A/N: Just a quick note then I'll get out of your hair. This story takes place about ten years after Deathly Hallows. It remains faithful to canon for the most part, but diverges at the end of the battle of Hogwarts. In this piece, neither Snape nor Voldemort died at that point. I won't give specifics on what happened after, because that isn't what this story is about. You'll know all you need to know as you read it, so I hope you do and I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: Harry and Draco belong to J.K. Rowling, my dear queen.

A City without Walls

"It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls."

-Epicurus

I

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…"

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet

The five years following the end of the war were completely wasted by one Harry Potter. At least, that was the general consensus of the public as well as, more importantly, Hermione Granger. Harry disagreed wholeheartedly with the term "wasted," but whenever he tried to defend his case with Hermione she would simply shake her head and shove pamphlets in his hands.

In his opinion, only the first three years could be deemed "wasted." Those were the years he'd spent following Ron around in Auror training. Somehow, he'd managed to make it through all three years before he'd realized that, really, he'd had enough of fighting dark wizards for one lifetime, thank you very much. There were people (read: Hermione) who vigorously expressed their incomprehension on how it could have taken him three years to figure that out, to which Harry simply shrugged. He didn't much understand it himself, but at times he would remember how busy those three years had been-what with the funerals, the memorial building, the writing of the History of WWII (second wizarding war), the reconstruction—both in terms of the physical building as well as the employees/officials—of the Ministry, &c… and he would think that perhaps he had simply been too distracted by everything else to really sit down and contemplate what he wanted to do with his life.

But at the end of the three years, once they'd put him in red robes and given him his first assignment, he'd had his great epiphany and turned in his resignation. Of course, this resulted in a huge scandal, but by the time the Prophet had stirred up the hoi polloi Harry was already in Thailand.

This was the part in which Harry and Hermione disagreed. She thought that he had just been running around, going to amusement parks and rubbing sun tan lotion on girls—basically wasting his time. Harry thought of it rather more as a voyage of self-discovery. Never mind if he did go to the odd amusement park or two, and, ok, he may have rubbed some sun tan lotion on girls in Tahiti and maybe even a couple of guys in Palau, but it was all in the vein of self-reflection! Hermione was quite skeptical about that, but he would tell her about how much of himself that he'd discovered and she would let the subject drop, for the time being.

During the last couple months of that fifth year, Harry wrote up tens of lists of what he'd discovered about himself. He'd found that lists were quite effective when it came to appeasing Hermione. His average list looked something like this:

Stuff I've Discovered about Myself

I like green curry.

I like pad thai.

I like pretty much all Thai food.

I DON'T like octopus. Especially live octopus. In my mouth.

I love snorkeling.

I hate helicopters.

I find girls with long hair attractive.

I find some guys attractive. Er. Yes.

I love windy roads.

I get car sick.

I'm rubbish at card games.

I like reading fantasy books. Like Lord of the Rings.

While they weren't the most philosophical of lists, Harry still rather thought they were quite informative. He learned a lot about himself over those two years spent traveling, things that normal people probably already knew about themselves at the age of 23, but that Harry had been too busy to find out during his childhood. When he put it that way, Hermione stopped badgering him and let him continue traveling. She just sent a bundle of brochures and flyers with every owl.

It was nearing the fifth year anniversary of V day when Harry began to grow weary of foreign lands and started actually reading her pamphlets. Once he began looking at them, it was only a matter of weeks before he found one that piqued his interest. It was a thin packet advertising St Nurman's Academy of Healing and Nursing.

The war had been tedious and gruesome, a series of battles and skirmishes that wore on and on for two years. Harry had gotten quite good at the simplest and most necessary of healing charms, had found that they came quite naturally to him. Flipping through the packet, Harry seriously contemplated pursuing a career as a Healer, and then seriously wondered why the idea had never occurred to him before.

