AN: This story contains strong language and implied sexual situations. Don't like, don't complain.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

Harry goes to Vincent Crabbe's funeral. He uses Polyjuice potion, made with the hair of a Muggle bloke working in a greengrocer's near Grimmauld Place, because he's pretty sure that no one wants him there. He drops Teddy off at the Burrow in the morning, claiming that he needs some alone time, and then gulps down the potion in a field not far from the house. He feels a little guilty for burdening Mrs Weasley with his godson, because their family is still grieving George (and Merlin knows Harry is, too), but he can't take a baby to a funeral. Andromeda is deep in mourning for her daughter, and she's an old woman anyway, so Teddy lives with Harry full-time now.

He doesn't mind – the little boy has tiny, shell-like ears and a wide, wide mouth that always seems to be smiling – but it's a lot of responsibility for an eighteen-year-old. Ron and Hermione went back to school a few weeks ago, but Harry always knew he wouldn't be able to return to Hogwarts again. He'd see them everywhere, all those lovely, tragic souls that he couldn't save.

Crabbe's father is in Azkaban, so his mother greets Harry at the church door. He mumbles something about being a school friend, but she isn't listening – her eyes are dull and lost, focused on a point far away in the distance. She looks like him. Same face shape, same nose. Harry feels a pang of guilt, because even though he's almost convinced he did the right thing, if it weren't for him this woman's son would still be alive. He hurries past, finds a pew near the back, and buries his face in his hands. The wood of the bench is cold and unforgiving against his thighs, and the church smells like incense and stone. He doesn't know why he's here. He thought that he owed Crabbe this, but now he wonders if he's just punishing himself.

There isn't time to leave, though, because the organ starts playing and the congregation shuffle to their feet. There aren't many people here. The Malfoys are standing near the front, looking pinched and pained, and there are a few other vaguely familiar faces, but the church isn't even half full. Harry thinks ruefully that if the remaining Death Eaters weren't locked away, there would probably be a much higher attendance.

They sing a song, but Harry doesn't know the words, so he just opens his mouth and pretends. When the coffin is carried in he stills, though, because Gregory Goyle is one of the pallbearers. He shouldn't be surprised, really, because they always went everywhere together, but the sight of his strong, solemn face makes Harry's fingers tremble. It's easy to forget, when he's playing with Teddy's fingers or sitting in the womb-like warmth of the Burrow, that the war brought casualties for both sides. Perhaps that's why he felt such an inexplicable urge to attend. Perhaps it's important that he remembers that.

He doesn't recall much about the service, afterwards; only that it's short, and vague, and he can see Gregory Goyle's shoulders shaking throughout. Harry is so used to seeing him as a brute, big and dumb and cold, that such an overt display of emotion shocks him. He stares down at his shoes, feeling like an impostor. These people are mourning the loss of their friend, their son, and he's here for purely selfish reasons. He's never felt sorry for Goyle before.

When the coffin drifts away behind the curtain, the smell of candle wax hanging heavy in the air, he slips out of the church through the side entrance. There's a nauseous feeling in the back of his throat. He wants to go home to Teddy, or maybe to a pub. The Polyjuice potion won't last for much longer. He can already feel his face beginning to shift, to change – a unique and discomfiting sensation.

He's out of the churchyard and halfway down the road before he hears the heavy footsteps behind him. He turns his head, and is astonished to see Goyle jogging up, his face slightly flushed. He comes to a halt a few feet away from Harry, and they stare at one another. Goyle's expression is utterly impassive. The black suit he is wearing makes him look like a bodyguard, which Harry supposes is something of a fitting description.

"Why are you here?" he says eventually. His voice is deeper than Harry remembers – although he hasn't heard it many times before.

Harry swallows. "I-I knew Vincent-" he starts to say, but Goyle cuts him off with a stern shake of the head.

"Don't give me that bullshit, Harry." Harry blinks at him, astonished and somewhat dismayed that he saw through the potion.

"How did you know it was me?" he says carefully. Goyle's eyes are very dark, almost black, and so intense that Harry feels as though he is being assessed.

"I can see it in your eyes." Heat crawls up the back of Harry's neck. He's ashamed. Ashamed to have been caught out, ashamed that his sham has been exposed. "You didn't answer my question. Why are you here?"

"I felt guilty," Harry blurts out, and it isn't until he's said it that he realises it's true. "I thought- I don't know. I thought I could apologise, or something."

Goyle looks at him for a long moment. Then he exhales through his mouth, his eyes sliding away from Harry's face. "It wasn't your fault," he says, in a quiet, low voice, "We shouldn't have been mixed up in that shit. You saved the world." He spits the last sentence, ironic and bitter. He has a personality. Harry didn't expect that.

"I'm sorry," Harry whispers, because there's nothing else he can say. He is too warm in his suit, and he can feel the Muggle stranger's face melting away.

Goyle snorts. Harry recognises the sound from all those Potions lessons, all those Quidditch games. "He would have found it funny, that you were there," he tells him, "He would probably have tried to kill you, but he'd have found it funny." He sighs, shakes his head. "Come for a drink with me."

Harry is sure that his eyes must be halfway out of his head. "What? A drink? With you?" He is well aware that he sounds like a babbling idiot, but the idea is so absurd that it has wiped his brain completely blank.

