Work Text:
The planet ended in a wild tempest.
Nearly everybody died.
Nearly.
* * *
He roamed the empty, hallowed halls of his school, the mighty castle of Hogwarts with its stone turrets and strong battlements. His footsteps echoed upon abandoned stones, his eyes gazed upon the upturned desks and the scattered chairs. Students had learned in these rooms, walked down these halls, lived in these dormitories. He brushed his fingertips against cold stones as he walked up the stairs, noticing how they dipped in the middle from years of endurance, from years of students stepping upon them. Thousands of children growing into fine young witches and wizards, proud to walk from these great halls of learning and knowledge.
And yet, two nights ago, they had not walked proud. They had fled, screaming and bleeding, stumbling, abandoning each other in their last panicky flight. Others had turned and fought viciously, the snarl of death upon their faces. Draco had been one of the ones who had fled into the dark seething night. The sky that night had not been the usual beautiful black speckled with stars, but a deep heaving orange-grey, a sick colour of polluted magic, thickening like a toxic stew, soaking up the magic from the earth and air.
Draco remembered his last moments in Hogwarts. He had ran from empty dorm to empty dorm, finding them all abandoned. Every Slytherin had left. He shouted useless names down silent halls and rooms. He had stumbled into his favourite professor's classroom. He didn't know why. He knew it would be empty, bereft of any human face or welcoming voice. But into it he fled anyway, and hearing the cries draw closer he had searched wildly for a weapon, flinging open desk drawers and raiding the potion stores. Dried bat claws, powdered nightshade, gillyweed, unicorn horn, bezoars. Nothing he could possibly use against an enemy. He heard a scream, something falling heavily against the classroom door, and stood with his heart pounding. When no more noises could be heard he fled into the castle and then out into the night, the vials clinking wildly in his pockets, his throat burning.
At first he thought his throat was burning from the cold air but he had a strangely chemical taste in his mouth, a metallic tang. His skin tingled. Somebody started screaming, not a short ear-piercing burst like the others, but a drawn-out wail. It was the sound of a bell's final toll, the sound of death, and Draco looked up. A single burning, blinding-bright bolt sizzled through the lashing sky. The tempest had begun, the magic unleashed. A low boom rumbled the sky, like thunder, except it got louder and louder until the earth shuddered beneath Draco's feet. He began running as the lightning struck, as fire rained from the sky. He remembered following people, running towards something —
Water.
It sloshed unexpectedly around his knees, then rapidly raised to his thighs, his abdomen, his chest. The lake. It too swirled angrily, reflecting the furious sky above it, but it felt cool and refreshing to touch. Draco stood for a moment, gasping for air and yet receiving none, and it took him a moment to realise all oxygen was being sucked up by the magic. Without further ado he dived in to the cool, dark depths. His robes billowed out behind him like a ship's sail, vials floating out of the pockets and away into the darkness of the lake. Draco grabbed at them. Deadly Nightshade. Powdered Unicorn Horn. The ink melted away in the water. His godfather's cursive handwriting faded into nothing. Draco became aware of a burning in his lungs, of black spots dancing before his eyes. And yet he did not want to return to the land, to the wild storm above. He wanted to float forever in this dark quiet world. He imagined he was floating in a little bubble, high above the world, drifting alone through the endless universe and all its cold, icy stars...
But his right hand, as though his brain seemed not to be operating it, reached for the vial of gillyweed and uncorked it, forcing it into his mouth. He wanted to live. Gills formed and water rushed in like air.
