Burying

Here was the resting place of Draco Malfoy: born January 4th, 1981; died July 31st, 2001. Or here was, if you like, the resting place of a Death Eater, of a kind akin to those of the Old Legends, a fierce warrior of a blood race. Here was the resting place of a boy who loved chocolate. Here was the resting place of a boy who lived, for twenty years, though he loved for less. Here was the resting place of a boy who didn't live until forever, like he'd inadvertently promised.

Harry brought flowers and laid them on the stone. He had once pledged his soul to the body in the grave, something that hadn't seemed so melodramatic at the time. He wondered if these vows followed them into the afterlife, and if Draco might stake his claim.

He wondered if it would be interesting to walk around in those shoes - or a pair of similar ones, anyway; those had probably given in to the soil years ago. Often when they'd been younger, he'd wondered, typically, what went into the mechanics of that grace, that smirk, that insufferable elegance. He'd watched Draco from across the Great Hall sometimes. That had been the only place he'd dared (there was an eye-catching tapestry hung just behind the Slytherin table).

He'd known what people were talking about when they spoke of fairy boys, or queers. And while he had been sure that girls were quite the primary objective in his teens, he could never help but wonder about Draco's preferences, even then (or perhaps especially then). He'd lain awake many nights, wondering if that sulking mouth was swollen from pouting or kisses, and if those pale hands trembled with malice, or in memory of another man's body.

There was something in that lean frame that screamed to be judged, something in the sway of hips whose orientation begged to be discovered. It was the scent of baby powder and Brylcreem, and the sordid reek of sex. The magnetism was hardly animal, in fact it was pale and sneering and cold. But where Draco Malfoy didn't arouse lust or love (or just arouse), he aroused curiousity - and while Harry may have been a learned innocent, he was still, quite unavoidably, an innocent.

"Trysts", he liked to call them, even in everyday conversation. It would be, "a tryst in Greenhouse One," or "meet me at the usual trysting place". Harry often found this laughable, but one didn't mock the agencies of one's despoiling. One didn't dare. One hadn't the heart.

Because there is, you see, something infinitely complex about the dynamics of two fucking boys. There is uncertainty in guilt, even as there is comfort in the certainty of impermanence. And neither understood that neither understood, so they went on.

"You'll be sick of me by next week," was Draco's running, laughing refrain.

"I'll be sick of you when I meet some good girls," Harry would reply, "I'll be sick of you when I start to live properly."

"I promise to be there until that day, then," Draco murmured, eyes twinkling. "I might even kiss you."

They were in their sixth year at Hogwarts, when the wars came. Their separation was inevitable, their parting quite complete. Every now and again they would hear about each other over the Muggle radio, or in the newspapers, or on the grapevine. The war was scattered and anticlimatic. And the last Harry had ever seen of Draco was in this same cemetery. An ancient Wizarding custom said that only family was permitted to watch as the body was lowered into the grave. The soul, the tradition went, would linger on the earth restless otherwise.

Harry had watched, as he did now; he'd stared at Draco's mouth, which had been white and no longer swollen, neither with his kisses nor sulking. Harry had stared, and with every inch the coffin was lowered, he prayed not to be alone. Draco had had a promise to fulfill. He had burned the impression of himself onto Draco's lips, so that it was almost a kiss. That was good enough.

Their love had never been selfless, anyway.