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The September sky above Hogwarts was the wrong kind of blue.
Harry Potter noticed it the moment he stepped out of the carriage; a soft, almost washed-out shade, like paint left too long in the rain.
Everything felt like that lately.
Faded.
Thin.
Wrong around the edges.
Students spilled past him toward the castle doors, buzzing, laughing, whispering. A normal year, McGonagall had promised. “A year of rebuilding. Of healing.”
Harry wasn’t sure who she expected to heal.
He shifted the strap of his bag and followed Ron and Hermione up the steps, letting their voices blur into background noise.
“…only one N.E.W.T. in Arithmancy this year,” Hermione was saying briskly.
“They’ve changed the Charms curriculum because the old classroom is still—”
“Blown up?” Ron offered.
“Damaged,” Hermione corrected sharply.
“And yes, Professor Flitwick will be teaching in the spare Duelling Hall instead.”
Harry hummed something noncommittal and tried not to look at the place where a chunk of the stone railing had been repaired; different colour, different pattern, like the castle wasn’t pretending to be whole anymore.
He envied that honesty.
They entered the Great Hall, and for a moment the noise swallowed him whole. Floating candles. Gleaming plates. Murmured excitement. First years bumping into each other like nervous sheep.
And then—
Harry stopped dead.
Because across the hall, at the Slytherin table, sitting stiff-backed and silent among his own house like he’d been dropped there accidentally—
Draco Malfoy.
Harry didn’t realize he’d stopped walking until Ron bumped into him.
“Harry? Mate? You alright?”
He didn’t answer.
He was too busy noticing everything that didn’t add up:
Malfoy was thinner — sharply, noticeably so. His robes hung differently. His face had lost its softness, its teenage roundness, replaced with angles like someone had carved him down to essentials. His skin was pale, yes — but not the polished, aristocratic pale Harry remembered. This was different. Ashen. Transparent.
And his eyes.
They weren’t angry or cold or calculating.
They were simply… empty.
Not blank. Not unreadable. Empty like something had been scooped out from behind them and all that was left was the shell.
Malfoy didn’t speak to anyone. He didn’t respond when Blaise Zabini said something.
He didn’t move when Pansy Parkinson whispered sharply in his ear. He didn’t even look up.
He just stared at the table. Quietly. As if waiting.
Harry felt something tighten low in his stomach.
It wasn’t pity.
But it was close enough to be uncomfortable.
“Harry,” Hermione murmured gently, following his gaze. “Don’t. Not tonight.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re staring holes into the back of his head.”
“He looks…” Harry trailed off.
He didn’t know the right word.
Wrong wasn’t strong enough.
Broken felt intrusive.
Gone felt terrifyingly accurate.
“He looks like Malfoy,” Ron said dismissively. “Maybe he finally realized he’s a tosser.”
Harry didn’t answer. He didn’t bother trying.
Because that, the boy sitting alone among people, didn’t look like a tosser.
He looked like someone who hadn’t expected to still be alive.
⸻
The castle felt colder than it used to.
Harry made an excuse to leave the common room early. Ron and Hermione exchanged that Look. The one that meant “Give him space” and “Let him go”
He walked the corridors slowly, wand in his pocket, hands shoved in his robes. The portraits whispered as he passed, some waving tiredly, others nodding with recognition.
Everyone expected him to be fine.
The Boy Who Lived— twice.
The chosen one. The hero. The savior.
But Harry felt split down the spine, hollowed out like the rubble of the courtyard. He could function. He could smile when he had to. But deep down, there was a quiet, gnawing ache that wouldn’t loosen its teeth.
He didn’t know where he was walking until he saw the door.
The library.
Of course. Hermione’s influence had clearly infected him.
He pushed open the door, expecting silence.
He got it.
He didn’t expect to hear a page turning.
Harry froze.
A student, alone, sitting in the dim light of a single floating lantern.
White-blond hair glinting faintly.
Malfoy.
Again.
Harry’s instinct was to leave — to turn around, pretend he hadn’t seen him. But something stopped him. Something pulled him forward, subtle and unsettling.
He took a seat at the table across from Draco.
Draco didn’t look up.
He kept writing long, slow strokes of a quill into a thick leather-bound yellow notebook. Not homework. Not class notes. Something private. Something heavy.
Harry swallowed.
The silence was unbearable.