Draco breathed easy for a while, floating through his own little universe. And after a while, when the gills finally melted back into his skin and he drew deep lungfuls of painful water, he bobbed towards the surface of the lake like a lost cork. It was silent when he emerged. The water streamed from his hair, his hands and his cloak. Bodies floated on the top of the lake; students who, like him, had ran for the sanctity of the lake but had been forced to either emerge and suffocate or drown themselves. He didn't look at the bodies, at the white waxy hands and dark straggles of hair. Instead he continued up the banks of the lake. The sky had settled, darkened, ran out of magic to throw at the world. The earth was scorched beneath Draco's feet. The Forbidden Forest was a wreckage of blackened stumps. Charred corpses of centaurs and unicorns littered the ground. Draco remembered thinking it was unlucky to kill a unicorn. Was the world unlucky? Was humanity cursed? Fires burned here and there, but rain now speckled the burned earth, increasing slowly to a steady downpour and Draco knew it was over. The magic had exhausted itself.
And so he returned to Hogwarts, to roam the empty halls and the abandoned classrooms. Somebody's bag lay open, parchment and quills spilling over the stones. Draco picked up something and stared at it blankly. A prefect badge. He allowed it to fall away from his hands. It cluttered noisily, echoing around the empty school.
He left.
* * *
He flew on his Nimbus 2001, after he found it still safe in his dormitory. He flew home to Wiltshire. He didn't look down much at the patchwork of ruins beneath him. Sometimes he closed his eyes and pretended he was just chasing an eternal snitch, flying not towards darkness but towards a beautiful summer sky, a pale blue morning washed clean, a waiting canvas for Draco to paint his day upon.
But he had to open his eyes again to see the wrecked world, the charred reality. Wiltshire was blackened too, like all the other counties Draco had seen on his journey. The manor still stood, the west wing collapsed. Draco gazed at it, unable to comprehend the reality of his situation. His beloved home, standing strong and steady throughout the generations of Malfoys, grand and untouchable. And now half destroyed by fire. He landed gracefully despite the shock, despite the dull ache in his legs, arms, heart. The wards still stood; he could feel them, thin and weak but still there.
Ashy footprints marked his trail. He didn't call his parents' names. He didn't need to. He walked alone through the manor, past the empty portraits, through the silent rooms. Some were ravaged by the wild magic fire, reduced to nothing but pitted floors and blackened rafters. Some were perfect and pristine. In the breakfast room the table was beautifully polished, the curtains tied back prettily. A pot of honey congealed on the table, a knife balanced across the top of it delicately. Draco left the room after examining the newspaper lying open on the table: “New Breakthroughs In Magic Will Save Us!” Claims Ministry.
He imagined how his parents had died at the Battle. Holding onto each other, standing together as they waited for the world to end. In a fire, you can only save what you can carry. His father's voice echoed softly in his ear and Draco shook away the tatters of memories. He opened his bedroom door. His room had remained untouched, exactly the way he had left it. Upon one wall, a Puddlemere United poster slowly uncurled from the wall. The curtains had been left open but Draco did not go to the window, did not gaze upon the stars and pretty moon. Instead he walked in a dreamlike trance to his bed and collapsed upon it, feeling the soft cotton against his face, the familiar smell. He buried deep into the covers, cocooning himself into the soft memories of his childhood, forgetting it all and falling into a deep slumber.
* * *
Dear Pansy,
It is the first of June. Today marks the one month anniversary since the Battle of Hogwarts. It is also the first day of summer. Today the roses should start to bloom, the orchard should be heavy with fruit. In the hothouse, Mother's olive tree should have produced a magnificent harvest. I wish you were here to try some. You should see the orchids too, they're beautiful. So bright and pretty...
The sound of a quill scratching on parchment was the only noise in the entire room. In the morning light, Draco sat at his desk. Sunbeams illuminated his blond hair, warmed his pallid skin. His hand moved across the parchment, swift and sure.
I think it's your birthday in three weeks, I'm sorry, you know how terrible I am with dates...what would you like? A silver necklace? A first edition of your favourite book? An autographed Weird Sisters record? Anything just to see you smile. Just to see you.
He had now spent one month living in the manor. In the morning he would have honey and bread; there was enough food in the pantries to last at least three months, if he used nonperishable spells. He would clean the rooms, rearrange the furniture, practise the piano. Sometimes he went out for a walk before dinner. After supper, he would practice spells, pretty spells. He would watch, mesmerised, as a ribbon flowed from the end of his wand, dancing in the air. Defence spells did not interest him anymore. There were no enemies. Just him and the world.
