It wasn't as if he couldn't feel it. That absolutely dead feeling that gathered around his guts like a snake. It wasn't as if he didn't feel the staring as well. He felt it, he knew that no matter what the time of day, no matter what the season he would always feel both the cold and the stares.

It wasn't his fault. No matter what anyone ever said, it wasn't his fault. He knew, as did all the people that mattered. After the war Dumbledore had seen to it, that all the important people had known it wasn't his fault. So even though everyone that mattered knew he was not a Death Eater, even though all the right people knew all the right things, it was the ones that didn't know, the ones not deemed "Important Enough to Know" that haunted him and whispered about him.

It just made Harry's death even more unbearable.

When he had first come back to the Manor, he had sat for days and days and then months and years not moving, not eating unless forced, not doing anything but sitting and staring out the window. When he first came home he had thought, maybe, just maybe, it wasn't true. That Harry Potter might be alive, that maybe he had survived. Even though everyone said he didn't, even though Dumbledore had assured him, in the gentlest of tones that, no, it was not possible for Harry to have survived, it was not possible when he was so incredibly intertwined with Voldemort. But still, Draco waited in the chair staring out the window, hoping it was not true.

Ultimately he had accepted it. Or at least admitted that Harry was not coming back. Even if he didn't admit he was dead. And so Draco began moving, slowly. And after years alone in his old lonely manor, Draco Malfoy finally ventured into town. Where he eventually became aware that though all the right people were informed, all the wrong people were who he ran into. That was when the dead crept in, that was when the snake crawled into his guts and began slithering around, leaving icy trails where he should have felt warmth. And if it hadn't been something that was needed to sustain life, Draco would have not bothered to ever venture into town again. But the need to be near human life, any human life, overcame his hatred for the whispers and the dead feelings. Draco was only 37, but already he knew his life was worthless.

He would go home, and sit and stare out the window, and then eat and go to bed, then the next day he would wake and repeat the process of going to town. After a while, people stopped throwing things and stopped hissing, but the looks never disappeared compleatly and the hate never went away. And so as the days and years past, the cold dead in his guts never warmed. And still every day he went home and sat and watched out the window waiting for someone to come.

When the now turns into the past, an interesting thing happens. People grow old. And that is what happened to Draco. He grew older everyday. And one day when he was over 200, he noticed that the looks were still there, but not as often, and the hate was not so violent, and in turn, he noticed that he was mostly ignored now. When Draco went home that night, he noticed that the tea he drank smelled like Dumbledore's office, and the robes he wore were old and faded. His shoes were for old people and no longer did his bed sheets remind him of the nights him and Harry had lay together. He looked in the mirror and saw that his fine yellow hair was no longer fine, and though he figured he was lucky to have it all still, he didn't feel lucky that it was grey. His face was crinkled, and not in the way that told people you smiled a lot, but in the way that told people you never had any reason to smile, or laugh, or even talk. His face wasn't wrinkled from use, it was wrinkled from gravity and disuse.

Draco noticed his hands were gnarly and his teeth were yellow. He found his skin was rough and no longer the smooth ivory it once had been. He noticed that he was no longer handsome. And he felt ashamed because now, if Harry came back, he would not want him. And old man was useless. But Draco reflected and came to the conclusion that he had always been worthless and so useless couldn't be too much of a new thing.

So as he took his tea to his chair and sat staring out the window, Draco decided that his life was coming to a physical end. Even though it had really ended the moment Harry had died. When he finished his tea he set it beside him and folded his hands. Closing his eyes he drifted slowly into sleep. As he did he felt a feather light touch brush across his lips, smiling he whispered "Good-night, Harry." And thought that maybe he heard something in return.

When Ron Weasley found him the next day it was by a stroke of luck only. He had never been to Malfoy Manor, and unless it hadn't been important, he never would have been, either. But duty called and even though he did not hate Draco, he didn't love him either. It was only out of loyalty to Harry, and respect of Harry and Draco's relationship, that he made the trip at all. He had come to tell Draco that Harry had been discovered, or his body had been, anyway.

It seemed that Harry had lived for a few days after he had killed Voldemort. Knowing that his time was approaching and knowing he wouldn't get far, Harry gathered enough strength to apperate to a secret holding they used during the war for planning and secret meetings with spies. Harry had thought he would be discovered soon after he died, because that particular holding was used regularly. He couldn't have known that the day before Snape had cleared all important things from the building and that no one would, in the chaos of the after-war mayhem, think to look in a holding that was filed as being closed down.

But Harry didn't know that and so, sitting painfully at a desk he had written a letter, a single letter, that had only three sentences and four drops of blood on the parchment.

Now, as Ron shook Draco softly, he held that letter in his hand. But Draco was not to be woken to read it.

As the leaves turned brown and feel to the ground, Harry and Draco's bodies were buried in a grave not far from Harry's parents. Few people attended the ceremony, because out of Draco and Harry's combined group of friends, only 10 were still alive. As they filed past the graves, each person dropped a small token into each grave. Ron came last and dropped Draco's wand in Harry's grave and Harry's wand into Draco's. After a moment of consideration Ron reached into his pocket and drew out the letter Harry had written. He left that slide from his fingers into Draco's grave, as well.

"Lotta good that'll do you now, you old git." Ron croaked with a smile.

Later when the grave diggers came, laughing and joking, and begun tossing dirt into the graves the paper was slowly buried as well, without anyone but Harry ever knowing what it said.

Draco
Don't waste away, I would have come if I could, please forgive me and know I love you. I always will. Never forget me, because when you die, I'll be there to kiss you good-night.


Love always,
Harry

THE END