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He sits beneath a willow tree, watching the May sun slowly make its way down to the horizon. His magic roils inside of him, like an ocean during a thunderstorm. It takes all of his effort to stop himself from lashing out with it; he wants the tree to burn, for the ground around him to burst into flames, for the Manor to explode into a million little pieces, along with him.
He sits and rages at the world, at himself, at his parents, at the war. At everything that prevented him from living a normal life. And now he’s the only one left to pick up the shattered pieces of his life, pieces that other people broke without his consent, and who are no longer around to take responsibility for their actions. Their actions. Not his. He would have never chosen this if he had the choice. And he didn’t, of course he didn’t have a choice, how could he have? He was a child.
“Draco!”
He grits his teeth, and, tightening the leash on his magic, turns his head to watch Pansy make her way across the garden, looking pale and out of place among the few anemones and begonias that managed to survive the Dark Lord’s presence; they swish serenely when she passes by them.
“Draco! How long have you been sitting out here? You should come back inside.” Her voice is gentle, almost hesitant, as if she’s afraid of what he’ll do, afraid of him. A wave surges up in him. She should be afraid.
He regards her for a bit longer, noting the thinness of her arms, the nearly skeletal look of her face, skin stretched tight across her cheeks, and looks away purposefully. Looks like he’s not the only one struggling after the war. A scoff works its way out of his throat at the thought. At least she’s free.
“Draco, please. Talk to me,” Pansy says softly, coming up next to him and placing a hand on his shoulder.
That was all it took. That one moment of physical contact. Draco erupts.
“TALK to you!? What do you want to TALK about, Pansy!?” He shrieks, whirling around. His magic bursts out of him then, quick as a whip, all flame and sparks, igniting a circle of fire around them, as the willow above them groans and shudders with the intensity of it. Pansy lets out a squeak of panic, fear flitting across her face.
Teeth bared, he advances on her through the rapidly rising smoke.
“Talk about what, Pansy dear? You want to talk about how my father led us straight into the clutches of a lunatic? Or what about how my mother blindly followed him into the Dark Lord’s claws? How about the fact that that decision killed them both? No, maybe you want to talk about how I was dragged into that mess unwillingly, without a single choice! Or that I’m now a prisoner, here, unable to leave the hell I’ve suffered in for for years! Which one would you like to talk about!” He’s screaming in her face now, mere centimeters away, tears welling up in his eyes without his permission, tears he wipes away angrily.
Pansy stands there, wide-eyed, her own tears filling her eyes as she gazes at him with pity, concern, and something else he can’t identify. Without a word, she spins on her heel and flees, straight through his circle of conjured fire without so much as a flinch. Dropping his shoulders, Draco watches her run up to the Manor, the balcony door slamming shut behind her with a bang.
A cool wind washes past him, and with it, a willow branch brushes his arm, offering its solace with a gentle caress. His fire slowly dies around him, fading away with a soft sigh that gets swept up by the breeze. Draco inhales the scent of smoke and grass, and sits back down at the base of the tree, on a small patch of grass that somehow remained untouched by his flames. He leans back against the bark of the willow, comforting in its roughness, and closes his eyes, feeling the last sun rays on his face, warming him and the fire still lit inside him. He sits beneath the willow tree as the May sun slowly sets, angry at the world.
~~~
Pansy comes back a few more times, but after a few more explosions from Draco, she stops coming by. Blaise tries once or twice as well, backed by an unblinking Goyle, and delivers an impressive speech about accepting his fate–it’s only for a few years–and his involvement in the war–goddamnit, Draco, you almost killed three people!–or some other nonsense. Draco meets all his fancy words with the same flames that scared Pansy away, and it doesn’t take long for Blaise to take the hint either.
Draco’s finally alone with his anger, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Well, not alone; the willow tree stands in solitude with him, never asking him to speak, never demanding anything of him. His silent companion through his rage.
~~~
The willow tree starts dropping its seeds in July, a soft white fluff that sticks to the grass and Draco’s clothes, not stirring even when the wind picks up, trying to carry it away into the world. But he doesn’t mind. He sits beneath the willow tree and simmers.
He thinks of his father a lot. How Lucius dragged the Malfoy name through the mud, how he stooped so low as to lick the Dark Lord’s boots, how he forced his only son–his heir!– to do the same. He wouldn’t have done the same, Draco thinks. He would have made better decisions, it’s only because of Lucius that he didn’t. It was all Father’s fault; if he hadn’t been so stupid and spineless, Draco wouldn’t have ended up on the wrong side of the war and stuck in this Merlin-forsaken house for years on end.
Yes, Draco nods to himself as his fingers play with the fluff collecting at his feet. It’s all Lucius’ fault, it’s that clear.
He doesn’t think of his mother that summer at all.
~~~
Autumn creeps up on Malfoy Manor slowly but steadily, as does Draco’s melancholy. As the nights grow longer, Draco’s anger grows smaller and smaller. With no visitors for over three months–at least he thinks it’s been three months, the days are starting to blur together–the silence has started to become oppressive; whereas at the start, it was a welcome change to the filthy hatred from the public and pitying concern from his friends, now, it’s less of a balm and more of a suffocating blanket. Many nights he wakes up gasping for breath, as if a phantom hand pressed down on his neck. He roams the grounds more, but always comes back to his friend, the willow tree.
It too has started to change, shedding its leaves, bare branches peeking through more and more, its skeletal fingers ever reaching towards the sky. Despite its macabre appearance, its comfort doesn’t wane, and Draco continues to sit beneath its naked crown.
