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The Great Hall didn't look like anything Harry recognized anymore.
Instead of the gorgeous enchanted sky that was usually on the ceiling, you could see the real sky because of the holes on the ceilings. The hot summer air was blowing everywhere and when you looked at the left wall, or rather where the left wall had been, you could see the wreckage below. Tables lay upended or splintered outright. Somewhere towards the far end, someone was crying and screaming, while someone else was grieving over their fallen friend. The dead had been laid out with as much care as anyone had time for, and Harry made himself not look at that row too long, made himself not search it for faces, because he already knew some of the faces would be there and he didn't have anything left to spend on grief that wasn't already spoken for.
Ron and Hermione found him near a fallen column, where he'd gone to be still for one final minute before he did the thing he'd come back to do.
"It's too dangerous to go alone," Hermione said. Her voice was hoarse from smoke and shouting, and her hair had come half out of its plait, and there was a graze along her cheekbone she hadn't let anyone look at. She said it like she knew what Harry was going to do, like she had known from the moment Voldemort's prophecy had been heard by everyone. And maybe she did know exactly what was going through Harry’s brain. Maybe she did know that he was planning on sacrificing himself for everyone else.
Harry didn't answer right away. He looked instead at the door at the far end of the ruined hall, half-hanging off broken hinges, night showing black beyond it, and let himself feel, just for a second, how much he didn't want to walk through it.
"That's kind of the point," he said finally.
Ron's jaw was tight, a muscle working in it the way it did when he was holding something back by force. Behind him, Ginny stood with her wand still gripped white-knuckled, not looking at Harry directly, like she already understood something the other two hadn't let themselves understand yet. "Then let us come with you. We've been with you every step, we're not going to just—"
"No." It came out harder than he meant it to. He stopped for a moment, and softened his tone, because they didn't deserve the hard edge of this, not after everything, not after all of it — not after the locket, the horcruxes, months of cold and hunger and each other being the only reason any of it was survivable. "I have to do this on my own. You know that. You've known that since the locket, since Dumbledore, since—" He stopped. Started again, quieter, steadier than he felt. "It has to be me. Just me."
Hermione's eyes were bright and furious with the effort of not crying, and losing, visibly, as he watched. "You don't know that it'll even—"
"I know enough. There’s no other way. Not with the time that we have left, and if I don’t do this hundreds of others will die" He didn't let himself finish that thought out loud. I know enough to know I'm not walking back out of that forest alive. Some things were easier carried silently, folded up small enough that no one else had to hold the weight of them too soon.
Around them the Hall kept breathing its ragged, broken breathing — someone calling a name that wouldn't answer, dust sifting down from the shattered ceiling, the distant sound of something still burning somewhere in the castle's bones. Harry hugged Hermione first, quick and fierce, memorizing without meaning to the particular way she held on, like letting go was a decision she was refusing to make until his arms made it for her. Ron next — a rough clasp that turned, at the last second, into something neither of them tried to make into words, because words were going to break both of them open and there wasn't time left tonight for that kind of breaking.
"See you in a bit," Ron said, and his voice betrayed him completely on the last word, and Harry let him have the lie, because it was the kindest thing either of them had to offer.
“If you see Draco, tell him I'm sorry,” Harry said, and Ron’s face immediately took on an angry expression while Hermione nodded. They both never approved of whatever was going on between Harry and Draco, the lingering touches during classes, the playful banter that fooled everyone into pretending they hated each other, and the kisses that were shared in quiet moments in the Forbidden Forest, when they knew that nobody else would be there.
He had just saved his life from the fire that Draco’s own friend, if they were even that, had set. That had been probably one of the most scary moments in Harry’s life, because, for a moment, he thought that he’d miss Draco’s hand. That Draco would succumb to die emblazed by magic fire in a room that would probably never be seen again.
He shook his head, knowing better than to think of Draco at this time, because if Draco found him now, and told him not to do it, Harry wasn’t sure if he would still go. And too many lives were at stake for him to risk it all for one person. Especially since that person could be one of the people Voldemort hurts. With a final wave at his best friends, Harry slipped on his cloak and began the walk to the Forbidden Forest.
