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Like when I close my eyes and don’t even care if anyone sees me dancing
Like I can fly, and don’t even think of touching the ground
Like a heartbeat skip, like an open page
Like a one way trip on an aeroplane
It’s the way that I feel when I’m with you
Brand new
~Ben Rector
***
It was strange to see the light after so many months inside the darkness of Azkaban. He’d been sentenced to a year, but word came on high that Draco Malfoy would be let out nine months early for good behavior.
Of course I was well-behaved, he thought as he mutely collected his belongings from the prison guard. There was nothing to do. How could I have possibly gotten into trouble?
“Wait here.”
Draco nodded as the guard exited the holding room to get Draco’s mum. There was another guard seated in a chair near the exit reading a newspaper and not paying the former prisoner any attention.
Draco paced a bit, consumed by a restless energy he hadn’t felt in a long time. He shrugged on the old cloak they’d taken from him three months ago after his incarceration. It was black and thick and completely inappropriate for this summer weather. But it felt safe and he allowed his eyes to close for a moment as he breathed in the fabric. It didn’t smell like home anymore.
His eyes flew open as the metal door clanged open. The guard had returned with a woman Draco so desperately wanted to see.
“Draco.” Narcissa rushed to her son and Draco returned her warm embrace with a fervor that would have embarrassed him in his youth. All too soon, Narcissa slipped from the hug and brought her hands to Draco’s cheeks, beaming up at him. “My boy,” she gushed, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
Draco’s reciprocating smile had his face muscles protesting, but still he managed.
“Come on,” she said, one hand slipping into his own. “Let’s go home.”
As mother gently urged son from the room, Draco walked by the guard with the newspaper and stopped short when he spotted the front page headline.
“Wait,” he croaked, the first word he’d said in nearly three months of disuse.
He squinted down at the paper, reading the headline again.
Four Months since the Battle:
Granger and Weasley are Keeping Mum on the Chosen One’s Disappearance
Draco’s eyes met the guard’s curious gaze over the top of the newspaper. His mind was spinning.
Almost as if to himself, he asked, “Where is Harry Potter?”
Nobody answered his question because nobody knew the answer.
***
Draco’s restless energy continued to wreak havoc on his quiet life for months after his release. He wasn’t allowed to do magic during his parole and without Hogwarts to fill his time, for entertainment, he’d resorted to learning things he’d never thought a Malfoy would want to learn.
He started cooking. Once the house-elves realized he wasn’t joking about joining them in the Manor’s kitchens, they were all too happy to teach him the culinary arts. Draco discovered he was particularly good at baking. For his mother’s birthday in late September, he made a tart that came out the perfect shade of lemon yellow. It warmed his heart to see her smile, brilliant and sunny and happy.
Draco learned to ride horses in October. The pastures that surrounded the Manor seemed never-ending in their vastness. He named his mare Wilah. She was perfect.
He took up pottery in November. His mother prominently displayed the uneven fruit bowl he made in the middle of the dining room table. His father would never have allowed that. It made him smile guiltily when he remembered how Lucius would never get the chance to remark on his bowl’s lack of perfection.
In December, friends started visiting.
Greg was the first to come around the Manor. The two boys didn’t say much during those few visits. They simply sat in peaceful silence playing Gobstones. Greg was surprisingly good at Gobstones.
Theo stopped in for some tea and a chat. Apparently he was living with Daphne’s family until he was able to get his inheritance out from the Ministry’s hold on the Nott finances. When Theo embraced Draco goodbye, he whispered a quiet “Thank you” into Draco’s shoulder before making a hasty retreat. Draco had no idea what he had been thanked for. He didn’t think he wanted to know.
Pansy joined Draco for a spot of horseback riding during an early winter snow fall. She wasn’t her usual talkative self, but then, neither was Draco. They’d both changed so much and, in a way, they were closer friends because of it. He cherished that horseback ride and the following game of chess by the fireplace afterwards.
On Christmas Eve, Draco attended the engagement party of Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass. He toasted to their happiness, clinking champagne flutes with little Astoria… who wasn’t quite so little anymore. Blaise, noticing Draco’s appreciation for his soon to be sister-in-law, told Draco before he departed for the Manor later that night that he’d have Astoria seated next to Draco during the wedding in August. Draco had just rolled his eyes.
For Christmas, the two remaining Malfoy’s were invited over to the Tonks residence. Narcissa and Andromeda had been in correspondence during Draco’s imprisonment and had rekindled their sibling relationship. Draco had thought his Aunt Andromeda looked way too much like Bellatrix for him to truly feel comfortable in her home, but by the of the end of the night Draco had fallen in love with baby Teddy so much, it seemed that nothing else mattered.
