A CAUTIONARY TALE
Warning: This story contains some brief spoilers re The Cursed Child.
This is important. This is what those of you who have loved and lost will know. Never give your heart. Oh, but sometimes…
No. Let us pause here a moment. If you would heed my advice, first I must warn you with cautionary tale that will serve you well in such matters…
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Hogwarts School of Magic
September 1991
"Dammit, Granger, must you and that furry creature on top of your head always get in the way?"
Hermione bit down hard on her lip. If she didn't, she'd have got into yet another war of words with Malfoy and she really didn't want to waste time in slanging matches when she'd only been at wizarding school for a few weeks and there were so many fascinating things to learn. It was baffling how nobody else seemed to share her thirst for knowledge. Even Ravenclaws didn't always have their noses in books, Ron and Harry kept pointing out.
She sighed. Ron and Harry were nice enough friends – well, okay, her only friends – but even they couldn't seem to grasp how wonderful it was to lose yourself in a book. Right now they, like everyone else in the class except Hermione, were fooling around and chatting while Professor Squiddlywinch had gone in search of Professor Snape for a memory retrieval potion after she'd accidentally ingested too much soothesay for her cough. Short-term memory loss was a side-effect of taking soothesay apparently but Hermione was probably the only one who knew that because Hermione was probably the only one who had read up on it. So Professor Squiddlywinch was gone and would probably be gone for some time. That was, if she remembered what she had gone for and remembered to come back. Which was why everybody was fooling around and chatting and the obnoxious Draco Malfoy was...well, being obnoxious.
She paused from reading about the theory of atomic particles of spell-binds to absently pat her head, baffled. Weird, though. Surely she'd have known if Crookshanks was actually sitting on her head? Loud guffaws echoed from behind her. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.
"My mistake," Malfoy drawled lazily. "It's your disgusting head of hair."
She swung round ready to give the three imbeciles a piece of her mind but at that moment Professor Squiddlywinch returned in a blur of flowing robes. "Hurry, class, we've wasted enough time already! Turn to Page..."
Infuriatingly, Malfoy merely raised an aristocratic eyebrow at Hermione and smirked. Oh, one day she would put the cocky prat in his place. One day she would.
Mudbloods. Should never be allowed to mix with witches and wizards. The Mudblood with the wild, frizzy hair and big teeth was the worst. The most infuriating know-all he had ever met and was ever likely to meet, Not that he'd met many mudbloods until he came to Hogwarts. It was shocking that the school allowed these creatures to taint the air with their ugly presence. Father was busy petitioning the Ministry of Magic about it but in the meantime he would play his part in getting rid of the rodents. Although it didn't help that purebloods like the great pretender Harry Potter – oh, purleeze! The Boy who Lived! More like the Boy who Flukily Dodged a Spell! - and Ron Weasley, thick as a troll and with the table manners of one too - oh, purleeze! What more did you expect from a blood-traitor family that bred like rabbits and lived in a filthy hovel? - cultivated friendships with them. Still, Draco would do what he could.
Satisfied that he had annoyed the Mudblood – her scarlet face was proof enough of that – he sat back and basked in Goyle and Crabbe's appreciative guffaws. She was staring at him so angrily with those mud-brown eyes that if someone had perfected a death spell stare he'd have been dead and buried, but Squiddlywinch's timely return prevented Granger from taking revenge. This was sooo much fun. He quirked an eyebrow and smirked. Oh, one day he would put the Mudblood in her place. One day he would.
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Malfoy Manor
December 1998
He didn't know what to think about blood status these days. In fact, he wasn't sure he wanted to think at all. It was seven months since The Battle of Hogwarts. Six months since the trial. Father had been spared Azkaban. Draco had been declared too young to face any charges. Mother had been commended in the Wizengamot's closing speech for her part in lying to Voldemort and thus bringing about his downfall. Life at the Manor, albeit subdued, was slowly returning to normal. Father was preparing him to take over the family business. Mother was back to organising charity events and soirées. The elves were busy decorating for Christmas.
But so many things had happened so rapidly, he still felt as if were in a non-stop broomstick race and couldn't stop for breath.
