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‘Somewhere in space hangs my heart, / shaking in the void …’
-Edith Sodergran
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The new common room which was once a very old room now filled with not very old students who looked, for all their youth, quite old behind the eyes. And grey, a bit tired. Like the castle itself in many ways; crumbling in parts, struggling heroically to ensure that all the towers and the windows and the cold stone floors stayed as they were- held together with some rough combination of magic, will, and desperation. The new common room, filled with these less than common students, was draped in sparkling purples- the color of royalty, in no way reminiscent of Gryffindor blood or Slytherin envy. The curtains that covered the charmed windows- the eighth years’ dorms were a bit too high and their outlooks a bit too low to risk an opened window nine stories up- were deep purple and charmed to sparkle slightly in the light. The couches in the common room were plush grey, circled about small tables and enchanted rugs.
Despite the comfort of the furniture and the stalwart charms that clung to every inch of the space- making the lanterns glow brighter, the chairs more cushioned, the walls more smooth- there was an undeniable melancholy that settled like a heavy mist over everything. As though, the room, like the students had been up one too many nights with one too many things on their mind, and everything was worse for the wear.
The eighth-year students themselves- the ones who crawled out of the crumbling stone of their long history, or were sent back to the crumbling stone by looming Wizengamot with stern faces and disapproval so thick you could taste it- those students were embracing their house colors at least. They sported the royal purple in the bags under their eyes, in the delicate bruises on skin that was itching for a good fight or a good cry, sometimes both. They wore the grey like cloaks, settled into their skin, nestled like a good friend behind their eyes.
There were no exploding snap games at the card table nearest the fireplace, no secret rendezvous of less than secret lovers in the stairwells, no whispered conversations that carried across the whole room. The laughter, when it happened, was edged with the bitter blade of loathing, or sadness. There was a silence that filled the room constantly, bulging and uncomfortable, so loud in their ears that students cried from it. There were so many people missing.
The stars charmed to float on the ceiling were christened by each returning student for one that did not. And so Cedric and Fred and Vincent and Lavender all floated by the ceiling, untouchable, silent, reminders. The sky, after all, was a silent place that worried for nothing and it mocked them. Those who were tired and broken, who wished every night that perhaps they too could dissolve into stardust and finally be silent and untouchable. That the nightmares which so plagued all the dorms, wouldn’t dare touch a star- such a shining pure thing on the ceiling of the common room- watching all the survivors claw themselves empty with guilt.
And Draco, in the corner, just as silent as the floating stars, and as grey as the cushions, as tired and hollowed out as the crumbling staircases and limping halls, he sat on the cold windowsill, back braced against the shivering charmed window panes, undeserving of the dubious comfort of the furniture. And there he was not under the burning light of the stars that his classmates christened people. That he had hurt. That he had lost. He could sit his silent retribution and stare at his mistakes, glimmering in the air, like each had their own sharp points hooked into his ribs- more painful than Sectumsempra, where no amount of dittany could fix what was ripped open inside him. He was like a stray comet here, with no orbit, destined only to go flying through space ripped up by any passing stars unable to even weep for the frozen layer at his surface.
Perhaps it was apt punishment, for having spent so long trying to be the very center of the universe, to now be this. A stray bit of frozen stone, shattering constantly as it glanced off of the objects in its path, stuck forever in painful orbit.
It was fitting then, that Harry Potter be a star- the absolute center, the axis of rotation. But different from the stars that so painfully dotted the room. Before, Draco may have called him a dwarf star- in this drawn-out metaphor he had created for himself. Certainly, Potter’s height had not stopped him from destroying the single darkest thing in the known universe. Draco’s known universe at least- which he had recently discovered was much smaller than he had previously understood, and he even smaller than that. Better that Potter be a blue giant then, with his striking brightness which burned Draco more than his dreams of Fiendfire or his aching mark, and his undeniable gravitational field of which Draco was forced to orbit, cutting himself constantly on the other planets that had more regular places around him.