While the sisters were talking in the living room, Draco scooped his second cousin up into his arms. The small boy giggled excitedly as Draco swung Teddy around, an imitation of flying. Teddy’s hair had turned from blonde to a stark teal color during the mock flight and Draco assumed the change meant Teddy was enjoying the game, a physical representation of the toddlers assent to continue. Draco and Teddy sailed through the hallways of the small house. Suddenly, Teddy kicked out a leg and knocked a picture frame from the wall.
“Shit,” Draco cursed at the sound of glass breaking. He abruptly came to a halt and set a pouting Teddy on the floor.
I can fix this, I can fix this, the blonde repeated in his head. He stooped down to collect the broken shards of glass from the floor and went to reach for his wand…
He didn’t have a wand. He wasn’t allowed to use magic for another week, in fact. He couldn’t fix it.
His aunt found him some unknown amount of time later curled into a ball on the floor, his eyes staring at the blank wall in front of him, unblinking.
“Draco, darling,” Andromeda said, running a soothing hand down his back. “What’s the matter?”
“I broke your picture frame,” Draco replied hollowly.
Draco felt a gentle hand on his cheek, and suddenly his gaze was filled with a smiling Andromeda. He couldn’t believe he ever thought she resembled Bellatrix.
“Oh, sweetheart, the frame doesn’t matter. It’s what’s in the frame that counts— oh, and would you look at that! Still perfect.”
Draco’s eyes flashed to the piece of parchment in his Aunt’s hand. The picture was unblemished… and intriguing. It wasn’t moving.
The blonde slowly raised himself off the floor, his eyes never leaving the artwork. “What is that?”
Andromeda smiled warmly down at the drawing. “Teddy’s Godfather sent it to me. He’s quite the little artist. The likeness to my Nymphadora is uncanny.”
“Teddy’s… Godfather…” Draco repeated slowly. “Who’s teddy’s Godfather?”
Andromeda’s smile widened. “Harry Potter.”
Draco physically startled. “Potter sent that to you? But I thought— I read that he’d disappeared.”
“He still keeps in touch. A’though it’s getting fewer and farther between letters, I’m sad to say. I’m hoping he’ll return home soon.”
“Do you— Do you know where he is?”
Andromeda’s smile turned sorrowful. “I’m afraid not. But I like to think that where ever he is, it’s where he’s supposed to be.”
***
After his parole was up and he was a free man, Draco did the only thing any free man would do: travel.
First he took a trip to Italy to visit Blaise and Daphne. There, he met a Sicilian violinist who invited Draco to attend his concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. As he watched the accompanist, Draco was reminded of his brief time taking piano lessons as a child. He decided to resume his lessons, taking to the more lackadaisical temperament of jazz. His music teacher mentioned that he should visit New Orleans a month into their lessons. The trip was meant to inspire him.
It was the height of Mardi Gras in the Crescent City when Draco stepped through the floo of a local witch’s bar. Clearly he and his music teacher hadn’t thought this through.
The blonde sidled up to the bar and ordered a whiskey. While he was there, he might as well enjoy the festivities. When in Rome, and all that.
The friendly barkeep poured him a whiskey soda and Draco smiled his thanks. He turned to find a spot to occupy while he nursed his drink and soaked up the atmosphere of a new location. But instead, he bumped into someone, knocking some of the whiskey out of his glass and down his hand.
“Sorry about that,” said Draco as the man righted himself. Suddenly he found himself staring into a familiar pair of green eyes. “Oh shit—“
Draco hadn’t realized he’d been looking for Harry Potter until they were standing face-to-face, breathing the same Louisiana air. But he had been. Every time he’d seen an unruly head of black hair on the streets of New York, he’d done a double take. Every time he heard another British accent, his eyes would dance around the room in search for that familiar face. He was always looking.
“Potter,” Draco spluttered ineloquently.
“Malfoy.” Harry was… grinning?
“What are you— What in the world are you doing here?”
Harry seemed to ponder the question for a moment. “Well… It’s Mardi Gras,” he stated with a shrug of his shoulders, as if that explained everything, which it totally didn’t.
“Uh… right.” Draco narrowed his eyes at Potter, scouring his face for evidence that this was all a dream, or a hallucination, or whatever. Could it be that this man was an imposter? Why was he smiling at Draco like that? It was unnerving.
Completely confused, Draco decided on a course of action that could arguably be considered a mistake. He downed the alcohol in his glass, twisted around, and asked for another. He drained that glass as well. The barkeep watched on with a concerned look on his face.
“Another,” Draco croaked, slamming his empty glass on the table. And another he had. Once he was three drinks in, he twisted back around and was startled to find Harry Potter still standing there, his expression distinctly amused.
After a moment of stilted silence, Potter shrugged his shoulders again. “This could be fun,” he said, voicing his thoughts aloud. “Come on, Malfoy.”
