Title: Memento Vitae

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco, canon het pairings

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Angst

Wordcount: This part 2900

Summary: Harry and Draco find themselves visiting Dumbledore's grave at the same time. As their visits become more frequent and then simultaneous, both of them begin to realize something about life after wartime.

Author's Notes: Written as an Advent fic for a prompt by bicrim, who asked for Harry/Draco, school age, that moment when hate turns into something else. I like when they both figure it out at the same time, and are gobsmacked. The title is Latin for "reminder of life."

Memento Vitae

"Hello again, sir."

Harry sat down on the small bench that Professor McGonagall had had set up in front of Dumbledore's tomb. There were a few vines growing on the huge white thing now, he saw, and he wondered for a second if Dumbledore would resent that. Then he shook his head. He didn't think so. Dumbledore would probably think of it as part of the next great adventure, instead.

"I don't know what you can tell me," Harry whispered. "But I need some advice. Everyone seems to be moving on so much better than I am. Snape's portrait is even more content than I am." He hesitated. "And I know I could go and talk to your portrait in McGonagall's office, sir, but I don't feel like he's really you. Even though I know he is."

The tomb was silent. Harry had to close his eyes and start thinking about what he would have liked Dumbledore to say, instead.

Sorry for lying to me? Sorry for not telling me about Grindelwald and the Elder Wand and Ariana?

Harry breathed slowly out. No, when it came down to it, Dumbledore's family business was none of his. He was more upset that Dumbledore had never told him about the Horcrux.

"I could have done it," he whispered. "I could have got used to the idea and walked into the Forest at last. You didn't have to keep it a secret."

"What are you doing here, Potter?"

Harry spun around, the bench grinding painfully against his arse for a second. Malfoy stood a few meters away, staring at him with such an expression of disdain that Harry automatically clenched his teeth.

"Leaving, Your Majesty," he said, and stood, and brushed a little dust from his robes, and walked in the direction of the school.

"If you've been spying on me, Potter—"

"I don't bloody care about what you've been up to since the war, Malfoy!" Harry called without turning around. "Get that through your bloody head!"

Only when he was inside Hogwarts did it feel as if Malfoy had stopped staring at him, and then only because he was blocked by stone walls. Harry leaned his head against one of those walls and sighed. It felt like he had a second heart in his temples, pounding away.

Part of him did wonder what in the world Malfoy had been doing, visiting Dumbledore's tomb. But that one wasn't any of his business, and he didn't want to start the stalking and obsession career that he had during the war. Things were different now.

They have to be different, Harry told himself firmly, and stood up and resumed walking to Gryffindor Tower.

He would just have to figure out different times to visit Dumbledore, times when Malfoy was less likely to be there.

Draco glared after Potter for a long moment, and then stared down at the pathetic flower clutched in his hand.

He tried to envision bringing that to Professor Snape's grave—a tiny one in an out-of-the-way Muggle churchyard, apparently near his mother—and winced. The thought of Potter catching sight of it made Draco want to throw the stupid thing away.

But he hadn't come here for either of them. Draco looked up at the white and gleaming walls of the tomb, drew a little breath, and moved closer.

"Thanks for what you wanted to do for me," Draco whispered.

He'd said thanks to so many people since the war—Potter, and Weasley, and Granger, and McGonagall, and Slughorn, and numerous other Hogwarts professors. But he hadn't said anything to the man who had wanted to save his soul in the very beginning, before Draco had proved he was worth anything.

The man who had wanted to save his soul when Draco was trying to kill him.

Honestly, Draco had no idea how to even start. But he supposed the flower was a good enough beginning.

He put it down in front of the tomb. He had thought about putting it on the wall, but then someone was likely to notice it. Potter wasn't the only student who made pathetic little pilgrimages to the tomb.

It was a violet. Draco thought it wasn't really purple, though, more blue, the color of the old man's eyes. He stood back and spent some more time staring at the tomb.

"I don't know what you saw in me," he told Dumbledore. "But thank you."

He trudged back to Hogwarts with his throat burning from his own words and his cheeks burning from the cold. And, he had to admit, from imagining the way Potter would laugh if he ever heard Draco's stupid, silly words.

Draco would just have to make sure that Potter never found out.

Harry came back to the tomb a few days later, when spring flowers were so bright that they made him feel an aching in his chest. He should be happy, he knew that. Hell, even if it was almost a year since he'd defeated Voldemort, he ought to be riding the adrenaline high of that for the rest of his life.

