Several days pass and meals are mostly eaten in silence. Draco's picking apart a piece of toast in order to avoid looking across the table and Harry shoves the last rasher in his mouth.
"Master Draco?"
Stewing in their own thoughts, neither heard the elf approach. "What is it?"
"An owl, Master Draco." He holds out a letter, the very edge crumpled a little. He cringes as if he's expecting admonishment. Draco takes the letter. He reads it, tears it in half. The elf jumps in response.
"Send it back."
"Like this?" he questions, taking the pieces out of Draco's fingers.
"Obviously." The word is drawn out, irritated and the elf bows as he retreats.
"Who was it from?" Harry asks, hoping Draco might answer.
"Shacklebolt."
"You need to answer him, Draco."
"No, I don't." His tone tells Harry there's nothing more to the conversation, but Harry doesn't listen.
"But you do. You've been moping around here like you are the only one who's suffering. The elves lost her too. I—"
Draco jumps up from his chair. "Don't you fucking DARE to tell me that you've lost her! You barely knew her!" He throws his napkin down, palms firmly planted on the table's surface. "What could she possibly have meant to you, Potter?"
Harry clears his throat and waits for Draco's breathing to even out a bit. "She is the closest thing I've had to a mother besides Molly Weasley and her, I had to share with the entire Weasley family. Narcissa saved my life—twice! She means more to me than you'll ever know, Draco."
This diffuses Draco. He opens his jaw, works it out to the side, then closes it. After a deep breath, Draco sits. There's a moment where everything is quiet and all they do is observe each other from across the table, as if the greatest chess game ever played is being decided in the next sentence.
"It doesn't matter," Draco retorts. "None of it matters. She's gone. Nothing you can do will bring her back."
Harry bites his lower lip hard. His thumb is tapping wildly against the table now and Draco lifts his eyes slowly before attempting to speak.
"If you don't stop this instant, I wi—"
"But what if I could?"
"Could what, Potter?" Harry can hear the fatigue in Draco's voice.
"What-if-I-can-bring-her-back?" The words are out of his mouth so quickly they are more of a jumble than a string of coherent syllables.
"What the fuck did you just say?" He's looking at Harry like a deer caught in headlights—unable to move, but wanting to flee with everything in his power.
"I said," Harry starts, taking a deep breath, "what if I could bring her back?"
Draco's eyes go hard and his jaw clenches. Everything about him resembles a fine diamond: hard angles gleaming brilliantly in the diffused morning light. "This is not something to be saying lightly." Draco's hands grip the edge of the table now, muscles popping out in his forearms as he grips, adjusts, and grips again.
"Do you trust me?"
Now Draco is truly caught off-guard. He stares openly at Harry. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I asked, Draco." Harry stands, moving to where Draco sits. "Do you trust me?" His voice is softer now, a tone of sorrow lacing his anxiety.
"No."
It's a flat answer, and one that Harry is expecting, but it still upsets him. He moves to turn away, but Draco's hand grabs his wrist to stop him mid-step. "But what do I have to lose?" Harry lets out a half-breath, a ghost of a smile playing over his lips before it disappears. "What do you have in mind?"
"Stand up."
Draco lifts himself out of the chair to stand beside Harry. "Hold on."
The familiar lurch of disapparition has Draco gripping Harry's forearm tightly. They land in soft footing, feet sinking so that Harry goes down to one knee to find his balance.
"Are you going to tell me where we are?"
"Give me a minute," Harry says, looking down into the sand. His fingers plunge through, remembering the last time he was here.
"Potter?"
"What?" Harry shakes his head, uses one finger to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks up to see Draco staring at him in anticipation.
"I've said your name three times now."
"Oh." He wipes his hands on trousers that are no longer clean. The image is somewhat satisfying for this place and he smiles. "Right."
Harry stumbles upright. The sand gives way beneath his bare feet, but he continues as if he doesn't notice, as if it doesn't matter. Draco sighs and follows.
"You could at least tell me why you've brought me out to Merlin knows where," Draco says, but the words are more to himself than to Harry, so Harry doesn't answer.
Instead, Harry keeps walking. He knows this path well. Just to his right is the hook in the path and he veers left. His toes wriggle in the warm earth, trudging on—until he's there.
Draco runs into him, hands coming up to balance them both. "Why they hell did you stop? You could have at least warned me."
Harry doesn't answer. He can't. His throat is closing and his palms are sweating and he's rubbing them up and down his hips as if he can get the stains off—stains that aren't there, but are somehow always there.
"Potter, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Draco moves to walk around him, but stops.
In front of Harry is a round stone grave marker. Carved there are the words, 'HERE LIES DOBBY, A FREE ELF' in uneven handwriting. Draco looks between the stone and Harry for a moment, wondering what his old house elf could have to do with his mother, why Harry's brought him here, when he sees Harry shudder.