Ronald Weasley with his red hair burning like Mars and his anger like the God it was named for- orbiting so close to Harry that it seemed as though they might simply fall into each other. And Hermione Granger- for all he had called her a mudblood as though it would wound- she seemed to be made of hard earth now, cold and cracking and she too hovered close. Both of them orbiting Harry’s brightness with a sort of determined grimness that implied shared hardships. Not like any of the other eighth years didn’t have shared hardships- though Draco thought perhaps shared was a rough word. Shared as in their hardships clawed up their chests and stitched their mouths shut, made whispers shouts and shouts naught but angry wet noise all of them too tired for real fighting and too distant for anything else. Like you asked the whole universe of ice giants and fiery suns to somehow cohabitate in the one small tower and the crackling castle and pretend that somehow that was the way that the universe worked. That instead of hurtling infinitely away until one day Draco would no longer feel the constant burn of hurtling through atmospheres and guilt and loss and he would finally be free.
But Draco did not deserve to be free, and the school did not have room- not with the broken towers and barely patched halls and death and death and death- it did not have room for all of them to hurtle away. Perhaps there would never be enough room. So Draco sat with his back to the prickly window, cold and uncomfortable and filled so full of remorse he could burst from it. Supernova right there on the window sill and hope that in his death he would reap no more harm. That his black hole which lived right in the center of him didn’t swallow anyone up.
And then Harry Potter came to him. Of course it was him, shining so brightly it hurt. Draco’s eyes were so used to the dark, so used to shying away from the monstrosities committed in front of them.
“Hey,” said the star.
His mother had told him to never look at the sun, that it would hurt his eyesight, and that Malfoy’s absolutely did not wear glasses. But Draco thought the sun was beautiful and he used to sneak glances at it when his mother wasn’t looking. But his mother wasn’t here now, and his father was never coming back, and the path to self-destruction looked like a lightning bolt scar and shining green eyes.
“Hello” replied the comet. It was cold, so, so cold, and it would never get any warmer. The mix of crucio damage and the snaking tendrils of grief frozen like ice shards in his veins. But Harry looked so warm, in his lumpy sweater with the holes at the cuff. And wasn’t it appropriate the Draco should be sucked into this boy’s orbit after they had circled each other for so long- twin stars clashing, always clashing.
“Come sit by the fire, you look freezing.” Harry’s voice is rough like he doesn’t use it much either. Like maybe it's forgotten how to shape gentle things as well. In his mouth, Draco’s tongue ached in sympathy.
“I can’t see the stars there.” His voice is rough too, like radio waves in space. Cutting out and pieced back together at the wrong speed. He used to love to talk.
“I don’t think they’ll mind,” and Harry came closer. Draco could almost feel his heat. Their knees knocked and it was funny that Draco never thought that stars had knees.
“Vince was never one for stargazing.” And it came out like chewed glass, drawn out by laws of physics Draco didn’t understand. Muggle laws he thought would never apply to him. And Harry stood there looking at the broken bits of glass and blood Draco had just spit onto the cold grey floor, onto his cold grey skin, etched into his arm right there next to the burning dark mark, and he laughed.
It was not a pretty laugh. Not a dinner party at the Manor laugh, or a lover’s laugh, or the mocking laugh that Draco once favored. It was more of a bark really, like the shattered thing at Draco’s feet drew something equally broken out of the boy in front of him. “No, I take it he wasn’t fond of long walks on the beach either?”
“Only at sunset, and only with the woman he loved,” Draco replied. And he didn’t know why this was happening. How his painful careen through the galaxy has stopped at this, here, with this boy who gave off so much light.
“Oh, and pray tell who is she?” And Harry was smiling, like halting Draco’s orbit was nothing. Like the Ministry-required red strand of magic wrapped around his wrist wasn’t choking him, wasn’t choking Draco’s future like a vice. Like maybe Draco was still that twin star he once was.
“Madam Malkins, of course. He had a thing for the pins,” Draco said and he wasn’t even trying not to look at this brilliant star anymore. How could he? After everything?
Harry barked another laugh, this one smoother- like the first one had reminded him how to do it and suddenly his throat just knew. Draco’s face cracked, the ice that had held him so frozen thawing just slightly. He felt his lips curl up, not into the sneer it once knew, but something softer. Something like fresh earth, soft from the melted snow.
“Come sit by the fire,” Harry repeated. And he grabbed Draco’s hand and Draco was pulled back into proper orbit. Both of them, swirling around each other.
Warm. Balanced.