“I er… I haven’t seen you around much Malfoy.”
Draco snorted softly. “I sit behind you in Charms.”
“I mean outside of class,” Harry corrected, flushing. “You always leave so quickly.”
“Is that a problem?”
Harry’s jaw tightened. “No. I just… thought maybe you could use company. Or—”
“No.”
The answer was immediate. Sharp. Too sharp.
Draco looked back down at his notebook, shutting Harry out with mechanical precision.
But Harry didn’t leave.
He didn’t know why.
He just couldn’t.
“Er.. didn’t think you’d come back,” Harry said finally, because subtlety was not one of his natural gifts.
Draco blinked once, very slowly, then lifted his gaze.
Harry’s breath caught for a beat.
Up close, the emptiness in Draco’s eyes was even worse.
It was absence.
As though Draco had locked himself away somewhere deep inside and left nothing behind to fill the vacancy.
“Unfortunately,” Draco murmured, voice scratchy, monotone. “The Wizengamot insisted.”
Harry hesitated. “Are you… alright?”
A stupid question. A useless one.
Draco actually laughed, a small, brittle sound that didn’t touch his eyes.
“Potter,” he said softly, “you don’t have to pretend to care.”
“I’m not pretending.”
Draco stared at him for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then he turned the page of his notebook.
The handwriting was small, precise, controlled. Too controlled. Every letter looked like it had been carved rather than written.
“What’s that?” Harry asked.
“A notebook.”
Flat. Simple. No inflection.
“About what?”
Draco dipped the quill again.
“Finishing it,” he said, “is the only thing that matters.”
Harry frowned. “Why?”
Draco’s quill paused mid-stroke.
Then he answered without looking up.
“Just because”
Harry felt something cold and hard wrap around his ribs.
Before he could speak, Draco snapped the notebook shut.
Harry opened his mouth, then closed it.
Because the air around Draco felt fragile.
Delicate.
Breakable.
And Harry didn’t know how to touch something that breakable without destroying it further.
“You should go, Potter,” Draco said, gathering his things. “You don’t want to be seen with me. Bad for your reputation. Imagine it: Chosen One poisoned by Death Eater in the library”
Harry snorted. “I don’t care about my reputation.”
“Then you’re an idiot.” Draco stood, swaying very slightly, though he hid it well.
“Stay away from me.”
“I won’t”
Before Harry could think those words came out of his mouth and he felt himself flashing for it. Malfoy looked at him shocked and left quickly, the lantern flickering in his wake.
Harry stared at the abandoned chair for a long time after he was gone.
He had the sinking feeling he’d stumbled into the middle of a story he wasn’t meant to read.
And that Draco Malfoy was holding the ending too tightly.
———————————
Draco Malfoy did not expect Harry Potter to keep his word.
That was the first mistake.
The second was letting him sit down.
The third was not telling him to leave.
Draco had spent months perfecting the art of disappearance; not physically, not yet, but emotionally. He had learned how to go still. How to keep his face neutral. How to respond without revealing anything that mattered. Hogwarts was temporary. Everything was temporary. The notebook was the only thing that remained solid.
And then Harry Potter began orbiting him like gravity was optional.
It started small.
Harry took the seat beside him in the library the next afternoon without asking.
Draco looked up from his notebook, eyes sharp with warning.
Harry merely shrugged and opened a his potion book.
“I work better near people,” Harry said, as if that explained anything.
Draco snorted quietly. “You’ve clearly never worked near me.”
Harry smiled faintly. “I’ve noticed.”
They didn’t speak again for nearly an hour.
Draco wrote. Harry pretended to read. The silence stretched, tense but not hostile. Draco hated that part most. That it wasn’t uncomfortable enough to justify leaving.
When the library bell chimed, Harry closed his book.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asked.
Draco stared at him like he’d suggested jumping off the Astronomy Tower together.
“No.”
Harry stood anyway. “Alright. I’ll check.”
Draco watched him go, jaw clenched, fingers tight around his quill.
He didn’t sleep that night.
⸻
Harry did not check.
He simply came back.
The next day, he appeared at the same table, same time, same quiet persistence. He didn’t force conversation. Didn’t ask invasive questions. Sometimes he read. Sometimes he stared out the window. Once, he fell asleep with his head in his arms.
Draco hated how normal it became.
By the end of the week, people noticed.
