The room is silent when I enter. The dank air weighs heavily on me, and muffles the hushed tones in which the others are speaking. As I approach them, the two visitors glance at me quickly and then at the lifeless form that was once Draco Malfoy.
Sobs stick in my throat, threatening to escape and echo dully through the empty corridors of St. Mungo’s. The surrounding rooms are empty, as are most of the five floors below us. The four marble walls around me look unbearably white, glowing with the life that is not within them cynically. The forced, surreal silence is what does it – I scream.
I cannot take it anymore – not the bright sunlight filtering through the window, not the light tinkling of the grandfather clock, not the death that’s seeping into my skin. Immediately Ron and Hermione run to me, pulling me into a chair and hushing my agonized shrieks.
I feel clammy hands pull through my hair, soothing me if only slightly, and warm hands are rubbing over my arms as I shake with pain. Nothing’s going to be all right.
I hear others enter. I know that Mum probably just shuffled in, carrying bags of products and meaning to comfort me, but I know that Hermione and Ron have probably pulled her away. I know that Charlie and Bill are speaking quietly in the corner, and that their eyes are likely traveling to me every once in a while before looking at the body beside me. I know that Harry isn’t here. Why would he be? This was never his life.
My blurry eyes open to reveal the still form beside me, and I wince, but no more tears develop. I lean forward, pulling his hand into mine, running my cold fingers through his even colder ones. They look good together, the pale white of his and the rosy orange of mine. Tiny, fine hairs rise from the thick skin of his fingers, curling in the warm air and shining their silvery light into my eyes. His nails are perfect, even in death, not a smudge beneath them, not a single hangnail poking out. I feel the small ridge on his palm, a ghost of the night we’d adventurously escaped capture by Aurors last year. My hands travel up, up to his wrist, decorated beautifully with thick veins, up to the black mark on his forearm, glinting up at me angelically, up to his shoulder, his neck, his lips. Nothing moves under my touch like it used to.
It has gotten eerily quiet in the room, and I glance around to see ten pairs of eyes on my hands. Luna and Blaise sit compactly in a single chair, hugging, as though attempting to fight off the fate that led me to my predicament, as though their mere love for each other would push away ordinary circumstance. Their lips are thinned, skin pale, and their haunted eyes are suffering with me, I can tell. But they’ve had it fair. They could never understand.
As I turn Draco’s limp hand in mine, I think of Harry, whose kind eyes might watching Lily dance at her Ministry party, and his warm, rough hands, so unlike the ones I’m holding, might be gripping a broom as he slides through the air in a game of Quidditch with the boys. I’m here.
Despite the shock that I’m sure everyone’s feeling, I know that Mum’s eyes are watering, and Dad’s lips are turned into a sad, pained little smile, as they watch me weep over someone who was never a part of their life. I snort, realizing how big a part he was in mine.
The damp air suddenly turns icy, and I realize that it’s just me, because my bare legs are still stuck to the chair in the early summer heat, but I cannot stop crying, sobbing, shaking the bed onto which I lean. He doesn’t budge.
As my pain subsides again, I sniffle and look up. Hermione and Ron have turned away, and are gazing silently through the window at the crowded streets below us, buzzing with conversation, excitement, life. Blaise is the only one who meets my eyes, and I ask, “How?”
His gaze is level, and his expression does not change. The only indication of his mood is the obviously painful tightening of his fingers around Luna’s shoulders, but she doesn’t complain. After what seems like an eternity, he looks away, “Death Eaters were found by the Aurors, and he was accidentally killed by one of his own.”
I don’t gasp or cry out like I know I should, like I know I’m expected to. My eyes close, and I am sad, because I expect this possibility, this answer, this pathetic fate. One of his own. I’d thought they took better care of one another.
I push away from the bed, or it pushes me away, and I grip my chair. My eyes don’t leave Draco’s thin face, and I marvel at the silvery white of his hair and eyebrows and eyelashes, itching to touch them, but death won’t allow me; I have respect for the dead.
No one speaks.
I catch sight of the bag by the bed, filthy and covered with a thin layer of blood in some spots, and I grab it before it runs away, before everything collapses; I’ve found his last bearings.
Inside the pouch lies his wedding band, of which I am aware there is a copy on Astoria Greengrass’s finger, a finger that is still pink and moving, alive. I shove the ring onto my own finger, not caring that I tear off skin and blood begins to trickle through the wound. I find his wand, cracked down the middle as I know it should be, rightfully dying with its owner as a Death Eater’s wand should. Scattered along the bottom of the bag are petals of different flowers, not withered, and I frown, because there’s no explanation for them, no order to their scattering, and I feel sick.
I gather a few into my hands and crush them, as my face crushes with them, and drop the petals into the smooth material of the bag again, watching with wonder as they return to their previous state of perfection within seconds. I raise one long daisy petal and rip it in two. Its severed ends grow back together momentarily.
Leaving the petals for the time being, I reach for a scrap of parchment in the dark crease of the bag, and unfold it slowly. There is very little writing, but I know it’s for me as soon as the picture falls out. It moves, the yellowing paper refusing to fade, and the Draco in the picture is still smiling at the Ginny in it, holding her hand as she twirls beneath it, her flying hair shorter than it is now. I reach for it despite myself, curling it around my finger as I watch us dance those three years ago. The note begins to scorch my skin, and I rush to read it before it burns.
I know you will be there. I’m not sure what the story will be, as there are many ways I could die, given who I am, and whom I fight with, but I know you’ll be there, though how I wish you wouldn’t.
You have my thanks and my apologies.
It burns then, in my hands, but it doesn’t hurt, because my hands are ice-cold, and the fire barely grazes the cold skin, barely burns the words as it should, because they’re forever in my mind, never to leave, never to fade. The fire doesn’t melt my frozen pain, and my world remains as cold as the fire was hot.
Nothing else is in the bag. I glance up, my voice breaking as I try to speak. “May I – May I keep this?”
Blaise nods imperceptibly, and I release the breath I’d been holding, shaking. No more tears. The pain has overridden everything, and I cannot cry anymore. I know that no one will understand or forgive me, and I just want to leave. I’ll be back tomorrow, alone, to say goodbye as I should.
Just as I begin to walk for the door, a trembling hand stops me. Luna’s stretched over the arm of the couch, lying heavily over her partner, her white hand holding mine weakly. I know that she’s not insisting – if I really want to, I can turn around and leave. Her eyes, however, reflect knowledge, something she knows that I don’t, and I stay.
[DG]
Lily Potter exited the Hogwarts Express behind a young blond boy, whose delicate features were strikingly similar to Draco Malfoy’s. His eyes scanned the crowds quickly, and he unknowingly led her to the station.
Ginny and Harry Potter stood, beaming, as their youngest daughter left the train for the last time. After a round of hugs from them and her brothers, Lily began to skip to the Apparition point. It would be her first real apparition.
Luna squeezed Blaise’s hand as Ginny paused at the exit from the station, meeting the eyes of Draco Malfoy. His wife and son were indulging in an emotionless conversation, and Ginny approached the three slowly. Draco nodded curtly as she stopped in front of him. To provide them with a bit of privacy, Luna struck a conversation with Astoria and Scorpius, pulling Blaise into it with her.
Ginny smiled slightly, gesturing to Scorpius, and murmured, “Your pride and joy is finally out, is he, partner?”
“As is your youngest, I believe,” Malfoy responded with a smirk.
“Oh, don’t get haughty with me, there are only three.”
Luna smiled in the middle of her sentence, well aware of the startled look Astoria was aiming at her, and then continued speaking.
Malfoy glanced over Ginny’s head at a point near the road and nodded his head to it, catching her eyes again. “Potty’s waiting for you.”
Ginny glanced behind her, waving her family on, and turned back. Her tone betrayed her expression when she hissed, “What are you planning? You haven’t been at work for three weeks, and I haven’t heard word from anyone of your whereabouts.”
Malfoy tilted his head. “Worried, are you?”
Ginny shook her head, rolling her eyes, “My dad’s not even suspicious. You’re quite good at being stealthy when you want to be. I’m almost envious.”
“Why are you really here, Weasley?”
Ginny blushed, crimson seeping down her chest and below the cut of her shirt, and Malfoy’s eyes followed it in fascination. “My eyes are up here, Malfoy.”
He glanced quickly at his wife and son, and then at the point behind her again, before drawling, “Birthing three children has done you good, Weasley, if I’ve never told you that before.”
Ginny grinned, pushing her hair out of her eyes, “You haven’t, and I appreciate the – er – flattering words.” A pause. “Why devote five years of your life to working as an, er,” she glanced at Astoria, “Ministry Aid, if you’re only going to mysteriously disappear?”
Malfoy’s eyes showed appreciation for her discretion, but before he could respond, a small voice behind Ginny interrupted. “Mum, Dad’s asking what’s keeping you so long.”
