The morning lay shrouded in mist, pale light breaking reluctantly over the edges of the churchyard wall. It was the sort of dawn that blurred the world at its edges, softening stone and branch and sky alike, as though all of it might dissolve if one looked too long. The damp clung to Lucius Malfoy's cloak, heavy and chill, beading faintly against the black fabric. His boots whispered over gravel, the sound swallowed quickly by the fog.
The graveyard was old. Moss crawled across many of the stones, names long weathered into obscurity. Some markers leaned at crooked angles, forgotten by all but the earth itself. A few had fresh flowers, offerings that stood out against the grey, but most lay bare, abandoned, memory thinning as years passed.
He walked through them without pause. These were not the names he sought.
His hand tightened faintly on the bouquet he carried — lilies, their petals pure white, immaculate. A Malfoy never brought anything less than perfection, even to the dead. The stems were bound in black ribbon, neat and spare.
He wondered, not for the first time, whether Severus would have sneered at them. He could hear the imagined voice, low and cutting: Lilies, Lucius? How sentimental. How fitting, though. You always did prefer appearances to honesty.
And perhaps Severus would have been right.
The grass grew thick and damp beneath his boots as he reached the grave. For a moment he only stood, tall and composed, the mist curling faintly around him as though testing his resolve. Then his eyes dropped, tracing the simple stone.
Severus Snape.1960–1998. The bravest man I ever knew.
Lucius's mouth thinned. The words had not been his. They were Potter's doing, the boy's — though the boy was no longer a boy, not anymore. Still, Lucius could not deny the sting of truth in the phrase. Bravery, of all things, had been Severus's curse.
He knelt, robes brushing the damp grass. Carefully, deliberately, he laid the lilies at the base of the stone. His gloved hand lingered, fingertips tracing the engraved letters as though they might bite. The chill of the marble seeped through leather, a cold that felt older than death itself.
"Severus," he murmured. His voice was almost soundless, carried away at once by the damp air.
He did not speak apologies. He did not ask forgiveness. He did not believe in such things. Forgiveness was a luxury for those who had lost little. Lucius had gambled everything — pride, allegiance, friendship — and had won nothing in return.
Yet in the nights that refused him sleep, when the house was quiet and the past would not remain buried, he still saw it: Severus's eyes, when the truth had been revealed. The fracture. The silence after betrayal. The bitter twist of his mouth when Lucius had smiled, pretending it had all been a game.
The memory clung like a chain, heavy even now. Time had dulled nothing.
The sound of footsteps reached him, soft but unmistakable, crunching over the gravel path behind. Lucius did not turn immediately. He had known, somehow, that he would not be alone.
At last, he straightened, composed as ever, and let his gaze shift.
Harry Potter stood a short distance away. Older now, lines faint at the corners of his mouth, but still unmistakable. The scar showed pale against his forehead, partly hidden by hair that remained stubbornly untidy. His eyes — Lillian's eyes, though Lucius had never said it aloud — were fixed on him, bright and wary.
Potter's hand twitched toward his wand, old reflex rising, though he did not raise it.
Lucius inclined his head, once. Neither greeting nor threat. Simply acknowledgement. Then his gaze returned to the grave.
There were no words to be exchanged here. Nothing Potter could say would alter what had been. Nothing Lucius might offer would lessen the truth of it. Between Severus and himself, words had long ago turned to weapons, and weapons to silence.
Still, when he turned at last to leave, he let his eyes meet Potter's. Cold, as they had always been — but behind the frost, a flicker. Recognition. Perhaps even respect. Or perhaps it was only the fog, playing tricks.
He moved away, cloak brushing the damp grass, footsteps steady against the gravel. The mist swallowed him, folding him back into shadow, until the graveyard knew him no longer.
Behind, the lilies remained. White against grey stone. Not forgiveness. Not love. Only a debt unspoken, and a memory that refused to fade.