Our Lives Passed
Chapter Two
On Sunday there was a knock at his door. He opened it to find Harry Potter standing on the doorstep in a grey jacket that very nearly matched the sky in colour.
"Potter?" Draco asked reluctantly.
"Malfoy," Harry responded with a nod. "Ginny told me that you still had one of Hermione's books?"
Draco thought for a moment, nodded, and then disappeared back inside, shutting the door against the cold as he went.
The book in question was sitting on the end table in his room, but he walked slowly with it, reluctant, even though it was his idea, to give the book back. After finding the highlighted message she had left for him he had spent all of his free time scanning the book for a possible other message. But the rest of the pages were just like new.
He gave it to Harry. "It's her favourite book. If it wasn't I might have kept it," he said.
Harry nodded. "I'll make sure she gets it."
"Weasley told me she wasn't feeling well. What's wrong with her? I know she's at Saint Mungo's."
"Ron told you that?" Harry asked, looking up from the book in his hands.
"No, the other one."
"Ginny? Actually, her name's Potter now." Harry looked rather proud of this fact. "But that's beside the point." He shook his head. "She shouldn't have told you anything. And I can't tell you anything either. You know the trouble that could get us into."
"Potter, please?" Draco begged. "All I want to know is that she's okay."
Harry sighed in defeat and looked around much like Ginny had in the store the other day.
"All I can tell you is that she'll be fine. It was just a minor...episode."
Draco frowned. "Episode? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Malfoy, please-"
"Potter, tell me!"
"I can't!" Harry screamed back.
For a moment, there was silence. The two stood there, on Draco's porch, glaring menacingly at each other, each blowing a heavy puff of warm air angrily through their noses.
Soon, Harry's frown lessened. "I'm sorry," he said. "But I can't tell you." And he turned around a marched down the steps.
It took every bit of Draco to keep himself from screaming in frustration. He growled and slammed the door hard behind him.
In February he got a job. He didn't even bother with any possible jobs in the wizarding world-too many chances he might run into someone who knew him-opting instead for a filing position at the muggle public library.
It was quiet, organized, and he only occasionally had to deal with a muggle who couldn't find the book they were looking for.
He didn't do it because most of the fortune his parent's had left him was seized by the Ministry and the rest was slowly running out. He did it because he needed to get out of his house. He needed something to distract him, and while the job was monotonous, it did just that.
A week after starting he discovered an arrangement of five cement picnic tables outside that were almost always empty due to the cold weather. But Draco thought they were a perfect place to eat his lunch, and he cast a hidden warming charm around his table so that the cold couldn't bother him.
The table faced the street that ran in front of the library. It was a busy road, full of muggle life, and he liked to watch them hurry by, amazed at the similarities and differences between this muggle road and a similar road in the wizarding world.
One day, when the weather showed hints that it was starting to turn, a man maybe a few years younger than Draco unexpectedly plopped down into the seat across from him.
"Hey," the man said casually.
Draco stared at him, halfway between raising his sandwich to his mouth and taking a bite. He cleared his throat. "Hello?"
The man said nothing, instead opening his own lunch pail and taking out some sort of wrap. Draco watched him with disgust. He took a large bite of the wrap and flung a piece of brown hair out of his eyes.
They sat in silence. Draco couldn't bring himself to look away from the way he was devouring his food.
After a moment, the man looked up to see Draco staring quizzically at him, and tried to swallow all his food at once. "You're that Draco Malfoy guy, right?" he asked thickly through a mouthful of food.
Draco wrinkled his nose. How did this bloke know his name? "Yes?"
The man sniffed and rubbed his nose. "What kinda name is that?" he asked. "You Russian or something?"
"It's French," Draco responded shortly.
He stuck out his lower jaw and nodded as if he were impressed.
Draco frowned harder. "I'm sorry," he said. "But, who are you?"