Ginny turned, putting an arm around her daughter, both of identical size and height and appearance. Draco glanced over the young girl’s red hair and freckles and smiled slightly, gesturing to her as he met Ginny’s eyes, “You must be proud.”
Ginny beamed at her daughter again and kissed her temple. “I am.”
[DG]
My face is wet with tears before Luna finishes speaking. The clock in the corner continues to tick as it has, bringing an element of continuity into my torn-up, damaged world. My hand is clutching Draco’s still, and I stare at his lips unseeingly.
“I was.”
Eyes are on me instantly, waiting, watching, judging. It takes strength, strength that Draco gave me both in life and in death, to continue. “I was proud of her, and I still am now. She’s still my daughter, and this changes nothing.”
I meet the eyes of every person in the room, pleading, begging, convincing. Luna’s sad eyes turn to the man next to her, and he nods almost imperceptibly, but I know Slytherins, and I realize that he’s got something to say as well.
[DG]
“Look, Blaise, Lovegood is quite … lovely, for lack of a better word, I’ve never said otherwise, but you must admit that you see the attraction in Astoria.”
Blaise chuckled, moving his knight silently, and nodded. “Her legs are quite sinful, I suppose, but have you seen Luna’s?”
Malfoy grimaced, tossing Blaise’s crushed knight off the board, and went on, “You shouldn’t go around saying that so freely, Zabini, someone might actually try to look at them.”
His friend gave up on the game, sitting back with a sigh, and shrugged. “But not you.” It wasn’t a statement, but a question. He already knew the answer.
“Not me.” Clearing the board off the table, Draco stood. “I’ve got a wife.”
Turning a skeptic look on the blond, Blaise was prepared to challenge Draco’s defense just as his son entered the hall.
“Father, I need your broom for this afternoon. The boys are staying after the dance, and we’re going over to Old McDougal’s house for a game.”
Draco turned slowly, appraising his son, and looked to Blaise for guidance. When he offered none, Malfoy turned back to Scorpius. “I suppose you can take it, but see what happens if I don’t get it back in one piece and working order. Your mother can unlock to shed, I saw her outside earlier.”
Nodding briefly, Scorpius turned to the door. “Oh, and Father, Potter flooed over earlier, wanting to speak with you. She’ll be here in twenty minutes in the guest hall. Do you mind asking her to tell her daughter to leave me alone?”
Draco’s eyebrows rose. “Pardon?”
Scorpius nodded, holding the door in front of him as he inched out to the corridor, “She was following me around at Hogwarts for seven years, and it was unbearable. I’m horrified that I might see her at McDougal’s house tonight.”
His father smirked, “My, Scorpius, as though you don’t appreciate the attention.”
The young blond grimaced. “I would if she didn’t look like her bloody mother. All orange hair and thick, dotted skin; it’s dreadful.”
The atmosphere changed momentarily. If Blaise had not known the source of Draco’s rage, he would have been quite certain it was at him, because the glare that the blond fixed on him was deadly. Pushing up from his chair, Blaise was about to quiet Scorpius when Draco gritted out, “Go and play with your friends, son. Zabini and I are in the middle of a conversation.”
Scorpius paused. “Did I offend you, Father?”
Draco tossed his glass of water into the sink, letting it shatter, and fixed Scorpius with a glower. “Leave. Don’t speak that way of the Weasleys again.”
As his confused heir made his way out the door, Draco turned to see Blaise smirking with one eyebrow raised. “Is that a proper way to tell your son that you’re in love with someone’s mother other than his? That you rather appreciate those freckles and that radiant hair?”
Malfoy had him against a wall within seconds, hissing, “Shut up. Shut the hell up, Zabini.”
Blaise laughed, prying Draco’s hands off his neck and glancing down to see Draco’s wand pushed against his ribs. Spinning out of the blond’s reach, Blaise cackled as he pointed to the clock, “She’ll be here in ten minutes, Malfoy, and since you want to look as dolled-up as possible, I wouldn’t recommend getting into a brawl right now.”
His friend looked away with an expression of disgust. Just as Draco stepped out of the hall, Blaise felt invisible hands on his neck once more and glanced up at him. His wand was raised, emitting a light blue glow, and he muttered, “Keep your mouth shut, Zabini.”
[DG]
No tears this time. I stare at Blaise long after he quiets, and no one else speaks. It’s as though the silence judges, permits and prohibits speaking as it wishes, allowing only the very best and the most useful to be stated, and supports me when I need the help, when I don’t want to listen to any sound but my own breathing.
I nod slightly, frightened of whose, or which, story will come next. Hugging the black pouch closer to my chest, I wait for the inevitable, all the while rocking to the sound of the ticking clock.
Hermione clears her throat, turning from the window, and ignores Ron’s startled suppression. One arm across her chest, she leans the other against it as she bites down on a finger slowly, and Mum whimpers when she realizes what’s about to happen.
[DG]
“Shove off, Hermione, I’m just tying my shoes,” Ron whined.
His wife crossed her arms, glaring at him furiously, and bit out, “I’m sure, Ronald. What, are there female Quidditch players down there? I’m sick of your stupid games.”
Harry rolled his eyes, leaning down to glance where Ron was staring, and stood. “He’s spying on Malfoy.”
Hermione tensed instantly, leaning onto her knees and elbows to catch a glimpse. Beneath the stands, she saw Malfoy walking to the changing rooms in only his pants, carrying his broom over his shoulder. Despite her faithfulness and moral code, Hermione blushed at the sight.
A Quidditch player from the opposing team rushed up to him, breasts swinging in her loose interpretation of a shirt, and Hermione watched as he turned to speak with her. Hermione sat up, murmuring, “Ginny wouldn’t appreciate this, Ron.”
The redhead with his head tilted beside her muttered, “Well, she’s not going to know, is she? He’s cheating on his wife with her right now, isn’t he? Who’s to say that Ginny’s going to be the one to change him?”
Hermione yelped, elbowing him, and chanced a glance at their raven-haired friend. Harry sighed, lying on the grass a ways away from them, and stared up at the clear sky. Leaning back down to watch the players, she whispered harshly, “You’re going to be too loud one of these days, Ron, and something bad will happen. Watch what you say.”
Her husband groaned, “Shove off, Hermione.”
Hermione huffed, watching as Malfoy nodded briefly at his comrade and entered the changing rooms. “Besides, she told us they were just friends. There’s nothing going on between them, they just used to work together.”
“Then what’s the problem in letting Harry know?” Ron whined.
“Because it will upset him! You two and Malfoy were never friends, and you should understand that!”
Ron disregarded her then, because his finger pointed quickly to the and of the stands, “Look!”
Both Harry and Hermione turned to see Malfoy leaving with a flustered Gwenog Jones on his heels. She called after him inaudibly, and he ignored her until he was at the entrance gates. He turned, putting space between them as she nearly ran him over, and snarled something so harshly, that even from a distance, Hermione flinched. Gwenog nodded and walked back dejectedly as he turned to greet his wife. Astoria reached to kiss him, but he quickly stepped away and walked around her to the Portkey that took him home.
[DG]
Hermione waits, watching me with something akin to pity in her eyes, and kneels in front of me. Someone behind me shuffles – the sound carries for a moment before vanishing completely. Silence is still on my side.
“I wasn’t lying,” I murmur. “He and I never – I mean, we never … he was better than that, and he was faithful to Astoria, always. I was always faithful to Harry, you mustn’t think I wasn’t.”
Hermione nods slowly, this doesn’t surprise her. I take a deep breath before continuing, and it hurts. It hurts because he’s lying right next to me, but he’s not there; hurts because I know there’s no way to bring him back; hurts because I know that despite what I tell my family now, things won’t change, but they won’t ever be the same.
“He and I … we … we made a promise to one another while we were working together to tell one another the truth and only the truth, because you need loyalty on a job like ours was. The habit was something we never grew out of, and even – “ I choke. Two weeks, really? “Even two weeks ago, when I last saw him, he didn’t lie to me about where he’d been, he told me about the Death Eater meetings he attended, the plans they had to regenerate the power they had had before the war, and the dark things he took a part in. He confided in me, not as a friend – we left that stage the day he stopped working with me – but as someone who was so much more. He and I never kissed, much less …”
Hermione puts a hand on my knee gently and nods again, murmuring, “You don’t have to justify anything. What you two had was … other-worldly, indescribable, and even the wisest wizards on Earth have probably never experienced something like that. He loved you, he loved you so much, Ginny – I was there, and I saw. I don’t know who it had been that attacked him, but as he was bleeding, dying on the field, he was whispering something over and over, and it –“ she chokes, too. With a deep breath and a glance at her husband, Hermione goes on, “It wasn’t until the rest of the Death Eaters were taken care of that I could approach him, and I h-heard him – heard him, and he was saying your name, over and over and over and over, and it was almost as though it kept him alive, Ginny. It kept him alive until I was there, and he could tell me what he needed to say, and he … he would never say he loved you, you mustn’t expect that, Ginny.”
