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You stop dancing the day your mother dies.
[No. Wrong. Start over. Start over.]
On the day your mother dies, you butcher your way through your audition for a minor part in a major ballet. You hobble your disgraceful way through the Grand Pas in Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and almost fall down during the coda.
When you step off the stage, your mother is dead.
They do not call you back for the part.
[No. Wrong. Start over. Start over.]
You take to dancing in the dark. Alone on a stage meant for an entire company, in front of empty seats meant for an audience.
You work through the plié, through the fouetté—the chaîné, the balancé, the cabrioles.
And again.
And again.
Until every motion is perfect. Until you can figure out how to turn back time.
Until your mother wakes in a dark grave in the soft soil and you can forever forget about death.
[No. Wrong. Start over. Start over.]
You were supposed to have this.
Ballet was your everything. You gave it all you had, sacrificed your entire life for it, deposited everything you were at the altar of its hunger for perfection.
You were supposed to have this.
You were going to be good. You were going to be a soloist, one day. You were going to be more than a Death Eater, more than a child soldier.
You were going to be beautiful.
[No. Wrong. Start over. Start over.]
She was supposed to be there.
She was supposed to find a way to be happy again, after the war, after the trials and your father’s death in Azkaban. She was supposed to come see the grand opening of your first ballet; she was going to wear her best dress. She was going to shine in her finest jewellery.
She was going to be so proud of you, and so happy. She was going to clap the loudest and hug you tight, and you were going to tell her that she made it all possible.
You were going to thank her for always being there with you.
[No. Wrong. Start over. Start over.]
So you dance.
Repeating the same motions thousands of times until your joints ache and your feet bleed, you dance.
In the dark and to music only you can hear, you dance.
Until your vision swims with effort and blurs with tears, you dance.
[No. Wrong. Start over. Start over.]
He first comes on a cold November night.
You don’t notice him at first.
Your eyes are closed in the vain prayer the motions of your body have become. The room is dark, and it is quiet, and you are entirely filled with the way you miss her.
You fall to your knees just before the coda.
[No. Wrong. Start over. Start over.]
“It was beautiful,” he says, softly, in the darkness.
[No.]
“I know what it’s like,” he continues. He has not moved from his seat, but you see him now, and he’s there with you. “Missing someone you’ll never see again. Trying to leave the entire world behind to dance duets with your pain.
You do not say anything.
“Let me be there, Draco. It’s all I ask. Let me show you how to stop being alone. Let me hold your hand for a while until you figure out how to move forward again. Let me be the friend I needed and never had when I was in your shoes.”
[ ]
You nod. Perhaps you cry. Perhaps he holds you. You’ve never really spoken, not like this, not beyond a smile in passing, not beyond small talk at boring parties. You’ve never really spoken, but he understands, and you’ve been stuck in a time loop of impossible grief, and you don’t know how to make it out of it alone.
You breathe. And breathe. And breathe. Desperately and with saltwater on your lips, like a drowning man. You can figure out how to be alive again, you think. You can figure out how to keep existing.
And, for the first time since your mother died, you do not find yourself wishing to start over.