It's my birthday in four days, Pansy. I'm not sure what I want. A hug would be nice. Even a smile. Maybe just to hear your voice. That'd be nice. I'd like that. You wouldn't have to say much. Just my name, if you want.
Once a week, every week, he'd faithfully and unfailingly write a letter to Pansy. Whenever they were apart it had been a habit. Once a week. Every Monday.
I'd better go now, Pansy, but I'll write again. Soon as Maximus returns. Love, Draco.
He signed off without flourish and folded the letter briskly, putting it into an envelope and carefully placing the hot wax seal upon it, leaving it to dry on the sill for a few moments before placing it in the desk drawer.
The drawer was already overflowing with waiting missives, waiting for a bird that would never fly again.
* * *
After two months at the manor it suddenly occurred to Draco that he could go anywhere. He could stay anywhere, live anywhere. You can only save what you can carry. He took his wand, the potions vials he had rescued three months ago, and a photograph of his parents. He took it from their wedding album, easing it out past the plastic. They looked so young and radiant. The back of it was unmarked, but Draco added in his careful script: Lucius & Narcissa Malfoy, 14th August, 1979.
He carefully placed the items into his shirt pocket, just above his heart, and left.
* * *
Draco went to Little Whinging, travelling by broom. At night he broke into a home and slept in a room. The first time he did it he was careful to choose a home in reasonable condition. Draco tried to simply open the front door, but it was locked. Later he learned this was a good sign, that he should pick houses only with locked front doors. Unlocked doors usually meant the resident had been — and died — at home during the tempest. At the first home, however, he managed to unlock the door with a simple Alohomora, turning the handle and opening the door easily.
Draco searched the kitchen first, happy to find cans of soup and other non-perishables. Two mugs were in the sink, mould clumped at the bottom of them. Draco tried to hurry past the fridge as he detected an unpleasant smell but lingered for a moment, mesmerised by details. A big red 'A' magnet. A scratch on the handle. The thick green texta somebody had used for the last note.
He turned away, went slowly down the hallway and opened a door cautiously. The room inside was of medium size. It was mostly taken up by a bed, a dresser, and a bookcase overflowing with novels. Draco avoided the books. Books were personal, books were private. Somebody had excitedly purchased each book, waiting during the long journey home to read it. He imagined it nestled in their hands, begging to be opened. When they reached their home, they would find a sunny spot, curl up and read it before carefully placing it upon the bookshelf, building a beautiful collection...
Draco hated his imagination sometimes. This room had been somebody's. The bed was wonderfully inviting but once upon a time, somebody had spent every night there, dreaming and sleeping and lazing and reading and —
Draco abruptly slammed the bedroom door shut. He slept on the couch that night.
* * *
He was careful not to look at things in homes after that. He avoided notes on fridges, he avoided books on shelves. He avoided opening closed doors, afraid of the memories of human beings.
He made a mistake on the fifth night. He glanced at a coffee table and paused to look at an interesting contraption. Then the picture distracted him. It wasn't fine art. It wasn't a masterpiece. In fact, it was a fingerpainting. As though hypnotised, Draco held out a hand slowly, palm downwards, until his fingertips gently brushed the bright green fingerprints in the middle of the painting. Such a tiny hand print. His own palm easily covered it. Such small hands, immortalised in such bright colours...
Draco couldn't let himself cry. If he started now, he'd never stop.
* * *
It took him precisely a week to arrive at Harry Potter's home. He had great difficulty finding it. He remembered his father showing him the address. “Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging,” Draco had read aloud. “Where's that?” But his father had just smiled mysteriously and given one of his speeches about the Dark Lord and plans and things that Draco wasn't allowed to know. But Draco remembered later on, his father coming home at midnight, torn and tattered, ranting about Potter's escape. Draco wasn't stupid. He put two and two together. But he had never imagined, not once, that one day he would be slowly walking up Harry Potter's driveway.
