled tight against their owner's body. He let out a 'omph' of surprise and tried to see who his attacker was, when his attacker's mouth touched his ears and sung to him.
"As long as you're with me, my baby you'll be." Draco moaned when he realized who it was a reached up a hand to touch his lover's also young face.
"Harry!" He whispered, delighted, spinning around to actually see him and then kissing him passionately.
"I missed you too." Harry laughed and Draco almost purred with joy at the familiar sounds. "Come away with me, baby." Harry said huskily.
"Do you mean..?" Draco blinked, unsure.
"Yes, you die right after my funeral. How cliché." Harry spoke.
"So that explains why we are so young. I didn't think you could get sexual dreams when you were that old." Draco laughed.
"You create your own heaven, Draco." Harry replied with a twitching smile.
"Does that mean you aren't real? I'm just imagining?" Draco furrowed his eyebrows, not liking this part of the deal.
"No, we are real. Every dead body you see is real. Say, I picture us a bit older; you would look older to me but I still look this way to you. It's complicated." He sighed.
"I see." Draco said, leaning in for another kiss. Harry humoured him for a bit.
"Let's meet everybody else together, I stayed alone until you came..." He purred.
"Oh, poor you! I'll just have to make up for lost time..." Draco hissed in reply. It took them 15 minutes before they were able to meet everyone else.
Day After
Draco was discovered dead at 3:20 a.m. After the fake funeral for Harry had ended. It was determined that he passed in his sleep peacefully. Hermione prepared his funeral, a week later, and gave a monologue for him after fighting for it with his closer Slytherin family. She gave a similar script containing only 15 sentences to a group just as large as Harry's. She and Ron died next to each other, and two great-grandchildren were born only fifteen minutes between them.
I will send a prize to anyone who knows where I got the song, or can find a hidden title of a oneshot I wrote in there. That's all of my clues I am at liberty to speak of.
r&r plz
