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Acts of Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21189 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Two—Mourning
            It was hard for Harry to raise his head and focus on the grave in front of him, a hole dug so deep that he couldn’t even see the top of the coffin from where he stood. His arm was around Ginny’s shoulders, and she clung to him hard enough to make the circulation in his hand slow down. But if Harry’s grief for Fred was deep enough that he just wanted to bow his head and never look up again…
            He couldn’t imagine what hers was.
            The wizard in white robes who stood at the head of the grave was making a speech about death and green and growing things. Harry wasn’t really paying attention. The Weasleys had chosen to bury Fred behind the Burrow, and George had chosen the headstone, a carved marble slab that had Fred’s name, dates of birth and death, and “Beloved Brother” on it. Nothing else.
            George wasn’t here, for excellent reasons.
            Harry heaved a soft sigh as he thought about those reasons, and then heard loud sobs break out in front of him. Molly, who had held up all through the funeral for the sake of her other children and her husband, had finally broken down. She was falling on her knees by the grave, and her hands were wrapped around her face so strongly that Harry couldn’t even see the tears leaking through her fingers.
            Harry gently detached Ginny’s clutch and moved forwards to hug Molly. Ginny trailed behind him and hugged her mother from the other side. Ron was leaning on Hermione, and Percy and Bill and Charlie and Arthur were all in various stages of breakdown. Fleur was home with her new baby, or Harry thought he would have been able to count on her help, too.
            Molly whispered, “What am I supposed to do now?”
            Harry didn’t know any words that would make things better. He just hugged her harder, and then Ginny moved over and hugged him from the other side. After a few minutes, Molly reached up with trembling hands and hugged them back.
            Harry held her tighter. George was the worst-affected by Fred’s death, of course, but Molly was just behind. She hadn’t said anything for three days after the final battle, and then she had tried to cook a meal and nearly set the kitchen on fire. Harry wasn’t entirely sure that had been an accident, either.
            Feeling Molly’s strong arms clinging to him, though, and hearing the soft, tentative sobs that were beginning to well up from her throat, Harry thought things would be all right, even as he listened to the final thump of dirt on top of Fred’s coffin.
*
            Draco sighed and shifted on the narrow bed that the Aurors had assigned him in his holding cell. He had shared with his father for a few hours on the first day, but then someone else had come, apparently with different orders, and taken Father away. Since then, Draco had only seen the Aurors who came to feed him, give him water, Vanish his waste, and sometimes peer through the bars at him for a few seconds before departing.
            At least one of them had left him a copy of Hogwarts, A History, and when he was desperate, Draco read it. Otherwise, the only things in the room were the bed, a narrow shelf and chair, and the chamber pot that Draco used to piss. He closed his eyes and opened them on the same, blank vista. Draco had noticed a blanker square on the wall where an enchanted window might once have been before it was taken out, and had driven himself mad thinking about what view the window would have shown.
            And what was going to happen to him, and his mother and father.
            The Aurors hadn’t questioned him. Draco supposed they were saving that for the trial. He woke and slept and ate and drank water and read and slept and woke again, and wondered how many days were passing. The lack of windows and a regular routine—sometimes they brought him food for lots of small meals, sometimes just one big meal for a long time—meant he didn’t know how many days had passed, either.
            Then one “day” there was something different. Draco stirred and sat up when he heard multiple footsteps outside the cell, more than two Aurors. Maybe they had come to take him to his trial. By this point, Draco would have welcomed that.
            But it wasn’t three Aurors who came to the bars of the cell. It was two Aurors and Harry Potter.
            Draco bit down on his lip so he wouldn’t give a glad cry. Potter would probably misunderstand and think Draco was upset or something. Besides, Draco couldn’t have explained to Potter’s satisfaction why he was so glad to see him.
            Maybe not even to his own.
            “Yes, I think we need him to see what differences there are between his Dark Mark and Snape’s,” Potter was saying, in a weirdly arrogant tone that stopped Draco’s rush to the bars to welcome him. Draco hesitated. Maybe Potter wasn’t as friendly to him as Draco had thought he was.
            “Right you are, sir,” said the Auror on the left, a tall blonde woman who had sometimes fed Draco, and she unlocked the cell door by resting her wand on the bars for a moment. As the flare of blue light filled the corridor, Draco met Potter’s eyes.
            Potter held his gaze solemnly, and then abruptly slipped one eye shut in a wink.
            Draco felt his spirits rising with the reassurance embodied in that little gesture. Maybe it was silly, but he calmed and let the Auror who accompanied the blonde woman tug him out into the corridor.
            “Since Professor Snape is being buried today, we won’t get another chance to compare their Marks,” said Potter.
            Draco’s eyes snapped over to him, and he managed not to gape, but it was hard. He hadn’t known that Snape had been granted the dignity of burial at all, much less that it was today.
            You might lose more than just the sense of time by being here. Draco sincerely hoped that he hadn’t already missed one of his parents’ trials.
            “And the light here isn’t good,” said Potter, frowning around at the dim lighting of the corridor, which, like most in the Ministry, seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Draco had had to get used to sleeping in it, since no one had offered to dim it for him. “I insist that he come with us to the funeral, where I can do the comparison in the open.”
            Draco looked at Potter before he could stop himself, blinking as if he had a tic. He knew he probably looked stupid, but that was—that wasn’t at all what he had thought Potter would do to get him out of prison. He hadn’t even anticipated Potter getting him out of prison, if he was honest. Perhaps testify at his trial and not mess everything up.
            But not this.
