One More Day Chapter 3: 11:45 am Friday, a harry potter fanfic

11:45 AM Friday

Draco organised his mind by focusing on the incessant beeping that sounded from various items flying past the intense red beam. One beep, one thought. Who was Vincent? How did he know Draco was ex-Hogwarts? What did he want? Was he sent by Lucius? If so, what in the hell did Lucius want? Draco didn't know what to think, so he just kept on scanning items.

The people who came through his register didn't notice his preocupation. They themselves were preocupied with their own affairs. Many coins and notes exchanged hands. Many items were bought. Draco regurgitated the usual mantra of greeting a customer and asking, without any interest, how they were. He had a lot of time to think.

Draco establsihed that he had never met Vincent. As to how he knew that Draco wasn't a muggle was beyond his guess. Draco had lived amongst these things for a year and he felt he blended in perfectly. So where did that leave him? He was so confused.

'Hello?' said the customer irritably as she leaned in to look at his nametag, 'So, Harry, were you planning on scanning these any time soon?'

The customer, an irritating teenage muggle with a ridiculous outfit and a rosebud tatoo on her lower back, glared at Draco with both annoyance and pleasure at Draco's lapse in attention. Draco repeated the mantra, and started hurling cereal boxes and prepackaged vegetables through the angry red beam. This stupid kid wanted to mess him around. He wanted to pick on Draco Malfoy, did he? Draco absentmindedly reached for a wand that wasn't there, but rembered where he was after a moment.

'Come on then tiger,' she taunted him. His eyes narrowed, and he felt the rage that lurked underneath his mask come boiling to the surface. If he was a wizard he would have turned her inside out. He would have force fed her those smug little eyeballs of hers, and made her thank him for it. But he was nothing. Less than nothing. He was, for all intents and purposes: muggle. He might have jumped the counter and slashed her throat. He wanted to. All he'd have to do is reach into his pocket and pull out the small blade with a finger hole in it that he carried. He was caught once without such protection. Never again. However after a moment he calmed and affixed a smug leer to his features. He was Draco Malfoy. He was better than these things. He pulled a microphone from on top of his register.

'Isle 14, can I have a price check for "Franklin's Hemarhoid Cream", Isle 14 please,' he said on the public address. The girl turned bright red and looked around as several muggles stopped to look at her. Draco grinned at her as he threw his tie on the piled items and walked away. It was petty he knew, but he felt a little better.

The manager of the store came rushing out to see what the problem was, but Draco slapped his nametag onto the man's chest and gave him precise directions on where he thought a good place to put it would be. Then he turned his back on the job that made him a muggle. A revolting notion that he had never addressed before. It was time to move on. Time for change.

He was going to see Vincent and get to the bottom of things. He wanted to know why after talking to the priest for five minutes he suddenly let insignificant muggle trash make him feel so inadequate. Only two other people in the world made him felt like that. One was Lucius... that was no suprise. The other...

No time to think. He had to keep moving. Step after step. Footpath stone after stone. The London weather mirrored his darkening mood, beggining to rain heavily, and laying the foundations of what might turn out to be the infamous pea-soup fog.
Draco's eyes were blank. His mind was blank. He felt nothing.

It was better this way. When he was numb he didn't have to feel the emotions that threatened to consume him. He didn't have to feel like he shouldn't be what he was. He just didn't have to feel.

On he walked, towards the church's barely visible exterior which was just emerging from the gloom. It was time.

'Hello?' said the customer irritably as she leaned in to look at his nametag, 'So, Harry, were you planning on scanning these any time soon?'

'Isle 14, can I have a price check for Franklin's Hemarhoid Cream, Isle 14 please,' he said on the public address. The girl turned bright red and looked around as several muggles stopped to look at her. Draco grinned at her as he threw his tie on the piled items and walked away. It was petty he knew, but he felt a little better.

No time to think. He had to keep moving. Step after step. Footpath stone after stone. The London weather mirrored his darkening mood, beggining to rain heavily, and laying the foundations of what might turn out to be the infamous pea-soup fog. Draco's eyes were blank. His mind was blank. He felt nothing.

