By Your Side

You lie so still. Each day you lie, and pale a little more against the stark white sheets. I'm scared that one day you'll fade altogether, and I won't be able to find you anymore.

They do not see. They do not ask what is the matter, because they are so certain of their own understanding. We have won, but how many of us have lost? Padma, Neville, Hannah, Luna, Seamus, Snape, the names go on. And the ones left behind, there is nothing they can do.

I cannot let you leave me. But do I have a choice? They say that I died for you, but you are dying because what they say is true. My very presence feeds the guilt rising inside of you, and yet I can't walk away. My own selfishness binds me to you. I need you. Death knows no shame.

And you love me that much; so you will fade.

Fade like me. No, not like me. I went from your world in a blazing inferno, and you will melt into mine like ice slowly waning in a water glass. It will be neither a quick nor remarkable departure, but a quiet and inevitable one. Isn't it silly to be afraid of death when you're already dead?

You never used to sleep much at night, now you don't sleep at all. I spend days at your bedside, I've lost count of how many have passed. I watch you staring at the sky. Looking for me, maybe? If you could hear it, I would tell you that I'm right here, you dolt.

Listen to me.

Get up. Brush your hair.

Put on your designer, custom-made robes and saunter into the Great Hall like you own the place. People will notice, they always do.

Smile, after you offer a scathing insult to anyone and everyone who crosses your path. Smile like you know this is where you belong. Don't look for me across the room, I won't be there. I will be sitting beside you, at the head of the Slytherin table, just as I have always wanted to do. I want to shake you and make you do all of those things, I want to live, I want you back.

I don't know what it is you want. I've learnt to shut out your thoughts. It's better if I don't hear what you're thinking, I can't stand it anymore. In the beginning I would listen, try to make sense of it all, as if that would bring us closer together until I remembered that madmen don't make sense.

Perhaps it would have been kinder to let him kill you. Perhaps I should have lived instead. The uncertainty haunts me. Harry has borne the gift all his life. He has beaten it, but I do not know whether you are able to achieve the same. I can only hope now. Hope that you will remember not that I died for you Draco, but that I lived for you.

I wait, and wonder if you will do the same.