Whispers followed them in corridors. Gryffindors stared openly. Slytherins watched with narrowed eyes, waiting for betrayal or spectacle.
Neither came.
“What are you doing?” Draco asked one evening, irritation slipping through his carefully constructed indifference.
Harry glanced up from his parchment. “Homework.”
“No,” Draco said. “This. Sitting with me. Following me. Acting like we’re… friends.”
Harry didn’t look away. “I never said we were friends.”
Draco stiffened. “Good.”
“But I wouldn’t mind,” Harry added, calmly, “if we were.”
Draco laughed — sharp, defensive. “You would regret it.”
“Maybe.”
Draco closed his notebook with more force than necessary. “You don’t know me.”
Harry’s expression softened, and that was worse.
“Then let me,” he said quietly.
The word let scraped against something raw.
Draco stood abruptly. “You’re wasting your time.”
Harry stood too. “Then stop letting me.”
Draco opened his mouth and found he had no answer.
So he left.
Again.
But not before Harry noticed the way his hand shook as he picked up his book.
⸻
It was raining the day Harry found him in the courtyard.
Draco sat on a stone bench beneath an archway, collar turned up, hair damp, book balanced precariously on his knee. He looked thinner in the rain. More translucent. Like he might dissolve if left there too long.
Harry approached slowly.
“You’re going to ruin that,” he said, nodding at the notebook.
Draco didn’t look up. “It’s waterproof.”
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
Harry sat beside him anyway.
The rain fell steadily, filling the space between them with sound.
Draco kept reading.
Harry watched the lines between Draco’s brows deepen, watched his lips move silently over certain sentences. He wondered, not for the first time, what kind of book someone writes when they think no one will read it.
“Why do you carry it everywhere?” Harry asked eventually.
Draco’s fingers tightened on the spine.
“Because if I stop,” he said, very quietly, “everything else catches up.”
Harry frowned. “Everything else?”
Draco closed the book.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
His voice was steady, but something underneath it was fraying. “You ask too many questions.”
Harry didn’t apologize.
Instead, he said, “You don’t eat much.”
Draco stiffened. “Don’t.”
“I’m not accusing,” Harry said gently. “I just notice.”
“That’s the problem.”
Harry leaned back against the cold stone. “I notice because I care.”
Draco turned on him sharply. “Why?”
The word cracked.
Harry hesitated. Then, honestly, “Because I know what it’s like to wake up every day and feel like you’re borrowing time.”
Draco stared at him.
The rain soaked into the stone. A bell tolled faintly in the distance.
“You survived,” Draco said finally. “You’re allowed to feel that way.”
“So are you.”
“I’m not,” Draco replied. “I don’t get that luxury.”
Harry’s chest tightened. “That’s not true.”
Draco laughed bitterly. “You’re still lying to yourself, Potter.”
Harry leaned forward. “Tell me why you think that.”
Draco stood.
“I don’t owe you explanations.”
“No,” Harry agreed. “You don’t. But you’re not as invisible as you think.”
Draco froze.
Harry lowered his voice. “You look like someone counting down.”
For a moment — just a moment — Draco’s mask cracked.
Not enough to show what lay beneath. But enough for Harry to see fear flash through his eyes.
“Stop,” Draco whispered.
Harry didn’t press.
But he didn’t leave either.
⸻
By October, they had a routine.
They didn’t call it that. They didn’t acknowledge it.
But Harry sat with Draco in the library three nights a week. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Draco didn’t protest anymore — he just pretended Harry had always been there.
They spoke in fragments.
About classes. About how Hogwarts felt wrong rebuilt. About how silence could be louder than curses.
Never about the war.
Never about the notebook Draco was reading.
And never about the future.
One evening, Harry brought two cups of tea.
Draco eyed them suspiciously. “What’s in it?”
“Tea.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Harry smirked. “Honey.”
Draco took it anyway.
His fingers brushed Harry’s.
He flinched — but didn’t pull away.
Harry noticed.
He always noticed.
“Why do you let me stay?” Harry asked quietly.
Draco didn’t look at him. “Because you don’t ask the right questions.”
Harry swallowed. “And if I did?”
Draco’s voice dropped. “Then you wouldn’t like the answers.”
Harry watched him closely. “Try me.”
Draco finally turned.
Their faces were close — closer than either of them acknowledged.
“You don’t want to know how this ends,” Draco said.
