Chapter Text
Why One Attends Chapel at Midnight
by Materia Indigo
Harry had chosen to attend St. Aurelius College because it was religious, somber, and as far from England as he could get without having to learn a new language. It offered a liberal education of high-minded balance, if tipped slightly on the side of scholasticism. Students were encouraged to seek a vocation in service of humanity, while gaining enough culture to hold a station above those thus served. But the biggest reason Harry had chosen St. Aurelius was that the other students mostly did not know who he was and, by virtue of their upbringing, were disinclined to care.
The campus had been built from the region's own native limestone, by its most highly esteemed architects and their northern European cohorts. There was no want of spires, mullioned windows, clerestories and heavy stone galleries with thick medieval columns. The campus grounds were everywhere adorned with bronze statuary of nudes, which were in no way considered incongruous with the overall monastic feel, since the poor nudes had to suffer the mortification of six-month-long winters. One felt the pangs of mortal empathy just looking at them.
Which brings us to the most serious drawback; St. Aurelius, in all its glory as one of the better private wizarding colleges in America, had dreadful weather. At the end of October the temperatures dropped to a bone chilling degree, then continued downward and downward until exposed skin became a safety concern. To make matters worse, the campus was settled on the edge of the northern prairie where there was nothing to check the wind. Sans mercy, it swept through by day and howled all night, battering the windows of each austere room in the residence halls. Even the ghosts took a chill on the worst nights.
In this place Harry felt a deep calm, as if nothing from the war could touch him here. And that was more or less true. St. Aurelius was not so much an ivory tower as a lower level of Heaven, where the denizens would rather pray for him than gossip about him. Regardless of the confused and undecided state of his beliefs, he could only smile contentedly at their gentle remonstrances of his secular habits and attitudes.
"God, I'm starved!" he blurted, sitting down to supper in the refectory. "This bread looks great ... er, I'm sorry!" He shut his mouth. He was always forgetting to wait out the customary moment of prayerful silence before digging into his food and starting up the table conversation. The bowed heads around him did not acknowledge the misstep.
Luna, sitting to his left, patted his hand. Harry was still unsure why she had chosen St. Aurelius. He would have thought it a bit doctrinal for her taste. But then, she was always surprising him.
Malfoy, on the other hand ... Harry was pretty sure he understood why his old enemy had come here. It was the only place Malfoy would not be treated with open scorn and rejection. However egregious his past sins may have been, the students of St. Aurelius did not mind a whit, as long as those sins stayed in the past, and as long as Malfoy presented remorse. In their eyes, six bad years at Hogwart's meant nothing in the blinding light of eternity. Malfoy was a soul, precious to the Redeemer, and they would hold him in the warmth of their compassion to the best of their humility.
There was another reason. Malfoy hadn't come through the war trials unscathed. Although he had escaped incarceration at Azkaban, he still had to endure a sentence. The Ministry, in its mercy and wisdom, had placed Draco Malfoy under a punitive silencing spell so that he could spend the next few years in quiet contemplation of his life.
Malfoy could not speak. He could not communicate, except on paper or in gestures. And if one had to completely refrain from talking, there was no more hospitable environment than within the stone walls of St. Aurelius. The other students were understanding above and beyond the call of Christian duty to understand.
Harry gazed across the tables at his once-nemesis, and wondered how Malfoy could stomach being surrounded by so many kindly pious hearts. (Slytherin House would find no purchase in this community!) But strangely, Malfoy seemed to fit in. He sat with the others, bowed his head when they did, picked up his spoon when they did, took no more food than the golden enough, and appeared to respectfully attend their joys, sorrows and opinions.
"I think he likes it here," said Luna.
"Excuse me?"
"I can tell when you're watching Draco. You shouldn't worry so much about him, Harry."
"Who says I worry about Malfoy?"
Luna smiled. "Well, don't. Draco is finding his own healing."