Scarface defeated The Dark Lord. The Weasel nearly died from drinking poisoned mead meant for Dumbledore. Dumbledore was dead anyway, killed by Snape, who turned out to be a spy for the Order. Draco couldn't decide whether the old fool being dead was a good thing or a bad thing, but mostly he thought it was a bad thing. Though if rumours were to be believed he was dying anyway and had asked Snape to kill him. To protect Draco. So... The Light offered their help. The Dark turned against him. Nothing was certain about the wizarding world any more.
Except Potter, Weasley and Granger being joined at the hip.
Nope. He really didn't want to think about those three blasted Gryffindors and their heroics. Except he was. Granger! How the hell did someone who wasn't even a half-blood let alone a pureblood get to be smart, brave and popular? Even help save his life?
It flew into the face of everything he knew when they flew down into the Fiendfyre Crabbe had started and perished in, risking their own lives to rescue him and Goyle. Though if he were honest he'd felt everything he knew began to crumble the moment He Who Must Not be Named tasked him with...murder. That was when being a Death Eater stopped being fun and games like taking the piss out of Granger and became real. What the hell happened? Had he really thought of killing someone? What if...what if he had?
He closed his eyes and shuddered. No, he didn't want to think but he just kept thinking. Muggleborns couldn't be inferior. They just couldn't. Astoria claimed they weren't and maybe she was right. Astoria. Astoria Greengrass. Tori. He opened his eyes and smiled at the photo on his desk where she was waving and blowing kisses. They had recently begun dating and she was definitely a much nicer thought.
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Malfoy Investments
August 2020
With a listless sigh, the new owner of Malfoy Investments since his father's retirement lifted his wand to rip to shreds an innocent blank parchment that had been lying on his desk minding its own business, and muttered a spell to transfer the snow-like flakes to the waste-paper bin that already contained the snow-like remains of several previous victims. Draco turned again to the Daily Prophet the elf had delivered and re-read the article about Granger and Weasley's mutually agreed divorce.
Granger was Minister of Magic. Never saw that coming a lifetime ago when they were icky-wicky eleven-year-olds just starting out at a school of magic. Might have seen it coming a decade or so back when the wizarding newspapers were full of stories about her "phenomenal achievements". Should have seen it coming when she slapped him over the Buckbeak incident. Hell, if she was that determined and passionate about things that bothered her, a future in Ministry politics was almost predestined. Not that he'd have even entertained the prospect back then, when they had just reached the pinnacle of their hatred, and he regarded her as a low-born upstart and she regarded him as an arrogant snob.
A lot had happened in the intervening years. He had grown older. Wiser. No longer believed muggleborns to be a lesser species. Became a husband. Then a father. And then a widower. Burned with shame when he recollected how he had once treated Granger and glowed with pride that he and Astoria had brought up their son to be a much kinder and more tolerant Malfoy than he himself had been in his youth. He was even, ever since Scorpius and Albus had formed a tight friendship that survived time turners, alternative universes and the almost resurrection of Voldemort, on good terms with Granger, Potter and Weasley.
These days it wasn't the Battle of Hogwarts that haunted his dreams. Even dreamless sleep potion couldn't stop him from re-living how he had broken-heartedly watched Tori slip away, the many, many potions, some of his own creation, that were tried and failed, the spells that in the last few weeks could no longer relieve her pain, sitting beside her bed when her hand fell from his grasp. Knowing nothing more could be done.
And in the nightmares he could have saved her but mixed up the potion that would have cured her or spilt the precious potion or didn't finish brewing the potion in time...None of this had happened in reality. Granger and he researched it extensively but there was no known antidote for the curse that had lain dormant in the Greengrass family until it afflicted Astoria. But still by night he often woke with tears trickling down his face and begging his wife's forgiveness.
But never by day, not even today, one year today, the worst day of all, the day that broke his heart. Morning shone too bright to keep any secrets. Night had the darkness for hiding tears. So he drew a deep breath and folded the wizarding newspaper away; accio'd some important documents he needed to study and sign, and buried himself in his work. A Malfoy still in guarding his emotions.