Healing seemed like the perfect vocation for him once he thought about it. The years of traveling were fun, but realistically Harry couldn't live that way. The part of him that Ron liked to call his hero complex hadn't diminished at all, even if it shied away from direct fighting. He did still have the desire to help people, and what better way to help than to heal? In the end, it wasn't much of a decision at all; it just seemed like the logical course of action. He arranged for an international portkey to take him back to London, and then, much to her glee, enlisted Hermione to help him study for his entrance exams.

Two years he spent in school, training. He was occasionally tempted to call them the best two years of his life. Finally, he felt that he was doing something just for the sake of wanting to do it. This was all his decision, and it was rewarding in ways fighting Death Eaters never could be. He even actually studied without prompting from Hermione, because he was interested in the subject and wanted to know as much as he could. By the time he'd graduated and acquired his license, he was at the top of his class and known as the highest ranking student in the top Healing University in Great Britain, rather than the Boy who Lived to be Chosen as the One to Defeat the Dark Lord. It was quite a nice change.

He began working at St. Mungo's not long after his twenty seventh birthday, and quickly settled into a comfortable routine. That summer, he attended Ginny and Neville's wedding and served as best man at Hermione and Ron's. His friends tried to set him up with many a woman and/or man, but he was happy by himself in his flat above Diagon Alley, and more than happy spending his days at the hospital.

Of course, he should have known that his easy, predictable life couldn't remain so. Not with him being Harry Potter. Really, knowing his life so far, he should have expected something like this, and yet, somehow, he still managed to be surprised. It all started the day his friend Sarah announced that she was going on maternity leave and Harry offered to take her shift.

Harry had been working at St. Mungo's for a few months now, but he'd still never been in the Janus Thicky Ward. The last and only time he'd gone there was in fifth year, when he'd seen Neville's parents and Gilderoy Lockhart. They were still there when he entered now, but they'd been joined by a good number of new patients—another byproduct of the war. Most of the patients shared rooms, like the one that housed Neville's parents, but the more high profile ones had rooms to themselves. Sarah's jurisdiction covered a couple of these single rooms—to be specific, rooms 417S-417W.

Everything went smoothly in the first four rooms; Harry changed their drip spells, renewed the stasis charms, and ran the usual tests. Then he opened the door of 417W and halted in surprise.

The figure lying in the hospital bed was very familiar, although Harry hadn't seen him in seven years. Somehow, sometime during those years following the war, Harry had completely forgotten about Draco Malfoy and his coma.

Harry had been too busy fighting in the Order's army to keep complete track of Malfoy during the war, but he'd heard rumors. Apparently, after the Battle of Hogwarts Snape had taken him to one of the Order's safe houses and he was kept under house arrest. No one really knew where Malfoy's loyalties lied during this period, but when Narcissa was killed at the end of August he officially changed sides.

But even though he declared himself to be part of the order, he still refused to fight outright. Harry remembered hearing this and the wry lack of surprise that he'd felt; of course Malfoy would be a Slytherin through and through until the end—all about self-preservation. The blond git had hid away in secure locations, helping in whatever way he could without exposing himself. This turned out to mean great deals of research and strategizing. In fact, he was even part of the team that devised the final plan to lure Voldemort in and kill him once and for all. By this time, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had already destroyed all of the horcruxes and Voldemort had finally noticed. The dark lord had taken many pains to hide and protect himself, and it was only because of Malfoy's team's strategizing and Snape's sacrifice that they were able to get to him.

When Harry dealt the fatal blow, he was nineteen. That was the official V Day, the day Harry Potter cast his first and last Avada Kedavra. But even after that, there was still the army of Death Eaters to deal with, and that took another year, at the end of which Harry joined the Aurors and Draco Malfoy was deeply in a coma.