Harry determined to pay more attention to his supper for the rest of the hour. He swore he could, however, feel every instant when Malfoy looked across the room at him.
***
That evening found Harry on the uppermost floor of the college library, surrounded by dusty books, working on his Hermetic Philosophy paper. It was a class he shared with Malfoy, but of course they never talked. They didn't even pass notes. Malfoy always arrived and left alone, or else accompanied by one or two natives with blond hair, blue eyes, and a pervasive aspect of watchful patience that, Harry supposed, came of generations of surviving harsh climates where they had little to live on but barley, raw milk and Bible verses.
He hadn't kept track of the time, so he was caught off guard when the lamps and wall sconces suddenly dimmed. His watch said midnight, which meant the library was closing, so he gathered his books and notes and winter gear and headed downstairs to the exit.
His coat was long and made of padded sheepskin trimmed with ridiculous red tassels; so were his boots and mitts. Outside the snow was piling up against the side of the building in eight-foot drifts. With the constant wind, it always looked like it was snowing even when it was not.
Harry had to give the outer front door a good shove to get it open, only to find himself knee-deep in hard powder. That was when he realized he'd forgotten his scarf -- the one Molly Weasley had made for him, that could wrap itself three times around his head and neck. The inner door was locked now, so he couldn't retrieve it. And it would be a long hike back to the dorm.
The cold bit into his neck like a vampire.
"Oh, bloody hell," he muttered, marching forward, trying to cover his face and ears with his hands.
By the time he was half-way across campus, he felt like the protagonist in his own Jack London story. He couldn't feel his face, and his ears were sure to fall off on the morrow from frostbite. Ice crystals had even encrusted his eyelashes.
In the blur of blowing snow, he saw the chapel dead ahead. It was always open; and even if everything else was pitch dark, there was always a candle burning in the lamp that hung over the altar.
He raced to the front door and tucked himself inside as if fleeing a nest of icy hornets. There he hunkered down in his coat, balled his hands up inside their mitts and shivered for several minutes. The limestone font in the narthex gurgled peacefully.
After a while he felt sufficiently calm to step into the sanctuary. He would just sit in one of the pews for a while until he felt warm (and brave) enough to continue his journey. There was comfort in the darkness, where the only light was one small candle up at the front. No one would see him. Oh, how he had often longed, in the past, to be hidden from the eyes of others.
At some point Harry dozed, only to awaken to the fact that he was no longer alone in the sanctuary. He wiped the condensation off his glasses for a better look, and was stunned to see none other than Malfoy up by the altar.
Harry wondered, what was he doing here?
Malfoy was taking slow, cautious steps inward, glancing about as if to make sure he hadn't been followed. He scanned the pews.
Harry stayed low and still.
Apparently satisfied that he was indeed alone, Malfoy came to a standstill and straightened his posture. Then he did something Harry wouldn't of believed possible in a million years.
Draco Malfoy began to sing.
This young wizard, whose mouth had never uttered anything that wasn't foul or calculating, now unable to speak a single word, was singing with the purity of an unstained soul, the sweetness of Luna's countenance, and the virtuosity of a wunderkind brought up in music from birth.
How did he do it? Where had he learned it? Harry could only stare and listen until tears fell down his cheeks. He had to remove his glasses and wipe them. He was not certain of the tune; it was something vaguely recognizable, probably familiar to this building, but in French, which was not a language commonly heard at St. Aurelius. One was more likely to hear German, Latin or something Scandinavian.
Malfoy was singing in French as if the notes could carry him beyond the clouds. And Harry found himself drifting further and further into the kind of trance only music can induce. He wasn't even aware when the singing finally ended; to him it continued, just like the candle flame.
The trance was broken when Malfoy, now bundled against the weather and walking up the aisle toward the exit, saw him and froze. They stared silently at each other, Malfoy's face stiff with shock ... then betrayal and embarrassment. His cheeks flushed.
Without a word, Malfoy fled.
End of Chapter One