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The Wizarding World
August 2025
"It's okay to cry, Draco."
"Maybe I don't want to cry, Hermione."
"Yes, you do and you should. Tears are Nature's healer."
He rolled his eyes. "And I am a St Mungo's Healer and I say I don't."
They may have progressed to first name terms – sometimes – but the person he'd pegged at barely eleven years old as the most infuriating know-all he was ever likely to meet was still the most infuriating know-all he had ever met. And, worse, she was always right.
It was six years since Astoria's passing and life had moved on. His parents were dead now too; Draco never having really been interested in the Malfoy family business, he had left it in the capable hands of trusted employees while he re-trained as a Healer; Scorpius was all grown up and travelling around the world with Rose and Albus, visiting dragon reserves and trying out foreign spells and meeting Merlin knew how many other broomstick-packers. But the anniversary of Tori's death never failed to hit him hard. Of course he wanted to cry. The trouble was, if he did he might break down and never stop crying. And the stubbornness in him refused to acknowledge the emotion.
"Don't split hairs, Malfoy."
"Why not, Granger? You've got enough hair for both of us. It always did get in the way, as I recall," he added smugly. Hermione's hair had tamed somewhat since her schooldays but, to her great annoyance, it still had a mind of its own no matter how many spells and magic gels, and, after many years of practice he knew exactly how to light her fuse.
But Hermione had had many years of practice too, in letting such jibes wash over her, and she didn't bat an eyelid as she used her wand to heat two mugs of tea, one of which she set down before her companion. "Lucky I have then. You've hardly any left."
"Touché," he smirked, although his thinning hair was as much as sore point as Hermione's thick locks. But his half-smile died as quickly as it came and he wrapped long, thin fingers around the comforting drink, and stared into its depths.
She carried her own drink to the table and sat opposite. Waited patiently for him to speak. Because he would, she knew he would, in his own time. And so he did. In brittle voice, so unlike his own.
"I should never have fallen so deeply in love. It hurts too much."
"Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
He swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded vague agreement. Could he really have always lived a life without Astoria? Without Scorpius? Never, never, never! No matter how much pain it brought now she was gone. "That's...that's profound. Whoever said it was a very wise wizard. Or witch." He amended quickly, conscious of Hermione's firm belief in witch equality.
"It was a muggle poet actually. Tennyson."
"Oh." Nothing surprised him about what muggles were capable of any more. Being brought up to see them as stupid and inferior, it should have done but it didn't. The War and Tori, but mainly Tori, changed his views on that. The War scared him and scarred him and terror made him think differently. But Astoria simply taught him to love when she came into his life and turned his world upside down. The memories would live forever. But the legacy was heavy. Since she'd been gone, there was an unbearable ache around his heart far worse than any physical pain and one that never could, and probably never will, be healed by magic.
Hermione stretched her arm across the table and laid her hand gently on his. And that, too, a muggle touching a pureblood, and Granger, whom he'd always despised, should have disgusted him. But it no longer did. Muggles were human. So were witches and wizards. So, too, was Draco.
"I...I miss her," he said uncertainly, looking up to meet kind chocolate brown eyes full of concern. And the lump in his throat, the memories that lived forever, the unbearable ache that never could, never would, be healed by magic, all came together then. The tears fell fast.
Hermione leapt up to take his shaking body in her arms and rock him against her.
"I'm sorry," he croaked. "I shouldn't..."
"You should. It's okay. She was your wife, Draco. I understand. You loved her. Of course you should cry."
And so he did. That quiet August evening, together where they belonged, while summer rain pattered against the windows and a summer breeze hushed the trees, he broke down and sobbed in Hermione's arms. So he did.
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My tale being all but done, I hope you have listened closely. Heed my words and you may yet spare yourself such pain. Note, my dear, I say may. If you choose to ignore my advice, I cannot protect you from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune no more than I can tell the fire not to burn. No more than, you understand, I could stop Draco and Hermione from being in love.
For this is important. This is what those of you who have loved and lost will know. Never give your heart. Oh, but sometimes...
Sometimes, and sometimes even when you are only eleven years old, your heart will be stolen.
END