            “Yeah,” said Potter, and smiled once at him before he put on the stern mask again and turned to the Aurors. “Let’s get him out of here and to the burial site. They won’t wait on us much longer.”
            Draco pondered as the Aurors pulled him along. It was clear that Potter was much more Slytherin and devious than Draco had given him credit for. Draco wondered whether that little character trait would benefit Draco again in the long run.
*
            Harry heard Malfoy make a sort of strangled noise behind him as they marched into the graveyard Harry had chosen for Snape. Without the least idea of where Snape would want to be buried—McGonagall had searched Snape’s quarters carefully, including looking for a Pensieve will, but not found anything that would tell them—Harry had chosen what he thought was the best place.
            The graveyard of Godric’s Hollow was at least quiet, and the vast majority of people who had actually wanted to attend the funeral had known where it was. Plus, it baffled the majority of curiosity seekers and reporters, who were circling around Hogwarts like sharks.
            Harry brushed a hand along his parents’ headstones for a moment. He wondered what his father would have thought about Snape being buried near him, then sighed. He had known his father was a flawed man, but he thought James might have grown up and changed his mind about certain things later in life.
            And he was certain his mum would have understood. At least this way, Harry also didn’t have to worry about the grave being torn up or vandalized. He was going to live in Godric’s Hollow, and he would always be nearby to keep an eye on it.
            “Potter? You needed to compare our Dark Marks?”
            It was Malfoy who asked it, standing at Harry’s shoulder. The Aurors had remained behind, buying the fiction of a “special connection” between Harry and Malfoy that would make him more likely to confess whether he had really been a Death Eater to Harry.
            “That was an excuse to get you here and let you see Professor Snape being buried,” Harry murmured back to him. “I thought you might like to attend the funeral.”
            Malfoy’s face underwent complex changes in expression and shape as Harry watched it. Sometimes he grimaced and sometimes he looked as if he would burst out ranting, but he also seemed as if he would cry.
            “He was more to me than almost anyone can know,” Malfoy whispered. “You don’t—I don’t think of him as an enemy. But not exactly a friend, either.”
            “I know,” Harry said simply, and Malfoy looked at him in wonder.
            “You sound as though you do.”
            “He saved me loads of times,” Harry said, as he came forwards and stooped over the simple oak coffin he had paid for himself. Snape’s arms were crossed on his chest, and there was at least smoothness in his face, although Harry wasn’t going to act gormless and say there was peace. “I can acknowledge that, while also acknowledging he was a pretty evil bastard a lot of the time.”
            Malfoy nodded, looking overwhelmed. Harry took one more glance at the coffin, then at the group of older, black-cloaked wizards who stood some distance away. He was tempted to say they were probably Princes, but he didn’t know that. There were also some of the professors from Hogwarts, including McGonagall, who was weeping openly and touching her eyes with a handkerchief. She hadn’t even wanted to know where Snape was buried, at first, but Harry had showed her some pretty convincing Pensieve memories of what side Snape had really been on.
            Harry didn’t really know what he was supposed to say, but it seemed to be up to him to say it, because there was no wizard here to pronounce the right words about death and rebirth, the way there had been at Fred’s funeral. He took a deep breath and said, “Professor Snape was a spy. He gave everything, including his life, to be part of Voldemort’s ranks and take revenge on him at the same time. He used to work for him wholeheartedly, but he turned his back on Voldemort and it was a real redemption. He even killed the only man who trusted him when that man ordered him to.” He hesitated, then added, “He was a good soldier.”
            Nothing would induce Harry to say he was a good teacher, but that wasn’t the point. Snape had been at Hogwarts only because Dumbledore needed him there to be a spy. Harry could think all he wanted about what a horrible person Snape was to students like Neville, and some of it would even be true. But he had fought because Dumbledore ordered him to, and he had fought because his only friend had died at Voldemort’s hands, and…
            Well, Harry still remembered the reeling moment of shock when he had discovered that Snape had been the one to tell Voldemort about the prophecy. But, still. If someone should forgive him for that, Harry thought he was the one with the right.
            “And he did what he could to protect students, during his last year as Headmaster,” said Harry. “And he even did it before then, for some students.” He didn’t look at Malfoy, in case the Aurors started suspecting why he had really brought Malfoy here. “Good-bye, Professor Snape. Thanks.”
            He hesitated, because he had bought a flower on the way here, and then hadn’t known if he would really feel like leaving it here. But he discovered he did, so he put the lily on top of Snape’s chest, and then closed the coffin and used his wand to Levitate it into the grave and begin piling dirt on top of it.
            The Aurors came up, and the taller blonde one, Auror Peterson, asked, “Did his Dark Mark and Malfoy’s look different, sir?”
            It made Harry feel somewhat weird that Aurors were calling him “sir,” but he had encouraged it, and he couldn’t complain about it now. “No,” he said. “The same.” Peterson still appeared to be wrestling with that when Harry turned to Malfoy and hissed under his breath, “I’ll testify for you.”
            Malfoy didn’t have a chance to answer before Peterson and the other one—Harry thought his name was Klein—gripped his shoulders and dragged him off again. But he looked what he felt, and Harry found himself smiling, despite all the complex emotions of the day.
*
Madam_Weasley: Thank you! Sorry for the late update.
ChaosLady: Thanks!
moon: Thank you! I do receive reviews on older stories, although I can’t really respond to them except with replies on current stories.
And thanks. I think most of the conflicts in this story will be external, although some of it comes from things like the characters wanting things that are not possible in certain careers or social situations.
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Acts of Life