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The stars had run out of starlight.
It went out in blue and red, and a blackness drank in the starlight.
The tulips became scentless, the moon became a shadow in the night sky, the sky ran out of sunsets, and he held the ashes of his burnt heart in his own hand. He wanted to spread the ashes in the sea, but his seas had run out of water, too, “I wish I didn’t remember us.”
He wants the blackness to drink him, too.
Harry touches his cheek and rests their foreheads together. But this is an illusion and there is no hope for them now, “But you don’t have to, you don’t have to remember us.”
“Where are you, Harry?”
“I’m a manifestation of your subconscious through that prism you have, I’m wherever you are.” Harry whispers while he brushes their noses together and a tear slides down his own cheek.
Draco traces his thumb over his cheekbone. He is lost in road because of this, and he wants to hope that the roads will send him back home. But the road to his home was broken, “What would you have done if you were here, and I wasn’t?”
Harry brushes a kiss on his forehead, and he wants it to leave a mark. He wants it to leave a mark through a thousand futures and a thousand eternities “I would’ve chosen to hold onto us for an eternity because even if I could have a hundred other futures, none of them would be worth it if I don’t remember you.”
“But what would you have done if I had said that you don’t have to remember us?”
There is a glimpse of his smile beneath the front porch light before he speaks, “I love you. I love you since the beginning. Our souls were born out of the same star. I belong to you in a thousand futures, and it wouldn’t matter if you’re here or not. I’m yours and there is no heart truer than mine to you.”
“I want to hope that you and I have an eternity together, that there are a thousand futures and in all of them, there is you. I want to belong to those futures. I want to belong to you. But I’ve lost hope, Harry.”
The green eyes that held the light of a thousand stars lost its starlight, too, “If you’ve lost hope, I’ve lost you.”
“Oh, what do you want?” Draco whispers and tears slide down his cheeks, “Because I searched the universe for you a thousand times and I’ve lost hope a thousand times and I can’t hope more than I have.”
But their love is like immortalized scratched initials on trees, inscriptions on promise rings and books and post it notes in the bedroom and he wants to hope that a love like that can’t be lost, “But you don’t have to hope, Draco. We’ve both lost. Our love lost when you decided that you don’t want to remember us.”
“I lost. I lost you to death. I lost our love when I lost you to death.”
The words echo into the night.
“Wy are you holding me back when I’ve lost so much, Harry?”
Harry brushes off the tears on his cheeks with his thumb, “Because I’m not Harry. I’m you. You’re holding yourself back because you don’t want your love to lose. Because you want to hope a thousand more times and lose hope a thousand more times than erase our existence.”
Draco rests his head on his shoulder, “I said that I love you on this front porch. I kissed you here in the rain. I said that you’re like sunsets, late night romance, spilt coffee, petrichor and that you’re no destination drives and that I love you.”
“I said that you’re like midnight ice creams, Sunday mornings, the blue of the sea that is held by moonlight and that you’re crimson, red like autumn and that I love you, too.”
But the sun has burnt, and the stars have turned to dust and hope has lost to despair, “Would you believe that I love you if I don’t remember us?”
Harry turns to the iridescent lights of the stars in the sky, “Would you have believed that I love you if I didn’t remember us? If I had erased us out of existence? If I had lost hope and faith?”
There is grief in his bones, and it would soon turn to dust. There is ocean hidden beneath his skin. No one has taught him that in grief, you drown, “No. But you would’ve chosen to spend an eternity in grief. Because grief is love. But your grief would’ve become a home of the love we had together. But mine is a grave of lost hope and lost love.”
It’s tragic to love what death can touch, “It’s not – grief is not the definition of love. It’s a souvenir of the love that is lost. Because the grief would’ve been tremendous if I had lost you. But I would’ve held onto whatever was left of us because my love for you is bigger than my grief.”
Draco wants to hold his hand and be with him beneath the light of a thousand stars till the stars turn to dust because he doesn’t want a goodbye, “do you believe that I love you?” He would’ve said, “would you still want to be mine?”
But he doesn’t because he doesn’t want to hear him say no.
“There is no faith or hope for our love and there is no miracle that will bring you back, Harry.”
“I wrote a note for you on a blue post-it tab and it’s on your bedroom wall.”
The post it tab on his wall had lost its stickiness but he didn’t want to lose it because of what Harry had written on it before he went on the mission. Before Draco lost him, “The ‘I love you more than coffee and sunsets’ one?”
“Burn it.”
But that post it note was whatever he had left of them. He had lost his love, he didn’t want to lose what was left of it, too. He didn’t want to burn it, “I’m sorry, what?”
“Because our love will be lost and you have to lose whatever you have of us, too.”
The words burn his heart into ashes. But the ashes of his own burnt heart slip through his hand like sand. Because he has to lose what he had of his love. It would be like the love didn’t exist. It would be like his heart never burnt to ashes, “Where are you?”
“Why do want to hope, Draco?”
A star streaks through the night sky and his wish on that star becomes his hope in despair. Because when that star shoots through the sky, there is an onrush of hope through his lungs. A star that is touched by death.
But their love isn’t like a fallen star with hope, “Because I would lose hope than lose us. Because I want our stars to belong to us. Because I love you and I want to believe that even in death, your soul will find mine. I want to believe that even in death, our souls will belong together.”
“But our stars belong to you, not us.”
“But you said that our stars will belong to us no matter what.”
Harry kisses him one last time and that kiss whispers goodbye to him, “Our stars were ours before you decided to erase us. Before you decided to erase the existence of our love. The stars are yours, with or without their starlight.”
If he had to write about their stars, the stars would speak of lost love, blood, regret, broken bones and shattered hopes. Because when it’s love, the stars speak in heartbreak and when it’s life, the stars speak in loss. But he had to erase the stars out of existence, “Our stars aren’t yours or mine because our stars don’t exist.”
“If our stars don’t exist, whatever is there of us has to be lost.”
The stars that belonged to them had lost.
It’s essential to learn to live when you’ve lost what you love.
But lost love is mystical. It hits you like a hurricane. Because the love it there, but it wouldn’t save you. He didn’t want to live with that loss, “What would your last words have been, if I had more time with you?”
“Harry, why do we have to do this?”
“Because the last words you said were cruel and you’ve kept them with you, and we have to do this before you erase our memories.”
Draco turns the promise ring over in his hand, “I would’ve said that if you want sentimental words, I won’t do that because I have a reputation.”
“I will curse you to the void.”
“Do it, I dare you.”
A knot forms in his throat, “If I had more time with you, I would’ve said that you are my hope, my reason and my love and that I’m sorry I said what I did. I’m sorry those were my last words to you, that I wish my last words to you were I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
There is a silver halo around him, and he begins to slip like sand. But there are glimpses of him. The sun-kissed skin, the freckles on his nose, the light in his smile and his green eyes with specks of brown, “Harry, have I ever told you that to this day, green is my favourite colour?”
“Oh, why is that?”
Draco brushes a thumb over his eyelids and has one last glimpse into his favourite colour and he wants that glimpse to last forever, “Because the colour of your eyes is like the colour of life.”
The halo drinks the illusion in and there is a last whisper of a word that is left for him into the night beneath the front porch light – goodbye.
The stars that belonged to them had run out of starlight and he couldn’t save them.
By the time the summer solstice begins, a lost love would’ve been erased out of existence.
By that time, he wouldn’t remember that green was the colour of life.