Disclaimer: Anything you recognize isn't mine.
A/N: Written for the "Two Roads Meet" Challenge at the HPFC Forum.
Cowards
The air was heavy and humid, and sweat dripped down the back of his neck as he walked down Diagon Alley, maneuvering around the crowds in a slightly nervous way that was odd for a man his size. Had he wanted to, his hulking figure could have cut through the loud, raucous knots of people easily. However, there was something about the way he slumped, slightly, the way he held his head, that suggested he'd have liked to be smaller and less noticeable.
He did not appear to be entirely successful – a few eyes in the crowd lit up when they saw him, as though they were reminded of some past, rather unpleasant memory. If the big man remembered them, the only sign he gave of it was to look down and walk slightly faster.
He made it into a shop with the words, Twilfitt and Tatting's, over it, written in a loopy, almost-uppity script that, though it suited the silk robes and high prices advertised in the front window, seemed a highly unlikely destination for a man who sought to look so inconspicuous. It was doubtful they had a size to stock him, in any case.
Appearing a little lost in all of the bustle, he began to leave through the robes on the nearest hangers, seeming unsure is any of them were what he was looking for.
"Are these for witches or wizards?" he asked the harassed-looking sale clerk standing over by the counter, but she was too preoccupied her other customers – a couple in their late thirties and their son, who was evidently in need of some new school robes – to hear him. The father of the boy, however, looked up in surprise.
He was a smaller sort of man, rather weak-looking, with a pale, pointed chin, his blond hair receding slightly, not so different from the boy he had been, some twenty years before. However, it was the absence of his old confidence, the sense of entitlement that he had always carried, then, that made him unrecognizable.
"Goyle?" the blond man said, after a long, minute, as if surprised that he was the one recognizing the other, instead of the other way around. Even his voice had rather lost its drawl.
The big man frowned for a moment before it clicked. "Malfoy?"
The blond man nodded, his initial surprise worn off, now looking rather awkward, as though he wished he had not started the conversation.
Goyle, looking slightly discomforted himself, took a few lumbering steps toward his old housemate. They shook hands, and looked quickly down at the floor, each trying to think of something to say, but neither knowing what. The sight of one another, after so many years, brought sours tastes to the mouths of both, a dim feeling of discomfort, shadowy memories they'd hidden away for so long, but were anxious about now, afraid the other would want to bring them out and reexamine them.
At last, the big man nodded at the blond boy and his mother, who were now following the clerk into the back room. "That your son?"
Malfoy watched as his son's white-blond head turned the corner, the tension temporarily broken by this rather useless comment. "Yeah, that's Scorpius."
"Starting at Hogwarts?"
"Nah," Mafloy said, fiddling slightly with the silver watch on his wrist. "Second year."
There was a short silence between them, and though it was clear that both would have preferred to end the conversation, they stayed resolutely in their positions, perhaps thinking it would imply that they were weak, unmanly, if they did not.
"You don't have kids, do you?"
Goyle smiled, looking almost pleased with himself, not missing the implication in Malfoy's words. "I do, actually. She's four."
"Really?" Mafloy said, and then backtracked, looking rather embarrassed, which seemed to surprise Goyle. "What's her name?"
"Sara," he said. "After her mum's mum. Old Mrs. Selwyn, you know?"
"Yeah," Malfoy said. "I remember that now. Her daughter was Allison, or something?"
"Anne. It's her birthday tomorrow. That's why I'm here."
"Oh."
It was meaningless, this conversation, and they both knew it - more than that, they preferred it.
Malfoy cleared his throat. "She was a couple years older than us, yeah?"
Goyle nodded. "Slytherin."
"My wife too… Slytherin, I mean. She was younger than us, though."
"Oh, yeah. The other Greengrass girl, right? I remember seeing the pictures of your wedding on the cover of some tabloid."
"We were going to invite… well, we just… wanted to keep it small…" he trailed off, looking embarrassed once again.
"Doesn't matter," Goyle said, and really, it didn't.
Malfoy gave a shrug.
The silence hung heavily in the air between them, as both stared at their feet, unsure of what to say, trying to hold back the fog of memories that each was plagued with, that each had dedicated their lives to forgetting...
Scorpius and Astoria were finished now, coming out of the backroom, Astoria holding a set of new robes.
"Draco!" she called. "We're ready..."
But Malfoy wasn't paying attention to his wife, and instead had turned back to Goyle with a strained, resolute expression on his face. "Do you ever think about - "
Goyle spoke in the same moment. "Do you ever miss - "
" - Crabbe." They said his name together, and made real eye contact for the first time, both glancing away, embarrassed, after a fraction of a second.
Malfoy sighed. "I try not to think about any of it too much."
"I'm just glad it wasn't me," Goyle said, in a whisper that sounded odd coming from such a big man.
Malfoy nodded and turned away, back to his son, his wife, his family, and both gave a sigh, relieved that the conversation, the façade, was over, relieved that each wasn't the only one who was relieved, who didn't really care.
Astoria looked at Goyle curiously, and opened her mouth as if to speak, then, seeing her husband's expression, closed it.
"Come on," Malfoy said. "Let's go."
"Who's that, Dad?" he heard Scorpius ask his father as they left the shop.
"Just…" Malfoy seemed not to know how to answer, and Goyle understood. What were they, really? What had they ever been - cronies, associates, accomplices? "Just somebody I knew, once."
They part in relief, to forget.