Peeta knelt in the shadow of the ancient oak tree, the air thick with the scent of damp earth. A thin mist hovered over the gravestones, swirling around him as he traced his fingers over the weathered inscription.
Harry James Potter.
Born July 31, 1980.
Died May 2, 1998.
Dead but Never Forgotten.
The grave before him was just one among many in the quiet graveyard, but to Peeta Mellark, it was more than that. It marked the resting place of a friend he thought would always be there. The friend he once shared his dreams with, who taught him to find hope in even the darkest of times.
Peeta's memories were raw, like fresh wounds. He could still remember those afternoons they spent as boys, running through the woods behind the bakery, laughing despite the looming shadow of the reaping. Harry, always with that messy black hair and piercing green eyes, had a way of making the weight of the world seem lighter.
It had been just before the reaping that Harry had told him, "I hope you win, Peeta. You deserve to."
Peeta hadn’t understood the weight of those words then. He didn’t know how much they’d come to haunt him, how they’d echo in his mind during those brutal days in the arena, when survival was all that mattered.
And when he had won, he expected to find Harry waiting for him back in District 12. But Harry never came. Instead, someone else did, their eyes filled with sorrow. "He's gone," they told him, as if that was enough to explain the gaping void in Peeta's heart.
Peeta couldn’t believe it at first. Harry, the one who faced danger head-on, who survived when no one else could, was gone? How could that be?
He had come here, to this quiet place, seeking answers. But the grave had no answers for him. The grave was just an empty shell, like everything else in his life had become.
The first drops of rain began to fall, gentle at first, then heavier, until the sky wept openly. Peeta stayed kneeling, his blond hair sticking to his forehead, his clothes soaking through, but he didn't move. The rain was cold, but it didn’t matter. His heart had been colder for much longer.
As the rain washed over the gravestones, Peeta closed his eyes and began to hum a familiar tune, one he had learned as a child. It was a song of loss, of longing, of love unfulfilled. His voice, soft at first, grew stronger as the words came back to him.
"The stars we shared, they’ve faded now,
In darkness cold, I wonder how.
The bread we broke, the hope we found,
Lost to the earth beneath the ground."
The words slipped from his lips like a prayer, the kind that wasn’t meant to be answered but spoken all the same. He thought of the bread he and Harry had shared, how they’d laughed, despite knowing the odds were against them both. He thought of their whispered dreams under the stars, dreams that now felt so distant, so broken.
"I wish you could have seen the day,
When victory felt so far away.
But now you rest, while I remain,
Your name alive, despite the pain."
The rain fell harder, drenching the earth and soaking Peeta to the bone, but his song carried through the storm. As the last note left his lips, he sighed, his heart heavy with the weight of everything left unsaid, everything he had lost.
But Peeta wasn’t alone.
From the edge of the graveyard, a figure stood, shrouded in the mist, watching him. His cloak rippled in the rain, and his unruly black hair clung to his forehead. Green eyes, glowing faintly in the dim light, never left Peeta’s form.
Harry Potter stood there, not dead, not forgotten, but alive. He had been watching Peeta, as he always had from the shadows, unable to reveal himself, knowing that the world Peeta lived in was not the one he could ever return to.
Peeta’s song hung in the air, and though Harry could not bring himself to approach his friend, he felt the same pang of loss. It was a strange thing, to see someone mourn for you, to hear their grief so raw and open. Harry’s heart clenched at the thought that Peeta believed him dead.
But for now, that was how it had to be.
Harry watched as Peeta stood, his song fading into the rain-soaked silence. Peeta’s hand brushed the grave one last time before he turned to leave, unaware of the figure who had been with him all along.
The rain began to ease, and the mist thickened, obscuring the grave and the mysterious figure in the distance.
Peeta walked away, his shoulders hunched under the weight of the world once more, while Harry stood silently, knowing they were both bound by a shared pain, but separated by a fate that neither could change.