But all he could really think about was how Ron and Hermione were together and Harry himself had no one, and Teddy had a godfather and a grandmother but no parents.

And Dumbledore was still dead.

"I suppose I can forgive you for not telling anyone about the Horcrux," Harry told Dumbledore as he sat on the bench in the sunlight. They had an endless procession of mild days lately, as though whatever controlled the weather around Hogwarts was trying to make up for the last year and the harsh winter.

"It's just—it could have gone so wrong, you know?" Harry lay back on the bench and stared up at the sky. There was nothing flying there but clouds and crows. "It could have meant that I ended up thinking I needed to duel Voldemort. Or not knowing about the Horcrux at all. If I hadn't been there when Snape died, if he hadn't managed to call up the memories, if you had decided to be paranoid and not told him about them, either…"

Harry trailed off, closing his eyes. Honestly, when he thought about it, it only depressed him. He didn't want to talk about it. Dumbledore already knew everything he'd say, anyway.

He dozed, and at some point passed into true sleep, something that hadn't been happening in his bed for the last few nights. When he rolled over and his arm dropped off the side of the bench, Harry woke up with a start.

Only to see Malfoy staring at him from a meter away.

Malfoy went red so suddenly that Harry didn't think he would need to chase him away. But then Malfoy didn't hurry off, for some reason. He stood still, looking at Harry as though he was a unicorn instead of his old school rival.

Harry watched him back. He could think of no reason not to. Besides, in a moment reality would reassert itself and Malfoy would leave.

But the silence stretched and stretched and froze them in place, until a crow cawed overhead as it hopped from branch to branch.

Malfoy tossed something white he held in his fist down at the base of the tomb and scarpered. Harry bent to look at it without touching it. It was a flower, something that might have been a daisy or a snowdrop. Harry knew magical plants after seven years of Herbology and the ones that grew in Aunt Petunia's garden, but he didn't know random wildflowers.

Random wildflowers that Malfoy apparently wanted to give Dumbledore.

Harry shook his head. He honestly didn't know why Malfoy had stood there and stared instead of demanding that Harry leave, or backing away the minute he saw Harry asleep on the bench and returning at a later time.

But he did know that he didn't mind it. He actually sat there for a little while, half-hoping Malfoy would come back, before accepting that he wouldn't and going into Hogwarts.

Despite his nap on the bench, he still slept deeply that night. And the only thing he could really remember about the dream was talking to someone with a blurry face in a field of wildflowers.

Draco waited for Potter to say something. To tell everyone at Hogwarts that he was bringing flowers to Dumbledore's tomb and he had no right to do that, for example. To laugh pointedly at him when they met in the corridors or sat not far from each other in the small NEWT Potions class.

He never did.

Draco finally dared to visit the tomb again almost a week after he'd last been there. He didn't bring a flower this time, because he'd been practicing a spell that he wanted to use to perfect a gift for Dumbledore. And if he failed at it, well, he had waited until he was sure he was alone this time.

He stood in front of the tomb and stared at the door. It had been violated before, he knew, when the Dark Lord had attacked it to free the Elder Wand. But it looked perfectly whole and gleaming now.

I wish I could feel the same way, Draco thought, and drew his wand, concentrating carefully on the image of what he wanted to create before he cast the spell. "Corona cordis," he finally whispered.

The air before him began to thicken and darken, and Draco watched it in some apprehension. The problem with this spell was that it formed a shape taken from the caster's deepest desires and beliefs. That meant it might make anything. It might mean anything. It might be ugly.

But in the end, what formed and dropped into Draco's hands was a single slender band of silver, a crown of the kind that might fit around someone's forehead. There was one decoration on it, a rippling, abstract line that might as easily be a running wave or the edge of a bird's wing.

Draco sighed and looked at the tomb. "I wanted to give you something that came from me," he whispered. "From the soul you tried to save. Thank you." He leaned forwards and put the crown on the grass in front of the door.

He heard a slight gasp behind him and wheeled around, his wand already raised to defend himself. What he saw was Potter, standing behind him with one foot raised as if he was going to put it down like a deer. His eyes were like a deer's, too, wide and surprised.

Draco froze, his muscles locked in place. He was going to be upset if Potter said something, or implied in any way that he was—that he shouldn't be here. He would shout—

But instead, Potter looked at the crown and the tomb and Draco, and then turned and walked in the opposite direction. It was a brisk walk, like he wanted to get away from something that disgusted him.

Or that he's afraid of, Draco thought, blinking after him. Or maybe he was just trying to leave me alone.

