Strange, the way the heart turns against its owner. It can fight and storm wildly, wringing pain from itself, hurting with misery and regret. And the logical mind is pushed aside, unable to soothe or placate the burning sadness.
Draco Malfoy liked to think of himself as a logical person. Cool, smooth and in control. He was out of control during the Battle and he hated that, the overwhelming feeling of helplessness, of being pathetically unable to change his fate. When the Battle was over he vowed to take control. Never again would he allow his heart to be overcome with despair and uselessness.
When he graduated from Hogwarts he worked hard to put the whole sorry business behind him. His name was cleared, his inheritance given to him, his future cut and dried. The wizarding world hated him and it was generally agreed he must go into the Muggle world to make his fortune. His parents picked out a suitable Muggle girl, as much as it pained them to choose a Muggle at all. But no witch would have Draco Malfoy. He was tainted.
She was called Sarah. A very plain, straightforward name, he thought. She was pretty enough in her own way. Had a nice smile, nice manners, came from an established, rich family. She was old money and perfect. Likable enough in her own bland way. Draco tried to get used to the Muggle ways. He told Sarah nothing of his background.
He remembered proposing to her after just a year. She accepted with the usual gushing declarations of love. Her parents looked on approvingly. His parents began dropping hints about grandchildren. What a nightmarish thought. Draco thought he'd make a terrible father. He didn't want kids, the same way he didn't want a terminal disease.
The day after he proposed he went to buy Sarah a dozen roses from the florist in the city. He took a shortcut through a park, something he normally didn't do. Draco fell into routine. Sarah was routine. Conversation was routine. His life was routine.
As he walked briskly through the park, a wind picked up and he found himself smiling as his hair was whipped back in the wind, somebody's hat roiling along the path like a playful child. And with his head down against the wind, he ran straight into somebody.
"Sorry," Draco said automatically. The person didn't reply, didn't keep walking, and Draco glanced up.
"Malfoy," the man before him grinned. Those unruly and windwhipped locks, the clear green eyes.
"Potter? What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Draco said disbelievingly. Harry laughed.
"It's a city, Malfoy. Look around. There's thousands of people here. I'm just one more." Harry outstretched his arms theatrically. "I've come to seek my fortune."
"Have you been overdosing on the Cheering Charms?" Draco snapped, drawing his coat around himself to ward off the chilly wind. Autumn leaves played around his legs.
"No. I was just accepted into the Auror training program." Harry produced a badly folded piece of parchment.
"Good for you."
"I thought so," Harry said. "I'm going to travel the world as an Auror. They've got a shortage in Ireland, I might go there."
"Ireland?"
"Yeah. It's a bit close to home though, maybe I should transfer somewhere I've actually never been. What do you think about Asia?"
"I don't think about Asia," Draco said nastily. Harry just laughed.
"I'll let you continue on your way," Harry said as though Draco was an old friend. Draco just scowled at him. Harry grinned mischievously and removed his bright red scarf, looping it around Draco's neck.
"Much better," he grinned. "You looked like you were dressed for a funeral before."
"Black is classy," Draco snapped, his hands already on the scarf, but Harry had strode away before Draco could return it. "Bloody mental," he muttered.
He told Sarah about it when he got home.
"I bumped into Harry Potter today," he said, still a little stunned by the encounter. Sarah looked up from where she was arranging the roses.
"Who?"
"I used to go to school with him," Draco said, hating the fact he was reminded once more of Sarah's Muggle life. And his life, now. "We never really got along, but he treated me like an old friend today. It's a bit peculiar."
Sarah shrugged disinterestedly, inspecting a wilting petal. "Old school grudges, Draco. It's rather childish to hang on to them."
Draco raised an eyebrow. He thought he and Potter had more than a little grudge. Then again, by the sound of it Harry had done a lot in the three years since Draco had seen him last on Hogwarts graduation day. Things change. People change.
Sarah glanced up at him again. "That scarf looks rather nice on you."
Draco could smell Harry's cologne on it. He managed a tight smile.
He ran into him again on the day he was going to marry Sarah.
"Christ, not you again," he said as Harry nearly bowled him over, rushing through the park. He stopped and looked back at Draco blankly for a moment.
"Oh, right, Malfoy. Didn't recognise you without a sneer."
Draco was smiling though he had no idea why. "Yeah, it's me. My arch nemisis, we meet again and all that."
"Listen, you don't know the way to the St. George bank, do you? I've got to exchange this Muggle money for galleons," Harry said.
"I'm going that way myself," Draco found himself saying though his brain was screaming 'No!' at him. "I'll show you the way."
Harry fell in step next to him.
"Listen," Harry said. "I just wanted to say I'm honestly over it all."
"What?" Draco said, only half listening.
"School, the Battle, all that. I've decided just to let go of it all."
Draco said nothing, kicking up the leaves. He wondered why Harry wasn't asking about why he was dressed like a Muggle, in a city wandless and alone. His mouth opened of his own accord.
"I'm getting married tomorrow," he said.
