Cloudy
A.N. This story is written for, and dedicated to, one of my dearest friends. Go look her up on , yamimoukin, she does some amazing things with the Harry Potter fandom. This story is finished, I'm just going through and tweaking the rest of it, and I'll be posting it bit by bit until May 26, which is yamimoukin's birthday.
This is my first actual foray into the world of Harry Potter fiction, so be gentle with me okay?
Standard disclaimer applies. Please enjoy.
1. Cirrus incinus
Harry kept them all tacked to his wall in a single file line. He couldn't handle staring at the moving, whirling pictures he grew up with; but it had been a simple matter to take those enchantments off the photos so they stared at him, frozen in one position forever.
There was Sirius (first dead), and Professor Dumbledore (next dead), Neville (dead), and Luna (dead). Hermione and Ron (dead and dead), Fred (dead) and George (presumed dead), Seamus (dead), the Creevey brothers (dead dead), Hagrid, (dying), and set far away from the others almost out of sight was Ginny (dead dead dead they were all dead and not moving because they couldn't anymore because they were dead). The very thought left a bitter taste inside him.
It had been hard, borderline impossible, to do more than keep on breathing. And what for, the thought had crossed his mind, if everything I held dear has been snatched so cruelly away from me?
But it was Mrs. Weasley, of all people, that pulled him around. She visited him, weekly-daily-hourly it didn't matter, she was there constantly it seemed. Bringing him soups and stews and other warm things to try and force life back into his bones. She had lost half of her family, of her children she had birthed and brought into the world and raised only to watch them die in the endless power struggle.
I wish, he thought darkly one afternoon as the rain beat a steady tempo outside the hospital window, that I had never gotten the letter. I wish the Dursleys could have protected me from this world better. Because while his childhood had been hard, and lonely it had at least never known the love he had let slip through his fingers. Dead, dead they're all dead.
And I am alone.
It never stopped being hard, he realized, to move on past all the others. Some days it would hit him suddenly, brought as a whisper on the wind they're gone. And it was all he could do not to curl up into a corner and sob into himself.
He learned though, like all other things he had ever stumbled upon in life, that it became more tolerable- never better- but manageable to get up in the morning.
So he did the only thing he could; to hold on to those precious shards of sanity. He cleared his Gringott's vault, transferring all the wizards coins into common muggle money. And he returned to the world in which he had never felt comfortable in before.
Because this time, it was too damn hard to be The Boy Who Lived.
Molly, as she now insisted upon being called, still kept in touch. Letters sent through muggle post, phones made on muggle land lines. No more floo-powder, no more owls, no more chasing biting gnomes out of the gardens. His poor aching heart couldn't take it anymore.
Even she had a life to return to though, and while the letters still came they were much more sparingly. One more touch of love slowly dying through his own inability to reach out.
He still had his wand, tucked away safely in his sock drawer; some habits he realized bitterly, were too damn hard to break. And if the stick wasn't close by at all times he felt strangely vulnerable.
Harry kept busy with two part time jobs, it was the best he could do; working in a book store (and every day he thought of soft brown eyes and wide smiles and a know-it-all voice) and as a veterinarian's assistant (rock cakes and hippogriffs and dragons kept in pockets). He was some kind of masochist, he knew it, but it was better than nothing, and better than the everything he would have back there. Where there would still be no-one to enjoy it with him.
He felt it, slowly but surely; the undeniable truth that he was forgetting where he came from. What he had been, who he had been. Slowly the memories faded; train rides and robes and broomsticks high in the air and the feeling of cauldrons and ghosts. He tried, only once, to cast a spell with his wand.
"Lumos," he had muttered, standing in his boxers in the middle of his darkened bedroom. The wand spluttered, flickering a faint light against the wall, and then died out.
He had forgotten magic. And with that gone, the surety of what had happened followed in a dark, trickling path.
Months, years, he wasn't quite sure which anymore, had passed by uneventful. He was nobody special here, just Mr. H. Potter; man behind the check-out counter, the kind faced individual holding a child's squirming puppy who was getting its first set of shots
.
And then, magic happened again.
A pile of books had been set on the counter, someone's blond hair just barely visible over the sizable stack. Amused, Harry scanned them at a steady pace. "Bit of bad weather out there eh?" he said conversationally.