"I'm sorry, Dobby. I'm so sorry." Harry's kneeling in front of the stone, moving sand away from the base. "I haven't been by in so long. I'm so sorry." His hands continue to shake, but he clears the debris.
Draco watches what looks like a practiced ritual. He stands to the side while Harry maneuvers sand from each side of the stone. It isn't until Harry starts whispering to himself, pulling a knife from his pocket that Draco feels something is entirely out of the ordinary. His feet are moving, but he doesn't quite reach Harry's hand before the blade gouges Harry's palm.
"What the fuck?" Draco tears the knife away, holding it mid-air while drops of blood fall to clot in the sand near Harry's toes.
Harry ignores this. Instead, he moves his hand to the base of the stone and continues his whispering, which sounds more like a chant now. "I'm sorry, Dobby," is all Draco hears before unseen runes glow from beneath the words 'HERE LIES DOBBY.' Harry's crying as he reaches his fingers into a hollow section of the marker, cleverly hidden by the runes.
When he pulls back, Harry clutches something tight to his chest. Eyes closed, the last of his tears falling, he offers his hand—palm down—to Draco.
"What the fuck is it?" Draco asks, a bit of fear creeping into his voice. Harry lifts his hand just a little toward Draco. "You really think I'm going to take that without any explanation? You're mad!"
Draco steps back, but Harry sighs and drops his hand, fingering a much smaller stone.
"Do you know what this is?"
Draco leans in; shakes his head no.
"This is the resurrection stone." Harry rolls it around in his fingers before snorting sharply. "It was given to me once. Dumbledore knew I would need it in the fight with Voldemort. He knew I had to die." Draco is openly staring between Harry and the Deathly Hallow he's holding. "I didn't use it, you know."
"Then how—"
"That's a story for another day, Draco." Harry smiles sadly. "What I can tell you is that this stone does not bring people back to life." Draco's face falls. The anticipation of something he didn't know he'd wanted is lost. "What it did for me was let me see them—my parents."
It hits Draco then how desperate he is to see his mother again.
"Draco, you realize you can't keep it. You have to know that this happens once, then they're gone."
Draco looks from the stone up to Harry with wide, hopeful eyes. "I understand."
"You don't. Maybe tomorrow you will, because there's not a chance you can begin to understand right now." Harry is solemn as the stone passes from one orphan to another. "She'll find you. Listen closely."
Draco's chest heaves as Harry walks away. The stone rests in his open palm and he's unsure what he's supposed to do. He closes his fingers around it and thinks of his mother. At first, images of her vigil come unbidden but Draco pushes them aside. He remembers her light laughter the morning she left. He remembers her smile; the way her fingers ran along her cheek where he'd kissed her. He's smiling as tears drop into the sand, cleansing Harry's blood.
That's when he hears her.
"Draco, my love."
"Mother?" Light grey eyes flash open and whirl around, looking for her.
"Oh, Draco. What are you doing on the ground? Don't you know Malfoys are too proud to be on their knees?"
"For you, mother, I'd beg on my knees to anyone."
"I know, Draco. I know." The weight of her words is immense and he leans forward to clutch at the sand, scrabbling when he almost drops the stone.
"Mother?" he screeches, thinking she's gone.
"I'm here, little dragon. Life is too short for petty things you know. You did your part; mourning the dead shows weakness and you've been a selfish, foolish boy, Draco."
"What do you mean? Tell me how to fix it?"
He waits; there is no response but the breaking of the ocean against the jetty.
"Mother?" Draco cries, forehead sinking to meet his hands.
"He's good for you, Draco. Don't lose what's right in front of you. I love you, little dragon."
The last words come to him softly, as if he's listening to a thousand-mile dream through a conch shell. Tears fall to join his runny nose; he wipes at both with hands covered in sand and soon he's trying to clear sand from his watering eyes.
"Fuck. Fuck this. I can't. Why can't…"
Harry walks up behind Draco after hearing him cry out. He calls for Draco, but can only sit back and watch as the other man claws his emotions into the earth. When Draco turns around, all Harry can do is stare; he knows the pain of having his parents right in front of him, only to face losing them all over again. At the empty look in Draco's eyes, Harry moves forward and takes the resurrection stone out of his open hand, putting it back in marker and sealing the runes.
When he turns around again, Draco sits on his heels with palms upward and chin to his chest. "Draco, would you like to go home?"
Draco can only nod softly, mouth still open. Harry crouches down and wraps his arms gently around Draco's shoulders. Just as he lets his lips press gently against Draco's temple, he lets the tug of apparition whisk them away.