No one really knew how he ended up that way, but everyone noticed that over the three years of fighting, his luck somehow seemed to get worse and worse. Even hiding away in secure houses, Draco Malfoy had more near-death experiences than Harry who'd been fighting in the front lines. It was mainly accidents—falling down stairs or getting horrible cases of food poisoning or becoming deathly sick—and Snape's potion expertise helped to save his life many a time. How Harry heard of it, it was almost comical the way he kept getting hurt. Malfoy insisted he must have been cursed or something, but everyone was too busy with the war to pay him any attention. Ron joked that he probably broke a mirror or came across a black cat.

It all seemed pretty insignificant to Harry at the time. It was just something to joke about in between raids. "Did you hear? Apparently it was a flower pot this time. Malfoy was just walking under a window and it nearly fell on his head." Even when they heard that he'd hit his head and fallen into a coma, it was just mentioned in a fleeting conversation whilst setting up an ambush, and over the next seven years Harry had completely forgotten about it.

Now he was here, and Malfoy was here, and the reality of it was vaguely horrifying.

Unbidden, memories of the Battle of Hogwarts came bubbling up in his mind. He hadn't actively thought about it in years, but even so he could still see the chimerical fire in the Room of Requirement as if it had happened yesterday. He remembered exactly where Malfoy had clutched him, and how hard, and could almost imagine the bruises were still there.

Even at that point, Malfoy had looked horrible—all gaunt and pale and haunted—but now, lying motionless in the hospital bed, he looked even worse.

Harry moved further into the room, staring at the boy—now man—that he'd hated so fiercely for seven years, and then somehow forgotten about for seven more. Draco Malfoy may have looked gaunt the last time Harry saw him, but now he looked almost skeletal. His hair was longer than Harry'd ever seen it; the brittle blond tresses reached down to his elbows. Seven years was a long time to go without sun, and it showed in his translucent skin. Harry checked all of the monitoring charms and stabilizing spells, and everything seemed to be in order. Why, then, was he in such a sorry state, even when the healers were doing everything they could to keep him alive? It appeared almost as if he were trying his best to thwart them and die.

As soon as Harry finished what he needed to do, he made his escape. Being in the presence of such a weak and vulnerable-looking Malfoy made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

That evening, Harry went out to dinner with Ron and Hermione.

"Guess who I saw today," he said after the initial greetings were over.

"At the hospital?" asked Hermione. Harry nodded.

"Who?" said Ron.

"Draco Malfoy."

"Malfoy? Seriously? Man, I haven't heard that name in a while. Hmm… brings back memories…" Ron appeared to be gazing serenely at the wall. Harry thought he must be thinking about that time with the ferret, or that time with the punch, or—and now Harry was smiling too.

"Is he still in a coma?"

Harry turned to Hermione. "Yeah, he's in the Janus Thickey ward."

"What, the one with Neville's parents and Lockhart?" said Ron, coming back to earth.

"Yep, that's the one. But Malfoy's got himself his own private room."

Hermione nodded, "Yes I would expect him to. I can't imagine he'd mix very well with other patients, even if he's unconscious the whole time."

"He looks awful. Even worse than when we saw him at the Manor."

"Oh my. Are the healers neglecting him? I thought all that prejudice was over."

"No, the healers are doing everything they can. For some reason the standard medicine and spells aren't very effective."

"Hmmm," pondered Hermione, and Harry could almost see the gears working in her head. They paused in their conversation to order, then Hemione said, "Do they know what's wrong with him? Have they considered that he's cursed?"

"They've checked for signs of curses, but nothing's shown up. If he is cursed, it's nothing they've ever seen before."

"Is he… I mean, is he alright?" asked Hermione.

"He's dying," said Harry succinctly.

"Oh," said Hermione, looking at the glass of water in her hands and furrowing her eyebrows.

"Oh who cares," said Ron. "He's a foul git, so what?"

"You haven't seen him, Ron," said Harry, "It's awful. I wish there was some way I could help, but if Sarah couldn't do anything for him then there's no way I can."

Ron shrugged. "Whatever, mate. I'm sure he'll be fine. The twit's a snake through and through; you can probably count on his self-preservation to keep him alive."