The house was small and neat, matching every other house on the street. Draco had been expecting something special, remarkable. But there was nothing. He tried the front door: locked. A small relief. He tapped his wand against the door, hearing the faint click of the lock.
As far as Draco could tell, the firestorms had not affected Little Whinging. The houses remained intact, the gardens green and wild. He held his breath as he entered the front hall, for some reason. What was there to be afraid of? Yet his heart still skipped a beat, his chest tightened. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked, quiet but determined, its metal hands separating Draco's seconds.
He searched the kitchen, the dining room, the living room. All were tidy and neat. No notes were upon the fridge, no mould grew in dirty dishes. The cleanliness and the ticking of the clock unnerved Draco. The house was a strange island of silent order in his world of chaos and ruins. He went upstairs. The first bedroom was full of Muggle toys and contraptions. An unfamiliar school uniform was folded on the bed, moth-eaten and chewed by mice. Draco quickly retreated from the room. He'd learned to shield his heart from sentiment, from the memories and souvenirs of people long gone and lives long destroyed.
The second bedroom was certainly his arch nemesis'. There was nothing in it but a small bed, a tattered desk and the faint smell of owl droppings even after all this time. Draco stood by the bed. Whoever thought that one day, Draco Malfoy would be standing in Harry Potter's bedroom? The thought made Draco want to laugh and laugh and laugh, but he didn't because it frightened him, thinking like that, and he wondered if he might go crazy.
Somewhere, a clock ticked.
* * *
Draco found the camp in France, two summers later. He had flown nearly everywhere now on his trusty broom. He sat atop the Eiffel Tower and penned a letter to Pansy:
Dearest Pansy,
Today marks the three-year anniversary of the Battle. Strange to think of the summers that I haven't shared with you now. Sometimes I try and remember our childhood, that day in the park...I used to remember it so clearly, but now I'm not so sure. Were you wearing a blue or red dress? Did we play on the swings or in the sandbox? The details just slip through my mind, like water through my fingers. Maybe it's not a memory. Maybe I dreamed it, or maybe it's somebody else's memory. Sometimes I feel like I'm holding all the memories of the dead.
Draco stopped after that sentence. He didn't trust himself to go on. He gently tugged the piece of paper from the notebook and held it out. He stood there, upon the Eiffel Tower, a piece of paper in one hand, and let it fly from his grasp, let it drift over Paris. It was an overgrown city now, the tower itself half-buried in ivy.
Draco watched as his letter flew into the darkening sky. It was his way of delivering letters. Somewhere out there, in the vast universe, Pansy would receive his letter, blown into her hands by a summer-scented breeze.
“Wow.”
Draco turned and studied the man. He was tall, middle-aged, brown hair. “Wow,” the man said again. “I didn't think there was anybody left to be found. Sorry,” he added. “Shouldn't stare. It's just been a while since I've seen anyone new. I'm from the camp.”
“The camp?” Draco asked.
The man looked at him in concern. “You alright? You sound awful. Are you sick?”
Draco shook his head. “It's been a long time since I spoke.” His voice sounded strange in his ears, unfamiliar and rasping.
“Oh. Well. The camp, you know. Bunch of us survivors got together.”
Draco stared blankly.
“Survivors,” the man repeated patiently. “Some of us survived the tempest. We found each other and set up a survivor camp here, in Paris.” For the first time, the man seemed to notice Draco's Nimbus 2001 resting beside him. “Oh, no,” the man said wearily. “You're not a wizard, are you?”
Draco nodded. He didn't want to speak, didn't want to hear his dry, cracked voice.
The man looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I'm sorry. It's a Muggle refuge only.”
Hope died in Draco's heart. He hadn't allowed for much, but the prospect of seeing, touching, talking to humans had proved too much, and his heart had lightened for a second. “You know about magic?” Draco asked softly.