"Yeah." Goyle's tone has shifted, becoming defensive. "The war's over, isn't it? We're just men, now." Goyle, with his broad shoulders and strong jaw and impossibly rational outlook, is a man, but Harry still feels like a little boy.

Still, he owes him. He opens his mouth to say yes, but then remembers. "I can't," he admits, "I would, I swear, but I can't."

Goyle's eyes narrow in suspicion. "Why?" That's the voice Harry thought belonged to him, that dark, dangerous growl. Now it makes his spine shiver. He doesn't want to say why, but it's better than Goyle thinking him a coward.

"The press. I can't go to pubs at the moment." He sounds like Harry Potter, the snotty, smug Golden Boy, but it's the truth. The last time he went to a café he was mobbed by photographers, reporters, people wanting to touch his cheek and hold his hands, because they all felt like they bloody knew him.

There's a long pause. "Come to my house, then," Goyle finally says. Harry can't begin to imagine what such a place would be like.

"Why?" he manages, "I mean, why do you want to talk to me so badly?" They'd barely spoken a few words to one another before this conversation, and never such amicable ones.

"I want you to remember him," Goyle says flatly, "I think-I don't know. Maybe if the saviour of the Wizarding World remembers Vinnie, the rest of them will too." And after that, well, what choice does Harry have?

Goyle's house is small and empty, and Harry thinks that it must be a second home, an extra residence tucked away in the city centre. The bigger teenager flicks the lights on with a casual wave of his wand, and gestures towards the sofa. Harry, still a little woozy from the Apparation, sinks gratefully into it.

The room is surprisingly cosy – he always expected pureblood residences to be like Malfoy Manor, full of gothic architecture and high-backed chairs. The walls are painted a cool shade of blue, and there's a multicoloured woven rug in front of the fireplace. Harry gets up to look at the picture on the mantelpiece.

It's of a young Goyle, maybe five or six years old, sitting on a beach and grinning through a mouth full of gaps. It's both fascinating and disturbing, to see him looking so innocent, so carefree. Harry sits back down quickly, just as Goyle comes back into the room. He's holding two glasses of what looks like Firewhisky, and he's taken his tie off.

"Vinnie was my first friend at Hogwarts," he says, and takes a long swig from one of the glasses. He hands the other to Harry, who cups it in his lap and watches Goyle collapse into the armchair. "My only friend, maybe. He wasn't a thug, you know. Not like everyone thought. A bit dim, maybe. Too easily influenced." He knocks back more of his drink. Harry takes a sip, and almost chokes. He's never tasted Firewhisky that strong. "And Draco Malfoy… well, he was powerful, even at that age. And our parents were scared of his family, and, well, maybe that fear was passed down. I don't know."

Harry finds it hard to imagine, Crabbe and Goyle being scared of eleven-year-old Draco, when they were both about four times bigger than he was. He drinks.

"You don't know how difficult it is," Goyle says, "To be surrounded by people doing bad things, and not to follow. I mean, they were my parents, my friends. I didn't know anything else."

Maybe it's the alcohol, but Harry gains some unexpected courage. "You don't know how difficult it is, constantly being told you have a destiny to fulfil."

Goyle lets out a harsh, barking laugh, completely devoid of any humour. "I guess neither of us really had a choice."

After that they drink some more, and talk some more, and soon Goyle isn't Goyle any more, he's Greg, and Harry can't stop staring at the pale hollow of his neck. And when Greg pushes himself out of the chair to fetch their fifth glasses of firewhisky, Harry stands up too, and they sort of collide, and before either of them know what's happening their mouths have met. It's awkward and uncomfortable, and Harry curses himself, because he seems to have far too many teeth, but on the fourth go it somehow transmogrifies into something pretty wonderful.

Greg touches Harry's back, his fingers surprisingly gentle. "I didn't mean for this to happen," he mumbles. Harry wipes his mouth on his hand, shakes his head.

"I know," he says, and after that there aren't any more words.

When Harry wakes up, he is aware of three things. The first is that a Norwegian Ridgeback appears to have played rugby with his head. The second is that there is a warm weight across his chest. The third is that Molly Weasley is going to be bloody furious with him.

He opens his eyes, and winces. Even the dim light filtering through the curtains is painful. The weight, he discovers, is a thickly muscled arm, and attached to it is Gregory Goyle. His eyelashes are very dark against the skin of his cheek, his lips slightly parted, and Harry has the strangest urge to touch the space between his eyebrows. They had sex, Harry realises vaguely. He lost his virginity to this man. He feels cold all of a sudden, and snuggles further down into the blankets. Greg makes a murmuring noise in his sleep, and shifts so that his arm is wrapped more tightly around the other man, as though he is protecting him.

Shit. Teddy. Harry has to go, now, before Greg wakes up. This was a mistake. Greg doesn't want a bedmate, doesn't want Harry – he just wanted some comfort, because his best friend has died and he can't deal with it. Harry attempts to slip out from under his arm, but he isn't subtle enough, and Greg wakes with a grunt. He blinks blearily, and opens his mouth.

Harry is so sure that he knows what Greg will say that he closes his eyes in preparation – but it isn't "Vinnie" that Greg mumbles, it's "Harry". They stare at each other, and then Greg's fingers begin to stroke Harry's shoulder, and maybe things aren't so bleak after all.

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