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"Ghosts in Snow" {Draco Malfoy x Harry Potter}

It was the last night before he had planned to do it, but he did not believe himself capable. He never would have suspected that he was going to be like this forever, but fate had played her hand, and she wasn't backing down now. As the gently falling snow fluttered down amongst the frozen pines, the sun set over the peaks of the granite towers, the last of the afternoon light disappearing behind the greenish-blue reflection of the lapping waves of the lakeside.

"Hey." A male voice muttered. "Are you going to say anything? I just told you I'm alright. We'll get through this together. I don't care what you were. I care what you are."

"I'm a coward." He finally spoke, breaking the almost palpable tension that had hung in the air the entire afternoon. The day had been one of celebration, of victory, if joy and love and families and happiness amongst all of the sadness and misery and death of the past year. So many kids at the beginning of life were gone, so many heroes had fallen, as he had left ashes in his wake. "I ran away and I didn't do ANYTHING! I couldn't do anything. There dead, man. They're dead and I was too afraid to stand up to someone who could have killed me. God I wish he had." The young man's white hair made him look like a fallen star, an angel who had lost grace, the lost light of Lucifer himself sparkling against a face of alabaster, with eyes like the storms of the Arctic seas, cold, yet far beneath their icy waters, alive with the fires of the hearts of the world, the flames inside every icy tear burning, yearning to erupt into the array of lights in the sky, green as the collared shirt he wore.

"Draco-" the other young man took off his black cloak and lowered himself to sit beside him on the stony jade-lined bench facing their alma-mater, where so many memories had been lost to the past, yet trapped forever in hearts hardened by the slow passing of time. The red and gold shirt underneath his otherwise normal outerwear indicated his bewitching identity, though his forehead was as clean as his companion's, no longer bearing the scar that once instantly identified him as the boy who lived. "Draco, I don't think you're a coward." He put his arm around the other man's shoulders, leaning against him as the snow began to collect over his round wire glasses, making his vision every second less precise, as his time to show fear had long time passed, and tears were welcomed instead of suppressed.

"Yes you do. They all do. Hell, even I do."

"You have to know that it wasn't all your fault. You were going to be killed if you didn't leave. He would have killed you!"

"He certainly was going to kill you!" The blonde spat back. "You seemed to not care at all! Brave and chivalrous and courageous and strong, Harry. That's who you are. I'm what? Cunning? Ambitious? Resourceful? Clever? Ha! That all sounds euphemistic for the bloody Devil. My father did everything for me. I'm as resourceful as a stone."

"And just as unyielding." The dark haired man laughed as a small fleck of water escaped his bright green eyes, like grass in the summer sun as it swayed in the winds, teaming with careless mirth and fraternal joy. He laughed lightly and looked up at the first stars peeking through the floor of the heavens like eager little children wanting to share in the blessings of another day lived on, of another day without death. "You're a stubborn little prat, you know that? Eh, Malfoy?" He squeezed his arm around his somber, pouting friend. "Let me see your hand."

"What for, Potter?"

"Just trust me."

"Fine. Don't call me Malfoy, okay? Draco is fine."

"Call me Harry, then."

"Alright, then, Harry." The faintest ghost of a smile crossed Draco's lips as he stuck out his hand, his arm long and slender, yet strong, yet his companion didn't take it. "What? Shake my hand!"