“What? Oh, yes. Of course. It all came out after that bloody war, didn't it? We found out that your sort caused the tempest. It's best...for you to stay with your own kind, really.” The man stretched out his hands, his palms facing Draco. An odd gesture. A gesture of forgiveness and apology too. There was a long silence. The man shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“Wizards?” Draco asked at long last.
“What?”
“Is there a wizard refuge?”
“Oh, right. I don't know. There's rumours, of course. Some say there's one back out east. Others say they're back at England. But honestly, I wouldn't waste time looking. I've never seen solid evidence myself.”
“That's okay,” Draco replied. “I have a lot of time.”
* * *
Draco wondered later if it was a dream, meeting a middle-aged Muggle atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Maybe the Muggle man was a ghost. Maybe Draco was just a ghost, floating through ruins of a broken planet, drifting alone through the remnants of humanity.
He watched the Parisian sunset. He wrote another letter to Pansy, carefully rolled it up and wedged it a nook. He would come back for it one day and send it to her.
East. England. Which one? Any one. Draco had decades left, left to spend in this world without life. He could go anywhere. It hit him, hard as a punch to his stomach, just as painful and achingly brutal. Anywhere. He could travel anywhere in the world, and nobody would stop him.
That night, he took his Nimbus 2001 and flew into the stars.
North. To Russia.
* * *
And how many months did Draco search the barren tundras, the fields without grass and forests without leaves? He lost count. Time was for people who needed it, and Draco didn't need time. He had no appointments waiting, except perhaps that final great appointment with death. He travelled down to Asia, he island-hopped his way across the world. He couldn't remember years now, let alone months. He returned to Russia after a while, although he didn't know why. After a while, it didn't feel like Draco was searching for people anymore. It felt like he was searching for a concept, a state of mind. He was searching for a memory, an idea, a feeling. He was waiting for the melancholia in his mind to stop, for the silence to lift, for the birds to sing, for the human voice to break into his heart like glass shattering upon stone.
But no voice came, no birds sang, and the melancholia deepened slow and steady like a child's lullaby.
* * *
He left Russia sometime in late May. It was the seventh anniversary of the Battle, if Draco had known the date. He wanted to see England for the winter. He wanted to see the tulips bloom and breathe in the scent of closed roses. He wanted to see green. His mind seemed slower as though the icy mists of Russia had fallen over his thoughts too, shrouded his memories and dreams from him.
It was a strange and meandering path to England, and it led through Scotland. Draco didn't know why. Perhaps, in his subconscious, Scotland was always home. Hogwarts was home, no matter how ruined it was. He arrived at Hogwarts precisely one week and seven years after the fateful tempest. He searched for the Quidditch pitch to land on but could not find it. After a while he realised that it was overgrown, that it was a mass of tall trees. The forests crept steadily towards the castle. The lake had receded slightly. Draco imagined all the vials lying on the bottom of the lake, the vials from his godfather's classroom. Seven years ago he himself had drifted along the bottom of the lake, alone and dreaming of the universe, while above him the dying gave themselves up to the furious sky. The mermaids would still be in there somewhere, he imagined. He thought he had seen one or two passing shadows overhead when he himself had been submerged. He waited a while but there was no movement from the lake.
The castle was crumbling. Draco raised a hand and brushed it roughly along the beautiful ancient sandstone, feeling the grit crumble under his fingers. It had been a bad idea to come back here, he thought. If he wasn't careful, he would enter the castle, wander from classroom to classroom, choking and dying on memories, torturing himself with the thoughts of friends and family. Death by heartbreak. No. Draco would not kill himself over the memories of it all.
He retreated from the castle, mounted his broom and flew away into the evening sky, far away from his childhood, and he knew he would never return.
* * *
That evening he stopped in Wiltshire, although he wasn't sure if he wanted to go to the manor yet. He lay atop one of the ancient rocks of Stonehenge. He would sleep here tonight, he decided. The summer air was lovely and warm, gentle and without breeze. He could lay here and dream and not have to sleep in the rooms of dead people.