"Right! Sorry, mate! I'm Drew. I work at the library too." He stuck out his hand for Draco to shake, but it was covered with grease from his wrap and Draco tried to pretend he didn't see it.
"You work at the library?" Draco asked.
"Yeah, weird right?"
"Not really."
"I saw you when you first started, but I never got the chance to talk to you. I thought we could be friends, you know? It gets pretty dull around here, I'm sure you know."
"No, I don't know." Draco started packing his things away, though his sandwich was only half gone.
"Well, hey, if you want to stop by my place tonight we can watch football on the telly and I can make these little snacks, and I think I have some beer in the icebox," Drew said, standing up in excitement when Draco did.
Draco didn't know what football was, and he never cared much for television. "I'm rather busy tonight," he said solemnly and started walking back into the library, but of course, Drew followed close behind.
"Aww, well maybe another night then?" He puffed, struggling to keep up with Draco's long strides.
Draco said nothing. He opened the door and hurried to his desk where he immediately began sorting through the box of cards. He didn't look up until he was sure Drew hadn't followed him.
That evening, he left a bit later than usual, making sure that he wouldn't be stopped by anyone trying to make friends.
When he got home though, he wasn't alone.
It was dark out, only the very last bit of sunlight peeking over the horizon line, but he could see a figure sitting on his steps.
He gripped his wand under his coat. Breathing quickly, his heart picked up as he started up the walkway.
The figure stood up and he instantly dropped his guard because he could recognize their shape.
"Malfoy! Finally!" It was her. She stormed down the steps toward him.
He stopped, paralyzed by her. She was terrifyingly angry, that he could see from the light that was left, but she was beautiful.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, though he found that he could hardly form words.
"What the hell is this?" she fumed, shoving a book into his face.
He took out his wand, lit it, and held it up to the book. It was her book. The one she had left behind and the one Draco had asked Potter to give her.
But of course he couldn't say that. Instead he had to pretend he had never seen the book before even though he had heard her read it to him a dozen times, and he had scanned the pages, studying it like a bible.
"A book?" Was what he said.
"Don't play games with me, Malfoy." He felt a pang every time she called him that. She yanked the book back from him and flicked through it until she found the page she was looking for. Then she thrust it back into his hands. "There," she said. "What's that supposed to mean?" She pointed a gloved finger at the underlined passage he had discovered about a month before.
"What are you talking about?" he said.
"This!" she nearly shrieked, stabbing the page harder with her finger.
"I didn't put that there," he said truthfully.
"You signed it!" She was becoming almost frantic. Years ago, when she would become so upset like she was now, Draco would take her and hold her close to him until her breathing calmed and she stopped shaking. Merlin only knew how much he wished he could hold her now.
"I didn't sign it," he sighed.
"Your name is under it!"
"That's not my handwriting."
"But- it's-" she sputtered and wretched the book back. She glared down on the page for a long time and then suddenly her face sank. She looked up at him, her eyes terrified. "It's mine."
His heart dropped. He had to get away. He felt his breathing pick up and his heart hammer faster.
"It's my handwriting," she said, still looking at him in horror. "But why would- why would I- unless I- did I write this to you?"
Draco said nothing. He felt like breaking down and crying all over again.
"This doesn't make any sense!" She threw her head in her hands and stared at the ground. "My favourite book was missing forever and suddenly it shows back up and it has a passage in it I addressed to you?"
"I can't help you," Draco stammered. He headed toward his door quickly. Already she had found out too much.
"What do you know, Malfoy?!" she called after him.
He stopped to flinch for a second, but he didn't turn around. "I'm sorry, Ganger. I can't."
"Malfoy!"
But he had already gone inside.
He shut the door behind him and clutched his chest. It was aching painfully and his throat felt raw.
After a few minutes, he peaked out the window to make sure she had left. His lawn was full of muddy snow and slush, but she was gone.
The next morning, as he was getting dressed for work, there came a tapping at his window. He pulled back the blinds to find a small brown owl with a letter in its beak.