I shake my head; of course not. Malfoys have all the passion in the world, and all the courage of a small ferret. The thought makes me smile. One of our jokes.
The silence is embarrassing now, because my entire family is watching, still judging, despite what they’ve heard. The clock announces the hour, and I start in my seat, a loneliness flowing over me that I hadn’t expected so soon. The grief, the pain will never subside, because this morning, this very morning, he was a walking, breathing, living person, with plans, dreams, ambitions in his soul, and barely twenty hours later, he is gone. Dead; never to speak a word, never to smile, never to move. How breakable we are.
“His chest was bleeding profusely, and he looked quite out of it, but his lips kept moving, chanting his sad little mantra, until I revived him for what little time he had,” she murmurs, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “He didn’t recognize me, he called me Ginny, and he shied away from my touch when I tried to ease his – his suffering. Just before the Healers arrived, he gave me a happy smile and said, ‘See you in hell, Weasley.’”
Through my tears, I smile. Another of our jokes. Of course he’ll see me in hell, because what we had was too good. Much, much too good, a love that has to have a toll, and the suffering I know I’m inflicting on my parents and brothers right now is sure to land me a spot in red-hot hell. I’ll go, though. I’ll go through it all if that is the cost of Draco’s life.
For a time, no one speaks, but then Bill steps away from the wall into which he had so skillfully blended, and Mum screeches, “William Arthur Weasley!”
His earring swings wildly as he jerks to face her. Her eyes are furious, and I know that she’s already refused to accept Draco. He’s just a story to her now, and anything her children do to prolong it won’t convince her. I sigh quietly, and Hermione goes to stand by Ron once more, gazing out the window sullenly.
I push to stand and leave with the bag, but Bill stops me, sitting me back down.
[DG]
“Weasley.”
Greeting or not, the name itself stated in that tone irked Bill as he looked up. He wasn’t surprised to see Malfoy’s arrogant smile, and his cold eyes watching him over the desk. Pulling out a fresh roll of parchment, Bill raised his quill above it and asked, “What can I do for you?”
The blond shook his head. “I don’t need you, I need Greengrass.”
Bill frowned, “You need Daphne?”
“Is that what she goes by now? Yes, you dolt, I said I need Greengrass.”
Bill pushed the parchment back into his drawer and folded his arms over his desk, raising defiant eyes to meet Malfoy’s. “I’m afraid she’s no longer at Gringott’s.”
Malfoy’s eyes narrowed, and he hissed, “Then send me the next Slytherin on call.”
“I don’t understand what problem you have with me, I’m just as competent as any Slytherin you can name,” Bill scowled. “And, obviously, if there were a Slytherin on call, you’d be speaking with him right now.”
Rolling his eyes, Malfoy glanced at the empty booths around him, aggravated. Pushing away from Bill’s desk, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’ll come back when someone else is on desk duty, then. Weasley, if I catch you nosing through my accounts –“
Bill stood suddenly, crashing his ancient chair to the floor, and glared at Malfoy, shouting, “I, unlike you, have morals, and I respect the privacy of people I’m not acquainted with. If you have a problem with how we do banking here, then, by all means, manage your money at home!”
Malfoy grinned maliciously and turned away, walking out of the containment with a small green package swinging precariously from his wrist.
[DG]
I nod. I remember. “That was a birthday present for me last year. It cost thousands of galleons, and I suppose he didn’t want you on his tail over what he’d spent that sum on.”
“Ginny!”
Dad is upset. I don’t look at him, because I know why. I don’t care. “Dad, I gave it back. I looked at it, smiled, thanked him, and gave it back. It reappeared on my pillow the following night. He was always generous with money.”
Ron clears his throat now, the nosy bugger. I glare at him, but he asks anyway, “What was it?”
“Keys.” I don’t want to tell him anything else, because I know that he’s asking out of curiosity, not any kind of empathy that normal people feel. I feel the question before I hear it, but I don’t expect the source it’s coming from.
Mum’s voice does not waver. “Keys to what?”
Bill’s hand is on my shoulder now, and I realize that he’s advising me to speak. Mum’s vicious at times, and I don’t have the heart or patience to sit through another lecture right now, so I speak. “A villa in the Maldives. We’d spoken about it once, he’d asked me where I would want to live if money, space, and families weren’t an issue. And I said the Maldives.”
My brothers stare at me in awe, and I have to look at the floor to stop from crying. Would they have been so impressed, so respectful, if I’d revealed this information one month ago? I feel the jagged metal in my back pocket right now, warming me, warning me. I want to leave, to grieve in peace, to go over every moment that we’d spent together, every word we’d said.
The clock continues to tick in the corner, and I continue to wait.
The holiday-themed bell hits the wall solidly when the door snaps open. An angry, white-skinned Astoria makes her way into the room, followed closely by her regally smirking son. The woman casts a glance at the family gathered within the room and purses her lips, stepping to her husband’s bed almost disdainfully.
As the others look on, she glares at me, growling, “What was the cause of death?”
I shrug slightly and blink away the tears. If I had only known. When the blessed silence drags on, Hermione murmurs, “Some Unforgivable.” Ron visibly tenses at her forwardness, and puts a hand on her arm in warning, watching Astoria carefully. I, his sister, sit alone.
Astoria glances at Hermione once, then turns her anger back to me. “Why are you and your stock here?”
I have no answer. She was his wife. We did wrong by her. I can’t talk back. Pushing to stand, I notice her bright blue eyes suddenly narrow, and a smile graces her lips. She casts a pointed look at her son, who turns to face my family with an arrogantly raised eyebrow, while she harshly mutters, “Follow me, Weasley.”
I don’t want to. I don’t know where she’ll lead me or how she’ll punish me. I feel like a child, and I’m over forty years of age. Nodding mutely, I clutch the bag even tighter to myself as I trail after her. The corridor outside is cold but damp, cooling and warming my skin simultaneously, and I shiver from the sensation. Sweat makes the back of my blouse cling to my skin, and I know that Astoria notices.
Before I can speak, she slams the door closed. I hear the bell jingle weakly through the metal, and I wonder what is happening inside. They wouldn’t hurt Draco, would they?
“You may keep the ring.”
Eyes wide, I glance at the platinum band on my hand, stained pink with my blood, and look up at her. She’s smirking. I wonder why she’s not upset, why she isn’t cursing me every which way she knows, why I’m not yet dead. I want to be dead.
“Thank you,” I murmur, rubbing my thumb over the smooth metal, and stare at the door next to us longingly. Suddenly, she jerks a hand out, pulling my wrist to her, and I gasp, looking at her menacing face. Her perfect white teeth are gleaming in the dim lights. There are no windows in the hall, no indication of the pretty May afternoon outside, the life that exists away from these dull corridors.
She sneers, “If I were you, I would be careful about what I do and say. If you give any indication to the press of the affair you and my husband had during our – dare I say – lasting marriage, I’ll have your insides pulled through your throat and wrapped around your neck within a second. Am I understood?”
I nod mutely once more, hand fisted tightly. My eyes are swollen from the tears I’ve shed, and she looks over them with disgust. “You and your emotions. Do I look upset? I’ve lived with the man for thirty years, and what? People die, Weasley. When your side declared this pathetic war and tried to fight, you knew what you were going up against – this is the price of war. England won’t be stabilized for decades. We all suffer.”
I shake my head, “I’ve lost too many. I’m tired of losing. The pain is unbearable.” A question that’s sure to have me killed escapes my mouth. “Why are you not upset?”
She grins madly, shoving my wrist back to me, and points to her hand, empty of rings or manicures. Her voice sounds numb and muffled as she snarls, “I don’t feel pain, Weasley.”
I can see her lie. She’s in pain, not because he died, nor because I love him still, but because she knows he never loved her. She knows full well that even before he and I met, Draco was not hers. Standing up straight, I reach for the door handle, but she stops me, wrenching my hand back viciously with her own.
“I have a story to tell as well, Weasley. Don’t you want to hear?”
I begin to suffocate. Her eyes are a glassy, glassy blue, and her smile is pasted on. Her cheeks are tight with the stress of her control, and her skin is unnaturally white. I step back slightly and hunch my shoulders, prepared to listen. I have scratches on my hand from her nails, and some begin to bleed, but I pull it into a fist and clutch the bag weakly.
[DG]
“What did Potter want, dear?”
Draco looked up at Astoria sharply and set his jaw. His pearly hair was pulled into a thick tail, hanging loosely down his back, and contrasted starkly with the rich black robes he wore. His wife glanced over his form appreciatively and shrugged. “I’m only curious.”