He gazed up at the stars, trying to remember the constellations. Orion. The great warrior. But the stars could be anything, really. Orion could just as easily be a horse, or a heart, or nothing at all, just a random spray of stars. Humans liked to make things out of nothing, to create. Humans made order out of chaos. A collection of icy rocks became a great warrior-hunter.
Draco closed his eyes and drifted away, sighing softly in his sleep every now and again, and for a time he was peaceful, gaining precious relief from his empty world.
* * *
“Malfoy?” Harry stared incredulously. He had really found Draco Malfoy here, of all places? Sleeping by Stonehenge under a bright summer day, the sky as blue as a wren...it seemed impossibly surreal.
Draco didn't seem at all surprised to see Harry. He just gazed at him, as if waiting for something.
"There's a refuge," Harry said, for lack of anything else to say. "I — we survived, about fifteen of us. So far," he added. "You're welcome to come see, if you'd like."
Draco climbed down from the rock, quick and graceful. His hands were calloused, Harry saw. There was a very thick line of callouses across both his palms, matching lines. Draco hesitated for a moment, wavering uncertainly, then opened a small bag lying on the ground and placed a few apples into it, a small water canteen, and quickly and haphazardly zipped the bag shut before picking up his broom. Harry hadn't seen it, lying in the long grass, but he realised now what Draco's callouses were from. Two patches on the front of the broom were almost perfectly worn down into the shape of Draco's hands.
Harry's heart gave a little hurt flinch. It had been seven years since he had flown. Seven years. Draco looked up at him, a quick little glance, but he seemed to see everything, for he held out his broom hesitatingly. Harry stared blankly.
“There's room for two,” Draco murmured, his voice a dry whisper.
* * *
Harry directed Draco. It would have been easier for Harry to simply be the one sitting in front, but he couldn't do that. Draco had travelled the world on his broom, just him and the world and the wind against his face. Harry felt it would be wrong to demand Draco sit behind him now, although Draco had not indicated a preference. In fact, Draco had not indicated anything. No joy or surprise or fear. No sneer marred his face, no contemptuous words of disgust. Nothing. He was unsettlingly quiet. He had lived alone for seven years. And not just lived alone in a house. Alone in the world. He had moved from empty city to empty city, he had heard nothing but silence and seen nothing but decrepit ruin. He had watched every sign of his race being erased from the planet.
Draco's sun-warmed robes were soft against Harry's hands, and he wondered how exactly Draco had managed to find robes and cut his hair. He wondered how he had avoided death by injury or starvation or exposure or loneliness.
Loneliness.
Harry closed his eyes against the sun.
* * *
The guard on duty, Hannah Abbott, sent red sparks high into the air. Harry called out in reply.
“Just letting her know it's me,” Harry explained. “Hannah's the only one with a wand, so we have to be careful about our defences." He waited, expecting questions, but Draco was silent.
They landed and were instantly converged upon by people. Draco stared, looking bewildered, at the shouting faces.
“Where'd you get the broom from?” somebody demanded.
“Who's he?”
“A Muggle?”
“He went to school with me,” Harry said. “I found him by Stonehenge. It's his broom.” He waited for Draco to begin speaking, explaining, justifying, but Draco ignored them all.
Harry frowned.
* * *
Draco gazed round the refuge. They had picked a small village and pushed the wilderness back, cleared the roads, maintained the houses. Draco felt like it was all pretend, a silly game. He ran his hand across roses trailing over somebody's fence.
“That's my place,” a brown-haired woman said proudly. “You can come inside for a cup of tea, if you'd like?”
A little tea-party, Draco thought. Roses and tea parties. He crushed a rose in his hand and inhaled deeply. The scent of roses. Isn't that what he came to England for?
People drifted away, none of them quite looking him in the eye. Harry remained nearby, watching as he let bruised petals fall from his palm.
