The Tree
Exactly one human life time later, Draco Malfoy fell into a sleep from which he would not wake. Death came for him in the form of a tree, whose branches cradled him in a familiar way.
A yew tree.
Draco ran his hands along the bark and admired the many thin, long leaves—just like the tree in the yard of his childhood home. Yet as his gaze shifted beyond the branches, he noticed that he was not in his front lawn.
In fact, he did not appear to be anywhere at all.
Above him was a dazzling light, like sunshine, only brighter. It was beautiful and inviting. Warm.
Below him was... confusing.
Draco couldn't quite make it out, the colors kept shifting in an odd way. What he could see, however, was the roots of the tree.
They did not burrow deep into the Earth, for there was no ground in which they could go. Instead, they hovered in the empty air, a network of intricate, spindly limbs that were more complicated even than the branches in which he sat.
Draco was high in the tree's canopy, but he could climb higher. Right up into the light, it looked like. He stared up into the ethereal, glistening rays and pondered this.
"Hello."
Maybe the sound of his voice should have scared the piss out of him, or at the very least startled him, but it didn't.
Draco glanced to his side to see Harry Potter sitting there, having suddenly and silently appeared, a small smile on his face.
Well. It was Harry and yet it wasn't Harry.
He was wearing that cloak which clung to his skin like it was a part of him, now—liquid light draped across his shoulders and pooling at his feet. Draco spied the golden ring on one hand, but if Harry had the Elder Wand, he couldn't see it.
"...Hello," Draco eventually responded, like the elusive Master of Death just showing up in his subconscious yew tree with him was perfectly normal.
Harry looked up at the branches appreciatively. "This is nice," he commented, the holy light from above making his green eyes glow.
"Am I dead?"
Draco asked the question in the same way one might inquire about the weather or what was for dinner. The smile slid from Harry's lips.
"...Yes."
Draco just nodded, surprisingly unsurprised. "Thought so."
They were quiet for a time. Draco stared at Harry's unnaturally white face and vibrant eyes, and the questions started forming.
"What happened?" he asked first. "After the veil. You and the Dark Lord didn't die. Right? You're the Master of Death. You didn't die when you went through the veil, did you?"
"No," Harry answered. "I didn't die. I didn't, but... He did." He paused, and his brilliant eyes darkened a fraction.
But a moment later and that easy smile was back on his lips. "It's been a hell of time, you know. Master of Death. It's not anything like what you'd think. I've been existing in a billion different places at once at yet nowhere at all. I've been stretched across galaxies that shouldn't even exist. I've witnessed unquestionable love, I've smelled passionate hatred. I've tasted jealously on the back of my tongue, leaving a flavor there that I still can't quite rid myself of..."
He shuddered.
"What does jealousy taste like?" Draco couldn't help but ask.
"Bitter."
“Hm."
Harry ran a hand through his hair, which seemed, in Draco's opinion, somehow even messier than before.
"I went looking for you, you know," Draco said, watching him mess up his hair distastefully.
Harry gave him a shrewd look. "Yeah," he said softly. "...I know."
"Well, what the fuck, then?" Draco snapped, feeling the strongest emotion he had yet since appearing in the branches of a yew tree—annoyance. "Why didn't you talk to me? I almost died, like... I don't even know how many times! If you knew I was looking for you, why didn't you show up?"
"It doesn't work like that," Harry answered. "My choices are limited and hands frequently tied. It isn't an easy thing, to just become visible to someone. I've been trying to figure out how the Peverall brothers summoned Death like that... As well as a million other things."
"...Was that really you, when I was in New Orleans, then?" Draco pressed on. "When I was delirious and getting the life sucked out of me by banshees, was that really you?"
Harry's face went uncomfortably blank again. He looked not at Draco when he spoke, but at the trunk of the massive yew tree.
"Yes... That was me. I was there. And..."
His breath hitched. He shook his head, seemingly abandoning that statement in favor of another one. "I'm sorry. I didn't have any control over what was happening around you—it was your dream, after all. I knew you were dying. I should have stopped it. I shouldn't have let you chase me. I was just... I was in a bit of a dark phase, I suppose you could say."