He walked fast, dodging all of the fighting that was going on. He made sure not to look too closely at the fighting, since he knew that if he recognized someone he cared about being hurt, he would take off the cloak and help fight. At one point, he watched as Hagrid led hundreds of giant spiders into the fight, and took that as his chance to make it to the farther grounds where there was no fighting going on.
The grounds are cold and quiet, as if the world was holding its breath for the disaster of the castle. Even though he had escaped the main fight, there was still smoke everywhere, the occasional death eater, and patches of grass on fire. He kept right on the edge of the forest, his cloak familiar and comfortable around his shoulder, his steps as soft as he could make them. He didn’t let himself think of anything but the next ten feet. Not thinking about his friends and whether they’re hurt, not thinking about his professors and if they were going to see the light, and definitely not of his lover, who keeps intruding every thought in his brain.
He let his brain wander finally, when he ended the corner of the Forest, to his parents. Of how she sacrificed her own life to let him live, or how his dad tried to fight Voldemort without a wand. About how all of their efforts for their son to live a long and happy life are all gone.
He was so lost in his thoughts he almost didn’t notice the blond hair that seemed to shine in the moonlight walking into the Forbidden Forest and looking directly at him, as if he knew that Harry was there.
“Potter?” Draco’s voice said, somehow sounding worried and relieved at the same time, “I know you’re there. Don’t ask me how, I just do.”
Harry stopped walking, and for a moment, he considered walking away and not answering, disappearing under the moonlight and the cloak. But something in Draco’s voice made him stop and look at Draco. Look at the dirt on his hair and clothes, look at the scars on his face.
He pulled the cloak back from his face.
Draco’s face showed even more fear, but there was also a hint of wariness and confusion in his eyes, as if he knew what Harry was going to, but pretending that he didn’t. “Where are you going”
He phrased it as a hope for him to be wrong, not as a question.
“You know where I'm going. You know I can’t let you come with me.”
“Try me.” Draco’s feet came closer and there was an edge of desperation in his voice, and for a moment, Harry saw the boy who asked him to be friends with him on the first day of school, “Whatever stupid, idiotic thing you’ve decided has to be done all alone, it doesn't actually have to be done alone. I’m coming with you.”
“No way”
"It's too dangerous to go alone," Draco said, and his voice cracked on it, just slightly, just enough that Harry heard everything he wasn't saying underneath the words. Don't leave me here not knowing. Don't make me the person who lets you walk into the dark by yourself.
Harry looked at him for a long moment. Memorized his face to make sure that it would be the last one he visualized when he lets Voldemort kill him. So that, even if Voldemort didn’t know, one of Voldemort's own Death Eaters would be Harry's forever.
"You're right," Harry said softly. "It is."
He raised his wand before Draco could react to the shift in his tone. "Petrificus Totalus."
Draco's hands immediately straightened against his body as he started falling backwards. Harry caught him quickly, and could barely look Draco in the eyes to avoid the hurt and anger in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry love,” he whispered, cupping Draco’s face, “I couldn’t let you follow me. You know that I'm going to sacrifice myself, to hopefully stop all of this. I just want you safe, no matter what happens next.”
He brushed Draco’s hair from his forehead, and then leaned down and kissed him. It was better than it had ever been before, no longer in random empty classrooms, as they kiss fast before anyone else could ever catch them. Now, just for a moment, it was just them. Just the Chosen One and the Boy Who Had No Choice. Just Malfoy and Potter. Draco and Harry.
And then the moment was over, and Harry was forced to pull away. He finally gathered the courage to look into Draco’s eyes, and saw so much love and hurt and begging in his eyes, it took everything in him not to just stay here with him together, or to apparate them both somewhere safe and live in a small house on a small island away from everyone else.
But he knew that he couldn’t do that. So with a heavy heart, he pulled the cloak back over his head and walked into the Forbidden Forest, prepared to die.
