Title: A Seal on Your Heart 1/
Fandom: Harry Potter (post canon, so, big time spoilers)
Pairing: Snape/Draco, Harry/Draco
Rating: R-ish
Summary: Repentance, Forgiveness, Grief, and the Malfoys.
Warnings: Spoilers.
Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no money off this.
Feedback: Please, I really love hearing what people think.
Notes: I quote from the books "Half Blood Prince" and "Deathly Hallows" by JK Rowling, who is not me. I also want to thank Avialle for inspiring part of Draco's speech. And Threeoranges for the all the beta reading, she stuck with me right up til the end, lol.
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"I'll be a few minutes in Madame Malkin's," Narcissa said. She smoothed out her dress and hair and took a deep breath. She seemed more nervous than Draco had ever seen her before, she was going in to answer their ad about a job.
This was beneath them. There were other things Malfoys could do to earn money but they needed the Galleons now. Lucius Malfoy had been unemployed for three years, there should have been a cushion of money but it was draining fast after his extensive legal problems, Draco's educational expenses and the money given to The Cause.
"I'll just wait, uh, outside," Draco said. He could use a few minutes alone. Ever since the battle at Hogwarts ten days ago, his parents barely let him out of their sight, Draco felt eight, not almost eighteen. But they seemed to need him more too, they were alone in the world now.
"Go over to The Horse and Lion and have something to eat," Narcissa insisted. She slipped a few coins in his hand with a stern expression. Draco was too hungry to disagree. He crossed the street to the small, dimly-lit family pub and was headed for the bar when old Baldur Higgins, the proprietor stopped him with a glare.
"We don't serve your kind in here," he said. He pointed to the "NO DEATH EATERS" sign in the window. "Respectable wizard pub, only serving respectable wizards. Go across to the "Bonzo Burger"- they got no standards."
"I'm not a Death Eater," Draco said quietly.
"Pull the other one," came the reply.
Now that Harry Potter was the savior of the wizarding world, wizards were trying to put their own spin on Muggle trends. The latest doomed-to-fail effort was a new fast food place that had moved into Fortescue's old ice-cream parlor.
Bonzo Burger had a plastic-stand of newspapers by the door. Today's "Daily Prophet" headline was DAY TEN OF MASS DEATH EATER TRIAL. Underneath the banner headline was a photograph of a handful of Death Eaters who'd been arrested after the battle, or rounded up in the chaotic week after. They were all cuffed or in chains; many of them were kids Draco remembered from Slytherin. One girl glowered at the camera, unrepentant and cold. Her chin length black hair, which had once been so glossy and always cut in the most glamorous style, now hung in dirty curtains around her face. There were dark circles under her eyes, and while she hadn't been issued a uniform for Azkaban yet, her Hogwarts uniform was torn and bloody.
He remembered the last time he'd seen her.
"I want to know what you thought you were doing." He had found Pansy in the school after the battle, down by the Slytherin dungeons, standing over the body of some little blond Gryffindor, that one that used to follow Potter around with a camera. Pansy's own wand was in pieces on the floor: Draco was relieved to see that, because he knew she wouldn't have any mercy if she'd found him alone and unarmed. And he was alone and unarmed.
"What do you mean?" she replied.
"When you ran off to join-"
"What? You mean when I stayed with my House instead of transferring my allegiance to Potter? Is that what you mean?" Pansy said coldly.
"I didn't transfer my loyalty to Potter!" Draco winced at his own slightly frantic tone. "I got smart."
"Yes, so smart you let Potter steal your wand!" She began to cry. "If you'd only kept your wand, Draco - if you hadn't let him defeat you..."
" I didn't LET him!" Draco tried to touch her and pulled back as if she would burn him.
"Are you sure? Are you sure you didn't want him to win?"
"Maybe I don't want to live in the Dark Lord's world after all - you don't know. You didn't have to - you didn't have to do what I had to do."
"And what did you "have to do"?"
"More than you had to do!" Draco bunched up his fists, turning his knuckles white.
"I would have done it, whatever it was. I wouldn't have been a blood traitor -" Pansy was not yelling, but her voice rose.
"It's not about blood anymore, Pansy. It wouldn't be any better for Purebloods if He was in charge! I know! Did you see what he did to my parents?"
"Your parents were weak, Draco!" Pansy nearly shrieked. "If they were punished, then they must have done something to deserve it!"
"No!"
"Of course you're going to deny it. I wouldn't expect you to face up to your responsibilities to your bloodline, to the wizarding world -" she said scornfully.
"Oh, you mean like pretending to like dating you for four years?" It popped out before he could stop himself.
Pansy's eyes widened in shock as she was stunned into silence.
"Didn't you know I only did it because my mother made me?" Draco smirked and tried not to be visibly affected by his own lies. He was good at it.
"I see." She was outwardly calm, though the effort told in her hands. "You had me fooled, I'll admit it."
"And I had someone else. Someone better at everything."
Pansy inhaled sharply, tried to hold herself steady. "That fits. You were a traitor from the start. A Mudblood, was it?"
"I didn't know he was half-blood when we met."
Pansy took in the pronoun and was speechless again. As he smirked at her she covered her face, knuckled a few traitorous tears from her eyes. "I never want to see you again."
"I hope we never do. I really hope we never do!" Draco turned away to try and get control of himself, his ears filled with the echo of Pansy's heels as she walked unsteadily away. When she was gone, Draco knelt down to take the blond boy's pulse and when he realized there was nothing that could be done for him. Awkwardly, he tried to make him as comfortable as possible before hurrying away.