He took the letter carefully, afraid that someone had found out that she had come to his house last night. But when he opened it it was clear that it was not a letter from the Ministry at least.
Draco,
Listen. I get that we've had our differences and we pretty much drew blood the last time we saw each other, but I want to put that behind us. And before you think this is a letter about me trying to crawl into your pants again, think again. I want you to take me out. Just as friends. Because we were, you know? I know you have problems, but I've been having my own too, and I need a distraction.
And if you don't reply to this owl then I want you to know that you're the biggest ass I've ever met .
-Pansy P.
Draco nearly laughed, first out of surprise and then out of something like joy. He never actually cared for Pansy-the girl had been completely obsessed with him-but she also used to be there for him. At times when Crabbe, Goyle, or Zabini just didn't get it, she always just seemed to understand. She'd drop the sickening flirting and flouncing for a few minutes to show him that she just got it.
Plus, now she was the first person to contact him after everything had happened. It had taken her long enough, but she had reached out and he hadn't realized until now how much that would mean to him.
He finished getting dressed, ate his breakfast, and when he found free time at the library, he started the letter that he would owl her back.
They met on Sunday in a little cafe on a street corner in muggle London. The shop was small and would have been cramped if there were more people, but the sky outside was heavily overcast and it was pouring which seemed to prevent most people from creeping outside. The inside was warmly lit with soft muggle lights that reminded Draco of oil lamps, and it smelled like coffee and antiques.
"Jesus Christ," Pansy said when she saw him. "You look fucking terrible."
Despite himself, Draco laughed. "I could say the same to you. Whose funeral are you going to?"
She was clad in nearly all black, from her tight jeans to the large sunglasses shading her eyes. The only pop of colour was her lipstick which was bright red and the white stripe on the hood of her jacket which she still had up over her dark hair.
She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. "I could give you a long list of the people whose funeral I wish I could attend."
Draco shook his head, finding her indifference amusing. After a moment, he asked her, "so what?"
She looked up at him, though Draco couldn't see her eyes through the dark shades. "What, what?"
"Why are we here, Parkinson?" Draco asked. "What do you want."
She suddenly looked offended. Her bright lips twisted into a scowl. "You think I want something?" she dared him to answer. "You think the only reason I'm sitting in a muggle cafe with you is because I'm going to ask you for something? Why? Because you've grown into a muggleborn lover and I'm still supposed to be the muggle hating piece of shit that you once were?"
"What the hell are you on about?"
"I've had problems too, Malfoy! You're not the only one! Maybe what I wanted was someone to talk to. Maybe what I wanted was someone who could understand how hard it is to adjust to this world that is so completely different than what our parents told us it would be."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean that you would want something, I just thought- I don't really know."
It took a moment, but she seemed to be satisfied enough that she took a slow drink of her coffee.
"What's with the glasses?" Draco asked carefully.
She tapped the table with her fingernails. "I'm hungover. The light hurts my eyes."
"Hungover? Pansy, I thought you quit?"
"Like I said. You're not the only one with problems."
"What happened?" He heard real concern in his voice, something he never would have let sneak past his lips before the war.
She sighed almost impatiently. "If you can believe it, I dated a muggle guy." She paused, waited for his reaction, but he gave none. "He was hot. Muscular, thick hair, big-"
"Okay!" Draco held up his hand for her to stop. "I don't need a fullbody description."
"Anyway." He thought he saw her roll her eyes under her dark glasses. "I liked him. A lot. I thought dating a muggle would be a good way to introduce myself to a new kind of life. I thought all muggles were kind of soft and naive, but they're all just assholes. Just like every wizard I've been with." She looked solemnly into her coffee.
"So you started drinking again?"
"I told you. I really liked this guy. It completely ruined me when I found out what he had done. You were in Azkaban, Blaise and Daphne had just gotten married, I didn't have anyone to talk to and you know how much I need to talk. I was trapped."