His eyes softened then, and he muttered, “I know. She needed more help on something at work, though Merlin knows I haven’t been in that office for over three years.”
“Potter has a crush on you, does she? Does her husband know?” Astoria giggled playfully, twirling his hair in her hand.
Draco’s eyes darkened, and Astoria knew.
Pushing away from the table, she stood next to him. “Draco, are you all right?”
He pulled away from her worried hands, leaning heavily onto his elbow, resting loosely on the edge of his chair. His grey eyes rose to meet hers levelly, but she knew that whatever the argument, she would win. He was in the wrong, and she was being treated unjustly, and he would give in to her.
Taking his thin hair into her hands once more, she murmured, “Sometimes, I heard you two talking in the library. I don’t eavesdrop, oh, not at all, but I occasionally walked through the Manor and I heard. It was empty, and it echoed, what you were saying. You know which conversation of yours fascinated me the most?”
His beautiful morose eyes stared at her unresponsively. His shoulders had tightened. Ignoring his silence, Astoria allowed herself to brush his thin blond hair and glanced out of the window as she continued, “You were challenging her choice of men once, a few months after you’d left your position at the Ministry, and said that Potter’s life was only marginally worse than yours, but that she – Weasley – made Potter’s misery much more bearable.” The pause that she enclosed here was only slightly effective, because despite his discomfort, he met her eyes levelly, without embarrassment.
“She’d been offended, of course, that you would insult him like that, and began a lengthy rant on your closed-mindedness and impatience. She had said that none of us have the right to judge or disrespect the people who surround us. At the very least, she’d said, they had lived their own lives, survived their own tragedies, and gone on to live. If any of us could be put in their shoes, she’d said, would we be able to live their lives? Would any of us be able to handle the problems thrown at us in anyone’s skin but our own? At the very least, she said, they were still alive, still breathing and functioning. Who’s to say, she asked, that we would continue that life had we reversed fates with someone else?”
A pregnant pause ensued, and the couple merely stared at each other, eyes clear and faces drawn, but no emotion escaping. The fire crackled quietly at the other end of the dining hall, and Astoria spared it a glance before sitting in her seat once more, pulling a silk napkin over her legs. “Do you know why I still remember that conversation?”
Draco spoke now. “I do wonder why, after three years, it is still so clear in your mind.”
“Because I gained respect for her that day. She has beliefs that make sense, that give her dignity. She obviously has something that I do not, and for that I respect her. No matter how much I detest her, how much I wish she didn’t exist, true to her word, she is still alive, still breathing, and I cannot lie to say that if I were her, I would be the same woman she is.” Astoria’s blue eyes fell on the beautiful ceramic dishes that lined the table, following the patterns on them with her eyes, and a sadness flowed over her, a feeling she’d been keen on escaping. Looking at Draco once more, she reached for his soft hair, rubbing the sleek texture between her fingers, and sighed, “How did you feel about what she said that day?”
Draco looked away, then met her eyes again. He wasn’t upset, or scared, or embarrassed. He merely acknowledged her blackmail and responded, “I don’t have feelings about her arguments. She has beliefs of her own, and I have mine. They don’t always coincide, but we were merely partners, and they didn’t have to.”
“What are you now?”
How forward, Astoria thought instantly, to ask such a question without fearing the consequences. Oh, he wouldn’t hurt her, she knew, but would she return the favor? Untangling her hands from his hair, Draco pushed his plate away from himself and sat back, “What do you think we are?”
“Lovers, I’m sure. I don’t understand, however, why you would need to hide it. You could have divorced me years ago, when I knew you were already longing to. And why? What meaning had that Friday, all those years ago? How many were there, ten? Ten years ago, then, is when you and she met?” Tears began to build, but she pushed them down, swallowing her misery with bravery she didn’t know she possessed. “And already you were in love with her?”
Draco’s face was pale and taut, turned to the window Astoria so longed to jump through. “We weren’t, and aren’t, lovers. I’ve not been unfaithful, and you know that,” he nodded at his purely-glowing silver ring.
Astoria blinked and nodded. “Not in the most conventional sense, perhaps. But there are others. You fell in love with her, you spent time and money on her, and you desired her. You betrayed me as a wife, as an acquaintance, and as a human being.”
“And for that, I apologize. I don’t regret anything about what happened, however, and you must understand that. All I would change, if I could, was how I hurt you, but I wouldn’t rid my life of her.” His eyes were cold, and his hands were clutching the arms of his chair. Astoria nodded once and stood. Tossing her napkin onto the table, she twirled out of the room.
Just before escaping through the door, she choked, “Pathetic, isn’t it, that despite everything, I wouldn’t rid my life of you?”
[DG]
I’m crying, weeping, sobbing, pounding my fists against the wall beside the door, wishing I was with him - wherever he now was, pleading with the gods to let me go. Astoria stands behind me, crying silently, watching my erratic movements with little more than satisfaction. I don’t argue; this is what I deserve. How stupid was I to pursue that relationship, knowing perfectly well that Harry would be betrayed, and I hurt?
I don’t regret a thing. No matter what a disgusting person I am, how low my actions were, I had a love that fulfilled my life, made it worth something, and I would never regret that.
I pull away from the wall and wipe my tears away with my sleeves, afraid that some freckles might get torn off as well with the force of my swipe. She’s watching me, still silent, and I shake my head, “Thank you. I’m sorry.”
I walk back into the room, taking care to avoid Scorpius’s scornful gaze, unaware of whether Astoria has followed me. The room is still silent, and people are gazing in different directions to avoid discomfort. I grab my uniform coat from the stool and pull it on, ignoring the disgust that creeps upon me as the jacket pushes my sweaty shirt higher up my back.
I’ve been judged, examined, and pronounced despicable. I can see it in their eyes, the sympathy they have for Harry and my children, the sad concern they have for me. Draco is still on the bed, his face tilted slightly in my direction, and I figure he’s the only one with no place and no desire to judge. He, like the silence, is behind me, around me, within me, and I feel the warmth.
As I turn to leave the hospital, I look at Draco’s face, going over the features slowly, and command, “Don’t even think about touching him. I’ll be back tomorrow, and if the bed has so much as shifted, I’ll find who was responsible.”
[DG]
It’s been three months. I’ve been looking for a way out, and no one will help me, because there’s no one to ask. Harry, James, Albus, and Lily don’t know a thing. My family has just begun the long trek to forgiving me, but I don’t have too long to ponder, because either I leave or I stay, and I can’t decide which horrifies me more.
I close my eyes, leaning against the shower stall, and cry, mixing tears with the ice-cold water that’s already running down my skin. The shower buzzes busily, and I sigh, looking for answers outside and inside of my head. I’ve barely eaten since the day he died, and all I’ve done is sit in the guest bedroom and stare at the petals littering the pouch I took with me.
Suddenly, I am pulled back to memories of the day Astoria had talked about, when she had overheard me and Draco speaking, and I can see everything in my mind just as it was then. Draco was next to me on the couch, smiling a secret smile as I ranted about respect and twirling a rose between his fingers. The birthday bouquet on the table was fresh, breathing the clean air in greedily, and Draco began to pull a single petal from every flower that was in the vase, dropping them into a single bowl. I asked what he was doing, but he smirked and ignored me.
I turn the shower off, sprinting to the room, and grab the petals from the bag, kissing them over and over, smelling their fresh scent, the life preserved magically within them. Today celebrates my forty-sixth birthday, and the fourth year since the day he gave me the flowers. I cry, like I’ve done every day for the past three months, but I can feel something in me changing.
I make my way slowly to the wand on my nightstand. I hear the buzz of conversation somewhere in the house around me, my children laughing happily as they share their lives and loves. My life and love both left me three months ago, on a day I spent with Harry and the children, in the grass, laughing and talking like they are now.
Countless times, I have faced the brazen tip of my own wand, pleading with myself to just do it, but I can’t give it up. Who’s to say what comes next? Who’s to say that there’s an afterlife, where he and I can be together the way we would never be here, in this state of present, in this reality? Killing myself could banish everything entirely, like Draco was banished before me. Does he remember me? I want to know so much, but I cannot risk it; the longer I stay here, the longer I keep my memories of him, my feelings, and my secrets.
I haven’t told my children, haven’t come to terms with what I did or what will happen. I cannot take a jump without knowing how it will affect them as well. But I’ve always been a selfish creature.
I lie on my bed slowly, feeling my wand drop to the floor, and I listen to their voices, young and restless, tinkle outside as my own remains mute. My eyes close, freeing salty tears to roll down my cheeks, and I begin, once more, to recollect the days when Draco Malfoy loved me.
