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He wasn't looking for anything in particular when he found the poem. It was on a piece of paper that someone had ripped out of a magazine, probably Luna, the only tenant of Grimmauld Place without any reverence towards the printed word. The back featured the lower quarter of a beige advertisement for wristwatches.
The thin gloss text paper of the magazine sticks to the natural moisture of Draco’s fingertips, so light he doesn't even have to pinch it, just balance lightly on slender fingertips. “The Two Headed Calf”, read the title. “By Laura Gilpin.” The paper smells like bitter and chalk and flutters under his breath. Tomorrow, when the farm boys find-
Draco pauses. Blinks his mind's eye. The living room of the old Black house melts away, replaced by a vast, grassy field. In his daydreams, Draco can never replicate the smell of Wiltshire air, but he can always remember the way water tasted at home, sweetness straight from the stream out back, and water is enough. All-encompassing enough to sate the senses, bridge all the gaps and leave behind that solid impression of home . The only thing left of Grimmauld is the carpet under Draco's bare feet, and probably Draco, who hasn't been home in five years.
Tomorrow, when the farm boys find this
freak of nature,
Three dates into their relationship, in the kind of dramatic display of lavishness a younger Draco would have accused him of, Harry had taken Draco to America. A portkey dropped them off at Honeymoon Island Beach, Florida, where they spent an afternoon floating in the green, salty water, hands linked like otters. That was the first time Draco heard it.
" Freaks ."
Draco felt Harry flinch bodily. It could have been about anything, their joined hands, the pale half-moon scars on Harry's chest, Draco's left forearm. It maybe wasn't even directed at them. But the muttered word had done something, turned Harry rigid and diminutive where he was always broad, expansive, brimming with life.
Later, hands clasped between them under covers, lying like commas curved to each other, Harry told Draco about Uncle Vernon. About how the word was a weapon: a category of one, that had previously included Harry's now-dead parents, but had since their death been left only to him. Freak. About how it was like an enchanted robe that grew with age, an insult that fit each stage of Harry's life and everything about him, old or just discovered. Orphan. Magic. Boy. Savior.
"But you're so lovely," whispered Draco against his ear, nose brushing soft skin, like a secret. "I thought everyone knew."
Tomorrow, when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
Draco had always loved Wiltshire, loved the copse behind the Manor and the endless fields, chased the desire paths beaten into the ground by curious ancestors. Draco always thought it more alive than home, even before the War - grateful for the relief it offered from the stillness of the homes of only children.
Blaise, of all people, understood that. "We grew up old," he told Draco once, right before Draco's 16th birthday, lying by the stream on the Manor grounds, feet dipped in the water and ankles bumping reeds. "Old houses, old money, still in nappies shaking hands with people. And then we felt smart and good, because the adults were so impressed with us. And you try to be exemplary so much you don't notice you're all dusty on the inside." Draco remembers wondering if any of his other relatives had felt like this, always on the edge between compliance and a cliff. He remembers his thoughts flitting to Sirius Black, dead just months ago by his father's telling and his mother's tight expression. A cousin, who had stolen his name away from a dusty tapestry. Would he have said it was worth it?
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother.
Draco squeezed his eyes shut for a second, blinking something away. Even before he left home, he couldn't think about his mother too long for fear of crying. He'd been ashamed of it, his overflowing love for her even when there was no sign of it ever leaving him. Then one day he saw Luna crying in the kitchen, pale cheeks ruddy with salt. "It's so small!" she wailed, holding up a coffee spoon. "Sometimes," Luna began after she'd calmed, sat on the couch with their blonde heads touching. "Sometimes if I think about something too much it can't fit. It doesn't fit in my heart. Especially very small things, or something that's on its own but shouldn't be. Father says I'll grow into my heart one day, though." Draco held his cousin. It wasn't that he was afraid of his mother dying, or leaving him, not even in the dark times. It was that he could feel her, a string from his heart to hers, every bit of her being so familiar to him that he feared nothing was enough for her. The air knew less about how to surround her than he did. It was overwhelming to love someone like that because in the face of that love, the world didn't feel indifferent by not loving or knowing her, it felt hostile. Sometimes he had to squeeze everything in himself to steady that rippling, reaching string.
It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass.
A wind ruffled his hair like a kiss. The paper in his hand fluttered. When he was little, Draco was very sure he could control the weather with his thoughts, smiling at the sky until his cheeks hurt for good flying conditions.
And as he stares into the sky, there
are twice as many stars as usual.
He could feel the cold grass under his feet, tucked into his high arches. He turned his head up, hand dropping to his side still holding the little poem. It was so dark out here that the sky glowed . In places with old magic, the magic ate everything unnecessary. Even if there was light in the muggle towns below, it would would have never reached the sky. Draco wondered how likely it was that every person on Earth, as many as there were, would at one point find themselves completely alone, somewhere. It didn't seem possible. And still people were always alone in subway cars, in bookshops, on the street at night. Like world expanded intentionally to meet you on your own, just for a time. It would have been a comforting thought, before, when the Manor buzzed with evil, or when bodies and battle scattered across the Hogwarts grounds.
It would have been terrifying, when he first fell in love, and he learned for the first time the fear of being without something he got on his own. But he didn't feel like the universe and its heavy cloak were out to get him, anymore. It didn't feel higher, either. It felt like a stream, a big and constant flow of something that he could come to when he needed it. Fate wasn't for him, no matter how much they had shoved it at him before. It wasn't for anyone, it was just there, glittering your choices like mirrors in the sky until you took a step. And then another.
"Draco?" said a voice from above, from the corner of the sky.
"Draco," again, more insistent, rough and familiar. Draco felt the damp of his hand spread across the paper like oil on a baking tray. He felt the carpet under his feet. He blinked his eyes open, face still turned up towards the sky.
Harry stood at the top of the stairs, hair sleep-ruffled, skin pillow-creased.
"Draco, it's late. Come to bed, love."
**