Draco turned the Prophet upside-down to avoid having to see her face.
Oh no. That bloody Potter and Weasley and Granger were inside, cozying up together at a bright orange molded-plastic table. Maybe he could leave before they saw him. Too late. Granger was the first to notice and she nudged Harry not very subtly.
"Hi, Draco."
"Potter. Weasley. Mu-Granger."
"Hey!" Ron snapped.
"You wanna um…sit with us?" Harry asked. No, Draco didn't want to. But his stomach growled and this was the only place that would serve him.
"Alright," he said warily. "Just let me order." He pushed his way through crowds of wizard parents and their screeching little brats to get to the long, plastic counter where a spotty, squeaky-voiced teenage wizard took money and orders. He was wearing an absurd paper hat in a conical shape.
"Welcome to Bonzo Burger, where every day is a Bonzo Day! How can I help you?" Something exploded behind him and Draco heard a chicken squawk.
Draco froze up. "Bonzo Burger and chips with a water," he gasped, reading the menu quickly. You had to read it quickly, the letters kept rearranging themselves. He had just enough for that and he would have to count the change carefully. The food was levitated to him in seconds, a sandwich and chips in a cardboard box, and his money was just as quickly liberated.
He made his way back and took a seat at the table. He had never, in seven years of knowing these people, ever eaten a meal next to them. But they weren't at school anymore, and not bound by their Houses. It was sort of a relief to see another Hogwarts student who'd lived through the same things, the last seven years of hatred didn't matter as much anymore.
"Are you retaking the N.E.W.Ts?" Harry asked, casually. "We're doing them because we, uh, we missed our whole seventh year."
"I wasn't there either," Draco said. "For the N.E.W.T.S."
"But –" Ron said with his mouth full.
"I would hardly think they'd let me back in after I tried to…" Draco said. "If it weren't for what happened with the Death Eaters I wouldn't have gotten back in at all. As it was, I was absent more than I was there."
"Good point," Harry said. "They don't like it when students try to kill the teachers."
"I'm not the only one here who ever tried to kill a teacher," Draco said. He couldn't help it, and the angry expression that crossed Harry's face made him flinch inwardly. They could tell him to go away, he was aware of how precarious his status at this table was.
"Professor Quirrell!" Ron said and cringed when Harry gave him an annoyed look.
"That was you!" Draco said. "I knew it! Were you the one who Obliviated Professor Lockhart? "
"It was self defense!" Harry and Ron both said. "And so was the time with Umbridge."
"And you think I did it just for laughs?" Draco asked. "Potter, you know better."
Ron and Hermione looked puzzled, but Harry nodded slowly. He must not have told his friends about the incident in the bathroom. Draco sensed the thought floating on the top of Harry's mind.
And he saw other things that made him blush, and made Harry push him out aggressively. Draco couldn't hide his own panicked thoughts. How long had Harry felt those things? What did Harry want from him? He didn't like it - he wasn't ready for that.
"I'll be right back," Hermione said. When she stood, Draco stood up too, while Ron and Harry remained seated. Hermione looked both flattered and baffled.
"Stop it," Ron said as soon as she was gone.
"Stop what?" Draco asked. He'd only done what he was used to doing, and now that he was on the same side as Granger he didn't see why he needed to be completely rude to her. But Weasley was common.
"Ron," Harry said. "Don't start."
Draco dipped a chip in ketchup and didn't look at Harry. He hated chips, they were terrible for your skin, especially with ketchup, which wasn't even made from real tomatoes but he was starving and he would rather eat this garbage than admit he couldn't afford to feed himself.
"I'm not that hungry after all," Hermione said when she returned. She pushed her cardboard box of chips and a hamburger away.
"I don't want it," Harry and Ron chorused. Draco was sure Hermione had kicked them under the table.
"Well, I don't want to waste it," Hermione said briskly. "Here, I'll pack it up for your mum."
"Thanks," Draco said, equally briskly. Taking charity from a Muggleborn! He swallowed hard and got the words out. "And thank you for inviting me to sit with you."
"We're going to hang out for a while," Hermione said, "You can come. If you want."
"No, I need to get back to my mother," Draco said. He was proud of himself for walking calmly out the door and not running. But he really did want to get back to his mother.
Narcissa was grateful for the food, even if she too wrinkled her nose at it. They took the Floo at the Leaky Cauldron and returned home to find Lucius had not done any of the things he said he was going to do. He'd moped in his study all day, the stack of bills and legal paperwork completely untouched.
Draco hid in his room and began sorting through his things. Narcissa had arranged for Borgin and Burkes to take what they could, to offset the court costs and household bills.
His old Gobstone set could go. And his old school books, his old cauldron, his old clothes. Where had this white shirt come from? Draco fingered the white, button-down silk shirt, ripped in several places as if by angry claws. There were faded stains as well, dark red and purplish in color. Draco shuddered, even though he was unable to remember why he had this shirt or why it upset him.
"Oh, that's all ruined!" Narcissa exclaimed. She'd appeared in his doorway while he was lost in thought. "I'll get rid of it for you."
"No, Mother, don't," Draco said. She'd already taken it out of his hand and turned to leave. He didn't argue. "Mother, did I have an accident? This isn't from when I got attacked on the Hogwarts train, is it?"
"No," his mother said softly. "No, it's not."