Harry had never heard the spell Malfoy cast before, but he couldn't stop thinking about it. And that weekend, he went back to Dumbledore's tomb to cast his own.

He was sure of the incantation, and that he had the power to cast it, and the wand movements. But he still stood there indecisively for a long time before he drew his wand and imitated the movements he'd seen Malfoy making and whispered, "Corona cordis."

The spell seemed to take a long time to settle. Harry managed to stand still only because he had seen it work for Malfoy. He stared at his hands, and after a long, shifting moment he was holding a thin golden crown in them.

Harry turned it over. There was a griffin in the center of the band, with its front feet clutching a snake. Harry smiled a little and turned to the tomb.

"I still remember what you said about choices," he whispered. "How I could choose to be a Gryffindor or a Slytherin, and it really did matter more what my choices were than what the Hat said about me. I suppose I'm still in the middle of making choices."

As he walked forwards to lay the crown down at the foot of the tomb, he wondered if one of those choices he could make was how to think about Slytherins since the war. He hadn't thought about them much once the Death Eater trials were over, honestly. He was there and studying, and they were there and studying, and if they had chosen to come back to Hogwarts, they must have really wanted to be there.

But maybe it could be more than that. Indifference wasn't hate, but it wasn't friendship, either.

This time, when Harry turned around, Malfoy stood behind him. And it was obvious he'd come to watch. He had nothing in his hands this time, no flower or crown or other gift for Dumbledore.

Harry nodded and walked past him, only to stop when he was right next to him. Malfoy looked at him, shading his eyes with one hand as if Harry shed a brilliant light that he had to squint past.

"Hello," Harry said.

Malfoy's eyes widened. Then he dropped his hand—maybe he'd decided that he didn't want to see Harry's face too closely—and whispered back, "Hello."

That was all. A second after that, Malfoy backed up a step as if he'd run, and Harry thought he had probably pushed things far enough. Friendship couldn't begin that suddenly, after all. He turned his back and jogged slowly up to the castle.

He had the impression that Malfoy stood and watched him go, though. And even though he didn't look back over his shoulder, that impression might not be wrong.

"I wanted to ask you something about that spell of yours that makes the crown."

Draco tightened his shoulders and pretended not to breathe for a second as he stood studying Dumbledore's tomb. But he had asked for this by coming here when he had seen Potter heading in the same direction. If he had really wanted a private visit, then he could have waited until Potter had left.

"All right," Draco said, when a few more agonizing moments had passed and it felt as if he had spent half his life breathing in tight silence. "So ask."

"I looked it up," Potter began, stepping forwards so he was beside Draco. Draco still avoided his eyes, staring at the white marble. "I know the incantation technically translates as 'Crown of the heart,' but it's called the Soul Crown spell, right? It's supposed to form a sort of image of your soul on the crown."

Draco breathed out. "That's right." Then he ended up inhaling tightness and pressure again, and winced.

"So." Potter made a restless little motion like he was pawing the ground. "The question is, why did you want to give an image of your soul to Dumbledore?"

Draco turned to face him, ignoring the temptation to tuck his arms down defensively. Potter sounded quiet and calm, honest, as if he had a question that had been bothering him for years.

"He tried to save my soul," Draco said. "That's why."

Potter's eyes widened in a way that made Draco want to laugh, even though this whole thing wasn't very funny. "I—I didn't know you saw it that way," Potter finally mumbled, shaking his head a little.

"Not many people do. I don't think even Professor Snape knew, before the end. Or my parents," Draco had to add.

"Did you try to tell them?"

"Why do you care?"

To Draco's shock, Potter said, "I'm not sure, but it must be important. I think you're the only one who visits Dumbledore's tomb as regularly as I do. And I think—I think you must either have something to forgive him for, the way I thought I did, or you must feel as though you owe him a debt. Anger or loss. One or the other."

"I don't have either," Draco said. "Not really. I want to tell him thanks. What's that?" he added, finding it difficult to discover the word in the face of the way Potter watched him. "Gratitude? A third option."

Potter nodded slowly. "Can we meet here?" he asked abruptly. "Like I said, you're the only other one who visits him. It would be good to talk to you."

"Talk about Dumbledore?" Draco balked a bit. He thought he had told Potter as much as he felt capable of saying.

Potter stared at him as if he was mental. "No. Other things."

And maybe Draco was mental, but he nodded, and stood watching the shine of the tomb blindly long after Potter had walked away.