"Blaise and Daphne got married?"
Pansy scoffed at his sudden change of subject, but answered him anyway. "Yeah. Long time coming. Though when it happened more people were excited to hear about Potter and Weasley's engagement than theirs and it kind of got pushed into the dark."
Draco nodded. He swirled his coffee in his hand so that the bubbles rearranged into new patterns.
After a moment of silence, Pansy said, "Astoria's still available though."
He looked up. "Oh?"
"I know you always fancied her more than you did me. You'd probably make her and her family pretty happy if you pursued her."
"I have too much going on now. I'm not ready to start dating yet. I don't know if I'll ever be."
Pansy shrugged. "Just as well, probably. I heard that Astoria is getting into muggle men, too. Seems like every Pure-blood I know who used to swear up and down that they hated muggles are starting to hook up with them now. Her parents are totally pissed."
"The irony, right?" Draco gave a breathy laugh.
"Yeah." Pansy grinned. "Bloody ironic."
After he and Pansy parted ways Draco realized just how good it felt to talk to someone who didn't just loathe or pity him. And hearing her problems made him forget about his own for awhile.
However, there seemed to be a problem that was only just arising. At the library the man named Drew couldn't seem to take a hint. Draco stopped eating outside, and instead ate at his desk, but Drew found him there too and pulled up a chair without asking. Draco thought that the man could talk for hours. He tried to ignore him, but his voice had a stuffy sort of sound to it that made it impossible to block out.
Then one day Draco realized that Drew wasn't just talking nonsense. It was the first day of March when he stopped trying to just ignore the man and actually listen to what he said. And what he said was one of the saddest things Draco had ever heard.
"Christine and I got married and soon as we were done with school," he had said. He went on to tell Draco that when they hooked up once in school they knew they were in love. Everyone told them they were foolish (and Draco thought it sounded foolish too) but they were married and lived together for two year.
Christine died of a terrible accident. Drew had been working on the roof of their house-though he told Draco that he hadn't really known what he was doing-when Christine came out and stood below to watch him. One of his tools slipped out of his hand-a hammer-and landed on the roof, but it was slanted and it slid with momentum off the side and hit her in the head.
They thought she was going to live at first, but she got sick and died later in the hospital.
Drew was charged with involuntary manslaughter and served 12 months in jail. When he got out, he moved up north to where he was now and tried to forget.
"But I can't forget," he said blankly. "I love her so much. It doesn't just go away."
Draco nodded and looked down at his half eaten lunch, then up at the clock. His lunch break was almost over, but he stood up.
"Come on," he said to Drew.
"Where are we going? The break is almost over."
"Take the rest of the day off." Draco picked his jacket up off the back of his seat and slung it over his shoulder. "Let's go get a drink, eh?"
Drew looked shocked at first. His little eyes widened and he blinked several times, but then he stood up with gusto.
They went to a little pub Drew pointed out. The drink menu was unfamiliar to Draco-different from wizarding drinks-so he ordered a beer like Drew did, imagining that it couldn't be that much different from butterbeer. But it was. Butterbeer was sweet, and compared to it this was almost bitter. It was all Draco could do to keep from spitting it out. But the burn felt good on the way down. It was faint, but it felt nice and he could understand why Pansy took so heavily to drinking when she was upset.
"It's nice of you come out with me," Drew said, taking a big swig of his beer and then using his sleeve to wipe the foam off his mouth. "I don't get a lot of company."
He nodded, understanding well what that felt like, though he felt uncomfortable whenever anyone else was around.
And he felt slightly uncomfortable now. As Drew lapsed into another story about his childhood, Draco began to wonder why he had invited the man out at all. He hated people who talked too much, and Drew was a muggle, something Draco still had trouble understanding sometimes.
