~*~

Harry and Draco stared in silence at the Thestral pawing the ground before them. Draco shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as his eyes slid to the crushed leaves beneath their feet. Harry looked at Draco, caught by the movement; there was a streak of ash marring one cheekbone, and Harry fidgeted, glancing away quickly from Draco's hollowed gray eyes. Harry's tongue felt swollen in his mouth, too thick for the words that wanted to spill out. He swallowed, his throat parched. "This," he croaked, then cleared his throat, the sound startlingly loud after the quiet. "It'll take you back to Hogwarts."

Draco nodded, his eyes flickering back to the Thestral. He reached out a trembling hand to touch its coat hesitantly. "Are you sure this isn't going to eat me?"

Harry felt his mouth twitch, but was too tired to grin. "Just remember your manners." He expected Draco to follow that up with something, a snarky comment about the difference between a Thestral and a hippogriff, perhaps, but it never came. Draco nodded again mechanically, haunted and bruised, and in that moment Harry hated him so much it seared him inside-that Draco should be so traumatized when he had been protected from the brunt of the pain, when so much had been sacrificed to keep him innocent, even if all of that effort had failed in the end. His eyes burned suddenly, and he rubbed a hand furiously over his face, realizing in that moment that he had lost his glasses somewhere in the carnage behind them. "You'll have to go it alone," he said when he realized Draco hadn't yet moved. "I need to find Ron and Hermione-I'm sure they're around here somewhere."

"All right," Draco said. "Goodbye, then."

Draco's nonchalance rubbed Harry the wrong way, and he scowled, putting his hands in his pockets, scuffing the ground with the toe of his trainer. "Is that it? 'Goodbye'?"

Draco sighed; whatever strength that was keeping his back straight melted away with that question. When he spoke again, his voice was suspiciously thick. "Isn't goodbye enough, Potter? You've won. Isn't it all just...enough?"

The back of Draco's neck looked strangely fragile, his head bowed and resting against the Thestral's side. Harry wanted to touch that line, wanted to feel the skin and maybe share a little warmth; he wasn't shivering like Draco, but he was cold, had been cold for days-

As he reached out to touch, Draco turned toward him, eyes red rimmed and angry. "All you get is good bye, Potter, and you don't deserve even that." Draco bolted up onto the Thestral without another word, and was gone before Harry could even think of a response.

Harry felt as if he were frozen in that moment, his hand still raised, his heart thudding dully in his chest.

"Harry!" there was the sound of breathless laughter, and he dropped his hand as he was enveloped in a tangle of arms and legs, Ron and Hermione suddenly there and squeezing the life out of him.

"You did it, Harry, you did it!" Hermione let out a carefree laugh, her hair tickling his nose and making him sneeze. Harry felt as if he'd lost something just then, something that still lingered at the edges of his mind, but it hardly mattered anymore, and he dismissed it without a thought. Voldemort was dead, Ginny was waiting for him, and it was time to go home.

~*~