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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I make no money from writing about any characters therein.
A Solitary History of Death
Nothing so crass as a breakdown occurs.
In fact, to look at him, you might not even have thought there was anything wrong at all. He smiles just as he has always smiled, sneers just as he has always sneered, comments just as he has always commented; there is no suggestion of him being out of sorts in the slightest. Even when he had first heard, the only thing that gave him away was the smallest of twitches, and then he had smoothed that away with a casual really?
No, nothing so crass as a breakdown occurs, but that doesn't mean he isn't still broken.
Occasionally he will wake and think there is a slowly cooling spot beside him, that if he simply meanders over to the bathroom, or perhaps the floo, he would find who he was looking for. The first few times it happens, he obeys that urge, languidly strolling to the fireplace and always telling himself he's not disappointed in the least to find it cold. Even the bathroom reveals no missing bed partner, and the bed is distressingly cold when he finally returns to it. The right half of the bed is icy, and the pillow undisturbed.
There hasn't been anyone sleeping there for months.
His mother gives him an odd frown when they have dinner together. Her questions are deliberately evasive, dancing around the question she really wants to ask, but never quite reaching it. She calls the house elves for rather more tea and biscuits than they need afterwards, and her attempts to force an answer from him are quite frankly pitiful. She even plies him with brandy, which reduces her from pitiful to too pathetic for him to stand any longer, so he bids her a fond adieu and goes home. She frowns at him from the doorstep, which is something she's never done before, and he concedes to himself that maybe he is slipping, just a little.
He resolves to fix the problem. He's quite pleased when his mother nods and returns to her usual behaviour of direct questions and denying him access to his father's liquor cabinet when they next meet.
There is talk of course. There always is. Gossip is a huge industry, and he sometimes imagines that he could make an absolute fortune through the handful of secrets he knows. He could make so much that his descendants, hundreds of years down the line, would still be living off of his profits. But he keeps his secrets for a reason, and he will not have them aired to the general public. He doesn't even breathe a word when the talk turns malicious; they had been rivals after all, he's probably laughing about it in that ostentatious manor of his. He even hears the ridiculous suggestion that he was responsible, but he doesn't deign that with any response at all.
He attends the funeral, and doesn't even care that he's not mentioned in the extremely lengthy obituary.
He makes the mistake of saying I'm home one day, and it just so happens to be the one day that the house elves had missed that one little spell. Before he knows it, his personal life is splashed across the front of every disreputable – and several reputable – newspapers. Speculation abounds as to whom he could be greeting; certainly it isn't his house elves, and he's definitely not known to be courting. If he were courting then this might be easier, but the very idea somewhat turns his stomach. His mother gets that little frown back, and he is forced to listen to a large variety of his ancestors berating him from portraits when the reporters hound him from his home. A few of his acquaintances abruptly turn frosty, citing how he must not care about them at all – and for the most part, he doesn't – to not inform them of a change in his living arrangements.
He decides not to offer anyone denials, and instead waits until it becomes apparent to everyone that it is a very sad or very lonely man who says I'm home when he knows no-one is there.
Sometime after that, he attends one of those dreadful society parties. He had been avoiding them before, but as his Friday evenings are now so unfortunately free, he finds himself attending them just to give himself something to do. The gossip tends to lull around him, everyone uncomfortably aware of the recent press fiasco and entirely unsure what to say. Eventually, he finds himself conversing with people he had never dreamed of talking to. He's quite sure the large amount of red hair and freckles will leave him laid up in bed over the weekend, but they seem to have something to actually say to him.
I'm sorry about… y'know, is the first thing anyone says to him all evening without sounding like they would rather be somewhere else.
I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, he replies, and they slip into a conversation that doesn't touch on the past at all.
Somehow a year has passed. He's not entirely sure how, but the date has definitely come again. For a brief moment he feels the crushing need to break into his father's liquor cabinet, and possibly the wine cellar, and make himself a drink that will let him forget for a week. The possibility of acute liver damage doesn't concern him overly much – he can get that repaired if it gets too bad – and it's only the intense feeling of loathing he gets at even contemplating such a preposterous idea that stops him. Instead he attends the memorial, and attempts civil conversation with a family composed of entirely too much red hair.
You'll get them talking again, one of them comments, and there's a teasing grin on her lips when she says it.
They'll talk anyway, he says archly.
He somehow manages to fall out with them after that, possibly because of an argument over the memorial statue itself. The argument would have been more heated if the memorial had actually been the extravagant thing that was originally suggested, but he feels that even the muted thing they've decided on instead is too much. They say that just because he doesn't like it is no reason to not have a memorial at all, and he has to physically bite his tongue to keep from snapping out the truth of it.
He does not attend the unveiling, and he manages to avoid getting drunk for an entire fortnight afterwards.
There is something terribly disconcerting about suddenly being the centre of attention after years of being that one little detail always conveniently left out. But following the unveiling, and his somewhat reluctant attendance to several services after that, the world is suddenly sitting up and paying attention again. He hears their whispers though; who does he thinks he is, flaunting his continued existence like that? There are more newspaper articles, more meetings with his mother that leave her frowning after drinking entirely too much tea, stilted conversations with old acquaintances, and no less stilted ones with new acquaintances.
And still no-one knows. He must be the best secret keeper in the world.
Nothing so crass as a breakdown occurs.
Nothing so public anyway. But he still murmurs I'm home when he opens the front door, and he still wakes up and feels for someone who isn't there anymore, and he still pretends that there isn't a hidden safe with the only five pictures they ever took together. He feigns annoyance when he's asked, regular as clockwork, if he would like to visit the grave or memorial. He still traipses after them, sighing irritably all the while, and his breath still catches when he sees the name engraved on the headstone. It still isn't quite real, and he doubts it ever will be.
But nothing so crass as a breakdown occurs, and nothing ever will.
Thanks for reading :D
Polecat