“We've done a good job, haven't we?” Harry said.
Draco ignored him, too busy staring at the roses. White. Pink. Orange. No red. His mother loved red roses. She had a whole garden of red roses. Wiltshire. Here in Wiltshire, at his beautiful manor. Draco picked up his broom.
“Where are you going?” Harry asked him quickly.
Draco thought for a while. “Home,” he said, his voice soft and raspy.
“Home,” Harry repeated quietly, then louder. “Home.”
Draco shook his hair from his eyes, the sun catching on the blond strands. He focused on Harry for the first time, snapping out of his strange dream world. “I went to your house once,” he said. “Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging.”
“What?” Harry asked, looking startled. “Surrey? You went there?”
“I wanted to find you,” Draco murmured. “That's right. I didn't know, but I do now. I went there to find you. But you weren't there. Empty. White. There was a uniform. I remember. All moth-eaten. And a clock. I searched all night for that clock, but I couldn't find it.”
Harry turned away from him, as if unwilling to continue listening, but Draco paid him no attention. He looked at his palm, stained from the roses. Pretty stains.
“Yes,” he said. “A clock ticking. Ticking for me.”
A petal danced for a moment, caught on the evening breeze, and the two men watched it together as it disappeared into the dusk.
* * *
Harry woke to find furious people gathered on his doorstep the next morning. Draco had evidently left, taking his broom with him. Harry sleepily put the kettle on and gazed around bemusedly at the angry faces.
“Hardly any of us know him,” a burly man said suspiciously. “Who knows where he's gone!”
“You know Malfoy wasn't exactly the most trustworthy of people,” Hannah Abbott told Harry, her expression doubtful.
“There are Muggles out there, waiting to get us,” the brunette woman told Harry anxiously. “There used to fifty of us, once upon a time...”
There was a long silence after that. The burly man buried his face in his hands; a wedding band glinted on his finger.
“Don't,” Harry said softly. “Don't think about that —”
“You know it's true.” A hazel-eyed wizard gazed mournfully at Harry. “He could tell them about us. Whether intentionally or accidentally...we cannot afford to be discovered again...”
“It's been seven years,” Harry tried but the wizard cut across him again.
“It could be a hundred years and they will still not forget those who ravaged their planet and lives. Time will not tarnish their wrath.”
There was another long silence.
“We'll see,” Harry said quietly.
* * *
Draco returned in the evening, carrying a bag full of apples. Harry stopped him as he was making his way to the village green.
“Malfoy. You can't just come and go as you please. We've got to keep this place secure.”
Draco gazed at Harry, his face small and pointed. Everything about him was so thin and fragile, Harry thought. As though he hadn't aged a day from the eleven-year-old boy in Madam Malkin's robe shop... Harry pushed away that thought before memories of Diagon Alley and his friends could hit him. Draco watched with unreadable eyes.
“You've got to let us know a week in advance if you're leaving,” somebody chimed in. The burly widower, standing by Harry.
“There's Muggles out there waiting to get us,” Hannah added. “There were so many of us, once...” She broke off, unable to carry on.
Draco stared round at them all. “Let me take those,” Harry said, gently taking the bag of apples from Draco's unresisting hands. “We'll add them to our supplies. You're welcome to eat with us, and stay as long as you want — ”
“I'm going to Paris,” Draco said.
The brunette witch laughed. “Paris? How?”
“On my broom.”
“That's ages away.”
“I've been to America on my broom.”
Harry suddenly didn't doubt it. Draco had travelled the world on his broom, had flown thousands of miles. Searching for people. Searching for hope. Searching for something else, perhaps. Searching for memories, a state of mind... Harry looked at Draco.
“There's something there,” Harry said. “In Paris.”
Draco gave a barely imperceptible nod.
“People,” Harry whispered. Horror dawned on the faces of those around him.
“Muggles,” Hannah said, her voice startlingly loud. “There's Muggles there!”
Draco nodded again.
