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Fic: If Only (Harry Potter - DM/HP, PG) Happy Birthday Ms. Sesheta
Title: If Only

Author: hpstrangelove

Pairing: Harry Potter - DM/HP but no slash

Rating: PG

Word Count: 2820

Summary: Harry visits his parents’ grave on Christmas Eve, a year after his first visit.  Before he goes, he stops at Malfoy Manor to return Draco’s wand.

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling. No monetary profit made on this story.

Warning: Angst, but optimistic ending.  Spoilers for DH. If you've had a loved one die in a war, you may not want to read this.  I've cried every time so far as I proofed it.  Sorry sesheta, I didn't mean for it to be so angsty.

Beta: None (so feel free to point out any and all mistakes in a constructive manner)

AN Note: Written for sesheta ’s birthday – I didn’t know it was today until I saw some other well-wishers’ posts.  Stupid LJ notifications!  Hope you like it.  I did it in one day, which is a record for me.

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The light glowed softly through the windows onto the snow, glittering like miniature crystals. He could hear the singers in the nearby church.  The sound carried far through the crisp, cold air.  The world was still, unobservant of Harry as he knelt in front of his parents’ grave. 

He couldn’t help but remember this same time last year, standing here with Hermione.  She had volunteered to come with him again, but he wanted to be alone.  He wanted to feel.  He wanted to cry.  He wanted to let the past year’s events flow through him and saturate him.  He wanted to merge with them and understand them, until finally he could accept them.  His parents had sacrificed their lives for him, so that he could live, and he was wasting it away in despair.  He wanted to want to live again, but he didn’t know where to start. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was happy that it was all over, but the cost had been so high.  He couldn’t stop wondering what if and if only.

There were so many what ifs that he had slowly driven himself away from everyone.  He didn’t want to see the faces and think about their loss.  He didn’t want to think that if he had only done something sooner, or something differently, maybe one less person would have died.

He was living at Grimmauld Place now.  The Weasleys had wanted him to stay with them, but he couldn’t face them, knowing what they paid towards winning the war.

Hermione saw what was happening. She was a good friend to him, but she knew she couldn’t help him with this.  He needed someone to talk to, someone who understood these things he was feeling, but that person wasn’t her. As he continued to withdraw into himself, she became his only contact with the outside world, if you didn’t count Kreacher.

She went to see him earlier that day, Christmas Eve.

She taught him the spell she’d used last year to create the wreath of Christmas Roses for his parents’ grave and suggested he go there tonight.  Since he couldn’t talk to the living, maybe he could talk to the dead.  Maybe he could finally cry.  He hadn’t cried since last year, when they had first found the grave.

He waited until dark. He needed to dress warmly, and as he opened a drawer to get his scarf, a wand fell to the floor – Draco’s wand. 

He’d forgotten he’d placed the wand in that drawer when he’d moved in over the summer.  He hadn’t left the house since he moved in, having Kreacher do all his shopping.  He didn’t think going to a graveyard on Christmas Eve would attract any attention.  No one had been about last year.  He didn’t think this year would be any different.

He picked up the wand and held it, remembering how important it had been to him.  He hadn’t ever taken the time to look at it before.  His main concern had been the magic that he could wield with it, not the way it looked. 

He ran his fingers up and down the smooth length.  It was a simple looking wand. No fancy carvings adorned it. It was exactly the kind of wand that Draco Malfoy would own.  It radiated elegance.  It didn’t need anything artificial to make it beautiful.  It felt warm to his touch, pulsing with a beat that was almost like a heart. 

He shouldn’t have kept it.  It wasn’t his.  He’d stolen it, defeated Voldemort with it, and then should have returned it. His own wand had been damaged and rendered useless exactly a year ago tonight.  The wand chooses the wizard.  This one had chosen Draco and had allowed Harry to use it when he was in most need of it, but he didn’t need it anymore.  Did he?

When he had originally placed it in the drawer, a nagging little voice in the back of his head had told him it wasn’t right to keep it – he needed to return it.  But Harry couldn’t let it go.  It was a connection to Draco that he wasn’t willing to give up.  He secretly had hoped that Draco might come looking for him and ask that it be returned.  He now saw how ludicrous that had been.  Draco was too prideful to ever ask Harry for anything.  They may have saved each other’s lives, but Draco still hated him.  He always had, and Harry was a fool to think that it would ever be otherwise.  Draco would never come to him, not for anything.