Sobs stick in my throat, threatening to escape and echo dully through the empty corridors of St. Mungo’s. The surrounding rooms are empty, as are most of the five floors below us. The four marble walls around me look unbearably white, glowing with the life that is not within them cynically. The forced, surreal silence is what does it – I scream.
I cannot take it anymore – not the bright sunlight filtering through the window, not the light tinkling of the grandfather clock, not the death that’s seeping into my skin. Immediately Ron and Hermione run to me, pulling me into a chair and hushing my agonized shrieks.
I feel clammy hands pull through my hair, soothing me if only slightly, and warm hands are rubbing over my arms as I shake with pain. Nothing’s going to be all right.
I hear others enter. I know that Mum probably just shuffled in, carrying bags of products and meaning to comfort me, but I know that Hermione and Ron have probably pulled her away. I know that Charlie and Bill are speaking quietly in the corner, and that their eyes are likely traveling to me every once in a while before looking at the body beside me. I know that Harry isn’t here. Why would he be? This was never his life.
My blurry eyes open to reveal the still form beside me, and I wince, but no more tears develop. I lean forward, pulling his hand into mine, running my cold fingers through his even colder ones. They look good together, the pale white of his and the rosy orange of mine. Tiny, fine hairs rise from the thick skin of his fingers, curling in the warm air and shining their silvery light into my eyes. His nails are perfect, even in death, not a smudge beneath them, not a single hangnail poking out. I feel the small ridge on his palm, a ghost of the night we’d adventurously escaped capture by Aurors last year. My hands travel up, up to his wrist, decorated beautifully with thick veins, up to the black mark on his forearm, glinting up at me angelically, up to his shoulder, his neck, his lips. Nothing moves under my touch like it used to.
It has gotten eerily quiet in the room, and I glance around to see ten pairs of eyes on my hands. Luna and Blaise sit compactly in a single chair, hugging, as though attempting to fight off the fate that led me to my predicament, as though their mere love for each other would push away ordinary circumstance. Their lips are thinned, skin pale, and their haunted eyes are suffering with me, I can tell. But they’ve had it fair. They could never understand.
As I turn Draco’s limp hand in mine, I think of Harry, whose kind eyes might watching Lily dance at her Ministry party, and his warm, rough hands, so unlike the ones I’m holding, might be gripping a broom as he slides through the air in a game of Quidditch with the boys. I’m here.
Despite the shock that I’m sure everyone’s feeling, I know that Mum’s eyes are watering, and Dad’s lips are turned into a sad, pained little smile, as they watch me weep over someone who was never a part of their life. I snort, realizing how big a part he was in mine.
The damp air suddenly turns icy, and I realize that it’s just me, because my bare legs are still stuck to the chair in the early summer heat, but I cannot stop crying, sobbing, shaking the bed onto which I lean. He doesn’t budge.
As my pain subsides again, I sniffle and look up. Hermione and Ron have turned away, and are gazing silently through the window at the crowded streets below us, buzzing with conversation, excitement, life. Blaise is the only one who meets my eyes, and I ask, “How?”
His gaze is level, and his expression does not change. The only indication of his mood is the obviously painful tightening of his fingers around Luna’s shoulders, but she doesn’t complain. After what seems like an eternity, he looks away, “Death Eaters were found by the Aurors, and he was accidentally killed by one of his own.”
I don’t gasp or cry out like I know I should, like I know I’m expected to. My eyes close, and I am sad, because I expect this possibility, this answer, this pathetic fate. One of his own. I’d thought they took better care of one another.
I push away from the bed, or it pushes me away, and I grip my chair. My eyes don’t leave Draco’s thin face, and I marvel at the silvery white of his hair and eyebrows and eyelashes, itching to touch them, but death won’t allow me; I have respect for the dead.
No one speaks.
I catch sight of the bag by the bed, filthy and covered with a thin layer of blood in some spots, and I grab it before it runs away, before everything collapses; I’ve found his last bearings.
Inside the pouch lies his wedding band, of which I am aware there is a copy on Astoria Greengrass’s finger, a finger that is still pink and moving, alive. I shove the ring onto my own finger, not caring that I tear off skin and blood begins to trickle through the wound. I find his wand, cracked down the middle as I know it should be, rightfully dying with its owner as a Death Eater’s wand should. Scattered along the bottom of the bag are petals of different flowers, not withered, and I frown, because there’s no explanation for them, no order to their scattering, and I feel sick.
I gather a few into my hands and crush them, as my face crushes with them, and drop the petals into the smooth material of the bag again, watching with wonder as they return to their previous state of perfection within seconds. I raise one long daisy petal and rip it in two. Its severed ends grow back together momentarily.
Leaving the petals for the time being, I reach for a scrap of parchment in the dark crease of the bag, and unfold it slowly. There is very little writing, but I know it’s for me as soon as the picture falls out. It moves, the yellowing paper refusing to fade, and the Draco in the picture is still smiling at the Ginny in it, holding her hand as she twirls beneath it, her flying hair shorter than it is now. I reach for it despite myself, curling it around my finger as I watch us dance those three years ago. The note begins to scorch my skin, and I rush to read it before it burns.
I know you will be there. I’m not sure what the story will be, as there are many ways I could die, given who I am, and whom I fight with, but I know you’ll be there, though how I wish you wouldn’t.
You have my thanks and my apologies.
It burns then, in my hands, but it doesn’t hurt, because my hands are ice-cold, and the fire barely grazes the cold skin, barely burns the words as it should, because they’re forever in my mind, never to leave, never to fade. The fire doesn’t melt my frozen pain, and my world remains as cold as the fire was hot.
Nothing else is in the bag. I glance up, my voice breaking as I try to speak. “May I – May I keep this?”
Blaise nods imperceptibly, and I release the breath I’d been holding, shaking. No more tears. The pain has overridden everything, and I cannot cry anymore. I know that no one will understand or forgive me, and I just want to leave. I’ll be back tomorrow, alone, to say goodbye as I should.
Just as I begin to walk for the door, a trembling hand stops me. Luna’s stretched over the arm of the couch, lying heavily over her partner, her white hand holding mine weakly. I know that she’s not insisting – if I really want to, I can turn around and leave. Her eyes, however, reflect knowledge, something she knows that I don’t, and I stay.
[DG]
Lily Potter exited the Hogwarts Express behind a young blond boy, whose delicate features were strikingly similar to Draco Malfoy’s. His eyes scanned the crowds quickly, and he unknowingly led her to the station.
Ginny and Harry Potter stood, beaming, as their youngest daughter left the train for the last time. After a round of hugs from them and her brothers, Lily began to skip to the Apparition point. It would be her first real apparition.
Luna squeezed Blaise’s hand as Ginny paused at the exit from the station, meeting the eyes of Draco Malfoy. His wife and son were indulging in an emotionless conversation, and Ginny approached the three slowly. Draco nodded curtly as she stopped in front of him. To provide them with a bit of privacy, Luna struck a conversation with Astoria and Scorpius, pulling Blaise into it with her.
Ginny smiled slightly, gesturing to Scorpius, and murmured, “Your pride and joy is finally out, is he, partner?”
“As is your youngest, I believe,” Malfoy responded with a smirk.
“Oh, don’t get haughty with me, there are only three.”
Luna smiled in the middle of her sentence, well aware of the startled look Astoria was aiming at her, and then continued speaking.
Malfoy glanced over Ginny’s head at a point near the road and nodded his head to it, catching her eyes again. “Potty’s waiting for you.”
Ginny glanced behind her, waving her family on, and turned back. Her tone betrayed her expression when she hissed, “What are you planning? You haven’t been at work for three weeks, and I haven’t heard word from anyone of your whereabouts.”
Malfoy tilted his head. “Worried, are you?”
Ginny shook her head, rolling her eyes, “My dad’s not even suspicious. You’re quite good at being stealthy when you want to be. I’m almost envious.”
“Why are you really here, Weasley?”
Ginny blushed, crimson seeping down her chest and below the cut of her shirt, and Malfoy’s eyes followed it in fascination. “My eyes are up here, Malfoy.”
He glanced quickly at his wife and son, and then at the point behind her again, before drawling, “Birthing three children has done you good, Weasley, if I’ve never told you that before.”
Ginny grinned, pushing her hair out of her eyes, “You haven’t, and I appreciate the – er – flattering words.” A pause. “Why devote five years of your life to working as an, er,” she glanced at Astoria, “Ministry Aid, if you’re only going to mysteriously disappear?”
Malfoy’s eyes showed appreciation for her discretion, but before he could respond, a small voice behind Ginny interrupted. “Mum, Dad’s asking what’s keeping you so long.”
Ginny turned, putting an arm around her daughter, both of identical size and height and appearance. Draco glanced over the young girl’s red hair and freckles and smiled slightly, gesturing to her as he met Ginny’s eyes, “You must be proud.”
