A/N- Wow ok so. Eight years later, here we go. Picks up directly where Dirty Little Secret left off, just after Erin and Draco leave the Forbidden Forest following the Battle of Hogwarts. You're welcome to just jump in here, but also it'll probably make more sense if you wanna give the prev story a read before diving into this one.
If you're new here, hi, welcome, thanks for stopping by! If you're still following me and this set of stories, twelve years since I started it, WOW again, hi there, it's good to see you, I might start crying. It's been a while.
This is entirely unedited, the plot is loose and unrefined, everything about it is wholly self indulgent. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed picking this verse back up again, and what a pleasant surprise it was. It's still not done- I can't offer an update schedule or tell you quiet exactly how long it's gonna be, but I'm thinking maybe if I start posting, it'll force me to actually get the words down instead of just letting them rattle all around in my head for the NEXT eight years. Here we go.
Erin and Draco arrive in the town of Ottery St. Catchpole at seven minutes to midnight. In the moment that she apparates the both of them there, she forgets how to disappear in a cloud of great black smoke, or rather she erases it from her learned skill set completely- that's how Death Eaters travel, and she is not one of those anymore. Never again will she take her leave by taking a straight shot up into the sky, just with a turn of her heel, there and gone in the blink of an eye. She won't use that kind of magic any more. Never again.
Never again. That'll be a theme, she expects, in the coming weeks and months. Years. This will never happen again.
Once, she had thought that she might never again see the house that's looming up in front of the pair of them as they take the long walk through the tall grass growing on the plot of land just outside of town. It's a different house than she remembers, after the attack and the fire and the repairs that had to be done, but the bare bones of it are still there. It still looks like home.
The protective wards around the Burrow must still be in place because while Erin passes the property line without hesitation, Draco is stopped by an invisible barrier. When she looks back at him, she can see where he clenches his fist at his side in pain though his face betrays no sign of it. The Dark Mark on his arm must be what keeps him from following after her.
"You go on ahead," Draco tells her, voice rough with disuse and something else. "I'll meet you there, if I'm allowed in."
"I'll come back for you." It sounds like a promise when Erin says it, because it is. If he can't follow, then it'll be no place that she's welcome, either. She'll either meet him there to bring him back with her or she'll meet him there to move on. Though she's used to knowing in her gut that she belongs here, there's no telling which way it'll go tonight.
The trek to the door off the kitchen feels longer than anything else, without Draco by her side. Lately she's been used to walking alone.
It's easy enough to open the door, really. Even in these times, the door's always been left unlocked. Habit, Erin supposes. There have always been children playing in the orchard outside the window, visitors popping in for a cup of tea and a chat. There's no point to a lock. Anything that could pose a threat couldn't be kept out by one, anyway.
The murmur of voices that could be heard even through the walls stops as soon Erin shoulders her way through the smallest of openings and lets herself inside. The door clicks closed behind her and her heart stops because as much as she had told herself that this would be as easy as coming home, she's suddenly so afraid that they'll turn her away. All of these eyes staring at her, silent, none of them knowing what to do. A dozen pairs, easy. Something in Erin's head can't even recognize them all. It's too much. It's too much and she shouldn't have-
Finally, someone moves and Erin's head whips to where Ron's pushed back his chair and is moving around the table. There's nothing about his expression that betrays anger, betrays anything, and that's what makes her take a step back as he nears her, backing herself into the door and into a corner and Erin can't even make herself fumble with the knob, she's just standing there, afraid, ready to be cursed or hit or take whatever punishment he's about to dole out because she deserves it, she-
Ron takes her by the shoulders and drags her into his arms and lets go of one short, loud sob before his face in buried in her neck and he's telling her, "don't you ever dare leave like that again, you hear me?"
"I hear you," Erin gasps, clawing so suddenly at the back of her brother's shirt that she can't remember having put her hands on him at all. She chokes on every other word she'd been thinking about saying, swallowing tears even though she can feel that her cheeks are wet. "I hear you, I hear you-"
When her legs give way, they both fall to the ground. It doesn't matter, because he smells the same. There's so much that's still up in the air but a small piece of her quiets, to have this back. Just this. She can breathe for the first time in what feels like months, with him there squeezing the breath out of her.