The body-bind held for almost an hour.
Draco lay where Harry had left him, on his back on the cold ground at the edge of the trees, and he could not turn his head and he could not close his eyes and he could not make a single sound. He could see a slice of sky through the branches. He could see the smoke crossing it, moving fast, like weather. He could hear the castle in the distance, and then, after a while, he could not, and the silence was so much worse that he would have given anything to have the screaming back.
Then the voice came, so loud that Draco wished he was able to cover his ears. His dark mark burned and all he could do was lay there as Voldenort’s serpenty voice echoed through the forest and everywhere else.
Harry Potter is dead.
Draco’s body didn’t move, no matter how hard he tried. His hands stayed flushed against his sides and his jaw stayed stiff and locked. His chest was still going in and out as if nothing had happened, as if everything was just the same as it was a year ago. The only part of him that was still working was his eyes, with fresh tears rolling down his face and falling onto the dirt flooring of the forest.
Come out, and look upon the body of your fallen hero.
He hated Harry then, briefly and completely, with a violence that surprised him. For asking. For not asking. For saying I'm so sorry love and then leaving him here, safe, exactly as promised, safe like a coat put away in a cupboard, safe and useless and alone.
Then the spell let go all at once, and he didn’t hesitate.
He was on his feet in a matter of seconds, already stumbled around, trying to run. His legs were barely working, a side effect of being forced to lay completely still for an hour, and he almost fell three times and walked into a tree in the first five minutes. He ran as fast as he could to the edge of the forest, and then past Hagrid’s Hut, and then past the Quidditch Field. He slowed down a little as he saw Death Eaters nearby, before sneaking past them and running past the Greenhouses.
He didn’t have any resemblance of a plan. He was aware that his father was somewhere nearby, along with his mother. He was aware that he was seen as a traitor to the Death Eaters, and a Death Eater to all of Hogwarts. He kept running anyway, because there was a body of a person he loved, and he was going to see it. Because if he didn’t see it, then he would never stop wondering, or hoping that it was all a dream.
He came up through the courtyard, and stopped.
Because the noise that he heard wasn’t grief.
He knew what grief sounded like now; he'd been listening to it all night, from a distance, through the trees. This was something else. It was a roar. It was shouting and it was crying and underneath it, impossibly, somebody was laughing, and the sound went into Draco like cold water, and he was moving again before he understood why.
He ran up a couple of steps until he could see the Courtyard, and then he froze. Not with grief or anger, but with relief. He saw the hundreds of wands with random spells flying around, but in the middle, with his glasses cracked and all filthy, was Harry.
Harry, who had just jumped out of Hagrid's hands. Harry, who didn’t have a wand. Draco didn’t think so, he just yelled Harry’s name and threw his wand at Harry. He knew that this left him defenseless, but he didn’t care. Instead he watched as Harry and Voldemort exchanged blows. As Voldemort fired off “Avada Kadavra” and Harry kept on yelling “Expelliarmus. Finally, Voldemort got hit, and his body turned to ash and floated away. As Death Eater quickly started disappearing and students started crying from relief. As the fighting finally came to an end.
Draco stood there, watching as everyone was rejoining. He was a Malfoy, a death eater, and he knew that this wasn’t his victory, and that there was a chance someone would knock him out before he could explain anything. Before he could apologize or get Harry to defend him. But he did watch as Ron ran to Harry and hugged him. As Hermione joined in.
He watched as Harry looked directly at him. Harry’s face softened and had such a relieved and carefree expression that it made Draco smile. Smiled because Harry was breathing, and alive, and safe at last.
And Harry smiled right back at him. Small, and crooked, and so tired it barely made it to the corners of his mouth. A smile with nothing in it for anybody else in that room. And he motioned for Draco to go join him in The Forest, at their secret clearing, but instead of sneaking off, Harry came to him and grabbed him by his arm so that they could walk together.
Draco knew that everyone would be talking about this, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
Not when his Golden Boy was next to him, alive and warm, and there were no other problems to worry about.