Harry smiled at that. "Yeah, I suppose so…" The waiter brought their drinks, and Harry changed the subject. "Hey, did you hear? Apparently Sarah's going to have a boy. Now they're just deciding what to name him. Seamus says Priselda but Sarah wants something like Kate."

And from there the conversation fell into more lighthearted topics, and Harry pushed the unsettling image of Malfoy to the back of his mind. It came back later, though, when he was climbing into bed. It hovered before his eyes as he drifted off to sleep, worrying at his thoughts and his conscience.

…

He was laying face down, enveloped in a deafening yet calming silence. Once again, he had a firm knowledge that he was the only one there, and yet he wasn't positive that he was there at all.

An eternity passed, or perhaps it was only a few seconds, and Harry realized that this was really all rather familiar. He opened his eyes and sat up, not surprised to find himself immersed in a strange fog. A quick look around and the fog materialized into a semblance of King's Cross, and robes appeared beside him. Pulling them on, he stood up and began looking underneath benches. The disgusting, quivering thing wasn't there.

"It moved on," came the voice of Albus Dumbledore from behind him. Harry turned around.

"What do you mean? It died?"

"Something along those lines, yes."

Harry gazed at the twinkling blue eyes for a time, feeling quite content to simply stand there.

A moment later, a question occurred to him, and then his mouth was opening and he said, "Sorry, but why am I here again, Professor?"

"Ah, my dear boy. That is the question, isn't it? Why don't you tell me?"

And as soon as Dumbledore said this, the knowledge was there in Harry's head. Well, part of it anyway.

"It has something to do with Malfoy?"

"Yes. Let's walk as we talk, shall we?" and Dumbledore put his hands in his sleeves and began ambling down the walkway. Harry hastened to follow; as he was catching up to him, Dumbledore said, "It does indeed have something to do with Malfoy. Tell me, Harry, what do you know about him?"

"Well…I just saw him again today. He's still in a coma, and… he's not doing so well." Something occurred to Harry. "Do you know something about that, sir?"

There was a moment of silence in which they simply walked. Harry didn't feel any impatience however. He knew that Dumbledore would answer when he wished to.

"Do you wish to save Draco?" he asked first.

"I… well, yes, I suppose. If I could, I mean, of course I wouldn't just let him die."

"I thought as much."

"Sorry, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"I merely wanted confirmation, my dear boy. I believe… that your desire to save Draco has everything to do with why we are here."

"What do you mean?"

Another pause.

"I'm afraid Draco has been imprisoned."

Harry blinked. "What? But he's in St. Mungo's…"

"It is not his body that is immured, rather his mind…"

Harry tried to figure that one out, and gave up for the time being. Instead, he asked, "Where?"

"A place rather like this one."

"What, King's Cross?"

Dumbledore laughed and Harry frowned.

"No, my dear boy," he said. "I don't believe he's in King's Cross. This is your place. No, I'm sure that Draco's has taken a different form."

"I don't understand."

Harry was growing mildly frustrated. Dumbledore smiled at him kindly.

"This, as I'm sure you have guessed, is the area somewhere between life and death. The last time you visited, you were hit by the killing curse and yet there was something tying you back to the mortal world; you were not quite alive but not quite dead. Mr. Malfoy lies in a similar state now, although for very different reasons."

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke, and Harry tried to absorb that information.

"Why? Was Malfoy hit by Avada Kedavra too?"

"No," said Dumbledore, but did not offer any further explanation. Harry let it be at that.

"Does he have something tying him to the living?"

"Yes." Again, Dumbledore didn't elaborate.

Harry thought for a moment. If Malfoy was in a situation similar to the one he'd been in, then…

"Can he come back like I did?"

"There is a way, yes."

"But you said he was imprisoned?"

Dumbledore nodded. "He remains there, has remained there, for seven years. But the way to escape has always existed."

"Then why hasn't he left?" Harry said, baffled. Dumbledore merely smiled.

