Tommy started when a loud pounding broke through his reverie. He lazily waved a hand at the door and when nothing happened he found himself wishing that he had the same magical powers as the rest of this group. He didn't really want to get up and answer the door. He really, really didn't want to get up. He wanted to lay here on the floor and contemplate what his life was like and where it was going to be going from here. He knew whom he wanted his life to be with, and he had a general idea of how to make it go that way, but what he didn't know was how to actually make it happen. And he didn't know how to get past his current level of depression.
After another loud knock Tommy sighed and pushed himself to his feet. Cracking the door he was somehow unsurprised to see Kim standing in the hallway, looking slightly impatient at his delay in answering. "What can I do for you?" He asked, not sure he really wanted to open the door and let her in, after all he knew what was all over his floor and he knew that wasn't something he wanted to get into right now.
"I was coming to check on you." She said quietly. "I haven't seen you all day, neither has anybody else." She looked at his face critically, "And you look like crap. What's up?"
Tommy resisted the urge to groan. "I'm fine. It's just … it's … it's a bad day for me. Today. This day. I just … I can't take people and all that right now. I just need to be left alone. I'm sorry I didn't say anything to you before, I try not to think about it."
Kim looked confused. "What's wrong with today?"
"I can't … I can't talk about it right now. Maybe later … maybe some other time, but right now? Right now I can't deal with it. Right now I just need you to leave me alone with my memories. Okay? Can you do that? Can you just leave me alone?" Tommy's voice rose with each plea and before Kim could answer he had shut the door in her face. Turning he went to head back to his circular shrine of photos. He didn't make it very far however before he fell to his knees and burying his face in his hands he wept. Moans of despair rose from deep in his chest as his mind replayed Kim's look of shocked despair. Why did he keep failing the women in his life?
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Kim stared at the closed door in front of her with a look of shock on her face. She couldn't believe he'd actually just closed the door in her face. Through everything the one thing you could have never said was that Tommy Oliver was a coward, but this, this one act smacked of cowardice. He had never been afraid to show her his pain before, but now he was hiding it from her, quite literally behind closed doors. She turned to leave, unsure of what she could be doing for him outside of respecting his obvious wish for privacy. Suddenly she paused and looked at the door again. Shaking her head she settled to the floor and made herself comfortable with her back propped against the door. If that was the closest thing to comfort she could give him right now then she would give it to him.
Trying to get comfortable on the cold stone floor she wiggled a bit. Drawing her knees up she tried to ignore the barely muffled groans she could hear coming through the door. It hurt, to know he was suffering and she couldn't help. Settling her head on her knees in a pose that was a lot less comfortable than she remembered it being from her childhood she closed her eyes and tried to think about how she could help him when he was ready.
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Harry wandered down the halls of the castle semi aimlessly. He had no particular direction in mind, he was just sort of looking for something to do, something else to take his mind off of the decisions he had to make. He had had a blast playing with the giant squid, but nightfall had taken that from him. As much as he didn't mind breaking the rules, when your Head of House finds you and makes you come inside per the rules then you didn't go back out.
After several minutes he found himself in a part of the castle he had never seen before. He would have been surprised, he thought he'd seen most of the castle after all, but he was to busy staring in awe at the portrait in front of him. He was vaguely aware that there were hundreds of other portraits lining the hall in front of him, but one particular one caught his eyes. The fiery haired young woman and the messy haired young man were unmistakable; he saw those features and those eyes every time he looked in a mirror.
Sucking in a quiet breath he stepped a bit closer to the portrait, unsure if these were like the portraits in the rest of the castle, unsure if these would have some essence of their subject caught within them. For a second he thought he saw a glimmer of movement, but it was gone before he could be sure and all that was before him was a still oil painting. For all its beauty it had none of the animating magic that imbued the other paintings in the castle, it was simply a picture. Nevertheless he reached out a trembling hand and traced it across the two faces, he had photos of his parents, but this picture, found in a most unexpected place, affected him more profoundly than any of those other pictures did.
With a soft, stuttered breath he found the whole story coming out. Somehow telling this painted version of his parents made the whole thing make more sense. As he spoke he could feel everything becoming clearer. As the whole sorry story spilled out from him he could tell that he knew what it was that he was going to do. He just needed to lay it out; he just needed to speak so that he knew what it was that he was going to do. He had never found this method to work for him before, but as he poured the whole tale out to a version of his parents that couldn't hear him, couldn't reply to him, he discovered that it was working. Better than any journal or writing exercise had served him in the past, he was coming to the answers he sought.
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Draco stared at the flecks of magic flickering above his hand in something akin to horror. He'd not noticed anything like this before, he had not seen any visible signs previously of his magic going haywire, but this, this was crazy. With a deep breath he closed his eyes and counted to twenty. When he opened them he saw that the flecks were gone, but he could feel his magic coursing just beneath his skin. The feel of it was not the comforting buzz of an old familiar friend that he had been used to in the past, this was the angry buzz of a wasp waiting to sting. It was not a comfortable feeling, and one that he did not relish at all. It was as bad as the Cruciatus curse that Voldemort used to level on him on a semi-regular basis.
