niaitxt.cc 
“Draco,” he finally said, his voice cracking. “Draco, you’re alive.”
Draco’s vision began fading at the edges, sinking into complete darkness. The last thing he remembered was the grass rapidly approaching his face.
He was beautiful. God, he was beautiful.
Harry felt like a creep, sitting at the edge of his bed and staring at him like this, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the other boy’s face. He tried to write it off by making the excuse that he never thought he would see this face, in the flesh, again and that was why he couldn’t look away, but that excuse only lasted about three minutes. No, he couldn’t look away because he was looking at the singular most beautiful person he had ever seen and that person had somehow managed to go and become even more beautiful.
And he was alive. Harry knew he should be angry that he was lied to, that he was made to feel like the world was crumbling beneath him for no reason at all, but he couldn’t quite manage it. He was just so relieved. Each rise and fall of Draco’s chest made the pain that had taken residence in his own dissipate a little.
He reached out and brushed Draco’s hair away from his face, not letting his hand linger on the other boy’s face like it so desperately wanted to.
Draco began to stir.
Draco awoke on his bed. It had just been another dream, thank Merlin.
He stretched his arms, feeling satisfied at the pop in his spine as he did so.
“Oh, thank god, you’re awake.”
Draco’s eyes rocketed open, only to fall upon Harry Potter, sitting at the edge of his bed in the Slytherin dungeons.
“You passed out and then you became human again, and you’re too tall to cover with the Invisibility Cloak entirely, so I had to levitate you down here with your feet sticking out. Luckily, no one was there to see,” Harry rambled a bit.
“You weren’t supposed to know,” was all Draco could bring himself to say.
“Thanks, Harry. You’re very welcome for not leaving you on the grass in the rain for anyone to see, Malfoy,” Harry said.
“McGonagall will kill me now that you know.”
“Well, being killed doesn’t appear to be all that bad,” Harry said, not without a hint of bitterness.
“Potter, I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would bother you.”
“It did.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Draco repeated, sitting up. A silence hung heavy between them. “It felt like the only option.”
“How?”
“The trial may have gone well, had I gone, but the whole world hated me. Still does. Even if I was exonerated, I couldn’t live with the staring and the whispering. I couldn’t live knowing no one really forgave me,” Draco explained.
“I forgave you.”
“I know.”
Harry fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.
“We don’t have to tell her,” he said, finally, his eyes meeting Draco’s.
“That you know? No, I suppose we don’t. I could just obliviate you and we could carry on like—”
“No!” Harry interjected quickly.
“No?”
“I won’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”
“I can’t.”
“Please.”
“Potter.”
“I—” Harry broke eye contact, settling on the bedding in front of him. “I need to remember you, like this. I need to know you’re okay. What happened to you—what I thought happened to you—it made me sick.”
Draco sighed, pulling his legs to his chest. His eyes stung.
“The war was over. The war was over and somehow we both survived and the thought of that, for reasons I couldn’t understand, or maybe just didn’t want to understand, made me relieved. I never thought I would be glad that you would live another day to make me feel like an absolute idiot. But then…Then you were gone and I conveniently figured out why I was so relieved we had both survived the moment you were taken away from us. From me,” Harry spoke so quickly, Draco could hardly be sure of what he was hearing.
“And why was that?” Draco asked, his mouth going dry. He knew the answer, had known the answer for a week now, but he wouldn’t let himself believe it until Harry said it to him directly.
Harry laughed humorlessly.
“I don’t want to say it if you’re just going to obliviate me in a few hours.”
“Answer and maybe I won’t.”
“Maybe isn’t good enough.”
“Maybe is as good as I can give you, Potter.”
Harry was silent for a moment, studying Draco’s face intently.
“I guess telling you now and not remembering later is better than never telling you at all.”
“I guess it is.”
“You have an idea of what I am going to say, don’t you?”
“I can only hope my idea is anywhere close.”
Harry took a deep breath and Draco braced himself, waiting for whatever Potter was about to tell him. Potter looked at him and swallowed, opening his mouth and closing it again. His gaze fell back to the bed sheets, which he took in his hands, fiddling with the fabric, then rose back to Draco.
“Bloody hell, Potter, spit it ou—”
“Maybe I never hated you,” Potter sputtered.
“Alright, maybe you didn’t, so what?” Draco said, and he could feel their conversation falling back in that old familiar pattern, seeing who could make the other feel dumber with each word.