Sighing, he placed Draco’s wand in his pocket along with his own.   He knew what he had to do tonight before going to visit his parents.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Manor was ablaze in lights.  People were everywhere.  Apparently the Malfoys were having a party. 

They had been fully pardoned, mostly because of Harry’s testimony on Narcissa’s behalf.  She may have saved his life for selfish reasons, but she had still done it, and at a great risk of forfeiting her own life if Voldemort had found out about her treason.  He’d also mentioned Draco’s unwillingness to identify them when they’d been held prisoner at the Manor, and adding to it the fact that he’d tried to keep Harry from being killed in the Room of Requirements, it had been enough to keep Draco out of Azkaban.

Lucius was another story.  The Lucius Malfoy Harry had seen at the Manor during their imprisonment was not the same man he’d encountered at the Ministry of Magic.  Harry wondered what he himself would be capable of doing in order to protect his family, and although it wouldn’t absolve Lucius of his crimes in Harry’s eyes, he did understand why Lucius had done some of the things he had at the end. Harry didn’t think Lucius would ever be a threat again, and nothing would be gained by sending him back to Azkaban.  Harry wanted to set an example of forgiveness, not revenge. Money was need to rebuild, so part of the Malfoy fortune was the price paid to keep Lucius free. 

Harry could barely remember Hermione talking about the Malfoys, how they had become leaders in the rebuilding process.  Judging by the amount of traffic coming in and out of the Manor gates, the Malfoys had made many friends in this post-war world.

Harry pulled his fringe down over his scar to hide it.  He didn’t think he’d be noticed with so many people about, but the last thing he wanted was headlines in the Daily Prophet screaming out that the Boy-Who-Killed-Voldemort was spotted at the home of former Death Eaters. 

The front door was kept open, allowing guests to walk directly in.  Harry entered the foyer quickly and tried to find a place off to the side where he could find a servant and ask about Draco.  His plans were momentarily forgotten as he was overwhelmed by the appearance of the Manor.  He had thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful as the Great Hall when it’d been decorated for the Yule Ball in his forth year, but nothing, nothing, could match the way the Manor looked tonight. 

It was as if the walls and lights were made of liquid diamonds, the way they sparkled and shined.  Every color of the rainbow had its turn in dominating the room.  It reminded him of a Christmas tree he’d seen once when he was young, all made out of silver, but changing from red, to blue, to green, to gold, then back to red again, as a color wheel turned and changed the light reflecting on the tree.

“Can I take your coat for you, sir?”

Harry jumped when he heard the voice, looking down into the face of a house elf.  But this elf could hardly be recognized as such.  Harry had never seen one so clean and finely dressed.  Glancing around, he noticed the other elves were similarly attired.

“Are you a Malfoy house elf?” he asked in shock.

“Yes sir, I work for the Malfoys, as do all the other elves here.”

“You mean work, as in, you belong to the Malfoys?”

“No sir, no elves belong to the Malfoys any longer. I choose to work for them.  I don’t have to stay here if I don’t wish to, but they are a fine family to work for.  Not all families will pay elves, or educate them either.”

Harry felt as if he’d stepped into an entirely different universe when he’d entered through the Manor doors.  A lot had changed in the months he had secluded himself away, but he’d never in his wildest dreams imagined that the Malfoys would give up their house elves, let alone pay them wages.

“Can you tell me if Draco Malfoy is here?”

“Yes sir, he is in the main ballroom, greeting guests with the Master and the Mistress.  Would you like me to get him for you?”

“No!  Um, no.  I just have something of his that I wanted to return, but I don’t want to take him away from the party.   I’ll just come back another…”

“Sir, I’m sure Master Draco would be happy to see you and receive the item in person.  He doesn’t get many visitors his own age. Let me get him for you.”

Before Harry could stop him, the elf had vanished.  Harry could now see Draco, along with his parents, inside the main ballroom, speaking with guests as they entered.  The elf appeared behind Draco and tugged on Draco’s arm to get his attention.  Draco leaned down to hear the elf, then frowned.  Standing back up, he quickly glanced over and caught Harry’s eye, then began to work his way through the crowd toward Harry.

Harry panicked.  He didn’t want a confrontation with Draco, and especially not in front of all these people.  Before Draco could reach him, Harry pulled the Hawthorn wand from his pocket, placed it on a table that was against the foyer wall, and took off out the front door.  As soon as he made it through the front gates of the Manor, he Disapparated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here he was, now, kneeling in front of his parents’ grave, wondering how someone brave enough to kill Voldemort could be such a coward when it came to speaking with Draco Malfoy.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here at the grave, lost in his thoughts.  It must have been a while.  He was cold, his face feeling frozen and his knees wet from the snow.  Glancing around, he could see that the church was now empty and dark.  The silence of the night surrounded him like a blanket.  He still felt numb inside.  Coming here hadn’t helped.