There's another set of hands on Erin's shoulders, then, and another set of arms wrapping around her after that, and more hands, and more arms, and even behind her eyelids she can't see the kitchen lights anymore as her family piles around her and Ron right there on the floor. She's warm, again, after spending so long out in the cold-
"Draco," Erin rasps, lifting her head and sniffling, clearing her throat to let them know that she's not there alone. The next test. Maybe the bigger one. "Draco, he's out- outside, at the gate-"
"I'll get him," Harry's voice is low in the din of soft cries that fill the room. It doesn't seem like Erin will be let go of any time soon to go with him, so she just closes her eyes again and sinks into it, the feeling of being at home, and loved.
There's a low wood fence that Draco's settled himself on while Erin lets herself inside. He's not looking at the house, he's watching the fields, mind too far away to wonder much except if they'll let her stay. If she'll be coming back for him. There's nothing in his life right now that he's sure of. For all he knows, he could sit on this wall forever.
"Got something of yours." The voice that comes from behind him makes him flinch, but only from the suddenness of it in the cold and quiet. He would know Harry Potter blind, but he's not afraid of him anymore. There's a numbness about him tonight that makes him unafraid of anything. "Thought you might like it back."
Draco turns, then, in time to catch a smooth piece of wood that's been missing from his hand for too long as it sails at him. With a gentle flick of his wrist, he produces the softest whisp of smoke from the end of his wand, the ghost of a patronus that he never did get the hang of. "Thanks. Reckon I owe you one. Or five."
"Or five," Potter repeats, not without a bit of sardonic humor, wandering around the gate to stand out in the grass in front of him. "I did save your life a few times, didn't I?"
Draco looks away. They've never had a conversation before, he thinks, he and Harry Potter. Just arguments. If this is going to be the rest of his life, this probably ought to be the first.
"You're still vile," Potter interjects before Draco can get another word out, but he doesn't sound cruel about it. It's just a statement of fact. "And cowardly, and cruel. And you're not forgiven, for any of that, just because the Weasley's are going to let you stay here. Molly would do anything before she lets Erin run off again, even if that means you have to be here for as long as she is."
There's nothing that Draco can think to say to that, so he doesn't say anything, just nods, dumbly, once. He knows that their kindness only goes so far. It still makes his skin crawl, though he knows that he ought to think differently by now, to think about occupying the same space as a bunch of poorer than dirt blood traitors. He'd never have shown up here if not for her.
"Prove that you're worth something," the other boy goes on, in an entirely different direction than Draco had been anticipating. "Prove that you want to change, and they'll let you."
"How?" Draco asks, because the last time he had to prove himself, people died. One of them was nearly himself. He doesn't think he's strong enough to head down that road again.
"Show up," Potter shrugs, like that's the easiest thing in the world. There's a disconnect, Draco thinks, between the man in front of him, severe but patient, and the boy he's been at odds with for the better part of the past ten years. He supposes- or, rather, he hopes- that there's that disconnect for Potter as well. There must be, if only because they're having this conversation. "Give a damn."
Both of these things, for the time being, seem like monumental requests. Epics. How can he be the person that these people want him to be, when he feels like there's nothing at all to start from scratch with? He's been simultaneously hollowed out and filled with lead. He's about to float away. He's about to drown. He's realizing that that's all that would have been asked of him, had he had the courage to step away from his parents and the rest of the Death Eater's at any moment during the last three years, and he knows he deserves this chance less now than he did then, but it's still being offered. Before tonight, he wouldn't have been capable of accepting.
But he can't say any of that to his childhood rival, so Draco instead just says, "alright."
"Alright," Potter repeats, reaching out and clasping his shoulder in a way that speaks to support, to encouragement, to friendship or something like it someday, if Draco can see something through for once in his life. He flinches, though Potter at least pretends not to notice. "C'mon, then. We've got somewhere to be."