Harry’s breath caught.
“Maybe I do.”
Draco searched his face, as if looking for something — permission, perhaps. Or forgiveness.
Instead, he closed his book.
“I’m tired,” he said. “You should go.”
Harry stood slowly.
But before he left, he said, “You don’t have to disappear to be done.”
Draco stiffened.
“How would you know?”
Harry paused at the door. “I-..”
Draco didn’t respond.
But that night, when he opened his notebook, his hand shook so badly he had to stop writing.
And for the first time since he’d made his decision months ago, he wondered, just briefly,
what would happen if he didn’t finish it.
————————
By November, Harry no longer pretended his interest in Draco Malfoy was accidental.
He altered his schedule deliberately now — lingered after dinner, took the long way through the corridors, chose library hours he knew Draco favored. He stopped lying to himself about coincidence.
Draco noticed.
He just didn’t comment on it.
They sat closer these days. Close enough that Harry could feel Draco’s presence without looking — the subtle tension in his shoulders, the way he went still when Harry leaned in too far, the way he always positioned the book between them like a barrier he might need at any moment.
The book was thicker now.
Harry tried not to think about what that meant.
⸻
One evening, the library was nearly empty, the air warm with lamplight and dust. Rain battered softly against the tall windows, the sound rhythmic, almost soothing.
Draco was writing again.
Harry watched him for longer than he should have.
“You always stop at the same time,” Harry said quietly.
Draco didn’t look up. “I have good time management.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Draco sighed and finally met his gaze. “Then clarify.”
“You stop like you’ve hit a wall,” Harry said. “Like there’s something you don’t want to write.”
Draco’s mouth tightened. “You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
Harry leaned back in his chair, studying the ceiling. “You know, Hermione says people avoid the hardest truths even when they’re writing to themselves.”
Draco’s quill scratched sharply across the page. “Granger would say that.”
Harry smiled faintly. “She’s usually right.”
Draco snapped the book shut.
The sound echoed louder than it should have.
“Do you ever stop analyzing people?” Draco asked, irritation creeping in.
Harry met his eyes calmly. “Only when they ask me to.”
Draco held his gaze — searching, assessing. Then, unexpectedly, he looked away.
“No,” he said quietly. “Don’t stop.”
Harry felt something shift — small but seismic.
⸻
They began walking back to their dormitories together after library hours.
Not touching.
Not quite talking.
Just… existing in the same space.
The corridors were dimmer at night, torches casting long shadows across stone walls. Their footsteps echoed softly, syncing without effort.
One night, Draco spoke without warning.
“Do you ever feel like you’re already living in the aftermath?” he asked.
Harry slowed. “All the time.”
Draco nodded. “Good. Then you won’t lie to me.”
“About what?”
“About this,” Draco gestured vaguely between them. “You don’t think this fixes anything. Do you?”
Harry considered. “No.”
“Good,” Draco said. “Because I don’t need fixing.”
Harry stopped walking.
Draco took two more steps before realizing Harry wasn’t beside him anymore.
He turned, irritation ready — and faltered.
Harry’s expression was steady, but something raw lived underneath it.
“I don’t want to fix you,” Harry said. “I just don’t want you to disappear.”
Draco’s breath hitched.
Just once.
So fast Harry might have missed it — except he was watching too closely now.
“I won’t,” Draco said quickly. Too quickly.
Harry didn’t call him on it.
But the words lodged somewhere deep and heavy in his chest.
⸻
The first accidental touch happened during a study session.
Harry had reached across the table for a book at the same moment Draco shifted his notebook.
Their fingers brushed.
Draco recoiled instantly — chair scraping back, breath sharp.
“Sorry,” Harry said immediately. “I didn’t—”
“It’s fine,” Draco interrupted, voice tight. “Just… startled.”
But he didn’t sit back down right away.
He stood there, shoulders rigid, eyes fixed on nothing.
Harry hesitated, then spoke carefully. “Do you want me to go?”
Draco shook his head.
“No,” he said.
Harry waited.
He always waited.
Draco exhaled slowly, then returned to his seat. This time, he didn’t put the book between them.
Harry noticed.
Neither of them mentioned it.
⸻
The attraction crept in quietly — unwelcome, uninvited, impossible to ignore.
Harry noticed it in the way Draco watched him when he laughed. In the way his voice softened — just slightly — when he said Harry’s name. In the way his sarcasm dulled around him, losing its edge.
