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It was accidental, the fall. It happened sometime between ignorance and reflection. A time between knowing what he hated and forgetting why he had hated it in the first place. Perhaps it was the curls and the way they bounced as she walked or fell into her face when she messily placed them atop her head. Or perhaps it was the way she tilted her head when she listened to a lecture, completely unaware of her surroundings as she soaked up all the knowledge that was offered to her. But he supposed it was probably a combination of her quirks and traits. The things she was - and the things she wasn’t.
But he had betrayed her by his inactions. He had let her writhe and cry on the dirty floor of The Manor without stopping what was happening to her. He was never one to go against the grain. That was one of the most glaringly obvious differences about them. She was an anomaly, unafraid of her difference and ready to take on the world. He was just like everyone else and trained to believe that somehow meant something more than it did.
Her cries filled his nights as he would startle from another nightmare.
Her laugh, which had never been for him, plagued his days as he tried to forget everything he would never have.
He was named after the stars, but as it turned out, she was the one who was the brightest of stars - brilliant in all she did, guiding others along the way.
The Dragon and the North Star.
Even now, being pardoned did not erase the things he had done. Often he wished he would have been thrown into prison simply to get away from the watchful, knowing eyes as he passed witches and wizards in the square. He noticed each time a mother would pull her child closer to her when they spotted him. He heard the whispers of wizards at nearby tables as he sat in taverns.
He’d decided a long time ago that Azkaban would have been a saving grace.
He wondered frequently how long he could have lasted there. A day? A week? A year? It had taken his father three years before he caved underneath the weight of insanity. His mother had cried for weeks after the last visit she was granted. Lucius was too far gone, they had told her that day. She wasn’t allowed to come back.
But it was no use, trying to dwell on the “what ifs”. He had been granted “nows” and he was told he needed to appreciate his freedom. But how could one live when they ceased to truly exist years before? It had been a long time since Draco remembered what it was like to simply just be. Years of torment. Years of regretting his actions and inactions. Years of wondering who he even was.
But each morning, he did what his Mental Health medi-witch told him to do. He woke up, grabbed his journal, and walked to a local Muggle park, drinking coffee from a paper cup. He never deviated from his routine, because he had found his own form of salvation the first morning he sat at the park bench. Since then, he drank it up each morning, greedy to have just the smallest sliver of happiness. For every morning, precisely at five, Hermione Granger sat at the bench across the park from him, reading from her newspaper while sipping absentmindedly from her own coffee.
He wasn’t sure what kind of sick fate the gods had planned for him when they sat him down that first day to write. Of all places, of all parks, he had somehow chosen hers. She, like him, never deviated from her morning routine. She was so painfully on time, he had found himself chuckling whenever she seemed frazzled about arriving a moment later than normal.
The gods surely had done this as a punishment. They were dangling her in front of him so that he would remember his transgressions. For a while, it had felt that way, and like a sinner, he had come to the park each morning as some form of penance. Soon, however, he found his mornings with her to be the only thing that motivated him to wake. Little did she know how dependent he had become on her.
He was non-existent in her life.
She was the reason for his entire existence.
She was why he found himself looking forward to waking up. She was why he had found himself searching Muggle bookshops in hopes of a glimpse of her unruly hair. She was why he had started getting coffee at the shop down the road from their park. She was who stopped him from just ending it all.
And she didn’t even know.
But he was content with what little he was given. He didn’t deserve any of the happiness he found in her.
It was a Tuesday when he realized, with great shock, that she was pregnant. She had stood, twisting to the side, and there it was. A small bump, barely noticeable, but he had memorized her every curve. When she rested her hand upon her slightly swollen belly, he knew for certain what it meant.
He had never been close enough to catch a glimpse of her hand, so he had no idea if she was married or not. He avoided the paper so he’d never gotten notice if she had.
He shouldn’t have been so shocked that she had moved on with her life. They were twenty-six years old. If it had been up to his mother, he would have married and sired an heir by now as well. But something about seeing her like that shattered whatever illusion he had formed. One where they were frozen in their own time, life around them not truly happening.
But life was happening, he realized all too late, right around him.
That night he told his mother he would see the witch she had lined up for him to court.
Days turned to weeks, which turned to months, which turned to years. Life, it seemed, had begun creeping forward at a slow pace, but steadily. He married Astoria, his mother’s choice. They began trying for children, Astoria’s choice. He had stopped seeing Granger at their park, his choice.
As he took small steps toward the future, he was always glancing back.
His “what ifs” winning each time.
The Dragon and the North Star, so close yet never quite connecting.