Eternal Blossom

Even the beautiful daisies wilt into nothing.
Makes one wonder why it's even worth it.
They're pretty for a week,
And then they're gone,
Like the fleeting smile of a love-struck boy.
Even the beautiful daisies wilt into nothing.
Alone on a windy hill,
Winter has taken my precious daisies.
Even the beautiful daisies wilt into nothing.

"My Daisy" by Jeffery Parker Gragg

My favorite flowers are daisies; they always have been. The traditional white daisy. I certainly wouldn't call myself a flower-enthusiast, but they have always spoken to me, somehow. There's just something about the look of them, like they are all smiling up at you. If flowers were people, everyone would want a daisy for a friend. Believe it or not, there used to be daisies growing on the grounds at the Manor. Mother was quite fond of them as well; she used to go out on a chaise lounge in a big white hat and read in the summer sun. No, she hadn't planted the flowers, but on those afternoons, watching her from the window in my room, it used to feel like she did.

***

Harry. Potter. Of course. Who else would it be? The one person that I least want to walk up and catch me lounging in the middle of the forest gazing at the bloody foliage.

"Malfoy. What are you doing here?" He looks as caught-off-guard as I feel.

"I suppose I could ask you the same question."

"Yes, I suppose you could." His chin raises slightly, "but I asked you first."

"Oh. Very mature, Potter."

A heavy sigh, as if tired, his face blank. "Look, would you just answer the question?"

"And why should I do that?"

"Because you have no business being in here, so--" There's that Gryffindor determination.

"And you do?"

He looks tired again. "Okay. You know what? That's fine. Don't tell me why you're here. I don't really care." He turns to walk out of the clearing.

"Daisies."

He stops, but does not face me again. "What?" flatly.

"I was looking at the daises."

"Why were you looking at the daises?" As he turns around again, I cannot read his expression. Surprise? Wonder? Amusement?

"I like them, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. No need to snip at me." He comes closer and his green eyes peer out from behind those ridiculous glasses for a better view of the flowers. "They're nice."

He turns and leaves without look back. Suddenly, I feel tired too.

***

I don't know what it is with him lately. No one does. Potter has been acting differently somehow. He always looks as though something is weighing heavily on his mind. He keeps to himself quite a bit, too; it used to be hard to find him without his little groupies. The thing that gets me the most is how empty he feels. There always has been--much as I hate to admit it--a kind of aura around him that you can feel when you walk by. Perhaps that is why I was so drawn to him. That unique, purely Harry thing that filled him before, radiated from him, is just not there anymore. Potter is by no means like everyone else, but now when he is close to me, it feels like he is.

***

I walk into the clearing, and see Potter sitting on the right side, under a particularly large limb, next to the patch of daises. It is where I always sit.

"Potter."

He only looks up when he hears his name. His eyes lack all of their famous intensity. "Malfoy." There is no emotion in his voice. He certainly isn't surprised to see me here.

"What are you doing in my spot?"

"What? You are the only one who can wander in here at all hours of the night? Does Daddy own the Forrest too, now?" The words are biting, but the tone is not.

"No, I mean that you are sitting where I always sit when I come in here. You are in my spot."

Blankly, "Oh."

"What's with you, Potter?"

"What's with me?" with disinterest.

"You are quiet, you've ditched your sidekicks, you're always looking sullen."

"Why, Draco," dripping with sarcasm. "I didn't know you cared."

"Why did you come here anyway?"

He looks down toward the ground almost reverently. "I was looking at the daisies."

I walk closer to him as he puts his right hand to the ground and shifts his weight onto it, as though to stand. I put my left on his shoulder and push him down again gently.

"So look."

I turn and leave the clearing.

***

He takes long walks alone during his free periods. He's been doing this for weeks. It is not an aimless walk, either. It seems like he has a set path to follow from one day to the next, like there's a purpose. I've stopped taking my own walks at night. It seems as though if I walk those same trails, it might disrupt his careful pattern. He just wanders over the grounds like he is searching for something. Not something he lost, but something that has been taken from him. He is not hunting for something that he's just dropped out of his pocket, but as I watch him out the window in the History of Magic classroom, it feels like he is.

***

As he enters the clearing, "Malfoy." Certainly, as though he knew I'd be here just as surely as the flowers.

"Potter."

"Daisies?" It is half inquiry, half request.

"Daisies."

He walks to the small patch of flowers and sits opposite me, so the daisies are between us. He sighs heavily and looks down at the blossoms and lets go of whatever it was he had been carrying around in his head all day. Suddenly, something warms his face. He looks lighter. I think one of the daisies has smiled at him.

***

So, this is what we do now. It's become a ritual of sorts. We both go to the clearing in the forest and sit together looking at flowers. I've always gone to that spot when I needed to be alone and clear my mind, but I'd never taken anyone else there, or even told anyone about it. I really don't mind having him there, though. I think he needs a place to get away from being Harry Potter. We generally keep to ourselves. When we do talk, the conversation is surprisingly pleasant. It seems that, away from the castle and the house tables and people to remind us of our respective histories and destinies, we lack any reason to bicker and fight, so we don't. We are not different people amidst the daisies, but looking at him sitting next to me, it feels like we are.

***

"Here." Harry holds his hand out to me, and in it lays a single flower.

"What is this?"

He looks nervously around the crowded library. "It's a daisy, Malfoy."

"I see that, Potter. Why are you giving it to me?"

"The weather is turning. Unexpected cold," hurriedly, as though regretting he'd never done this. "They're going to die. Soon." He looked as though there was much more that he wished to say, but couldn't.

"So you thought it'd be a good idea to put this one out if it's misery before the others?"

"No, Malfoy." Sigh. "I've done a Preservation Spell on this one. It will never wilt." Mumbles, "I want you to have it."

He carefully lays the flower on the book in front of me and walks toward the door.

"Thank you."

I wonder if he heard.

***

The weather couldn't be more beautiful. The sun would almost be too sunny if it weren't for the cool breeze blowing across the grounds. These are the days that all the kids flee the stone confines of the castle for the lush green grounds and revel in being carefree, even if just for an hour at a time. The wonderful weather and landscape are wasted, however, for no one can bare an hour from their mourning to be carefree. Today there will be a funeral just outside of Hogsmede. Nearly the entire school will attend, along with most of the Ministry of Magic and hundreds of wizards from all over the world.

As I enter the clearing in the woods where I have spent so many of my nights lately, the first thing I see is the patch of daisies, waiting for Harry and I to come and sit alongside it and talk, or joke, or play exploding snap, or kiss, or cry, or just breathe. I walk to it and look down at their smiling faces.

"Why are you smiling? I am not here to wait for Harry. He is not coming today, or tonight either. He won't be visiting you again any time soon. He's gone. The weather's turned. Unexpected cold." The flowers do not pale or cry at this news.

"Why aren't you in Hogsmede with all the others, mourning him? You'd be of good use there. You could lie on his grave and try to turn it into something beautiful. Sacrifice yourselves for him the way so many would love to. The way they sacrificed him." But the flowers refuse to rip themselves from the ground. They just stand silently, grinning madly up at me. They don't even stop smiling as I tear them from their warm, damp soil homes.

***

Draco lays in his four-poster with the black curtains drawn, bathing myself in darkness. The only thing he can make out in the gloom is a single daisy. He looks forward to next year, when his daisies--Harry's daisies--will bloom again. He is glad that until then, he has this one to smile at him. Harry is no longer with him, but looking at the eternal bloom in his hand, dirty with fertilizer stolen from one of the Herbology greenhouses, he can feel that unique, purely Harry feeling around him again.