Draco noticed it in the way Harry looked at him like he mattered. Like he wasn’t a mistake the world was waiting to erase.
That scared him more than hatred ever had.
One night, the fire crackled low in the library hearth. Harry had dozed off again, head resting against his hand, glasses slightly askew.
Draco stared at him for a long time.
Harry Potter — alive, breathing, unbearably present.
Draco reached out before he could stop himself.
He adjusted Harry’s glasses.
Just that.
The moment his fingers touched Harry’s skin, something inside him fractured.
Harry stirred but didn’t wake.
Draco pulled back, heart hammering, the book pressed hard against his chest like armor.
This is why you’re leaving, he reminded himself.
Because if he stayed — really stayed — he would want things he couldn’t have.
⸻
Harry woke later, disoriented.
Draco was gone.
But the book was still there.
Left behind on the table.
Harry stared at it, pulse quickening.
Draco never left it.
Never.
Carefully, hesitantly, Harry touched the cover.
It was warm.
Used.
Lived in.
He didn’t open it.
He wasn’t sure why — only that it felt like crossing a line neither of them had acknowledged yet.
He carried it instead.
All the way to the Slytherin common room entrance.
Draco was pacing when Harry found him — agitation written into every line of his body.
“You forgot this,” Harry said softly, holding out the book.
Draco froze.
For a moment, real fear surfaced.
“You didn’t..,” Draco said sharply. “You didn’t…?”
“I didn’t read it.”
Draco’s shoulders sagged — relief flickering through him.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Harry hesitated. “Draco… what happens when you finish it?”
Draco went very still.
“Nothing,” he said.
Harry didn’t believe him.
But he handed the book back anyway.
Their fingers lingered longer this time.
Neither pulled away.
For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to breath and heat and the terrible awareness of how close they were.
Then Draco stepped back.
“You should go,” he said. “Before this becomes something else.”
Harry searched his face. “And if it already has?”
Draco looked away.
“That’s exactly the problem.”
⸻
That night, Draco wrote until his hands cramped.
The final chapters loomed closer.
And for the first time since he’d made his decision, the thought of Harry Potter’s quiet persistence hurt worse than any punishment the world had ever imagined for him.
Because Harry was becoming a reason.
And reasons were dangerous.
_____________
Harry began to feel it in December.
Not as a thought, not as a realization — but as pressure.
Like the air before a storm.
Like standing in a room where a clock was ticking, though he couldn’t see it.
Draco was pulling away.
Not abruptly. Not cruelly.
Precisely.
He stopped waiting in the library.
Stopped walking back through the corridors together.
Stopped lingering in conversations that used to stretch without effort.
When Harry sought him out, Draco was polite. Controlled. Distant in a way that felt intentional.
Worse — final.
“You’re busy,” Harry said one evening, stopping him near the staircase leading to the dungeons.
Draco didn’t break stride. “Everyone is.”
“You haven’t been to the library in a week.”
“I finished the section I needed.”
Harry’s chest tightened. “The notebook?”
Draco nodded once.
“You’re close, then.”
Draco paused.
Just for a fraction of a second.
“Yes.”
The word landed like a blow.
Harry swallowed. “And after?”
Draco looked at him then — really looked — eyes sharp, guarded, exhausted.
“After,” he said evenly, “this stops mattering.”
Harry felt something cold slide under his ribs.
“I matter,” he said quietly.
Draco’s jaw tightened. “That’s exactly why I’m doing this.”
Harry stepped closer. “Doing what? Leaving Hogwarts?”
Draco turned away.
“I won’t explain myself so you can try to save me,” he said flatly. “I don’t need absolution. I don’t need forgiveness. And I don’t need—”
“Me?” Harry finished.
Draco closed his eyes.
“…You least of all.”
Harry stared at him, hurt flaring hot and sharp.
“Then why did you let me in?” Harry demanded. “Why did you let me stay?”
Draco opened his eyes again.
Because for a moment, I wanted to believe I could.
But he didn’t say that.
Instead, he said, “Because you’re stubborn. And I was tired.”
Harry laughed once, bitter. “That’s it?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie.
They both knew it.
Harry stepped back slowly. “If you want space, just say it.”
Draco’s voice wavered — just slightly. “I am saying it.”