The person grunted in response, the head dipping down and the unmistakable shuffle of coins could be heard.
"Right then, your total comes to…" Harry found himself trailing off, his grip on one of the books becoming slack as he met a pair of wide set grey eyes. "Malfoy?" he asked, voice raising several octaves; earning him a few unappreciated glares.
Malfoy took a step away from the counter, holding his arms- palm out- up. "I don't have a wand," he said in a strangely flat voice, "and I'll come quietly."
Harry couldn't help the amused grin that found its way onto his face. "What are you on about?"
"You're an auror aren't you?" asked Malfoy, raising one pale eyebrow in confusion.
Harry snorted, a loud undignified noise, as he gestured around the store. "Does this look like a place an auror would set a trap? Don't be daft, I work here legit."
A long stretch of silence. "Oh." Malfoy slapped down a handful of bills before scooping his books into his arms and beating a hasty retreat to the door.
"Oi! Wait a second Malfoy!" Harry jumped over the counter, much to the chagrin of his manager who was now spluttering behind him.
Malfoy paused in the doorway, fixing Harry with a flat grey stare. No, Harry thought, silver- his eyes are silver like magic. The blond stared at him warily, edging slowly backwards until he knocked the door- just enough to cause the tiny bell overhead to chime softly.
Harry came to a skidding halt in front of him, grinning wildly. "I get off in two hours, go for coffee with me?"
Malfoy's face froze; somewhere between amused and disgusted. "You are certifiably insane" he hissed just before kicking the door open and exiting with one more muddled look over his shoulder.
Harry couldn't quite contain the bubble of laughter that escaped him. Draco Malfoy; while the memories were hardly pleasant ones he was glad to say he ran into him today. It helped assuage his fears that he wasn't completely crazy, yet.
The rest of Harry's afternoon passed by in a barely remembered blur as he let himself sink into perfectly safe recollections of quidditch matches and afternoons filled with misled stalkings.
Harry was still grinning foolishly when he left the bookstore that evening. He turned to offer a cheerful wave goodbye to his manager and came face to face with Malfoy.
The blond was standing moodily in the misty rain and giving Harry the most peculiar glare. "You try anything funny and I'll scream rape." He grumbled, before turning around and ambling off to the coffee house up the street.
In somewhat of a daze, Harry followed.
Several mugs of black coffee later and they were both still staring awkwardly over each other's shoulders. Well this is productive, Harry thought sardonically.
He coughed into his hand, straining for something to say. Anything would be nice at this point. But too many death threats and snide remarks laid between them to make this an easy excursion.
Still, Harry plows forward, "So, what are you doing now days?" He winces at the brassy cheerfulness of his voice.
Malfoy jumps a little in his seat, blinking at Harry with wide eyes. "Uh," it's the least eloquent response imaginable, and somehow it makes Harry smile to see Malfoy so human, "I've been...around." And he takes a great big nervous gulp of his coffee.
Silence envelopes them again. The chatter from nearby tables move in to fill the empty space and Harry realizes just how out of practice he is at interacting with others.
He puts forth another, failing effort, "How are Crabbe and Goyle?"
Grey eyes narrow in some unshared bitterness. "I wouldn't know, they were put in Azkaban some years ago."
More silence, that seemed all they were capable of this afternoon.
"You're the first person I've seen from back there," Malfoy murmured to his coffee. Then he's staring at Harry over his coffee, all silver eyes. "It felt like I was the last person in the world, the only one who knew."
Deep inside his heart, Harry knew exactly what he meant. With nothing but memories to guard yourself with, memories of things nobody else around you can even verify, it was a lonely existence.
It came as hardly a surprise when he smiled at the fair haired man. "Suppose now we can be last together eh?"
They exchanged phone numbers and addresses, written hastily on café napkins and passed awkwardly to each other with open ended invitations to "stop by whenever you're in the neighborhood." Malfoy tucked his in his back pocket and Harry folded his gently in his shirt pocket. They shared one last hesitant smile before leaving, separate ways.
Days and days later, when Harry was putting away a load of fresh laundry, he couldn't help but pull his wand back out of it's hiding place. He pointed it at a pillow, laying benignly on his bed, and gave it an experimental flick. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The pillow fluttered, and with another nudge of his wand it rose steadily into the air.
Harry found magic again.