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Notes: Written in 24 minutes for the 'Air' challenge on Contrelamontre. Harry/Draco post-slash.

Ash
by

He's sitting in the rubble, sifting ash in his hands, when Harry finds him.

Blonde hair blackened by ash. Hands cut with looking through the fallen stone, festering now, knuckles swollen and purple.

Smoke surrounds them, and the debris is strangely white--the manor was white, after all, and the only stray bits of color are fragments of upholstery or clothing, all exploded in the blast. Harry notices a few of those fragments collected in a small heap by Malfoy's knee.

Malfoy is twenty-two years old. His nose is hideously crooked, the way it has been for the last three years--one of Harry's own curses, intended to crush and stifle, but deflected at the last moment. It could never be healed, and ever since then Malfoy breathes with difficulty, his mouth just a little open.

This is the first time they've seen each other in five weeks. Since the battle began.

Malfoy flicks his hair back--a gesture still somehow arrogant, graceful--and his eyes are red-rimmed when he looks at Harry. 'Well, it worked,' he says.

Harry contemplates sitting down next to Malfoy in the rubble, but his cloak is a new one, a gift from Ginny, and he doesn't want to ruin it. 'Yes,' he answers instead.

'You lured me here.'

'Yes.'

'You killed my family.'

'Yes.'

Malfoy looks away for a moment--his knuckles white as they grip his knees, and Harry wonders, absently, that Malfoy isn't whipping out his wand.

Malfoy doesn't say I never thought you'd sink to something like this, because he doesn't deserve to say it, after all. Still, Harry finds himself answering: 'We had to find a way to isolate you. You're Voldemort's best, after all. We tried for two years to corner you. Assassinate you.' Harry feels his mouth twisting. 'But you're a hard man to kill, Malfoy.'

'An even harder one to find.'

'Yes.'

Malfoy glances at Harry again; his face is pale, so pale, and he moves one hand down to lift the ashes again. Perhaps Narcissa Malfoy is here somewhere, a soft handful that he caresses and lets sift through his fingers. 'You've found me now.' His voice is hoarse, and he still doesn't pull out his wand. 'Do you want to kill me?'

A stupid question. That's the whole point, isn't it? But Malfoy's still not pulling his wand out, the way he's supposed to--he isn't hexing Harry in a rage. He's doing nothing at all, actually, apart from staring across the vast, level grounds of the manor, now nothing but dust and ash.

For a moment Harry remembers sitting like this, just like this, after he found out that Ron had died--how he couldn't have moved, not for the life of him, and how empty his mind had felt then, how clean.

So Harry only steps away and back, and answers: 'No. Not now.'

Malfoy's head whips around, face tight with shock--but then he sees the look in Harry's eyes, and he calms.

This isn't about mercy. It isn't about kindness. It's a matter of satisfaction, and the fact that Harry will get none if he kills Malfoy like this, a useless bundle of muscle and bone, crouching in a muddied cloak in the midst of the rubble that used to be his childhood home. That used to be his parents.

Today hasn't been a waste, even if he can't have Malfoy now. Malfoy's been able to evade their Aurors, for two years now, with a skill that's almost uncanny--but he won't be running anymore, not after this, and the next time it'll be he who finds Harry, not the other way around.

Harry won't even have to work for it. Voldemort's commands will be of secondary importance to Malfoy now, once he recovers enough of himself for rage. He'll find Harry soon, very soon, perhaps even in a few days.

He will kill Malfoy then, with Malfoy's eyes alive and glittering, mouth twisted with hate, as bitter to the sight as it used to be to the taste.

But now Harry only takes a few steps back, heart calm with knowledge, and lifts his wand to Apparate. The last thing he sees is the curve of Malfoy's black-clad shoulder against the white sand--and Malfoy's hand sifting the ash, slowly, slowly, until it the air blows it away.

* FIN *