They walked whilst Harry calmed himself down. It was rather easy—he found it hard to dwell on negative feelings here.

"Why are you telling me this? What does it have to do with me?"

"Ah, now you ask the vital question. You, my boy, have the ability to help him. Or rather, the ability to help him help himself."

"Er… could you explain that a bit more?"

"Of course. The world that Draco has lived in for the past seven years is infinitely large and infinitesimally small. Somewhere in this world, there is a gate that leads back to the world of the living."

"Is the gate very hard to find?"

"Not at all; it lies in plain sight."

"So… I'm supposed to lead him to this gate?"

"That is correct."

"Sounds easy enough," said Harry, thinking there must be some catch. "Wait, how will I get to his… wherever he is?"

"I believe that as soon as our conversation is over, you will find yourself there."

"Brilliant. Well then, it was nice talking with you, Professor."

"Likewise, Harry."

He turned and waited for the train station to dissolve into mist. The edges were getting fuzzy when Dumbledore suddenly said, "Oh and Harry, there is something else you should know."

Harry turned back around. The fog was beginning to obscure his vision.

"What?"

"You may find it difficult to convince Draco to find the gate." Dumbledore was just two sparkling blue eyes now. "You see, I'm afraid he doesn't believe that it exists."

"What?" Harry called, but everything had dissolved into whiteness and his vision was turning black.

"Farewell, my dear boy."

…

When Harry awoke, the first thing he became aware of was that he was laying on his back this time. Also, the surface on which he lay wasn't hard and smooth like the ground in his King's Cross. Rather, it seemed quite soft and strangely… loose.

He opened his eyes and, for a moment, merely lay and tried to take in his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed was the sky. In King's Cross, there was just the sparkling domed roof. Here, there was an endless midnight sky; a pure, deep blue bordering on black covered in more twinkling stars than Harry had ever seen. It gave the whole place a darker feeling—whereas in Harry's world everything seemed to suffuse a gentle but bright light, here the only light came from the stars. There was no moon.

Harry sat up and looked to his left at the ground. He was surprised to see that it was covered in white roses as far as the eye could see. No, that wasn't strictly correct. The ground wasn't covered in roses; rather, the roses comprised the ground. There was no dirt beneath them, and stranger still, they were all cut—there wasn't a single prickly stem to be seen. The white of the petals seemed to drink up the starlight and glow with it. Quite simply, it was the most beautiful landscape Harry had ever seen.

He turned to his right.

A few feet away from him sat a stone fountain. There were three levels to it, and on the top was carved what looked to be a delicate roman statue of a girl kneeling and holding a gourd to the basin. But what flowed from it and over the edges of each bowl was not water but a trail of more white roses. Harry gazed at the fountain for a moment, before letting his eyes roam a few more feet to the left.

There was a stone bench, carved in the similar elegant way as the fountain, on either side of it, but one caught Harry's attention more so than the other—one of them was occupied.

Draco Malfoy sat facing Harry and looking nothing at all like how he had when Harry'd seen him in the hospital. This Draco Malfoy was how Harry imagined he might have looked at the age of twenty were he properly fed and living in easy luxury at Malfoy Manor. His features were more gently angled than pointy, and his long hair was gathered in a loose braid draped over one shoulder. He looked wonderfully healthy, but Harry couldn't help but think that there was something strange about this Malfoy. For one thing, his clothes were like nothing Harry had ever seen him wear before. A strange tunic-like garb exposed his collar bone, cut off at his knees, and was tied at his waist by an intricate belt. He was veritably incrusted in jewelry—earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and even anklets—and were those pearls tied into his braid? But somehow it didn't look overdone, and somehow, despite his slightly-feminine face, he didn't look anything like a girl.

But still. Harry stared at him for a time, and Malfoy stared back impassively, and then the first thing that Harry said was, "What are you wearing?"

Malfoy scowled. "Haven't you ever heard of funeral dress?"

