Disclaimer: J.K owns everything, I own nothing. They just like to play in my garden of delights.
Thanks to: Me_Ladie and Sita for the Beta work.
Warning: This fic contains mildy graphic descriptions of character death. If this offends then please do not read. You have been warned.
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I was the one who found Draco.
It had been hours since the search began, conducted by men weary and worn from war. But still we searched. We were all stubborn, the lot of us, determined to find as many living as we could.
I had just turned over a body to find a face ragged with an expression of frozen pain, the eyes staring blankly into the nothingness of death, when I heard a low moan from behind me.
I spun around, scanning the piles of motionless forms littering the ground like discarded sweet wrappers.
And there he was.
He was curled in on himself like a fetus, trying to find sanctuary in a womb that no longer existed. He looked like he was made of glass.
I approached him slowly, my eyes unblinkingly drawn to the macabre scene of agony that lay before me. I crouched down by his side and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He lifted his head and looked at me with his single bloodshot eye, the other bruise-swollen shut.
'Potter?' he asked, his voice stumbling over the syllables.
I nodded.
'Am I dead?' he whispered.
I shook my head as my eyes swept over his body, a broken memory of his former self. He was bleeding from places I never even knew existed, his clothes a mangled collection of muddied fabric.
'What happened to you, Draco?' I whispered, my hand automatically reaching up to feel his forehead for fever, more a maternal gesture than a reliable indicator of his health.
'Cruciatus,' he murmured, his eye flickering shut.
I held my breath, watching the painfully slow rise and fall of his chest, reminding myself constantly that he was still alive. I was in no doubt that he had severe internal bleeding.
It was time.
'Draco,' I said.
His only working eye flickered open again and stared glassily up at me. He made an incoherent noise that indicated for me to continue.
'I'm sorry,' I told him, 'I am sorry for how things were between us. I am sorry for not believing in you, for not believing that you had joined our side...'
I trailed off and looked down at the small pale hand that he was offering to me in forgiveness.
'I'm sorry, too,' he said, 'more than you can ever know.'
I took his hand, noting how warm it felt in my own, how very human.
My eyes went back to his face, taking in the slashes across that perfect milky skin that was now caked with grime. His beautiful hair was matted down with his blood.
It was all such a sin, I decided. It was so wrong to see something so pure and perfect marred with cuts and tainted with blood. It was like defacing the rarest painting in the world.
His fingers gently squeezed mine and I squeezed back. A small smile graced his lips.
'It's ironic that I should die with you by my side,' Draco said.
I allowed him a small laugh, one which sounded strangely hollow in the biting wind and still of the battlefield.
'I'm sorry it's not someone else here with you, one of your friends,' I told him sincerely.
'I'm not. I'm glad it's you. I wouldn't wish for it to be anyone else.'
His smile widened and that's when I saw it in his eye. It was a tiny flicker of radiance; of years gone by. It reminded me of all of the Quidditch matches we had played against each other, the Potions classes where we were forced to work together, the cutting insults and taunts, the intricate plans we had developed in a passionate effort to humiliate the other. Everything we had ever shared was in that one look.
His thumb traced a line down my palm and he gripped my wrist.
'Potter...' he began in a rasping voice. It was now an effort for him to speak.
'Yes Draco?' I asked, moving closer to him, turning my ear against his face so I could hear.
His breath was hot against my cheek.
'No matter what happens to you,' Draco said slowly, 'never give up. You are special, you really are. Not because you are The-Boy-Who-Lived or The-Boy-Who-Finally-Killed-Voldemort, but because you are Harry. Just Harry. Remember that.'
I closed my eyes and nodded, swallowing down the lump that had risen in my throat.
I had been waiting for someone to say those words to me. I had been waiting my entire life. Finally they had come. From Draco.
'Thank you,' I whispered back.
I sat in silence, holding his hand, my cheek resting against his. I had no idea how long I had been sitting there. My eyes were closed against the atrocities that surrounded us.
For those moments it was just Draco and I. We had come back around full circle to our very first meeting in the robe shop, to the exchange on the train. This time I had accepted his friendship.
I slowly moved away from him and sat back up. I looked down into his face.
The light in that open eye had been extinguished.
I continued to hold his hand.