Disclaimer: Not my characters.

NB: Slash.

R: For fighting and swearing and the sex in Chapter 4.

AN: Special thanks to all my reviewers: Usually Immaculate Aristocrat, who got the ball rolling; XOX, for being a generous repeat reader; Milly the SmutzOr; Alex Destine; BigGreenMonkey; Hitotsu Kaji; and Layce 74.

Harry's Epilogue

When Dumbledore came to me and told me that he had some things of Draco's for me, I thought I might be physically sick. A week earlier, Draco had been ambushed outside his parents' London townhouse by a gang of Death Eaters. Six against one. The Auror who found him identified him by his ring.

For the first few days, the pain was like noise. I could barely function. When Snape expressed his very sarcastic astonishment at my grief, one day as I passed him in a dungeon corridor, I rounded on him with such fury that I accidentally collapsed the back wall of the passage. He barely scrambled out of the rubble alive. I just stood there, watching him, covered with rock dust, completely unmoved.

Draco was the only free thinker I met in six years of school. He became the only person whose relationship with me was not predicated on shared assumptions. I never had a friend who didn't agree with what I stood for. Half the people I knew came and went for political reasons. Sometimes I was a hero, sometimes I was a crackpot. My social circle changed accordingly. Draco wanted me despite the fact that he never expected to agree with me about anything.

He would have said it was all about the sex, but he wouldn't have meant that, not really. If you were willing to read between the lines, he was very tender. He would have said the same was true of me, if you changed it to reading between the punches. Then, to soften it, he would have added that it might just be him; maybe around other people I was a pacifist. Or at least a rational thinker. I'm self-aware enough to know that's not true, but there might be something to the idea that from the very beginning, long before we got together, some part of me already wanted any excuse to put my hands on him.

Once I got over the initial shock of being with him, I wanted to tell people. I suppose mainly to prove that I wasn't ashamed of him. He said, "Harry. That's very sweet. But I'm a spy. And you're a ridiculously public person. It took you most of last year to get those idiots at the Ministry to believe in you again. Don't confuse them."

Hermione figured it out. But only because he gave it away to her. I think he knew it would be easier for me afterward if at least one person had a head start on the idea. He passed her in the hall one day, walking with Ron, and said, "The way I used to go on at you was unforgivably boorish. And you've proved me quite wrong. The way you look now, I'd seduce you myself. But it would break Potter's heart."

Ron, of course, thought Draco was diabolically managing to insult and ignore him simultaneously. But Hermione was smart enough to know that Draco knew there had never been anything between us. He meant that my heart would break because of him.

Draco never wanted to talk about why he started giving us information. His intelligence provided us with an enormous advantage. Remus and Dumbledore both regarded him as a hero. And he was, even physically. It took a hell of a lot of those fuckers to bring him down. I try not to picture the way he would have looked, dueling and cornered, his feline stance and easy smirk and the dark blood in his pale hair…

Dumbledore said gently, "Harry. I know this is hard. But there are some things that he wanted you to have."

He always knew he was going to die. He knew there was no time. It makes me so angry to think that he knew that and never told me. But there's no place for all that rage. I said, "Like what?"

"A spelled parchment addressed to you. A silver pocket knife. A snitch."

I laughed, low and bitter. "A school snitch? Can you leave people things that are stolen?"

"I won't mention it if you don't."

"Okay. Yeah. I just… I can't go into his room."

Dumbledore looked at me a little strangely. He said, "I'm glad you and Draco had a chance to make peace. He was very courageous. In choosing against his father, he showed extraordinary strength of character."

"Yeah. I know." Then I said, "Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me."

Later, after reading Draco's rather lurid account of our first night together, I lay in bed with the curtains drawn, freeing and catching the snitch, which glowed in the low light. It was creepy but also funny that even posthumously, Draco could still get me so worked up. I was crying; I wanted to hurl things hard against the wall; I felt undeniably horny. And he knew it, the evil bastard.

I loved Draco for a lot of reasons. He was level-headed and sardonic and sexy as hell. I loved his silver hair and smoky eyes. I loved the way he looked so deceptively lazy, leaning or sprawling or smiling, until something startled him and he was instantly alert as a cat. I loved how coolly he'd watch me lose my temper and how delicately he could talk me back onto a rational plane.

I remember finally admitting that I wanted him, how murderously jealous I was that so many people had been with him before me, and how enraged and betrayed I felt when it seemed he'd changed his mind. I'm still ashamed of hitting him that day outside Dumbledore's office, when he leaned into me and let me know he knew I thought his collaboration was just a ploy to get me into bed. I always did think the world revolved around me. Draco would have said, affectionately, that I had good reason; it always kind of did. And then he would have kissed me.

Sometimes, part of me wishes his only goal in becoming a spy had been to seduce me, because then once he got me, he would have let the mission go. He might still be alive. But the rest of me knows that's crazy. I only loved him like I did because he knew what he thought and acted on it and didn't give a damn about death.

His own death. He was kind of careful about other people. I wonder what he'd think if he knew how much I'd like to murder his six killers with the pocket knife he left me. How messy and brutal and satisfying it would be. Or maybe he did know and that's why he left me that letter, to give me something else to think about when I lie awake at night. So far it's been working. I guess we'll see how long that lasts.

The End

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AN: Thanks for reading. Reviews are very welcome.