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“Scared Potter?” The blond slytherin smirked at him in challenge, his silver eyes shone with anticipation as he held his wand in front of his face. Harry smirked back in return, “You wish!”
The two walked away from each other, one with a dark look on his face, and another with a tired and resigned expression, as if waiting to face judgment, in whatever form it may come in.
The unbidden memories rose to the surface, blurring together the lines of the past and present and overlapping with the scene in front of him. Harry could do nothing but stare in shock as the mask fell off of his opponent’s face. The scar running diagonally through the man’s face and his dead gray eyes was what he first saw as he took in the blond’s features.
“No..” Horror threatened to take over his thoughts even as he watched the man don a wry, resigned smile on his face, “Draco…”
The two stood in front of each other, wands pointed at each other’s hearts as the scenery flashed blue all around them. Harry didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do— what he should do. He didn’t expect Draco to be the one to break the silence.
“This is the end,” he spoke with a serene smile on his face. It’s fake. If it wasn’t, Draco’s eyes wouldn’t look so dead. Harry hates that smile. He wanted it gone. He’d much rather be subjected to the blond’s irritating smirk than have him hide that dead expression with a plastic fake smile.
“Scared, Harry?” The way his name rolled out of his mouth, taunting as always, was softer than he’d ever heard Draco speak to him. It was unfair. When Draco spoke that way, it almost felt like they had a chance. A future, where they were not on the opposite sides of a war, where they could simply be— without having to shoulder the burdens of other people’s expectations. It was unfair how one word— his name— coming from Draco’s lips could feel like being given the entire world, only to have it ripped away from him the next moment once reality sets in.
“Yes,” Harry doesn’t know what kind of face he was making, but it wiped off the dead look on Draco’s face and replaced it with shock. Though faint, Harry could still see the traces of awed wonder in his eyes that the blond kept hidden. (It really wasn’t that hard to find. How could it be when Harry has spent the better of seven years searching for it everytime he caught the slytherin observing him? It was comforting, the fact that Draco had never once lost that glimmer in his eyes even as they grew up and became bitter enemies. Harry desperately wished they weren’t.)
Wasn’t the fact that Harry was perfectly fine inside the blue flames enough proof for him to understand just how devoted he was?
Part of him resented everything that came to be, and it must have shown on his face somehow because Draco’s expression melted into a soft smile, and his eyes became livelier than it was before. If Harry had been breathing before, he wasn’t now. Although tinged with melancholy and sadness, the smile Draco wore right now was real— the most genuine one he’d seen in a long, long while. He watched as dull metallic eyes shone silver, reminiscent of that one moment as they dueled.
“Ha ha ha ha ha..”
Draco laughed, and for once the sound didn’t grate on his nerves the way it usually did back when they were kids. Of course, back then, the only reason for the blond’s laughter were either his or his friends’ misery, but right now, Harry knows that it was neither. It was soothing in a way, as he listened to the melodic sound of Draco’s laughter. It almost made him feel like a child once more, being gifted a priceless treasure, and wanting to keep it a secret from everyone else. Wanting, selfishly, for it to be his, and his alone.
But that moment was too short lived, and a wry, somber smile graced his lips as he heard Draco speak once more, “Me too..”
And Harry knows. It was too late for forgiveness, that there was nowhere else for them to run to. There was too much blood on their hands, and even fighting on the side of good didn’t protect him from committing sins— ones that can’t be atoned for.
Both of them were aware of this. Two sinners whose souls are tied so closely to each other by pride and guilt, without a God to plead mercy to. To them, there was ever really only one way out.
“At the same time then?” Harry’s tone was light, he wore a smile on his face, marred by the barest hint of melancholy and sadness. In truth, all he felt at that moment was despair, grief, and relief. Knowing that even if he left this world, he wouldn’t be leaving alone.
His eyes were closed, and he didn’t see the loving acceptance within pools of gray before it flickered out as green refocused on silver.
With a whisper of the incantation, they both cast— only for Draco’s spell to fail, while his own shone brightly as it soared through the air and struck him down. Harry could only watch in stupefied silence with mounting horror as Draco’s body fell in slow motion. The only thing registering in his mind was the soft smile on the blond’s face, even as silver turned into dull gray once more.