Harry waved his arm broadly in the direction of the exit as he made his way through the somewhat crowded bar, beckoning Draco to follow after him.
And he did.
Draco’s head was swimming a bit from the alcohol he consumed as he followed that unruly head of hair out onto Bourbon Street and through the crowd of partiers. Potter took a sharp right down an alley and still Draco followed. They arrived at a red door guarded by a giant of a man in a plain black t-shirt.
“Password,” he barked.
Potter rolled his eyes. “Delilah.”
The guard smirked and stepped aside. Draco followed Potter through the door into an empty corridor. Finally, Draco decided to question what was happening.
“Are you part of a cult or something, Potter? Merlin, what am I doing here? Where are you taking me? I want to know what’s going on. Right now—“
“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry interrupted, a permanent look of glee etched on his face. “Just, come on.” Harry took a hold of Draco’s wrist and dragged him down the hallway until they reached a cellar door. When Harry wrenched open said door, Draco’s ears were filled with the sound of jazz music from below.
In a daze, Draco felt himself being escorted down into the basement. On a makeshift stage in the corner of the room, a band complete with piano, cello, trumpet and saxophone played their music for the packed group gathered inside the small room. Everyone was dancing so fluidly together it was as if the hundred or so people were simply one mass with a single mind. Draco watched, transfixed, as Harry Potter joined that group with no hesitation.
Draco stood dumbly at the foot of the staircase until he felt a red solo cup forced into the palm of his hand. “New Arrivals!” someone shouted. “Drink up!”
“To Mardi Gras!” the crowd shouted, raising their solo cups and taking a collective drink of the alcohol inside. Draco drank from his own cup, feeling the burn as the whiskey made its way down his throat.
Harry extracted himself from the crowd and made his way to Draco.
“Why did you bring me here?!” the blonde shouted over the band.
“I don’t know!” Harry shouted back. “Maybe… maybe I just want to pretend I don’t hate you for a second!”
There was a beat of silence. “You disappeared,” stated Draco. “Where did you go?”
“Everywhere!”
Draco snorted with laughter. “Sure. Whatever you say, Potter.”
“Come on,” Harry urged, dragging Draco into the mass of people. “Dance.”
Draco sighed. This whole conversation was bizarre and surreal. He suddenly felt extremely self-conscience in the middle of the crowd. “I don’t know, Pott—“
“Here,” Harry interrupted, stopping in the center of the room. He grabbed Draco’s shoulders, leaving them both immobile. “Now, close your eyes.”
Draco scoffed. “What?”
“Close your eyes, Malfoy!”
Draco licked his lips, chuckling half-heartedly. “Fine,” he said. He took a deep breath and let his eyelids fall shut.
For a few seconds, they remained like that, frozen amidst a mass of dancing drunkards. Then suddenly, Harry started shoving at Draco’s shoulder’s in a rhythm that matched the music. And Draco let him.
Not long after that, he was dancing. They were dancing.
“Newcomers! Drink up!”
Draco opened his eyes once more as he raised his cup into the air and shouted with the crowd— with Potter.
“To Mardi Gras!”
***
It was early morning when Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter stumbled out onto the streets of New Orleans together bellowing out the words to a song that they only sort of knew. The sunlight was bright after a night spent below ground and both boys looked up to watch the sun rise up from the horizon.
Their song died on their tongues and Draco felt the moment slipping away. It had been a strange night, one Draco was only ninety percent sure wouldn’t end with him waking up from an extremely vivid dream. Sadly, the fun had to end eventually…
Harry and I, Draco ruminated. This night, a moment in time that can never be duplicated—
“I’m going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Germany on Friday. Want to come with?”
Draco’s gaze snapped to Potter. The Gryffindor was still watching the sun rise and Draco almost looked around to see if perhaps Potter had been asking someone else.
Why me? he wanted ask. Why are you being so nice? Why?
“Uh— Well…”
Draco returned his gaze to the sky. He closed his eyes against the brightness and inhaled deeply. He was in a foreign land wearing only a whiskey-stained, sweat-riddled polo shirt. The only person near him was a former school rival he hadn’t seen since his Death Eater trial.
He didn’t know this person next to him anymore. Maybe he never did.
He didn’t know this city at all. He probably never will.
But for some reason, the air smelled like home.
“Sure, I’ll go. Sounds fun,” Draco admitted. “But I just have one question.”
Draco opened his eyes and tilted his head toward Harry. Harry returned his gaze.
“What?”
Draco heard mild trepidation in that one-word question, and that warble brought Draco an odd comfort. This was still Harry Potter, somehow.
Draco grinned. “Who in the bloody hell are the Red Hot Chili Peppers?”