Ginny beamed at her daughter again and kissed her temple. “I am.”
[DG]
My face is wet with tears before Luna finishes speaking. The clock in the corner continues to tick as it has, bringing an element of continuity into my torn-up, damaged world. My hand is clutching Draco’s still, and I stare at his lips unseeingly.
“I was.”
Eyes are on me instantly, waiting, watching, judging. It takes strength, strength that Draco gave me both in life and in death, to continue. “I was proud of her, and I still am now. She’s still my daughter, and this changes nothing.”
I meet the eyes of every person in the room, pleading, begging, convincing. Luna’s sad eyes turn to the man next to her, and he nods almost imperceptibly, but I know Slytherins, and I realize that he’s got something to say as well.
[DG]
“Look, Blaise, Lovegood is quite … lovely, for lack of a better word, I’ve never said otherwise, but you must admit that you see the attraction in Astoria.”
Blaise chuckled, moving his knight silently, and nodded. “Her legs are quite sinful, I suppose, but have you seen Luna’s?”
Malfoy grimaced, tossing Blaise’s crushed knight off the board, and went on, “You shouldn’t go around saying that so freely, Zabini, someone might actually try to look at them.”
His friend gave up on the game, sitting back with a sigh, and shrugged. “But not you.” It wasn’t a statement, but a question. He already knew the answer.
“Not me.” Clearing the board off the table, Draco stood. “I’ve got a wife.”
Turning a skeptic look on the blond, Blaise was prepared to challenge Draco’s defense just as his son entered the hall.
“Father, I need your broom for this afternoon. The boys are staying after the dance, and we’re going over to Old McDougal’s house for a game.”
Draco turned slowly, appraising his son, and looked to Blaise for guidance. When he offered none, Malfoy turned back to Scorpius. “I suppose you can take it, but see what happens if I don’t get it back in one piece and working order. Your mother can unlock to shed, I saw her outside earlier.”
Nodding briefly, Scorpius turned to the door. “Oh, and Father, Potter flooed over earlier, wanting to speak with you. She’ll be here in twenty minutes in the guest hall. Do you mind asking her to tell her daughter to leave me alone?”
Draco’s eyebrows rose. “Pardon?”
Scorpius nodded, holding the door in front of him as he inched out to the corridor, “She was following me around at Hogwarts for seven years, and it was unbearable. I’m horrified that I might see her at McDougal’s house tonight.”
His father smirked, “My, Scorpius, as though you don’t appreciate the attention.”
The young blond grimaced. “I would if she didn’t look like her bloody mother. All orange hair and thick, dotted skin; it’s dreadful.”
The atmosphere changed momentarily. If Blaise had not known the source of Draco’s rage, he would have been quite certain it was at him, because the glare that the blond fixed on him was deadly. Pushing up from his chair, Blaise was about to quiet Scorpius when Draco gritted out, “Go and play with your friends, son. Zabini and I are in the middle of a conversation.”
Scorpius paused. “Did I offend you, Father?”
Draco tossed his glass of water into the sink, letting it shatter, and fixed Scorpius with a glower. “Leave. Don’t speak that way of the Weasleys again.”
As his confused heir made his way out the door, Draco turned to see Blaise smirking with one eyebrow raised. “Is that a proper way to tell your son that you’re in love with someone’s mother other than his? That you rather appreciate those freckles and that radiant hair?”
Malfoy had him against a wall within seconds, hissing, “Shut up. Shut the hell up, Zabini.”
Blaise laughed, prying Draco’s hands off his neck and glancing down to see Draco’s wand pushed against his ribs. Spinning out of the blond’s reach, Blaise cackled as he pointed to the clock, “She’ll be here in ten minutes, Malfoy, and since you want to look as dolled-up as possible, I wouldn’t recommend getting into a brawl right now.”
His friend looked away with an expression of disgust. Just as Draco stepped out of the hall, Blaise felt invisible hands on his neck once more and glanced up at him. His wand was raised, emitting a light blue glow, and he muttered, “Keep your mouth shut, Zabini.”
[DG]
No tears this time. I stare at Blaise long after he quiets, and no one else speaks. It’s as though the silence judges, permits and prohibits speaking as it wishes, allowing only the very best and the most useful to be stated, and supports me when I need the help, when I don’t want to listen to any sound but my own breathing.
I nod slightly, frightened of whose, or which, story will come next. Hugging the black pouch closer to my chest, I wait for the inevitable, all the while rocking to the sound of the ticking clock.
Hermione clears her throat, turning from the window, and ignores Ron’s startled suppression. One arm across her chest, she leans the other against it as she bites down on a finger slowly, and Mum whimpers when she realizes what’s about to happen.
[DG]
“Shove off, Hermione, I’m just tying my shoes,” Ron whined.
His wife crossed her arms, glaring at him furiously, and bit out, “I’m sure, Ronald. What, are there female Quidditch players down there? I’m sick of your stupid games.”
Harry rolled his eyes, leaning down to glance where Ron was staring, and stood. “He’s spying on Malfoy.”
Hermione tensed instantly, leaning onto her knees and elbows to catch a glimpse. Beneath the stands, she saw Malfoy walking to the changing rooms in only his pants, carrying his broom over his shoulder. Despite her faithfulness and moral code, Hermione blushed at the sight.
A Quidditch player from the opposing team rushed up to him, breasts swinging in her loose interpretation of a shirt, and Hermione watched as he turned to speak with her. Hermione sat up, murmuring, “Ginny wouldn’t appreciate this, Ron.”
The redhead with his head tilted beside her muttered, “Well, she’s not going to know, is she? He’s cheating on his wife with her right now, isn’t he? Who’s to say that Ginny’s going to be the one to change him?”
Hermione yelped, elbowing him, and chanced a glance at their raven-haired friend. Harry sighed, lying on the grass a ways away from them, and stared up at the clear sky. Leaning back down to watch the players, she whispered harshly, “You’re going to be too loud one of these days, Ron, and something bad will happen. Watch what you say.”
Her husband groaned, “Shove off, Hermione.”
Hermione huffed, watching as Malfoy nodded briefly at his comrade and entered the changing rooms. “Besides, she told us they were just friends. There’s nothing going on between them, they just used to work together.”
“Then what’s the problem in letting Harry know?” Ron whined.
“Because it will upset him! You two and Malfoy were never friends, and you should understand that!”
Ron disregarded her then, because his finger pointed quickly to the and of the stands, “Look!”
Both Harry and Hermione turned to see Malfoy leaving with a flustered Gwenog Jones on his heels. She called after him inaudibly, and he ignored her until he was at the entrance gates. He turned, putting space between them as she nearly ran him over, and snarled something so harshly, that even from a distance, Hermione flinched. Gwenog nodded and walked back dejectedly as he turned to greet his wife. Astoria reached to kiss him, but he quickly stepped away and walked around her to the Portkey that took him home.
[DG]
Hermione waits, watching me with something akin to pity in her eyes, and kneels in front of me. Someone behind me shuffles – the sound carries for a moment before vanishing completely. Silence is still on my side.
“I wasn’t lying,” I murmur. “He and I never – I mean, we never … he was better than that, and he was faithful to Astoria, always. I was always faithful to Harry, you mustn’t think I wasn’t.”
Hermione nods slowly, this doesn’t surprise her. I take a deep breath before continuing, and it hurts. It hurts because he’s lying right next to me, but he’s not there; hurts because I know there’s no way to bring him back; hurts because I know that despite what I tell my family now, things won’t change, but they won’t ever be the same.
“He and I … we … we made a promise to one another while we were working together to tell one another the truth and only the truth, because you need loyalty on a job like ours was. The habit was something we never grew out of, and even – “ I choke. Two weeks, really? “Even two weeks ago, when I last saw him, he didn’t lie to me about where he’d been, he told me about the Death Eater meetings he attended, the plans they had to regenerate the power they had had before the war, and the dark things he took a part in. He confided in me, not as a friend – we left that stage the day he stopped working with me – but as someone who was so much more. He and I never kissed, much less …”
Hermione puts a hand on my knee gently and nods again, murmuring, “You don’t have to justify anything. What you two had was … other-worldly, indescribable, and even the wisest wizards on Earth have probably never experienced something like that. He loved you, he loved you so much, Ginny – I was there, and I saw. I don’t know who it had been that attacked him, but as he was bleeding, dying on the field, he was whispering something over and over, and it –“ she chokes, too. With a deep breath and a glance at her husband, Hermione goes on, “It wasn’t until the rest of the Death Eaters were taken care of that I could approach him, and I h-heard him – heard him, and he was saying your name, over and over and over and over, and it was almost as though it kept him alive, Ginny. It kept him alive until I was there, and he could tell me what he needed to say, and he … he would never say he loved you, you mustn’t expect that, Ginny.”