On the day the willow tree sheds its last leaf, Draco thinks of his mother for the first time since her death. It’s difficult for him to comprehend why he hasn’t before. After all, out of his parents, she was the one he was closest to. Draco idolized his father, but it was his mother that he truly loved. Maybe that’s why it stung more when she did nothing to shield him from Lucius and the mess he dragged them into. He sighs, turning that thought over in his head.
No, she tried. Narcissa tried her best, but what could she have done? In the face of the Dark Lord’s immense evil and his father’s willingness to grovel at the feet of power, what could a Death Eater’s wife have achieved? Draco smiles a bitter smile. Nothing. There was nothing she could have done; but she tried. Oh, she did her best to protect him, but her best wasn’t enough.
A tear rolls down his cheek and he wipes it away, surprised. Why is he crying? Another tear. He wipes that one away too. What is he crying for?
He thinks of Narcissa’s fair hair, the way the sunlight turned it almost gold at the perfect angle. He thinks of her pale blue eyes, the way they sparkled whenever she looked at him, so full of pride and love. He thinks of his mother’s warm embrace, the way she’d clutch him to her, as if he was the most precious thing in the world, and he crumbles; it’s as if a dam breaks, one that’s been slowly cracking over the past months, and years worth of tears flood out of him.
Curling in on himself, forehead pressed against his knees, Draco weeps for his mother, the only person in the world who tried to keep him safe, only to fail, through no fault of her own. His sobs come out choked, stifled, as if still a part of him wants to keep the dam intact, but he pushes through, letting it all out until his cries are clean and the hurts washes out of him.
He doesn’t know how long he mourns his mother. It could have been minutes or days, so lost in this grief he was. When the tears dry up and his throat closes up, he lifts his head to be greeted by the soft sway of the willow’s limbs, fingers reaching towards him in the breeze as if to console him. A tired smile flickers across his face, and he leans back against the bark, closing his eyes and almost feels the concern the willow tree has towards him.
He places a hand on the trunk and projects his feelings, his sadness and now, his catharsis surrounding his mother, willing the tree to understand. Though he doesn’t get a direct answer back, he knows the willow got his message, and for once, goes to bed with a smile on his face.
~~~
Draco finds it a bit difficult to spend all his time under the willow tree during winter, on account of all the snow and stuff, but he manages. A well placed warming charm serves him well, as long as he remembers to re-cast it often enough; he spends the first few days dealing with early stages of frostbite on various fingers and toes, and he’s eager to not have to repeat that all through the season.
The willow tree is utterly frozen, not moving even in the wind, but Draco isn’t worried. Something in him just knows it’ll awaken come spring.
The freezing sharpness of the air seems to clear his head like never before; as he sits and watches the starlings perform their ballet in the sky, he comes to the conclusion that even Lucius is not to blame, at least not fully, for the way Draco’s life ended up. Sure, had it not been for his father’s cowardice, his own cowardice wouldn’t have seen the light of day–at least he hopes–but Draco’s hands aren’t clean either.
He thinks back to sixth year, to that cursed year where it all went wrong in a way he couldn’t fix. He remembers sleepless nights, feeling terrified all the time, scared of every shadow and corner. He remembers thinking with absolute certainty that if he doesn’t complete the task set to him by the Dark Lord, his mother will die.
But he also remembers the blood-chilling screams of Katie, the horror-stricken face of Granger as the Golden Trio rushed the Weasel to Madam Pomfrey, the kindness in Dumbledore’s face seconds before Snape’s spell struck true. He caused all those things. He did that. Even with the excuse of the Dark Lord, he did that. The thought causes his heart to drop into his stomach and suddenly, he can’t breathe. He gasps for air, hands coming up to clutch at his throat, the realization sinking in like an anchor dropping into the ocean. He’s the villain. He is at fault. Not just Lucius. Him.
As the sun sets on New Years Eve and the clock strikes midnight, welcoming 1999, Draco sits and mourns himself: the boy he once was, the mistakes he made thinking they were redeemable, and the man he grew up into.
~~~
The willow tree thaws alongside the snow, the first fluffy buds making their appearance.
At first, Draco doesn’t perceive anything different; its branches move in the wind like they did back last summer, it still exudes the same feeling of comfort, but slowly, he starts noticing odd things. Like the way it curls towards him when he sits down, the entire crown bending down further to shelter him. The way it opens up on warmer days, letting the sun shine through its baby leaves, leaving dappled shadows across the grass. The way it hugs him tighter on the days where he can hardly drag himself out of bed, his past eating him up from the inside out.
On the first day of spring, it speaks. Draco’s sitting in his usual spot with a book in his hands, a rarity for him. The grief no longer consumes him so, the melancholy a steady but not overwhelming presence inside his mind; he finds that he can take pleasure in things again, and has begun reading again, slowly making his way through his childhood favorites, rediscovering himself. He now finds it easier to sleep through the night, the guilt no longer dragging him down but propelling him forward towards tomorrow.
He’s hardly half way through Beedle the Bard when he hears it: a faint whisper at the edge of his consciousness. Draco pauses mid sentence, hands hovering in the air. He turns but sees no one. Unnerved, he goes back to his book, only to get interrupted again a paragraph later. This time, he makes out a word. You.
He frowns. He can’t make out where the presence is coming from; it feels like it’s all around him, and yet, it feels benevolent, friendly, comforting. Comforting?
His eyes widen and slowly, he turns to come face to face with the willow tree. All of a sudden, the crown moves, engulfing him in its web of branches, blocking out the sun completely. He hears it clearly then, a soft, scratchy voice singing through the darkness. I forgive you.
The branches clear just enough for the sun to shine through again, a promise of the future, and Draco laughs his first laugh in years.
