Disclaimer: All the characters – except one – belong to J. K. Rowling.
The song "Dance (while the music still goes on)" belongs to Abba.
Author's notes:
1) A big, big thank you to my American beta reader, Daughter of Olorin. If you are reading this, it's just thanks to her.
2) The Victoria Cross is the highest medal for military honor in England, usually posthumously awarded.
3) This fiction was written before the fifth book was published, so I had to made up the last years. No OOTP spoiler.
Gutta cavat lapidem
My name is Josephine Rowland and I'm a witch. A couple of years ago, I went to visit my grandmother and…well, I had a weird accident. My grandmother lived a few miles away from a small village called Hogsmeade. So, being not far away from there due to my work (I'm half French and I live and work in Marseille), I decided to pay a call on her. I've always hated traveling via Floo Powder, so I took the wheel of the Mini I had rented and left, spending almost all day traveling. Around 9 P.M., while I was driving in a lonely country road, I saw a boy walking in the headlights on the edge of the road a few meters ahead. I was driving very slowly because of the darkness. So when I passed by him I noticed he seemed young, too much to go around alone in that wild place. So I stopped and rolled the window down. Hey, do you need a lift? I asked him when he came near.
Yes, please he said, opening the car door and getting in.
Maybe we can be useful to each other I said I don't know these surroundings very well and I want to reach a village around here….
Are you going to Hogsmeade? he asked me.
Yes, how can you know that? I asked him puzzled.
This is the road to Hogsmeade and a Muggle could never run along it.
Oh, yeah, obviously I said, not totally persuaded. We started chatting and, while we did so, I studied him attentively. His short stature and small frame at first had made me mistaken him for a boy, but looking at him closely it was clear he was older, about sixteen years old. His skin was milky white and his hair was so blonde that they seemed made of moonlight, but it was the look he had in his gray blue-veined eyes, like two pools of liquid mercury, that caught my attention.
We traveled for tree quarters of hour or so, until suddenly my fellow-traveler cut off our chatting: Here we are. I looked around: except for the part of the road lit by the headlights, all was wrapped up in the darkness. I could barely make out the dark shapes of the trees. Over there he said to me pointing an indefinite point. I sharpened my sight trying to see something, but there was nothing but a lawn barely enlightened by the moonlight. Are you… I started turning to him, but my voice died in my throat – he was gone. I pulled up short and got out of the car: I looked around, but didn't see anything. It was just like he had never existed.
Ten minutes later, I reached the village. Instead of going straight to my grandmother's, I stopped at The Three Broomsticks. I urgently needed something hot and strong. Rosaura, Madam Rosmerta's daughter, gave me a good glass of aromatic hydromel and I took advantage of it to ask her about the boy I met. I thought he was a student of the nearby school, Hogwarts.
Rosaura knitted her eyebrows, trying to concentrate. No, there's no student who can fit your description…I mean, there was one, but it was many years ago… she shook her head and went back behind the counter. I took a sip of the amber liquid I had in my glass and right in that moment an old man with snow-white hair and lively gray eyes, approached me.
Excuse me, miss, but I couldn't help overhearing what you were telling Rosaura….
Do you know that boy? I cut him off Do you know where I can find him?
The old man looked away: Yeah, I have known him…for many, many years. We went to school together, at Hogwarts.
I opened my eyes wide: But…but how…
How is it possible? My dear, unlike me, he can't grow old. Ghosts don't grow old. It took some moments before the true meaning of what he said could sink in. Listen to me… the old man said to me with a kind voice You don't have to worry about him.
He took two fingers at his hat-brim and moved to leave but I stopped him: Wait! The man looked at me curiously: You…you said you knew him… he nodded thoughtfully If you don't mind…would you…talk me about him? Who was he? What happened to him?.
The old man looked at me surprised: Are you really interested in this old story?. I nodded decidedly. He shook his shoulders: As you wish. He sat down at my table and ordered a glass of Butterbeer. His name… he started …was Draco. Draco Malfoy.
Malfoy…Wasn't he…?
Yea In his eyes appeared a mournful shadow He was Lucius Malfoy's son. And that, my dear, was his course…. The old man started to narrate. What follows now is more or less the story he told me.