The energy that arrives back to the Burrow after they pick themselves up off the floor is both entirely unexpected and entirely familiar to Erin. Molly is serving soup at the stove. Arthur is quizzing Hermione on the functionality of muggle objects. The boys are teasing and causing a ruckus at the table. Ginny is gravitating towards any female presence that isn't her mother's. There are new faces in the fray, but that's old news; what little the Weasley's have, they've always had to share. The faces that are missing are hard to stomach, but in the noise it's easy enough to pretend that they've just in the next room, just out of sight. That kind of thinking will get her nowhere, Erin knows, but for tonight, it's a necessary evil.
Molly's ladling while Erin passes out bowls when the kitchen door swings open. The din dies again almost instantly as Harry slips inside, followed closely by Draco, looking all the worse for wear in the throng of those who have had a moment to put themselves back together since the battle. Could it only have been days ago that that happened? Fleetingly, Erin wonders if she looks much the same, since the two of them have been sharing space in the forest and the Shrieking Shack in that time. It's been too long since she's seen a mirror.
"Come in, then, come in, shut the door." Molly is the first to speak, ushering Draco in with a practiced wave of her arm. He's stiff when he moves towards them, when she takes the bowl out of Erin's hands and shoves it into his until he takes it, patting his shoulders and urging him into a chair. "It's not quite summer yet, is it? That'll warm you right up from the inside out, eat up, then."
Draco does as he's told and takes the seat nearest to him, spoon clattering against the bowl as he struggles just noticeably to still the shaking in his hands enough to get a mouthful. It must burn his throat, it's still piping hot enough, but he dutifully takes a spoonful more before he mumbles, "it's- it's good. Thanks."
And just like that, the clatter and the clangor return at full force. There's more bowls to be passed out, but Erin's seat is the empty chair at Draco's side, and as soon as everyone's fed she'll sit next to him, a blond head in a sea of orange that she never thought she'd see in this place. It's a double-edged sword, the way that they got here. Erin almost feels like she can still see it glinting, just at the corner of her eye, hanging over both their heads. She has the sneaking suspicion that it might never truly leave her, but for now, at least, this night is enough to give her the slightest bit of what she thought was long lost to her, but that they all sorely need: hope.
The door to Erin's room at the Burrow has been left unlocked since the last time she stormed out of it, but the inside is the same, dusty and empty and largely untouched. Her wand is in her hand, but at the last moment before she recites the spell she has in mind, she chooses instead to light the lamp at her bedside table and then set her wand beside it. She crouches at the bottom drawer of her dresser to retrieve the green and silver sheets that have been tucked away, then starts at tucking them at the corners of the mattress. Though she doesn't ask, doesn't expect him to, Draco takes the other side and copies her movements; it's clear that he's never made a bed before in his life and it almost makes her smile.
No one sleeps well these days, but after their midnight snack was finished and the dishes put up to dry, they'd all trickled off in pairs to lay down until sunrise. It wasn't an argument, that Draco would be staying. For years now, where Erin's gone, he follows, and even as Molly had wearily eyed their intertwined hands as they left up the stairs, she hadn't made a sound in protest. If this is going to be a fight, it will be one for another day. It seems so far that now that they've got Erin back, no one wants to do anything that might drive her away again.
They don't bother with pillows, or pajamas, or words, just crawl in and leave the light on and close their eyes. Most of Erin's things are still at Spinner's End, Draco's at Malfoy Manor. Just as he wouldn't ask her to go back to a place with memories and horrors ingrained in the very foundation, so she won't ask him. They'll figure out a way to retrieve their belongings without setting foot on the property. Another in that long line of never again's.
The familiar lull of Draco's breathing and her childhood bed are at odds with each other. Both bring to mind words like safety and comfort, but to do so they come to a clash: she's never had- has never even imagined- him in this bed with her. They're two halves of her whole self, like two parts of her identity that should never have touched.
Lying next to her, Draco looks superimposed in the moonlight, copied into the scene by an artist's careful hand. If only for show, his eyes are closed, the dark circles beneath them starker in the moonlight. There's still dirt on his cheeks. He could use a shower. So could she, Erin supposes. Maybe in the morning.
Sleep comes faster than Erin expects it to. When it overtakes her, she closes her eyes, finding it maddeningly easy to give in and drift away.