Keeping Company

He sits comfortably. It is warm, and sunny. It is the right sort of weather for sitting outside, in the countryside, underneath apple trees in a deckchair. He has no book or occupation. He does not need one. He sits.

People pass and look over at him. It does not worry him, because he has always been looked at. Since he was eleven, and grown enough for the world to slip and change. He sits and sits. There is no need for conversation. Companionable silence is enough for the both of them. It always was.

***

"Pass the newspaper." First words of the evening, said comfortably beside the fire, and the warm weight of him resting against Harry.

"Fetch it yourself, you're close enough." He swings his feet into Harry's lap, and leans back against the arm of the sofa, his eyes sparkling wickedly.

"But I don't want to."

Harry hands him the newspaper, and they sit, Harry looking at the fire, feeling his eyes on his face, the heaviness of feet in his lap, and hearing the spit of the logs in time with the resting sighs of his breaths. Silence, warm and friendly.

***

He sits in the cold and does not feel it. The deckchair's legs scrunch the snow beneath with a frosty, icy sound as it takes his weight once again. Snow has collected along the branches of the tree, and it slides suddenly slipping down and dropping to the snow below. White begins and white ends but Harry cannot see the divide. It does not matter. They are silent once again, even without the bird-song.

He is cold quickly, shivering and he remembers shivers again. Cold kisses on a day like this one and he looks at him and wonders if he remembers also.

***

Arms wound tight around him, the wind fills his robes and bells them out, rough wool against Harry's cheek and then wool is replaced by skin as cold as his own, stung to redness by the cold.

Lips pressed together hurriedly, mouths hot and rich. It is needy, life against the cold and cruel, and with his head pressed against Harry's throat, his lips against Harry's skin, he laughs and mutters something about being freezing.

***

A second slides by like sand in an hour-glass, infinite and forever. It hangs like rain against the window pane, with his face pressed against the glass, waiting for it to end.

***

"Harry." Harry blinks and they are there. He has been watching him sightlessly for so long he has not seen them. The sun shivers past red leaves on the trees, and Harry squints into Hermione's face.

"Don't you think you ought to come inside?" she says, and her voice is shaky, fearful. Harry shakes his head, and smiles.

***

He sits alone, and glares at him.

"Why?" Harry demands, shouting while the trees undulate in the wind. He is silent, he refuses to reply, mocking and scathing as he looks back solemnly.

Harry covers his face with his hands, and cries.

***

A leaf lies on his lap. Harry strokes it, following the skeleton, mapping the life of the leaf as he follows its bones beneath the frail, delicate and curling yellow that froths at the edges.

***

On a bed, where the sheets were tossed and rumpled around them, cresting like waves over hips. Tracing veins and the paths of tiny bones as Harry listened to him sleep.

***

It has been twenty days.

Sixty-seven.

Eighty-four.

Eighty-four days and Harry sits once more, and the blanket over his knees is soft but threadbare.

"Speak," he says aloud. He does not answer.

***

One day he is sitting and looking, his fingers opening and shutting in his lap, like curled starfish, restless. And he is there.

"I'm not there," he says conversationally, and Harry looks again at stone he remembers bright and new, now cracked with frost and creeping moss.

Harry looks at him, and breath hitches in his throat, swelling until he cannot speak.

"Where are you?" he asks, plaintively. He looks at Harry and smiles, shrugging and tossing the self-same blond hair over his shoulders.

"Not there," he replies, and that bewitching look is there on his face, the same one Harry dreams fitfully of beneath the tree when apple-blossom scents his sleep.

"You're not real," Harry clarifies, and Draco shakes his head.

"Neither are you, now."

***

Harry's fingertips know the letters, trace the same sloping patterns that have worn paths in his skin across his wrist, his arm, his hand across a faded scar from long-ago and far-away.

His lips move following, and he longs for a word he can never quite say aloud. His fingers move across his arm.

'P'.

***

"It's no use, you know." He is there again, at Harry's shoulder, peering over with the same shameless curiosity that speaks of living in the moment. "I can't hear you. Or see you." He is matter-of-fact and Harry hates him for it, wishing he could see him as pining or wistful, anything but this facsimile of reality.

"What is it like?" Harry asks.

He looks thoughtful, and shrugs.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," Harry says immediately, and Draco looks at him, with that quixotic look of measurement and judging.

"You're wasting time. Mine."

***

"Don't." The words are muffled, said as they are against Harry's arm in the dimness of night and sleep.

Harry looks down at him, tucks hair behind his ear and listens to the words that graze his arm with golden stubble, rough and rash.

"Don't what?" he whispers.

"Don't wallow," Draco mumbles and falls back to sleep, eyelashes settling on his cheeks.

Harry wakes and is cold once again.

***

They offered a medal. Harry has it now, cool and heavy in his palm. Raised letters, like the ones he has read with his fingertips before.

They say different things, and the gold flashes in the sunlight meaninglessly as Harry squints to see.

***

"You're not doing it right," he says accusingly, and Harry turns to see, lifting a hand to shade his eyes from the sun.

"Not doing what?" Harry asks.

He sighs impatiently, and then is gone, faded. Harry tries to see him again.

***

Harry follows the curve of it with his hand and sees twice. Moss, overgrown and cracked letters that are unreadable yet written in him. Bright, new and clear stone.

Harry cannot tell which is real.

It does not matter.

***

"Harry, come inside." It is Hermione again, and her hand on his shoulder is gentle, insistent. Harry tries to think of words to explain it.

"I don't want to leave him. He'll be lonely."

Hermione's face contorts and she turns away. Harry can hear her cry, wrapped in Ron's arms. He turns his back, and carries on, keeping company.

***

"I'm not, you know."

"You're not real," Harry snaps angrily, and his eyes prickle hotly.

"You're listening, aren't you?"

"Not real," Harry repeats, and looks again at him, the solid him, the one he has kept company since it began.

"I'm not there," Draco whispers again, and the wind lays cold fingers against Harry's neck and makes him shiver. Salt slides down his nose and he does not know when he began crying, but his cheeks are wet.

***

He stirs, arm flung out in sleep as warmth nudges between his legs, breath soft against his neck, back bunched against his front like spoons.

Harry wakes, and wonders absently why he can see the stars.

***

"If I go," Harry says aloud, as a test, "Will I see you again?"

This half-light is golden and glowing. He has an unlikely halo and turns his head to look at Harry.

"No," Harry wishes he could lie. There is a sharp stab of something in his heart.

"Do you need to?" he asks, and Harry is silent.

***

He sits comfortably. It is warm and sunny, and the wood under his palms is solid and real. The breeze whispers secrets in the leaves, and he realises. Aching and raw, he folds it up. The wood splinters, and he sucks sharply on his thumb and tastes his skin.

Harry walks and his feet crunch on the gravel of the path. He turns, and looks back. The apple tree sways above the stone, and the rich scent of apple-blossom is heavy around and thick. White has fallen on the stone, like snow. Like rose-petals.

Harry walks away as the sunlight slants through the leaves, and the breeze ruffles his hair. The deckchair stays propped against the wall, for Harry might need it again. Perhaps.

Never.