"Er, no. No I haven't."

"This," he gestured to himself, "is what I am to be dressed in at my funeral."

Harry blinked. "You have clothes set aside for that? Er, rather, a dress?"

"Of course," Malfoy replied as if it were obvious. "You don't honestly expect me to leave that sort of thing up to servants after I'm dead, do you?"

"I'm not really sure…" Harry was feeling rather bewildered. "I've never really thought about it, to be honest." There was a pause, then, "Wait, then why are you wearing it now?"

"Because I'm dead, obviously," replied Malfoy.

"Er, no you're not," stated Harry, staring at him.

"Well. Close enough." He waved a dismissive hand. "That's not the question though."

"It isn't?"

"Of course not. The question, Potter, is: why are you here?"

Harry looked around him again, shifting into a more comfortable cross-legged position. He picked up a rose and fiddled with it.

"Where are we, anyway?" he asked, ignoring Malfoy's question for the moment.

Malfoy looked around as well. "I would like to say my mother's rose garden… but that's not quite true. It is, and yet it's quite different."

Harry nodded. His King's Cross was different from the real King's Cross as well.

"Why are you here?" Malfoy asked again.

The white rose he held in his hands was strange. Its petals were silky like a real rose's, but it gave off no scent. None of the roses did. The air was pure and crisp and smelled only of stars.

"I think," said Harry slowly. "I think I'm here to help you."

Malfoy scoffed. "Sure you are." He turned away from Harry then, and called out, "Hey, Severus! This is your doing, isn't it? Well you can take him away now, he's an eyesore."

"What are you talking about?" asked Harry. "Severus? Snape's here?"

"I'm not so far gone that I'd want a disgusting Harry Potter look alike to entertain me!" He turned to Harry. "Go away."

"What? What's going on? What do you mean, 'Harry Potter look alike?'"

"Honestly," Malfoy muttered to himself, "I don't know why he'd send such a thing. He knows I hate Potter well enough. He's probably trying to aggravate me, giving me such an unpleasant gift. Although I suppose it's better than the last one. A fucking knife. Just to prove a fucking point."

"Er, I have no idea what you're talking about…" said Harry. Malfoy ignored him. Annoyed, he stood up and went to stand directly in front of the stupid git. "Listen here, Malfoy. I don't know if you're insane or what, but I'm telling you right now that I'm real. I am Harry Potter."

"Right," said Malfoy sarcastically. "Of course you are. Next thing you know he'll be sending me the real Severus Snape." He barked out a bitter laugh, and the darkness in it frightened Harry.

"Yeah, now you've really lost me. Weren't you just talking to Snape?" he shook his head. "Whatever. The point is, I'm Harry Potter. That's me. I work as a Healer at St. Mungo's. For some reason, Dumbledore sent me here to help you."

"Dumbledore?" Malfoy was suddenly paying attention.

"Yeah…" said Harry hesitantly. He was weary of how this strange and unstable Malfoy would react to talk of the old headmaster. "He told me the whole situation. You're trapped here, right? Well I've been sent to show you the way out."

Malfoy laughed again. "God, he's really gone all out this time, hasn't he? You're a fool, Potter. There is no way out."

Harry was beginning to see why Dumbledore said this would be difficult.

"Yes there is. There's a gate. Dumbledore told me so."

"Oh he did, did he? Well then, it simply must be true."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm, Malfoy."

"Well I don't appreciate your face. Life is tough."

"There is a gate. Why don't you believe me?"

"Why are you so sure that this gate exists, huh? Because Dumbledore told you? What makes you so convinced that he's telling you the truth?"

Harry frowned. "I trust him."

"Hmm, yes of course. I should have known; Gryffindor blind trust. Well I'm terribly sorry to inform you of this, but your trust is misplaced."

"Look, I know you hated him and, ok, he may not have always told me everything, but he's never lied to me before. Besides, what's got you so convinced that there is no way out?"