I shake my head; of course not. Malfoys have all the passion in the world, and all the courage of a small ferret. The thought makes me smile. One of our jokes.
The silence is embarrassing now, because my entire family is watching, still judging, despite what they’ve heard. The clock announces the hour, and I start in my seat, a loneliness flowing over me that I hadn’t expected so soon. The grief, the pain will never subside, because this morning, this very morning, he was a walking, breathing, living person, with plans, dreams, ambitions in his soul, and barely twenty hours later, he is gone. Dead; never to speak a word, never to smile, never to move. How breakable we are.
“His chest was bleeding profusely, and he looked quite out of it, but his lips kept moving, chanting his sad little mantra, until I revived him for what little time he had,” she murmurs, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “He didn’t recognize me, he called me Ginny, and he shied away from my touch when I tried to ease his – his suffering. Just before the Healers arrived, he gave me a happy smile and said, ‘See you in hell, Weasley.’”
Through my tears, I smile. Another of our jokes. Of course he’ll see me in hell, because what we had was too good. Much, much too good, a love that has to have a toll, and the suffering I know I’m inflicting on my parents and brothers right now is sure to land me a spot in red-hot hell. I’ll go, though. I’ll go through it all if that is the cost of Draco’s life.
For a time, no one speaks, but then Bill steps away from the wall into which he had so skillfully blended, and Mum screeches, “William Arthur Weasley!”
His earring swings wildly as he jerks to face her. Her eyes are furious, and I know that she’s already refused to accept Draco. He’s just a story to her now, and anything her children do to prolong it won’t convince her. I sigh quietly, and Hermione goes to stand by Ron once more, gazing out the window sullenly.
I push to stand and leave with the bag, but Bill stops me, sitting me back down.
[DG]
“Weasley.”
Greeting or not, the name itself stated in that tone irked Bill as he looked up. He wasn’t surprised to see Malfoy’s arrogant smile, and his cold eyes watching him over the desk. Pulling out a fresh roll of parchment, Bill raised his quill above it and asked, “What can I do for you?”
The blond shook his head. “I don’t need you, I need Greengrass.”
Bill frowned, “You need Daphne?”
“Is that what she goes by now? Yes, you dolt, I said I need Greengrass.”
Bill pushed the parchment back into his drawer and folded his arms over his desk, raising defiant eyes to meet Malfoy’s. “I’m afraid she’s no longer at Gringott’s.”
Malfoy’s eyes narrowed, and he hissed, “Then send me the next Slytherin on call.”
“I don’t understand what problem you have with me, I’m just as competent as any Slytherin you can name,” Bill scowled. “And, obviously, if there were a Slytherin on call, you’d be speaking with him right now.”
Rolling his eyes, Malfoy glanced at the empty booths around him, aggravated. Pushing away from Bill’s desk, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’ll come back when someone else is on desk duty, then. Weasley, if I catch you nosing through my accounts –“
Bill stood suddenly, crashing his ancient chair to the floor, and glared at Malfoy, shouting, “I, unlike you, have morals, and I respect the privacy of people I’m not acquainted with. If you have a problem with how we do banking here, then, by all means, manage your money at home!”
Malfoy grinned maliciously and turned away, walking out of the containment with a small green package swinging precariously from his wrist.
[DG]
I nod. I remember. “That was a birthday present for me last year. It cost thousands of galleons, and I suppose he didn’t want you on his tail over what he’d spent that sum on.”
“Ginny!”
Dad is upset. I don’t look at him, because I know why. I don’t care. “Dad, I gave it back. I looked at it, smiled, thanked him, and gave it back. It reappeared on my pillow the following night. He was always generous with money.”
Ron clears his throat now, the nosy bugger. I glare at him, but he asks anyway, “What was it?”
“Keys.” I don’t want to tell him anything else, because I know that he’s asking out of curiosity, not any kind of empathy that normal people feel. I feel the question before I hear it, but I don’t expect the source it’s coming from.
Mum’s voice does not waver. “Keys to what?”
Bill’s hand is on my shoulder now, and I realize that he’s advising me to speak. Mum’s vicious at times, and I don’t have the heart or patience to sit through another lecture right now, so I speak. “A villa in the Maldives. We’d spoken about it once, he’d asked me where I would want to live if money, space, and families weren’t an issue. And I said the Maldives.”
My brothers stare at me in awe, and I have to look at the floor to stop from crying. Would they have been so impressed, so respectful, if I’d revealed this information one month ago? I feel the jagged metal in my back pocket right now, warming me, warning me. I want to leave, to grieve in peace, to go over every moment that we’d spent together, every word we’d said.
The clock continues to tick in the corner, and I continue to wait.
The holiday-themed bell hits the wall solidly when the door snaps open. An angry, white-skinned Astoria makes her way into the room, followed closely by her regally smirking son. The woman casts a glance at the family gathered within the room and purses her lips, stepping to her husband’s bed almost disdainfully.
As the others look on, she glares at me, growling, “What was the cause of death?”
I shrug slightly and blink away the tears. If I had only known. When the blessed silence drags on, Hermione murmurs, “Some Unforgivable.” Ron visibly tenses at her forwardness, and puts a hand on her arm in warning, watching Astoria carefully. I, his sister, sit alone.
Astoria glances at Hermione once, then turns her anger back to me. “Why are you and your stock here?”
I have no answer. She was his wife. We did wrong by her. I can’t talk back. Pushing to stand, I notice her bright blue eyes suddenly narrow, and a smile graces her lips. She casts a pointed look at her son, who turns to face my family with an arrogantly raised eyebrow, while she harshly mutters, “Follow me, Weasley.”
I don’t want to. I don’t know where she’ll lead me or how she’ll punish me. I feel like a child, and I’m over forty years of age. Nodding mutely, I clutch the bag even tighter to myself as I trail after her. The corridor outside is cold but damp, cooling and warming my skin simultaneously, and I shiver from the sensation. Sweat makes the back of my blouse cling to my skin, and I know that Astoria notices.
Before I can speak, she slams the door closed. I hear the bell jingle weakly through the metal, and I wonder what is happening inside. They wouldn’t hurt Draco, would they?
“You may keep the ring.”
Eyes wide, I glance at the platinum band on my hand, stained pink with my blood, and look up at her. She’s smirking. I wonder why she’s not upset, why she isn’t cursing me every which way she knows, why I’m not yet dead. I want to be dead.
“Thank you,” I murmur, rubbing my thumb over the smooth metal, and stare at the door next to us longingly. Suddenly, she jerks a hand out, pulling my wrist to her, and I gasp, looking at her menacing face. Her perfect white teeth are gleaming in the dim lights. There are no windows in the hall, no indication of the pretty May afternoon outside, the life that exists away from these dull corridors.
She sneers, “If I were you, I would be careful about what I do and say. If you give any indication to the press of the affair you and my husband had during our – dare I say – lasting marriage, I’ll have your insides pulled through your throat and wrapped around your neck within a second. Am I understood?”
I nod mutely once more, hand fisted tightly. My eyes are swollen from the tears I’ve shed, and she looks over them with disgust. “You and your emotions. Do I look upset? I’ve lived with the man for thirty years, and what? People die, Weasley. When your side declared this pathetic war and tried to fight, you knew what you were going up against – this is the price of war. England won’t be stabilized for decades. We all suffer.”
I shake my head, “I’ve lost too many. I’m tired of losing. The pain is unbearable.” A question that’s sure to have me killed escapes my mouth. “Why are you not upset?”
She grins madly, shoving my wrist back to me, and points to her hand, empty of rings or manicures. Her voice sounds numb and muffled as she snarls, “I don’t feel pain, Weasley.”
I can see her lie. She’s in pain, not because he died, nor because I love him still, but because she knows he never loved her. She knows full well that even before he and I met, Draco was not hers. Standing up straight, I reach for the door handle, but she stops me, wrenching my hand back viciously with her own.
“I have a story to tell as well, Weasley. Don’t you want to hear?”
I begin to suffocate. Her eyes are a glassy, glassy blue, and her smile is pasted on. Her cheeks are tight with the stress of her control, and her skin is unnaturally white. I step back slightly and hunch my shoulders, prepared to listen. I have scratches on my hand from her nails, and some begin to bleed, but I pull it into a fist and clutch the bag weakly.
[DG]
“What did Potter want, dear?”
Draco looked up at Astoria sharply and set his jaw. His pearly hair was pulled into a thick tail, hanging loosely down his back, and contrasted starkly with the rich black robes he wore. His wife glanced over his form appreciatively and shrugged. “I’m only curious.”
His eyes softened then, and he muttered, “I know. She needed more help on something at work, though Merlin knows I haven’t been in that office for over three years.”