With another deep breath Draco stood on faintly unsteady legs and headed out of the neglected classroom he had taken to hiding himself in when he wasn't in classes or at Quidditch practice. He'd had too many close calls while practicing his spells outside of class and given that he didn't want to hurt anyone he was currently setting up a reputation as a hermit, a recluse, a loner who wanted to spend no time with anyone else. He had made the room into a cozy retreat, one that he had stocked with an old couch he had found in the storage rooms of the castle, as well as a teachers desk that gave him more room to spread out when added to the other teachers desk in the room than the students desks would give him. He'd arranged the two in a L-shape that reminded him of the way he had seen Kingsley Shacklebolt's office set up. Immediately after the war he had spent a great deal of time with the former Head Auror, now Minister of Magic, he had grown to respect the man a great deal, well enough to model his favorite room after the man's office.
Approaching the muggle professor's quarters he was surprised to see the Muggle Studies Professor sitting in front of his door like a sentinel on the watch. Even his untrained eyes could tell that while she looked relaxed she would explode into action if she deemed it necessary. What he didn't know was what she was doing there. Why did she feel it was necessary to sit outside the door like an avenging angel? And did he want to risk her wrath? He had seen her in action when something happened to one of her kids, did he really want to see what she would do if something had happened to her boyfriend? Before he could ask what was going on she looked up at him.
"What can I do for you Draco?" She looked mildly curious as to why he was standing in a hallway of teachers rooms.
"I wanted to speak to professor Oliver, he told me I could come by his quarters if I needed to. And I really need to do so. I need some advice and he's the only one I trust to give me the advice I need right now, no offense or anything."
"None taken." She laughed a bit in a very self-deprecating fashion. "However, Tommy is unavailable at the moment. I want to talk to him as well, need to talk to him in fact, but he, uh, needs to be alone right now." To Draco's horror his professor's eyes welled up with tears. He looked around frantically but there was no one else in the hall to help him out. He took a deep breath and then settled onto the floor next to her.
"Come here," he said, motioning towards himself. "You need to cry and I promise not to mention it to anyone else. I don't know why you need to cry and, honestly, I don't care why, but I can tell you need it so I am willing to be the shoulder that you need."
Kim looked at him, searching his eyes to see if she could ascertain whether or not he was telling the truth. Apparently she saw enough to convince herself that it was alright, that he was honest, because a moment later he found himself with an armful of sobbing brunette. Cursing the human weakness that had made him offer this, and the magic that he could feel practically throbbing in time with her sobs, he made himself comfortable against the wooden door behind them. For now this would have to do, for now he would have to be content with being this close to his potential salvation doing something that might even earn him a few brownie points with professor Oliver.
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Severus swirled a bit of Fire-whiskey in his glass and found himself wondering what it was that Harry would decide. He had promised not to pressure the boy, he had promised that he would give him all the time that he needed to make this extraordinarily hard decision but it was that hardest thing he had ever done. Before now he would have ranked any number of other moments in his life as the hardest thing he had ever done, but this, this was really it. It wasn't standing in front of Voldemort and lying to him knowing that it might be the last thing he ever said, it wasn't watching from a dark corner while the love of his life married another man, it wasn't going to Dumbledore and telling him of the mistake he had made. This was it, waiting for a boy that he had come to feel a great deal of affection for to make the choice about whether or not he would be willing to be a family. It was enough to make Severus want the whole bottle of Fire-whiskey, but he had decided to content himself with a few fingers worth. He wasn't going to turn into a drunk at this point in his life, he had avoided it heretofore and he didn't really have any inclination to do so at this point, he had too many reasons to avoid it. He was never going to turn into the man who had made him into the bitter man he was trying very hard to overcome.
As he stared at the swirling amber in his glass, hypnotized by the way that the light bounced off the tawny liquor he contemplated the changes that he could feel happening in his life. Despite having been raised in the muggle world, and still having a home there, he had never actually had a muggle friend before. His only friend as a child was Lily Evans, and he hadn't befriended her until after he had seen her displays of accidental magic. But now, now he had a friend who had not a drop of magic in him and yet was possibly one of the wisest people Severus had ever met. He and Tommy had shared several conversations and he was constantly amazed by the depth of knowledge the other man held, and the insights that he had about other people. Tommy had even gotten him to look past his hatred of James Potter and see that the detested man's son was also the son of his dearest, most beloved friend as well as a boy, no, a man in his own right. And now, because of that, Severus was looking at maybe having the one thing he had long been sure would never be his again: a family. As he raised the glass to his lips for a sip he found himself calling upon the Lord and Lady to grant his request. He could only hope that he was a good enough son that Magic would heed his heartfelt request.
A few moments later a tentative knock on his door broke him out of his reflections. He tossed a quick glance to the clock on the mantle and seeing that it was close to curfew he hurried across the room. Very few people would knock on his door this late at night and most of them would only do so in the case of an emergency. Hoping that everything was alright with his Snakes he wrenched open the door and was surprised to come face to face with a pair of verdant green eyes.