Harry nodded, throat tight. “Alright.”
He turned and walked away before Draco could see the damage.
Draco stood alone in the corridor long after, fingers curled into fists at his sides.
⸻
The book was nearly finished.
Draco could feel it in his bones.
Each sentence felt heavier than the last, as if the words themselves were resisting being written. He spent hours hunched over his desk, candle burned low, ink staining his fingers.
He wrote about guilt without naming it.
About choices without defending them.
About a boy who learned too late that obedience was not the same as safety.
He did not write about Harry.
That was the rule.
But Harry crept in anyway; in the pauses, in the margins, in the spaces between thoughts.
You don’t get to want this, Draco reminded himself.
You decided.
Months ago. Alone. Certain.
Before Harry Potter ever sat across from him in the library and looked at him like he was still human.
⸻
Harry stopped pretending too.
He stopped chasing Draco down corridors. Stopped inventing reasons to linger near the Slytherin common room. Stopped asking questions that went unanswered.
But he watched.
He noticed the way Draco barely touched his food.
The way he looked thinner every week.
The way his eyes darted to the windows sometimes, like he was measuring time against the sky.
And worst of all the way Draco looked at him now.
Like someone memorizing a face.
The realization hit Harry one night so suddenly it stole his breath.
He’s saying goodbye. He’s really going away from Hogwarts.
The thought lodged itself deep and refused to move.
⸻
The confrontation came in the Astronomy Tower.
It always felt like endings lived there.
Harry found Draco leaning against the stone railing, book pressed under his arm, wind tugging at his robes. The sky was dark, stars sharp and distant.
“You’re avoiding me,” Harry said.
Draco didn’t turn. “I asked for space.”
“Yes,” Harry said. “but I want honesty.”
Draco exhaled slowly. “You don’t want it.”
“Try me.”
Silence stretched.
Then Draco laughed softly. “You really are insufferable.”
Harry stepped closer. “Tell me why it feels like you’re leaving.”
Draco’s grip tightened on the book.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Draco turned then eyes bright with something dangerously close to panic.
“You don’t get to decide that,” he snapped.
“I don’t,” Harry agreed. “But I get to notice.”
Draco shook his head. “You should stop.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Draco whispered, voice breaking despite himself, “you’re making this harder.”
The words cracked something open.
Harry’s voice dropped. “Harder than what?”
Draco looked at him.
For a long moment, the truth hovered on his tongue visible, trembling, desperate.
Then he swallowed it.
“Than it already is,” he said.
Harry stepped into his space.
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
Draco’s laugh was hollow. “Yes. I do.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Draco said quietly, “if I let myself believe there’s another option… I won’t survive the disappointment.”
Harry’s chest ached.
“What if the other option is real?”
Draco closed his eyes.
“Then I don’t deserve it.”
Harry reached out stopped himself just short of touching him.
“You don’t get to decide that either.”
Draco’s voice was barely audible. “Everyone else already has.”
The wind howled between them.
Harry felt helpless — truly helpless — in a way he hadn’t since the war.
“Please,” he said softly. “Just… don’t disappear.”
Draco opened his eyes.
Something in them shattered.
“I can’t promise that,” he whispered.
Harry’s breath hitched. “Draco—”
But Draco stepped back.
“I have to finish this,” he said, clutching the book. “And when I do, everything will finally make sense. Even to you”
Harry stared at the book.
At the weight of it.
At the ending it represented.
“And if it doesn’t?” Harry asked.
Draco didn’t answer.
He turned and left.
⸻
That night, Harry couldn’t sleep.
He sat on his bed, staring at the dark, the words echoing in his head.
I can’t promise that.
Something was wrong.
Deeply, terrifyingly wrong.
And for the first time since the war, Harry felt the same familiar dread — the sense that time was running out and he didn’t know how to stop it.
Across the castle, Draco Malfoy wrote the final page.
His hand trembled.
Ink smeared.
The last sentence stared back at him — complete.
Final.
He closed the book.
And for the first time in months, he cried.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just quietly, into his sleeve, alone in the dark, mourning something he had already decided to lose.
⸻
No one was prepared.
That was the cruelest part, not that Draco Malfoy died, but that everyone had been looking at him and still hadn’t seen it.
The castle woke to whispers that morning.
Not rumors, disbelief.