Harry didn't say congratulations or how nice, like all Sarah's Muggle friends. Draco was grateful for some strange reason.
"You should go to Asia for your honeymoon," he said. "Vietnam, it's an amazing place."
"You went to Asia?" Draco asked.
"Of course," Harry said. "I go where I want."
With that he disappeared into the bank and for some strange reason Draco found his hand reaching out by itself to catch a corner of Harry's coat.
But he was gone.
They married. Draco got a respectable office job which he hated. Then it got worse. Sarah fell pregnant. She was overjoyed, planning a baby shower and buying ridiculous amounts of bootees. Draco spent as much time as possible out of the house. Mostly in the park, although he told himself he just liked it there. He had to stop himself looking round, trying to pick out a familiar face.
One evening in the middle of June, the familiar face was there. Nine o'clock at night and Draco was sitting under a tree contemplating his oncoming fatherhood the way that one ponders their doom.
"Cigarette?"
"Potter, smoking?" Draco was amazed. Harry was grinning.
"I'm going to be a father," Draco said.
"Judging by that look, congratulations aren't in order," Harry observed, lighting a cigarette for Draco.
Draco shook his head, taking a long drag.
"Did you go to Asia for your honeymoon?" Harry asked.
Draco looked at him. "Yeah," he said and he didn't know why he lied. Harry didn't seem to doubt him though. He just smiled.
"Good," he said.
They said nothing, sitting together to watch the late summer sunset, the cigarette smoke curling above them and rising to fade into the evening stars.
Draco's worst nightmare. Three children: Hannah, Thomas and Cissy, the eldest. He let Sarah deal with them. When they were young he gave them attention, when they were teenagers he gave them money and half-hearted lectures. He watched them all grow up and move away. He loved them all, he couldn't help but love his own flesh and blood. But he didn't love them like Sarah did, the way she wanted to be their mother and best friend and counsellor. Draco just wanted to be somewhere else.
On his forty-fifth birthday she produced the divorce papers and Draco signed them. She'd already moved all her things out, gone off to cry on the shoulder of her American lover. Draco felt a strangeness inside him. Not misery, not joy. Not even apathy. He just felt as though something was wrong, as though somebody had tried to put his heart back together and had forgotten a piece.
That night he tried to call his children but all he got was a dial tone from Cissy and an answering machine message from Thomas. Hannah actually answered but she made it clear she was busy, getting ready for a night out and not in the mood for a chat with her father. Draco hung up without further ado.
He wandered round the house, the empty house. All these rooms, all these memories. He cupped the cold hollows of pillows, wiped dust from unused bedspreads. He lit candles, he blew them out, he looked at photos of his family along the mantlepiece. He put them all face down. Looking at them hurt.
And he found himself reaching for the phonebook, looking them up. He knew they'd marry and he knew Granger would always be a Muggle. Only two Weasleys in the phonebook. The first one rang out, the second was picked up.
"Hermione Weasley speaking."
He spoke smoothly, without emotion. "I'm wondering if I could get in contact with Harry Potter."
There was a heavy stillness. Then Hermione's voice, sharp and abrupt, came through.
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"No." Draco prayed she wouldn't ask his name. There was another long silence.
"Harry died in a car crash twenty years ago," Hermione snapped. "The fourteenth of June. The driver was drunk and Harry died on impact. I'm sure you'll remember, it was all over The Daily Prophet for months." With that she hung up.
The fourteenth of June. Twenty years ago. That night, Draco had been twenty-five years old and about to become a father. He'd spent the evening sharing a smoke with Harry Potter.
Draco closed his eyes.
The paramedics came. They took him away, took him to the hospital. DOA. They managed to contact one of his children seven hours later. They came in, dry-eyed, dazed, still tipsy from a party. The doctors said nothing.
After the funeral, Draco's children came to clean out the house. Thomas and Hannah bickered over this and that, pulling faces over various items and complaining loudly about missing the international cricket match. Cissy left them to sort through the wardrobe, bagging up suits and ties as she began folding up the bedcovers.
"God, why are all his ties green?" Hannah muttered.
"I don't know, just put them in the charity bag," Thomas said.
"I wonder how the cricket's going," Hannah remarked. "I hope we're winning. Someone should've brought a radio, we could've listened to the match -"
"Shut up," Cissy said, and Thomas and Hannah swapped looks, working in silence. Cissy folded up the bedcovers, picking up the pillows and -
She paused. The other two looked over.
"What is it?"
Cissy picked up the item from under her father's pillow, holding it up with puzzlement.
"A red scarf."
"Oh, more clothes," Thomas said carelessly, grabbing the scarf from her and throwing it into the charity bag. "That's the last of it then." Thomas and Hannah left the emptied room; Cissy lingered longer.
As she passed the open door, she paused by the charity bag before hesitantly picking up the red scarf and stuffing it deep in her pocket where Thomas and Hannah couldn't see it and mock her. It was something deeply private, something personal. Something important.
And for a moment her heart twisted in her chest, the scarf still heady with the scent of cologne and sleepless nights, heavy with memories of moments that didn't exist.