Hearing the loud pop of an Apparition echo through the night, Harry reached to grab his wand from his pocket.  He’d been on his knees for so long that he didn’t have any strength in them, though, and fell back down when he tried to stand, hitting his head against his parents’ gravestone.

“Graceful as always, I see.”

Rubbing his hand at the spot on his head that had struck the stone, he found himself staring up at Draco Malfoy’s expressionless face.

Glaring at Draco, Harry asked angrily, “How did you find me here?  If I wanted to talk to you, I would have stayed at the Manor.  Isn’t it rude for the host to leave his guests during a party?”

“Not as rude as it is to stop by to see someone and then run out on them before even speaking with them,” Draco replied.

Then, in a less challenging tone, Draco asked, “Why did you leave?”

What could Harry say?  That he’d been afraid?  Afraid Draco would be upset with him for keeping the wand so long?  Afraid to see a look of hatred in Draco’s eyes as he ordered Harry out of the Manor?  Afraid to see a look of friendship in Draco’s eyes as he asked Harry to stay? Afraid to take a chance that maybe things had changed?

Harry couldn’t speak.  He looked down at the ground, unable to meet Draco’s eyes, dreading that Draco would use Legilimency and read every fear Harry could never admit to, then turn and use those fears against him.  He didn’t think he’d survive if Draco did that.

As Harry remained silent, Draco moved forward and knelt down.  The move was so unexpected that Harry looked up without meaning to.  Draco caressed the side of Harry’s face with his hand, moving his thumb along Harry’s cheekbone as he spoke.

“I tried to get you to stop, but you were too quick.  When I went back into the Manor and saw my wand, I had to find you.  I went to the Weasleys and Granger was there.  She told me where you would be.  She told me…other things…about you too.

“I know how it hurts, Harry.  So many Slytherins died too.  I couldn’t help them.  I wanted to, but I was scared. They looked up to me once, and I let them down.  If I’d only stood up to him, took off to fight like you did, maybe some of my friends would be alive today. 

“It’s so unfair! We were only children!  So many died before they ever had a chance to live, and they didn’t even know what they died for in the end!”

Draco’s hand was shaking against Harry’s face.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself, but when he opened his eyes again to look at Harry, they were bright with unshed tears.

 “It takes time to heal the wounds.  Some go deeper than others.  There’s nothing wrong with you.  It’s your defense against all the horrible things you went through, and you went through more than most of us.  I can’t take the pain away, but I can be there for you and help you deal with it, when you’re finally ready to talk about it, if you want. You don’t have to suffer through this alone.”

Then strong arms were around him, holding him and providing comfort.  For the first time in ages, Harry felt safe. Someone finally understood what he was going through.  Someone else was hurting like he was. Everyone that had died was someone’s son or daughter, mother or father, sister or brother, husband or wife, and Harry had felt so responsible for each and every loss.  But Draco felt that responsibility too.  Harry wasn’t alone in his grief.

It started with one, escaping from the corner of Harry’s eye.  Then another, and another, until finally the dam burst and the tears fell – tears for the dead and tears for those still alive who had to live on without their loved ones. 

As Draco continued to hold the shaking boy, his shirt wet with Harry’s tears, the church bells started to ring in midnight. It was Christmas Day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Harry had finally cried himself out, Draco stood and offered his hand to Harry to help him up.  Harry couldn’t stop himself from thinking of that time on the Hogwarts Express when Draco had offered his hand to Harry in a similar fashion.   If only Harry had taken that hand back then, all those years ago, would it had made a difference?

Draco, as if reading Harry’s thoughts, talked to him softly.  “Harry, we can’t dwell on it.  We can’t beat ourselves up wondering how things might have been if only we’d done something different.  We can learn from it, but we have to move on.

“Come back to the Manor with me.  We have plenty of rooms.  Mother and Father would like to have you stay for Christmas.  You shouldn’t be alone.  No one should, not at Christmas.”

Taking Draco’s hand and standing, he gave Draco a watery smile.  “I didn’t know anyone could even begin to understand how I felt until now.  I’m sorry for taking you away from your party, but I’m glad you came to find me.”

Smiling back, Draco took Harry in his arms and Apparated them both to the Manor.