Work Text:
My song will find you again
In the hollow beneath the earth
where sunlight dies before reaching the stone, I wandered.
These caverns were not unlike the ones of my youth,
cold immersed black waters,
perfumed with dust, mildew, and old sorrow.
To live six feet under the world of breathing things
felt fitting for a man already half-dead.
Above us remained life, gardens with dancing butterflies and
the wild flowers you once tucked behind your ear, sweet Hermione.
Above us, golden light still wandered freely,
yet no ray remained tangled in your curls,
and the touch of your fingers
no longer lingered upon my skin.
So every morning I descended.
Through the labyrinthine halls of the Ministry,
through archives haunted by whispers and ghosts,
I followed the path toward the Veil
as though grief itself were pulling me by the throat.
I searched for you in the shadows.
Heard the echoes of your voice, in the silence chased old ghosts.
And there, buried among forgotten relics I found it,
the ancient lyre of Orpheus,
its strings still humming with the memory of mourning.
Thus I began to sing.
I sang and played beside the Veil each day,
offering my sorrow like tribute to the dead.
I prayed the notes would find you wandering
through the hollow roads beneath the world.
That my melody might cradle your weary soul,
caress your cold cheeks,
trace the curve of your spirit
as my hands once traced your hips in the dark.
I sang so you would not walk eternity alone.
My lyrics carried every regret.
Every wasted hour.
Every cruel silence forged by pride and war.
How foolish we mortals are,
to believe there will always be more time.
Too long we stood upon opposite shores,
letting anger carve a chasm between us.
And only after ruin,
after blood and ash and the collapse of kingdoms,
did we finally reach for one another.
But time was flimsy, smiles too short.
Too late our bodies intertwined in hasty nights and stolen breaths.
How was I to know Death already waited at our threshold?
How was I to know the Fates, so greedy and laughing,
would grant me love only to snatch it away?
So I played, day after day,
my lyre became the bridge between worlds,
the vessel carrying my grief into the Underworld.
And from my broken heart poured tears like falling blossoms,
each note carrying the memory of your laughter,
your warmth beside me in the night,
the fragile joy I had barely begun to hold.
Until at last, my lonely lament reached down below,
where only the soul's wail had reached before, an old being was summoned,
drawn the almighty with my weeping notes.
Deeper still than my bottomless sorrows, beyond the rivers of the dead,
the Queen Below heard my mourning.
Persephone, her name hailed by Gods and Demons alike,
her tale of love as old as time known like the scriptures engraved in stone.
Drawn to my desperate symphony
as sailors are drawn toward the songs of sirens,
the Goddess of Spring and Graves
rose from the dark to stand before me.
And I, Draco Malfoy, proud fool that I had always been,
fell to my knees without hesitation.
For I had known fear before.
I had known monsters and masters,
war and torture and ruin.
Yet none had ever wounded me
as deeply as your absence had torn me.
So I bowed before the Queen of the Dead
and sang until my voice bled raw.
Then came the bargain.
A promise for a soul. A life for a price.
For there is always a price, my love.
Hermione Granger would walk again among the living,
but these eyes would not behold her face.
Oh, what joy possessed me then.
Gladly, blissfully, I would have surrendered far more.
What use had I for sight
in a world emptied of you?
Take the sun,
Take the light,
Take every dawn I might have seen.
Only give her back to me
She is my moon and stars, all I will ever need.
So the bargain was struck.
And you returned to me.
Oh, what joy. What unbearable joy.
Your feet once more graced the paths of the living.
Your laughter breathed warmth into silent rooms.
Your hands found mine in the darkness,
and though I could no longer see your face,
I traced it reverently with trembling fingers
as though learning a sacred prayer.
I no longer watched sunlight dance through your curls,
yet I felt your heartbeat beneath my cheek.
I no longer saw the color of the sky,
yet the world bloomed anew around me
simply because you breathed within it.
And every night I sang again.
Not songs of grief now,
but hymns of devotion.
My hands remembered the lyre by heart,
just as my soul remembered yours.
The strings carried praises into the heavens and down below,
songs of gratitude, songs of worship,
songs for the merciful Queen
who had returned my heart to my chest.
Years passed, the flowers I planted grew.
You decorated your beautiful hair with them and
placed them in our table to celebrate life and light and love.
And though darkness remained behind my eyes, I ceased mourning it.
I embraced it as I embraced you every morning and every night,
no light flicking before my eyes, but your body dancing around mine.
For your laughter filled our home.
Your hands guided mine through the gardens I had planted for you.
And when life stirred within your womb,
when I first felt the flutter of our child beneath my palm,
I thought no mortal man could possibly be blessed more greatly than I.
That alone would have been enough.
I swear it before gods and stars alike,
it would have been enough.
Yet fate, for once, proved kinder than cruel.
For when the hour came,
when our son entered this world red-faced and wailing,
another miracle unfolded beside him.
Light returned.
Slowly,
painfully,
gloriously.
And the very first thing my restored eyes beheld
was you, my dear Hermione.
Beautiful as memory had preserved you,
beautiful as every song had promised.
Tears flooded my vision as I traced your face once more,
not with trembling fingertips this time,
but with my gaze, greedy, reverent, awestruck.
Then I looked upon our child, tiny and furious and alive,
held against your breast like a blessing gifted by the heavens themselves.
And I understood.
The Queen Below had never promised blindness for eternity.
Only that I would never again look upon you.
But that day a new you was born, since no human can remain the same after such a feat,
and no bargain had been made for the child born of our love.
So mercy found me once more.
And now, beloved,
I walk beside you through the garden I planted for your delight,
our son sleeping softly against my chest.
Now I see sunlight tangled in your hair again.
I see laughter bright within your eyes.
I see the flowers bowing gently in the wind as you pass among them.
And still I sing.
For our song was never one of sorrow alone.
It became a song of devotion.
Of longing, of reunion.
Of the fragile, terrible beauty of mortal love.
And when at last our final winter comes,
when Death arrives once more to guide us beyond the veil,
I shall not curse it.
I shall only take your hand in mine,
and together we will walk into the dark singing.
For though a thousand lifetimes beside you would never suffice,
I know this truth as surely as the moon knows the tide,
Wherever your soul wanders, mine will follow.
Across kingdoms, across centuries.
Across death itself.
My song will find you again.
And again.
And again.