"No, of course not!" Harry tried to reach down into himself and summon forth some real desire, for Draco's sake. Then he took a deep breath and incanted once again.
The wall melted away to become a neatly manicured expanse of lawn dotted with straight-backed wooden chairs painted white. A casket rested on a short dais located in the middle of the circle of chairs. A woman and a man stood holding each other as they sobbed.
Behind Harry, Draco gasped. "Sweet merciful Merlin..."
Harry stepped back, only to see his brother beginning to walk forward as though in some sort of trance. Grabbing him, Harry shook him sharply. "No, you can't go through! It doesn't work that way, you'll end up in the potions lab, your lower half in the cabinets on this wall!"
Draco froze, his breathing suddenly laboured, his eyes closing. Then he nodded. Just a single affirmative motion, but it was enough; Harry let him go.
After a moment, Draco seemed to be in enough control of himself to watch the funeral again, though his eyes were the dull hue of grief as he studied the scene. "Those are her parents," he said, not even sounding angry with them any longer. Just sad, so terribly sad.
Harry glanced at the couple standing at the side of the casket. The woman was making no sound, but that was probably just because the wall was a viewing plane only. The tears streaming down her face attested to her agony. As she began to shake, the man pulled her closer, his own features wracked with grief.
Other mourners sat on the chairs, but there were no students among them. Neither was Snape present, which Harry supposed must mean that the sick Slytherins needed every bit of his attention.
Dumbledore was standing across from the Parkinsons, his eyes sad and sombre. After a few moments, he gave a slight nod. This turned out to be some sort of signal, for the mourners rose en masse. One after another, in sequence, they began enchanting the casket, their wands casting glowing white spells. The wooden sides and top of the casket took on a burnished hue, and then slowly began to glow golden. Diamonds and emeralds appeared, glinting on the handles, and then across the top of the casket arose dozens of Latin inscriptions Harry couldn't quite make out. Flowers grew up from the ground to encompass the casket. Roses and lilies and birds of paradise, the lot of them interwoven with vines of ivy.
And then real birds appeared amidst the foliage, each one of them black, though the butterflies materialising and gently flapping their wings encompassed every colour in the rainbow.
"Pansy deserved to see this." Draco sighed, and abruptly sat down on his bed, though his gaze stayed fixed on the funeral scene. "I should be there, too, to show her one last time how much I--"
Harry thought better than to tell him again that everything would be all right. Instead, he just quietly fetched a handkerchief and dropped it atop Draco's legs.
The Slytherin boy took it up, twisting it between his hands. He didn't cry.
When Harry glanced back at the enchanted wall, he saw the casket floating up, rising a few inches above its pedestal. The mourners, wands still at the ready, appeared to be concentrating more than they should need for Wingardium Leviosa, and Harry soon saw why. All at once, the casket vanished completely, birds, butterflies, and flowers winking out of existence at the same time. All that remained was the plain marble pedestal upon which the casket had once rested.
Draco mashed the handkerchief into a fist. "So, that's it, then. All right. Harry... thank you. I... well, thank you, that's all."
Harry nodded. Some part of him knew he shouldn't ask, but the entire spectacle had been so strange that he couldn't help it. "Er... what happened at the end?"
The Slytherin boy glanced up as though the question itself were rather odd. Then a derisive look stole into his eyes. "I forget you're Muggle-raised, you know. Which is actually a compliment. They Apparated her into her grave, Harry. Oh, ugh. Don't tell me that Muggles actually dig...?"
Draco shuddered as though that image were positively gruesome.
Wanting to comfort him, Harry murmured, "She's at peace now, Draco."
"No such thing... she's on the Parkinson estate, I expect." He clasped his hand together. "I can never go visit her..." Draco scowled at the bereaved couple now walking slowly away from the empty pedestal. "Just get rid of it, Harry. Get the empty frame back."
Harry did as requested at once. "Um, so... you know, afternoon classes were all cancelled on account of... anyway, I thought I'd stay here a bit, have lunch with you, and dinner as well. Is there anything you need...?"
"Yes, for you to stop acting like I'll break," Draco spat, suddenly shooting to his feet, his arms crossed. "It's really offensive. Why don't you just ask the rest of your questions instead of standing there wondering if I can handle them!"
Harry didn't really have that much more to ask, but he thought maybe this was Draco's way of venting, so he went along, thinking back to the things that had confused him during the funeral. "All right... no speeches?"
"Oh, please. That was a pureblood funeral done in the ancient way. Why do you think those inscriptions showed up in Latin? The casket itself is inscribed with what people wished to say to Pansy, Potter. No need to be common and say it all out loud."
Harry thought that eulogies and such were really more for the living than the dead, but he decided he'd better not dwell on that. "So the casket didn't really turn gold, did it? I mean, that's alchemy. It'd take quite a bit more than a few spells."
"A glamour, same for the gemstones." Draco began to pace. "The rest of it was real enough, though. The birds and butterflies die when they're plunged underground, but too bad for them. Happens to all of us, doesn't it?"
Bitterness, there at the end.
"Well, anything else you're dying to know? Ha, dying. Death is just everywhere, I suppose."
"No," said Harry. Talking wasn't helping after all. "Are you keeping up with your assignments?"
Draco glared. "No point, as I'm shortly to be expelled."
So much for suggesting they study together. "Well, no offence, but how are you doing on your lines, then?"
"I'm bereaved, Potter. I'm suffering. How the hell do you think I'm doing on those ghastly lines?"
All right, so that had been a stupid question. "I don't know what to do to make you feel better!" Harry admitted, frustrated. Just for something to do, he adjusted the picture frame, empty now, to hang straight on the wall.
"You can't make me feel better. It's impossible." Draco sighed, all his fire seeming to go out. "I should be writing a sympathy card to her parents, but I suppose in the circumstances that's ill-advised. I think I'll just read, try to get my mind onto something else. You should probably go. Don't worry, I won't do anything Gryffindorish. No point, now. She's not just dead; she's dead and gone and out of reach, and that's that."
It sounded to Harry like Draco was going to brood. "Why don't we play a game of Wizard's Scrabble--"
"You really can't read between the lines, can you? I. Want. To. Be. Alone. All right?"
"All right." Unable to stop himself, Harry went and laid a hand on his brother's arm and gave it a light squeeze.
Draco didn't react, except for closing his eyes as he waited for Harry to go.
But Harry couldn't go, not without someone to walk him back. Well, he could... he could most likely take care of himself, and it wasn't like the Slytherins were in any shape to try attacking him, anyway.... but he really didn't want to get on Snape's bad side.
"I... uh, I have to wait until Ron and Hermione come get me," Harry said, wincing at how ridiculous that sounded. Feeling really bad to be intruding, even if this was his home, he offered, "Um, maybe I could Floo Severus in the hospital wing and ask if he could send them a message--"