maja_li

Title: Lost and Found
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: G
Warnings: angst, dead characters
Word count: 450
Disclaimer: Harry&co. belong to JKR. Not me.
Summary: There's issues, and then there's Issues
A/N: I am an angst bunny this week and I don't know why. *facepalm* OH WELL. Written for

awdt's Halloween Quick #3, the cemetery in daylight.

Hermione said it was morbid. Ron said it was barmy. Harry shrugged, and said it was broad daylight and nice out anyway, so what was the problem if he wanted to take a walk down to the Garden?

And Hermione or Ron would sigh and pat him on the shoulder, and leave without ever pointing to the second part of the sign hanging above the wrought-iron gate: for Lost Souls.

It was a powerful piece of magic--but then, it was a powerful force that kept a soul wandering the earth, searching in vain for somewhere to lay its head. Draco (damn him) had worked it alone (why hadn't he asked for help?), over the course of a single night (impatient, arrogant, stupid...): the night when the restoration of Hogwarts had been completed and Draco had been forced to accept that the body of Vincent Crabbe, devoured by Fiendfyre, was never going to be recovered.

The Garden looked small from the outside, no larger than a front lawn, Crabbe's squat pillar of red sandstone jutting up from the ground not too far from the gate. It was far larger on the inside, obviously; Harry wished it weren't, but the little visible plot was nowhere near large enough to encompass all those whom Voldemort--one way or another--had consigned to rude and unknown graves. Wizard, Muggle, Death Eater, Order--the Garden took them all in and would have, Harry suspected, even if Draco had not intended it to.

Harry watched him now, wandering white-footed amongst the not-quite-gravestones, hair shimmering faintly in the sunlight. Draco felt his gaze and looked over, features lighting up with a silvery glow as he spotted Harry through the fence.

"Hey, you." He smiled as he approached. Harry reached up, hanging on to the horizontal crosspiece that ran along the top of the fence, and leaned his head against the cold, black bars.

"Hey."

"Come here often?" Draco's tone was playful, but Harry answered solemnly,

"Every day."

"Really?"

"Yep. There's this handsome bloke, you see, who comes around every once in a while. I've been trying to get him to come home with me for...oh, must be three, four years now."

"Stubborn, aren't you? Can't take no for an answer."

"Stubborn, I am. Won't leave the man I love alone ever again, not after what happened last time." Harry squeezed a hand through the bars and laid it over Draco's chest, just barely not-touching the place where his heart had once beat.

"I miss you, Draco."

"Me, too."

The sun crept toward noon.

"Will I see you again next All-Saints' Day?" Harry's voice was pleading.

"Of course, love. Of course."

And, once again, Draco was gone.