“Potter has a crush on you, does she? Does her husband know?” Astoria giggled playfully, twirling his hair in her hand.
Draco’s eyes darkened, and Astoria knew.
Pushing away from the table, she stood next to him. “Draco, are you all right?”
He pulled away from her worried hands, leaning heavily onto his elbow, resting loosely on the edge of his chair. His grey eyes rose to meet hers levelly, but she knew that whatever the argument, she would win. He was in the wrong, and she was being treated unjustly, and he would give in to her.
Taking his thin hair into her hands once more, she murmured, “Sometimes, I heard you two talking in the library. I don’t eavesdrop, oh, not at all, but I occasionally walked through the Manor and I heard. It was empty, and it echoed, what you were saying. You know which conversation of yours fascinated me the most?”
His beautiful morose eyes stared at her unresponsively. His shoulders had tightened. Ignoring his silence, Astoria allowed herself to brush his thin blond hair and glanced out of the window as she continued, “You were challenging her choice of men once, a few months after you’d left your position at the Ministry, and said that Potter’s life was only marginally worse than yours, but that she – Weasley – made Potter’s misery much more bearable.” The pause that she enclosed here was only slightly effective, because despite his discomfort, he met her eyes levelly, without embarrassment.
“She’d been offended, of course, that you would insult him like that, and began a lengthy rant on your closed-mindedness and impatience. She had said that none of us have the right to judge or disrespect the people who surround us. At the very least, she’d said, they had lived their own lives, survived their own tragedies, and gone on to live. If any of us could be put in their shoes, she’d said, would we be able to live their lives? Would any of us be able to handle the problems thrown at us in anyone’s skin but our own? At the very least, she said, they were still alive, still breathing and functioning. Who’s to say, she asked, that we would continue that life had we reversed fates with someone else?”
A pregnant pause ensued, and the couple merely stared at each other, eyes clear and faces drawn, but no emotion escaping. The fire crackled quietly at the other end of the dining hall, and Astoria spared it a glance before sitting in her seat once more, pulling a silk napkin over her legs. “Do you know why I still remember that conversation?”
Draco spoke now. “I do wonder why, after three years, it is still so clear in your mind.”
“Because I gained respect for her that day. She has beliefs that make sense, that give her dignity. She obviously has something that I do not, and for that I respect her. No matter how much I detest her, how much I wish she didn’t exist, true to her word, she is still alive, still breathing, and I cannot lie to say that if I were her, I would be the same woman she is.” Astoria’s blue eyes fell on the beautiful ceramic dishes that lined the table, following the patterns on them with her eyes, and a sadness flowed over her, a feeling she’d been keen on escaping. Looking at Draco once more, she reached for his soft hair, rubbing the sleek texture between her fingers, and sighed, “How did you feel about what she said that day?”
Draco looked away, then met her eyes again. He wasn’t upset, or scared, or embarrassed. He merely acknowledged her blackmail and responded, “I don’t have feelings about her arguments. She has beliefs of her own, and I have mine. They don’t always coincide, but we were merely partners, and they didn’t have to.”
“What are you now?”
How forward, Astoria thought instantly, to ask such a question without fearing the consequences. Oh, he wouldn’t hurt her, she knew, but would she return the favor? Untangling her hands from his hair, Draco pushed his plate away from himself and sat back, “What do you think we are?”
“Lovers, I’m sure. I don’t understand, however, why you would need to hide it. You could have divorced me years ago, when I knew you were already longing to. And why? What meaning had that Friday, all those years ago? How many were there, ten? Ten years ago, then, is when you and she met?” Tears began to build, but she pushed them down, swallowing her misery with bravery she didn’t know she possessed. “And already you were in love with her?”
Draco’s face was pale and taut, turned to the window Astoria so longed to jump through. “We weren’t, and aren’t, lovers. I’ve not been unfaithful, and you know that,” he nodded at his purely-glowing silver ring.
Astoria blinked and nodded. “Not in the most conventional sense, perhaps. But there are others. You fell in love with her, you spent time and money on her, and you desired her. You betrayed me as a wife, as an acquaintance, and as a human being.”
“And for that, I apologize. I don’t regret anything about what happened, however, and you must understand that. All I would change, if I could, was how I hurt you, but I wouldn’t rid my life of her.” His eyes were cold, and his hands were clutching the arms of his chair. Astoria nodded once and stood. Tossing her napkin onto the table, she twirled out of the room.
Just before escaping through the door, she choked, “Pathetic, isn’t it, that despite everything, I wouldn’t rid my life of you?”
[DG]
I’m crying, weeping, sobbing, pounding my fists against the wall beside the door, wishing I was with him - wherever he now was, pleading with the gods to let me go. Astoria stands behind me, crying silently, watching my erratic movements with little more than satisfaction. I don’t argue; this is what I deserve. How stupid was I to pursue that relationship, knowing perfectly well that Harry would be betrayed, and I hurt?
I don’t regret a thing. No matter what a disgusting person I am, how low my actions were, I had a love that fulfilled my life, made it worth something, and I would never regret that.
I pull away from the wall and wipe my tears away with my sleeves, afraid that some freckles might get torn off as well with the force of my swipe. She’s watching me, still silent, and I shake my head, “Thank you. I’m sorry.”
I walk back into the room, taking care to avoid Scorpius’s scornful gaze, unaware of whether Astoria has followed me. The room is still silent, and people are gazing in different directions to avoid discomfort. I grab my uniform coat from the stool and pull it on, ignoring the disgust that creeps upon me as the jacket pushes my sweaty shirt higher up my back.
I’ve been judged, examined, and pronounced despicable. I can see it in their eyes, the sympathy they have for Harry and my children, the sad concern they have for me. Draco is still on the bed, his face tilted slightly in my direction, and I figure he’s the only one with no place and no desire to judge. He, like the silence, is behind me, around me, within me, and I feel the warmth.
As I turn to leave the hospital, I look at Draco’s face, going over the features slowly, and command, “Don’t even think about touching him. I’ll be back tomorrow, and if the bed has so much as shifted, I’ll find who was responsible.”
[DG]
It’s been three months. I’ve been looking for a way out, and no one will help me, because there’s no one to ask. Harry, James, Albus, and Lily don’t know a thing. My family has just begun the long trek to forgiving me, but I don’t have too long to ponder, because either I leave or I stay, and I can’t decide which horrifies me more.
I close my eyes, leaning against the shower stall, and cry, mixing tears with the ice-cold water that’s already running down my skin. The shower buzzes busily, and I sigh, looking for answers outside and inside of my head. I’ve barely eaten since the day he died, and all I’ve done is sit in the guest bedroom and stare at the petals littering the pouch I took with me.
Suddenly, I am pulled back to memories of the day Astoria had talked about, when she had overheard me and Draco speaking, and I can see everything in my mind just as it was then. Draco was next to me on the couch, smiling a secret smile as I ranted about respect and twirling a rose between his fingers. The birthday bouquet on the table was fresh, breathing the clean air in greedily, and Draco began to pull a single petal from every flower that was in the vase, dropping them into a single bowl. I asked what he was doing, but he smirked and ignored me.
I turn the shower off, sprinting to the room, and grab the petals from the bag, kissing them over and over, smelling their fresh scent, the life preserved magically within them. Today celebrates my forty-sixth birthday, and the fourth year since the day he gave me the flowers. I cry, like I’ve done every day for the past three months, but I can feel something in me changing.
I make my way slowly to the wand on my nightstand. I hear the buzz of conversation somewhere in the house around me, my children laughing happily as they share their lives and loves. My life and love both left me three months ago, on a day I spent with Harry and the children, in the grass, laughing and talking like they are now.
Countless times, I have faced the brazen tip of my own wand, pleading with myself to just do it, but I can’t give it up. Who’s to say what comes next? Who’s to say that there’s an afterlife, where he and I can be together the way we would never be here, in this state of present, in this reality? Killing myself could banish everything entirely, like Draco was banished before me. Does he remember me? I want to know so much, but I cannot risk it; the longer I stay here, the longer I keep my memories of him, my feelings, and my secrets.
I haven’t told my children, haven’t come to terms with what I did or what will happen. I cannot take a jump without knowing how it will affect them as well. But I’ve always been a selfish creature.
I lie on my bed slowly, feeling my wand drop to the floor, and I listen to their voices, young and restless, tinkle outside as my own remains mute. My eyes close, freeing salty tears to roll down my cheeks, and I begin, once more, to recollect the days when Draco Malfoy loved me.
Author notes:
To those who were confused by the mathematics of the story:
Nineteen years after Harry's 7th year (making it her 6th), Ginny was 35 years old. At that time, Albus was going into first year, and Lily was one year behind him. Added to the seven years of Lily's education, and Ginny was 42 at the mentioned train station and when she received the flowers.
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antidote is the author of 5 other stories.
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