Draco's brows raised. Harry looked at him with an extremely guilty expression on his face. "I was just... lonely," he elaborated.
"Oh."
Harry then turned his attention to the thin leaves, trailing his fingers across them almost lovingly. "I've been through so much, and yet it feels as though nothing at all has happened. I am eternal and I am fleeting. I fear I've been the cause of many tears and shattered people. I've tried so many things, and yet it's as though no matter what I do, it all falls apart. I attempt to gift happiness to one person, only to find that it has unintended consequences somewhere else. It's like weaving a tapestry out of living threads—only the moment I finish weaving something over here, a section over there has come unraveled. I cannot do it. I cannot fabricate perfection."
He sighed heavily. Draco stared at him, eyes wide. "But you're the Master of Death," he said. "Can't you do anything?"
"Ha! Hardly," Harry shouted, grinning. He looked as human then as Draco had seen him yet. "I wouldn't say I'm a Master of anything, not as I am, not doing what I'm doing. I'm working on something, you know. Something I probably shouldn't... Trying to unbecome, if you can fathom such a thing. And I'm up against some incredible obstacles. Time, for one, makes no sense at all. It's like a Ferris wheel that just comes unhinged at inopportune intervals, barreling straight through my handiwork whenever it damn well pleases and then disappearing just quickly. And Fate is fickle; I keep pricking my fingers on it and getting it caught in my throat. It... It tastes like jealousy."
Harry said the last part with a look of dawning comprehension, like he was only just now making that connection. He threw his head back and laughed loudly afterwards, as though this was a very funny joke.
Draco could do nothing but stare.
"What? Oh, quit doing that," Harry said, frowning suddenly and pointing at him.
Draco looked around, like maybe he had done something and hadn't realized it.
"Doing what?"
"That, looking at me like everything I'm saying is meaningful poetry or something. It's not. I'm just... talking."
"Well, quit saying weirdly poetic shit, then," Draco muttered.
They glared at each other for a moment, silent, before they both started laughing at the same time.
The light above them became suddenly brighter. Draco's eye drifted up to it, and his head started to feel... funny. "I'm supposed to go up there, aren't I?"
"...You could," Harry said quietly. "It is for you."
"Well, I don't want to stay here!" Draco shouted. "I don't want to become a ghost!"
Harry's jaw fell open. "Is that how ghosts are made?" he balked. "They just don't make a choice? I've been chasing my shadow trying to figure that out—and—oh, it's so simple!" He put a hand on Draco's shoulder, giving him a meaningful look.
“Thank you."
"Oh, you know me," Draco said, and he couldn't help but notice that Harry's hand seemed bigger than it had before. "Always trying to help."
The light was getting more vibrant, and Draco felt like he was getting... smaller?
"Draco," Harry said. "You have a choice. You can either go up there, towards that light, and go beyond... Or you can jump."
Draco looked down towards the roots, where below there was indescribable chaos. Colors that were contorting and blending together, like an oil painting come to life.
He suddenly felt very afraid. He was just a small child in a big tree, and what if his magic didn't save him?
"Last time I jumped from a yew tree, it didn't work out well for me," he whispered, his voice so much feebler, now.
"Are you inclined to think that history will forever repeat itself?"
Harry asked it very seriously. Draco bit at his nails, nervous. "I-I don't know,” he said, glancing back down at the writhing, kaleidoscopic space below.
"It's okay," Harry said reassuringly. He smiled. "You can do it. Jump."
"Will you come, too?"
Harry shook his head. "No, I can't. Not here, not like this. I still have a few things to finish. But don't worry... I'll find you."
Draco looked unconvinced. The light was getting brighter, blindingly so.
"Go on, then!"
A man in silver was laughing at him, but in a friendly way, not a condescending one. He removed his hand from his shoulder and gestured out towards the colorful world of endless possibilities.
"Jump, Draco!"
...Who?
“Jump!"