“You can't. Malfoy, you can't go there. If you go, you must swear to secrecy,” Harry began, but the other wizards and witches cut across him, frightened and angry.
“He mustn't go at all! He needs to stay here!”
“He'll kill us all!”
“The Muggles will come again, we only have one wand and a gun between us,” a woman wailed.
Hannah was the voice of reason. She approached Harry and spoke quietly. “Harry, if he returns here the Muggles could trace him. Or he could accidentally reveal information to them. You know that it simply isn't a feasible option. He must stay here. Please think of the bigger picture. The safety of fifteen is better than the freedom of one.”
There was a long silence. Harry couldn't meet Draco's eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “But you have to stay here. Don't leave.”
When he finally raised his gaze again Draco was gone.
* * *
Draco woke early. He slept outside under the stars. He didn't want to sleep in the small cottages, those places without air. Without a sky of stars for him to gaze upon. He wanted to fly again. They had taken his Nimbus away. He looked at his calloused palms and gently traced the lines. Home waited for him. In the breakfast room, the honey would still be there. Honey could last thousands of years, the only food to do so. Draco liked that fact. Long after his parents had eaten their last breakfast and died in each other's arms, Draco could still eat the same honey.
He wanted to go back to Paris, where he had been four years ago. He wanted to stand atop the Eiffel Tower where he had sent missives to Pansy. Letters and letters and letters, all undelivered. They filled his desk in his bedroom, they blew around empty streets and country roads, waiting to return to ash and earth. Just like Pansy.
Draco crushed another rose in his palm. The scent brought him little joy. He wanted red roses, his mother's roses. Red as hearts, red as wine. He thought of Russia, the cold and lonely tundras. He thought of America, its overgrown city jungles. He thought of France, the abandoned windswept beaches. He had been everywhere. There was nowhere left to go. Nowhere left to go.
Except into the sky, out into the universe. Perhaps he might find Pansy out there. Perhaps he might finally find his memories, his life and love. The melancholia would die away to a long-forgotten world, and his heart would finally find its missing piece.
The sunrise painted the sky a beautiful pink, the clouds ribbons of peach and pink and soft hazy purples.
Draco smiled up into the rising sun, his first smile in seven years.
* * *
Harry woke to a very gentle noise. The noise of a door quietly clicking shut. He sat bolt upright.
* * *
Draco found the Nimbus underneath Harry's bed and gently eased it out; he was already out the door and walking towards the village green before he heard the footsteps. He turned and saw Harry.
“Home,” he said.
“Malfoy,” Harry said urgently, “Malfoy, you can't leave, please, for the safety —”
“Home,” Draco said again, a single broken word, and he could feel the tears now. Seven years of unshed tears, unshed tears for his godfather and parents and friends, for the bodies floating on the lake and the beds nobody slept in, for the children whose cherished fingerpaintings crumbled to nothing but memories and dust.
“Draco,” Harry said, and wasn't that Draco's birthday wish so many years ago? To hear his name? To hear a human voice, saying his name...
Draco turned and ran, ran from Harry, ran down the road, the summer dust kicked up into clouds, running and he was shouting something only he wasn't sure what, and then there was silence.
* * *
The kick of the gun startled Harry, just for a moment, but then he slowed down and half fell, half crawled towards Draco's inert body. He lay in the middle of the road, a long graze down one side of his face where he had fallen, his eyes open and unblinking against the dust. Harry flung the gun down and collapsed next to Draco, crying noiselessly.
“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry,” he wept. A long trickle of blood crept through the dusty road, darkening it into mud, staining Draco's hair a surreal red colour, red like roses. Draco's last words, so desperately shouted, echoed in Harry's ears for a long time: Kill me now! Oh please, just kill me! I want to go home —
Away in the village, the wizards and witches closed their eyes and turned their faces to the wall.
And somewhere in France, Pansy's letter finally came loose from its place in the Eiffel Tower and flew away towards the newborn day.