A Slytherin prefect was found shaking in the corridor outside the infirmary. A Ravenclaw dropped her books when she heard the name. Professors moved too quickly, spoke too softly.
And Harry Potter sat in the Great Hall, laughing at something Ron said, utterly unaware that his world had already ended.
When Professor McGonagall entered, the room froze.
Her voice didn’t shake.
“Classes are suspended for the day.”
A murmur rippled through the Hall.
Then her gaze found Harry.
“Mr. Potter,” she said gently. “Please come with me.”
Harry stood, confused. Annoyed, even, for getting in the middle of attention again.
He would hate himself for that later.
⸻
They told him in fragments.
Not the whole truth at first.
Draco Malfoy.
The Astronomy Tower.
Early morning. Dawn.
Too late.
Harry stopped walking.
“No,” he said, smiling faintly, waiting for the correction. “You’ve made a mistake.”
McGonagall’s eyes filled.
Harry didn’t scream.
He didn’t shout.
He simply collapsed.
The sound that tore out of him this raw, animal, broken sound that echoed down the corridor, a grief so sudden and absolute it hollowed him out instantly.
“No— no—” Harry gasped, clutching at his chest. “He was here. He was fine. He said—”
He said I can’t promise that.
Understanding hit him like a curse.
Too late.
⸻
The infirmary was full.
Not of students — of Slytherins.
Blaise Zabini sat on the floor, back against the wall, staring blankly at nothing. Theo Nott stood rigid, hands shaking, knuckles white as bone. Pansy Parkinson was on her knees beside the bed.
Draco’s body lay still.
Too still.
Pansy made a sound that didn’t resemble crying, but something fractured and hoarse, like the grief had torn straight through her lungs. She clutched his sleeve, sobbing his name over and over like it might wake him.
“He was supposed to finish the year,” Theo whispered. “That’s all. That’s all he said.”
Blaise turned away, face twisted in pain. “We should’ve stopped him.”
Harry stood frozen at the doorway.
He couldn’t breathe.
This is my fault, his mind screamed.
I saw it. I felt it. And I still let him go.
Hermione held Harry upright as his knees gave out again. Ron’s hand pressed hard between his shoulder blades as Harry sobbed deep, uncontrollable, devastating sobs that left him choking.
“I didn’t understand,” Harry cried. “I didn’t know. I thought— I thought he was just—”
Just depressed.
Just hurting.
Just surviving.
Draco had been saying goodbye.
⸻
They found the note inside the book.
A single page, folded carefully at the front.
Harry’s name written in precise, elegant script.
For Harry,
who saw me when no one else did,
and made me stay longer than I deserved.
Harry broke.
He pressed the book to his chest and screamed.
⸻
The funeral was held beneath a pale winter sky.
Narcissa Malfoy stood alone — tall, composed, utterly shattered.
When Harry approached her, he didn’t know what he meant to say. Words failed him. Everything failed him.
“I loved him,” Harry whispered, voice breaking. “I didn’t know until it was too late. But I loved him.”
Narcissa looked at him really looked and something in her expression softened.
“He loved you too,” she said quietly. “He never said your name. But he wrote you into every silence.”
She held Harry as they cried— mother and boy, bound by the same unbearable loss.
⸻
That night, Harry told Ron and Hermione the truth.
Everything.
“I loved him,” he said again, quieter now. “And I think… I think he loved me back.”
Hermione cried openly.
Ron swallowed hard and pulled Harry into a hug so fierce it hurt.
“You’re not alone,” Ron said hoarsely. “Not now. Not ever.”
Harry wished Draco had believed that.
⸻
The castle never felt the same again.
Harry graduated.
He lived.
He kept going.
But Draco Malfoy stayed with him — in the spaces between laughter, in the nights when the world went quiet and memory crept in.
————
Harry Potter married.
He loved deeply. He built a life full of warmth and laughter and safety, the kind Draco had never believed possible for himself.
Three children filled his home with noise and light.
And still-
Sometimes, late at night, Harry stood by the window and thought of a boy with silver hair and haunted eyes who had once let him stay.
He remembered the sarcasm.
The guarded smiles.
The book left behind.
Love didn’t leave him.
It simply changed shape.
And when the house was quiet and the world still, Harry whispered into the dark:
“I see you. I always did.”
And somewhere beyond pain and guilt and unfinished sentences, Harry hoped Draco Malfoy finally rested.