Draco Malfoy and the Alcoholic's Wish

You're a Slytherin, aren't you?

We fell asleep together, nestled together in front of the fire for a few hours. Snape, in fact, was unconscious for much longer, which wasn't surprising- he'd had a busy day with the Malfoy mess, and besides, I wasn't renown for my normal sleeping patterns.

I slid a finger under his sleeve again, pulling it back a tiny bit so that one of the emeralds of the Severus-doe and a tip of the lily petal peeked out. I realised then that one of the main reasons why Snape had hated Harry so much was his relation to his father (we'd heard several off-hand remarks about the famously lazy James Potter in our lifetimes), mixed with the confusion over his remorse over Lily, his late mother. I wondered if Harry knew of the full story.

"Of course I did," said a small voice in front of me, and I lifted my head to see the all-too-familiar face of Harry Potter. "Right before I took down Voldemort, Snape had me look in the Pensieve at his memories, as they told me I had to be the one to take down Voldemort, and that he had to try and kill me first. In there were childhood memories of Snape and my mum. It was... weird to say the least."

"Harry, please don't do this" I whispered sadly, shaking Snape off of me. "I can't see you anymore, I'm sorry."

"I know why" he replied, his eyes misting over even more. "You don't believe I exist, do you?"

"You don't" I replied. I couldn't bear to say goodbye, but I knew he was no good for me, as much as I'd grown to love him. As lovely as he was, his presence was fueling my belief in my hallucinations ."It's all in my head, and I'm sorry you had to be a part of it."

"How did you know?"

"The real Harry would never have left his mates behind" I smiled. "You're not that sort of hero. You were human, just like the rest of us. With all the stories flying around, I got messed up. I thought you were some superhuman, I made you up and you're suddenly so different, nowhere near as sarcastic, or as blatantly unapologetic as you were in real life. I know what you're like, I bullied you for five years."

"If you knew what I was like, how come you couldn't bring me to life properly?" he cried, growing a little hazy around the edges.

"Who knows? Most of the time I was blackout drunk, I didn't take in what was happening- if you said you were the ghost of Harry Potter, I damn well believed that. And I think some of it was wishful thinking. I made you out to be short tempered- because I'm not a complete idiot, if you were all sunshine and rainbows, I would have guessed something was up."

He smiled, a tear falling down his face and falling silently onto the carpet. "Harry, you were a great guy. But you're not Harry, and I know that now."

"You realise that we're probably never going to meet again, right?" I nodded, tears falling down my face too.

"I think so. It's a shame, you were one of my kinder hallucinations" He chuckled wetly, and I did too, so much so that I woke up Snape, who stirred, before begrudgingly opening his eyes and looking at the blank space in front of him.

Harry looked at him in alarm, his eyes wide and his body tense, but I reached out a hand (not that it touched anything) to stop him. "Please" I whispered. "Stay".

"What- what's going on?" he slurred, looking in growing alarm at my happy yet damp appearance, following my gaze to where my ghost was stood. "Oh.. is he here? Harry?"

"Yeah" I breathed, and Boy Wonder looked at Snape with interest, taking in his tired features with slight amusement.

"Wow, he's let himself go, hasn't he?" he joked, walking right up to him and supposedly poking his hooked nose.