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He’d been young—maybe four or five—when Draco had been gifted his first broom. It was possibly the happiest he’d ever seen his father look, when they spent that balmy afternoon in early June zipping around the garden together.
Even years later, when he’d earned a spot on his house team at school, he still didn’t know how to separate his feelings from the feelings of others. So when those three foul Gryffindors insisted that he’d bought his way in, he took the pain and made it personal.
They couldn’t understand—no, not even Potter—the freedom of taking to the skies, and leaving behind the wretched things threatening to pull him back down. Because when he landed again, there was his father’s approval, more luminous even than the snitch in Draco’s grasp.
But when he’d been sixteen, he found himself tasked with something he felt he could never run from. So he took it on. Spent days and nights hidden between the piles of rubbish left behind by long forgotten students. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever have the chance to take flight again, or if he was destined to meet his end there in that room, buried deep under the weight of all of his shortcomings.
Though nothing ever caught hold of him for long, he soon learned. Not the gloom of the Manor, still teeming with misery from the Dark Lord’s occupation. Not even his parents’ expectations, after the end of the war. No, Draco was determined to outpace all of it.
For a short while, he thought he’d found a new family with the Falmouth Falcons. He soared above his team, cutting sharp paths through stormy winds, securing the snitch, and landing amongst raucous applause from the crowd.
It hadn’t even taken a full year before his teammates stopped inviting him to nights out after training. Word had gotten around—a cousin of Katie Bell had whispered things in the captain’s ear. And suddenly, the atmosphere in the changing rooms turned chilly whenever he entered.
He’d requested a trade to a different team. Perhaps the Wimbourne Wasps might prove to be a better fit. Instead, Draco found himself in France, warming the bench as the reserve seeker for the Lions of Lyon.
At least the French players seemed glad to have his presence. They threw a party to celebrate his arrival, despite the dreary weather of January. Someone had made warm drinks, another had decorated the changing room with sparklers, and they’d all signed a card telling him how excited they were to meet him.
Here, he’d thought, here is where I’ll find my home.
It had been a blow to the team’s morale when Marguerite Montagne injured her shoulder the following summer, unable to finish out the season as the team’s seeker. Even Draco, who had been raring for an opportunity to play outside of training sessions, was devastated for her.
But of course, he did expect to play. So when he entered the changing room the following morning, he was surprised to find that they’d already been training a new seeker, leaving him on the bench once again.
He’d asked for an explanation, but the one he received hardly made sense. Something about how he never opened up enough to earn his teammates’ trust. But how much trust did he need to catch a snitch, he wondered.
It wasn’t much longer until he was transferred again. This time, everything was different. They didn’t understand him in Europe. No one could forget who he’d been. But perhaps the New York Thunderbirds wouldn’t have such a difficult time looking past it.
His reception had been lukewarm, but Draco decided that perhaps he preferred indifference. Training took on an almost mechanical rhythm. Shoulders back, head held high, fingers outstretched, always reaching. But at least he would be the starting seeker, the one to receive the glory and the praise once more.
On the first day he had to himself since arriving, Draco visited a few tourist destinations. The food, he thought, was alright. And the strangers on the street, he realized, were unkind. But when he saw—first from the corner of his eye, then in full view—the Statue of Liberty, shorter than he’d expected, Draco wept.
He wasn’t even sure why. Not at first. Until the tears wouldn’t stop, no matter how forcefully he wiped at them. Draco realized that he couldn’t shut out the image of Vincent Crabbe, being devoured by Fiendfyre. Vincent Crabbe, who he’d once considered one of his closest friends, who he hadn’t thought of in years.
But still, faced with this monument, as underwhelming as the reality of its stature was, Draco couldn’t escape the thought that Crabbe would never get to see it. And that he’d never get to see anything, not ever again.
No matter all of the time and distance he’d put between himself and his past, in the end, Draco still had to be confronted with himself. His past, his transgressions, his pain. He hadn’t been able to outrun them. And whatever he’d been searching for—the freedom he’d spent his whole life seeking—was still nowhere to be found.