But perhaps it was that story that Drew had told him when he thought maybe Draco wasn't listening that jarred something in Draco that made him understand this man more than he had ever understood most people. Something about his tragic tale that had reminded Draco of events in his own life that persuaded him to take pity.
And maybe thinking this was why Draco downed the rest of his beer, even though he hated the taste, and ordered another, then two whiskies (which wasn't as strong as firewhiskey was), and let Drew order them both a round of shots which Draco found out were quite fun. And by the evening he was completely pissed.
Which was probably why he forgot Drew was a muggle and he was a wizard and started spilling his guts about everything that had gone wrong in his life. He was using terms such as 'Quidditch' and 'Dark Mark' which Drew couldn't have possibly understood, but like Draco, he was too sloshed to care and nodded along as Draco talked more in a few hours than he had ever talked in his life.
He even confessed numbly about his time in Azkaban and why he was forbidden from ever speaking to a beautiful girl with wonder filled eyes and bushy hair.
He finished his story with, "and now I get why Pansy uses alcohol every time something bad happens. Because right now I don't feel a Goddamned thing. Do you know how long I've not wanted to feel a thing?"
Drew looked like he was nodding, though it could have been because he was about to pass out.
"That's some serious fucked up shit," he slurred at Draco. "Youand yourgirl foughthard." His words were all mixed together. "You can't just throwthataway!" He raised his glass as if for emphasis and spilt the drink all over himself. "Aw shit," he said, looking down at his drenched shirt.
"Here." Draco tried to pick up a napkin off the counter and hand it to him, but the connection between his brain and his fingers wasn't working right and he grabbed the cigarette tray instead.
"Anyway," Drew said after rubbing the tray on his stomach with no luck of it cleaning up his shirt. "You gotta fight the system!" He jabbed Draco in the chest.
Draco blinked hard several times, trying to comprehend what this man before him was saying. Did he know this guy? How had he gotten to this bar anyway? "You're probably right," he said, though he could hardly remember the advice he had been given.
Drew nodded in satisfaction and then slumped face first into the bar.
Draco threw back the rest of his drink and stood up. He had suddenly decided to go home if he could remember where exactly it was that he lived.
When he stumbled his way outside he stopped to glare up at the sky and wonder where the hell all the blue had gone, and then he started his journey home, which wasn't an easy one.
There was a figure on his steps again and somehow his drunken mind knew exactly who it was.
"Granger!" he exclaimed and stumbled over his own feet to get to her.
She stood up quickly and lit her wand which made him growled and squeeze his eyes shut. "Malfoy?"
"Put your stick out it hurts my eyes!"
"Malfoy, what's wrong with you?"
He squinted at her. She looked quite angry again. A scowl cut deep across her face. It made Draco giggle like an idiot. "I don't think you're supposed to be here," he whispered coyly. "Don't tell them you were here." Grinning widely, he extended his index finger and pushed it on her angry lips, whispering, "shh!"
To his surprise, she slapped his hand away. "You're completely pissed!" she spat.
"I'm allowed to do that," he insisted.
"Malfoy," she said, trying to be level. "I came here to demand you tell me about what was in my book."
"Oh, you mean your favourite book!" He tried to grab her hand, but she kept slapping him away, her face growing redder and redder.
"How did you know that was my favourite book?" Her frown deepened.
He shrugged.
"Malfoy tell me!"
He made a face at her.
She shrieked.
He passed out on his front lawn.
She stood over his drunken body for a minute, rolling her eyes, huffing, and impatiently tapping her food. "This is why I hate you, Malfoy!"
A/N: Okay, so not my favourite chapter, but I hope you enjoy. It was a bit of a filler chapter, but I needed and I had to force myself to write it which is probably why I don't like it very much. Also a bit shorter than I wanted it to be.
Anyway, thank you so much for the wonderful reviews on the last chapter! Like I said, I'm getting really busy with back to school stuff and my uploads will be kind of random, but your comments do help so thanks!
See you next chapter!