"I know there's no way out because Snape told me," he sneered.

"Oh, and what makes you so sure that Snape's telling the truth, huh? Is it because you trust him?"

"I trust Severus, yes, but that is not why I know he told the truth. He, I do not trust at all, but I know that he can't lie and therefore whatever he tells me must be the truth."

"Malfoy," said Harry blankly. "You've gone insane, haven't you?"

"I have not," Malfoy replied, scowling. "Though it hasn't been for lack of him trying." That last sentence was muttered to himself.

"Alright. Whatever. It doesn't matter. What matters is the gate. Come on, let's go!"

"There is no gate, Potter!" Malfoy sounded seriously angry. He was raising his voice for the first time. "I've been stuck here for—god I don't even know how long. Surely it's been years?"

"Seven," said Harry softly. "It's been seven years."

Malfoy stared at him. "Seven years. This place doesn't change, did you know that? Never. The sun never rises, the stars don't move. I've been here for seven years! Don't you think that if there was a way out I would have taken it by now?"

Harry took a step back, for a moment feeling almost frightened of this crazed boy. But then anger overcame the fear.

"Yeah, I think you would have; only you're too stupid and stubborn to see it! I don't know why you won't believe it, but I'm telling you it does exist! I'll prove it! Just you wait!"

And with that, Harry spun around and began stalking off, leaving a heavily breathing Malfoy behind him.

He didn't know for how long he walked. It really was quite difficult to tell time here, with the monotonous flowers and without a moon as a guide. But when he eventually came upon the gate, his legs were pleasantly sore and he couldn't see Malfoy's fountain anymore.

It was really more of an arch than a gate, and Harry approached it somewhat cautiously. Carved from the same stone as the fountain and benches, it stood just a couple feet higher than Harry's head. He walked around it, examining it from every angle. It wasn't that he didn't trust Dumbledore to tell the truth, but Malfoy's conviction that it didn't exist had made him weary. Also, just the fact that Harry hadn't had the best experience with mysterious arches put him on his guard.

This one didn't have any strange veil, though, and Harry wasn't getting any weird vibes from it either. It really just looked like a simple garden gateway. Well, maybe not simple—the stone was carved into delicate vines and runes—but it did look like something that belonged in the Malfoy Manor gardens.

Now Harry just needed to prove its existence to Malfoy somehow.

He circled around it a dozen more times, encouraging his mind to work harder. How could he prove it to Malfoy if Malfoy refused to come see it with him? He couldn't take a picture of it—he didn't have a camera or his wand. He couldn't very well take it to Malfoy—it weighed a ton and besides, it seemed to be fairly well grounded in the roses. If he could take a piece of it… but that wasn't going to happen. It was made of stone for Merlin's sake, how was he supposed to break part of it off? Harry stopped his pacing. He was well and truly stumped.

Well this was just peachy. He'd found the gate. It obviously existed. But he couldn't prove it to Malfoy and stupid stinking Malfoy refused to come see it for himself. He sat down, or rather; he fell down on his butt. It was supposed to be a hard fall, but the stupid roses cushioned it and smothered the drama completely. For who knew how long, Harry sat there in front of the gate and shredded rose petals. It really wasn't as satisfying as it should have been, because the shredded petals simply unfurled into new roses.

Quite a while later, Harry was struck with inspiration. He could go through the gate, back to the living world, and then come back. If he brought something with him, something from the mortal world, then surely Malfoy would be forced to believe him. Harry stood up, displacing a great many roses. He made to walk through the gate, feeling exhilarated and immensely proud of his plan, but paused with one foot in the air, frowning. Once he back in the living world, how was he to return here? For a moment he was worried, but then a reassuring thought popped to the forefront of his mind. Dumbledore said that he was meant to help Malfoy. Therefore, there must be an easy way for him to come back, right? Since he hadn't helped Malfoy yet? Perhaps he'll come back in his sleep again…

Thus appeased, Harry strode with confidence through the gate.