Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling et al, not me. Sadly.

A/N: This is just a little one-shot. I don't know what happened – it was supposed to end with Draco dying and Harry possibly committing suicide…? Guess I couldn't do it. I might go back and write an alternate ending, though. Hope you like – this is my first attempt at fanfiction, though not writing.

Like Magic

Harry Potter had always found a secret sense of hope in the concept of magic. It was such an ambiguous, yet powerful enigma, capable of making the impossible, possible.

Magic was particularly extraordinary and wondrous to him because of its taboo within his uncle's house. Even the most vague mention of it resulted in extreme punishment: he was forced to go without meals for days, or locked in his cupboard, or beaten with his uncle's belt. He never understood the reasoning behind his uncle's vendetta against the strange force, and consequently became fascinated with it, its allure made all the more tantalizing by its prohibition.

Harry simply couldn't understand why something so beautiful, so wonderful, would – could – be scorned so. In all the fairy tales he heard of as a child, magic was a liberating, empowering entity that opened windows to yearned-for opportunities and unlocked doors to undiscovered possibilities. It transformed toads and peasants into princes and princesses, brought fair maidens back from deepest slumber and coldest Death, brought Beauty back to the Beast. Magic seemed to be an omnipotent force, an embodiment of the power of love itself.

And love was something Harry had never experienced.

Living with relatives whose every action reinforced their belief in his worthlessness, Harry didn't know what it was liked to be cared for, let alone loved. Love was an ideal, a hope, to him, as wonderful yet distant as the fairy tales he adored. He yearned for it, hoped for it, but subconsciously understood it as inaccessible – a mere dream in the face of his harsh reality.

And so to him, magic, love, and hope became one. Magic was a representation of love, and in the cruel world in which he was imprisoned, that dual entity provided his hope for a better future, or at least helped him believe there was goodness in this life, and in him. That inseparable combination, with magic at the forefront, fortified Harry against his despair and kept him sane and good, though not necessarily innocent. It was the reason for his survival, at the least, even if it did cause some harm to his well being – in the form of his uncle.

There were occurrences that incited his uncle's wrath: one day he would have his hair unwillingly cut, and the next it would be back to its original length; one minute he would be running fearfully from his cousin's gang at school, and the next he would be on the cafeteria roof; one second he would be staring at a piece of glass separating his cousin from the snake he was taunting like he so often taunted Harry himself, and the next he would be staring at air, and his cousin falling forward. Every time Harry would wonder howthese things happened, and entertain the thought of magic as the cause, and his hope would grow, even if his belief did not. And every time, when his uncle grabbed him roughly by the shoulders, shook him, asked him what he had done…Harry would only be able to say, with a smile on his face despite the fury in his uncle's eyes, "It was like magic."

Then, one day…that magic became real.

When that enormous, bushy-bearded man, that giant (there really was no other single word for him), broke down the door and swept him up and away to a world he had not conjured even in eleven years of dreaming, it was like his life became one of his fairy tales. His hope had been realized: he was free, and magic was real. It seemed like anything was possible now, with the endless capability of magic and the actual possibility of love.

And, after being immersed in the realities of this new world, Harry did find love, in friends and guardian figures and creatures, and he was truly happy. He thought all his ideals had been realized, and even if there were shadows to his light, caused by an half-dead and later reincarnated, self-proclaimed "Dark Lord," they were just that – shadows, gloomy and lurking but rendered inferior by the brightness of love, hope, and magic. For his fairy tale to be real, there had to be an evil to overcome, and maybe his past had not been significant enough. It did not matter, because it would all turn out happily ever after in the end.

But then people Harry loved started dying. And they did not come back. In his grief, Harry was confused, and despairing. There were not supposed to be casualties: good was supposed to triumph unharmed. If there were casualties, they were nameless, faceless heroes, honored yet aloof…but they were not. Their names were the names of his classmate, Cedric, his godfather, Sirius, his mentor, Albus, and their faces were well-known visages, honest, caring, full of love for him. And the magic he had believed all-powerful could not bring them back. So, for a while, Harry remained desperately lost, until the most miraculous thing happened.

He found love.

It was a different type, one he had never come close to before, and he breathed because of it. He breathed for him - for Draco. And all Harry's convictions came back to him, because he had love like in the stories, and it was the best kind - the kind that brought two loathed enemies together against all odds, the kind that made anything possible, the kind that made everything happily ever after, despite what had happened before.

And so when he faced a dying Dark Lord, when that man with red eyes full of hate and advancing Death grabbed his wrists, gasped, demanded to know what he had done…Harry could only say, with thoughts full of blond hair and gray eyes, "It was like magic. It was love."

A/N: Review please! I'd like some feedback – first attempt, remember.