It was better this way. When he was numb he didn't have to feel the emotions that threatened to consume him. He didn't have to feel like he shouldn't be what he was. He just didn't have to feel.

On he walked, towards the church's barely visible exterior which was just emerging from the gloom. It was time.

A beam of light split the dark interior of the church in two. The beam widened as the door opened, until Draco stepped inside and closed it again. Vincent raised his head from where he was lying on the bench and flashed his teeth at him before lowering back down and closing his eyes.

Draco snorted in amusement and strode over to him. He sat on the bench behind Vincent and leaned over the other, staring down onto his peaceful face. Vincent's eyes flicked open and he erupted in his insatiable grin.

'You came back, I see. How abrupt,' the mild French and colloquial British accents in Vincent's voice battled, the latter winning out as he said, 'I hope you didn't need that job of yours.'

'No I...' Draco began, then cut off as his eyes narrowed, 'How did you know?'

'You're here killing time with Vincent, after you were in such a hurry to get to work this morning?' Vincent asked playfully.

'I could just be on my break. It's 12:00. That is when I take my breaks,' Draco countered.

'You quit. I know because... well, I guess I paid attention in school,' Vincent smiled at an apparently private joke.

'Yes. Very mysterious, indeed. So are you going to tell me something worthwhile or am I going to have to go find a new job to quit?'

'How true to form Draco,' Vincent yawned before continuing, 'well I suppose I should tell you my story. Maybe then you'll tell yours.'

Draco sat down on the hard pew and tried in vain to get comfortable, staring at the place where Vincent's head was, envious of his obvious comfort.

'Okay then. Where to start?' Vincent murmured before deciding, 'Let it be me. I was a teacher at Hogwarts, back in the day.'

'And here I was thinking their standards had decreased over time,' Draco snorted, but Vincent waved him to silence.

'I used to teach Defense against the Dark Arts. I was bloody good at it too,' Vincent's sun-eclipsing grin shone once more, 'It seems that my true calling was divination. I was a true seer.'

Draco's eyes widened uncertainly, but he remained silent.

'I think it might be because until then I had never really cared about anyone. Only about having a job to do and getting it done. But when I saw the great depth of pain... the confusion out there, I knew I couldn't live with my head in the sand any more.
'So I resigned as a teacher, and went to study under that desiccated coconut Trelawney. I learned what little genuine skill she had to pass on, but at the same time I shielded the extent of my power from her. I think I scared her. I don't blame her. Have you ever heard of Cassandra?' Vincent asked him.

'Yeah, it's kinda familiar. Some long dead Greek oracle, yeah?' Draco said uncertainly, looking around the church for some hint.

'You won't find her on those walls my friend, but yes, she could see the future like nobody that had come before or since,' Vincent sighed. 'Her legend has been twisted by muggles who knew no better, but essentially her power granted her concrete knowledge of things to come, the downside being that she couldn't change the future because nobody she told would believe her.'

'Then that's no power at all,' muttered Draco, to which Vincent smiled.

'I agree with you. Still there is always a compulsion to try change, to help,' the priest said, with a self-mocking tone, 'I know this so well because the power that lived in Cassandra now lives in me.'

Draco stared at him incredulously. Vincent rose, and met his stare, and Draco saw for the first time the sorrow that swam beneath the priest's smile.

'Prove it,' Draco said skeptically, with an upward jerk of his head. Vincent grinned mischievously.

'I knew you were going to ask me to do that,' he laughed. Draco glowered.

'No you didn't.'

'See?' Vincent clapped his hands together, 'there's your proof.'

Draco groaned in disgust. 'This is bullshit. I'm leaving now.' He stood.

'No you're not,' Vincent retained his childish smile.

'Yes,' Draco spat irritably, 'I am,' and with that, he turned and headed once more for the door. Vincent waited till he was almost gone before he called out.

'Don't you want to know how this all adds up to being about you and a certain woman?' He asked. Draco froze.

'Alright you have my attention,' Draco said, returning to Vincent, 'but I'm not coming back because you said I would. I'm coming back on my own free will.'

'Of course you are,' Vincent mocked, to which Draco threw up his hands in exasperation and remained silent.

'So anyway,' Vincent continued, 'as you kindly pointed out, my power is quite useless. As you may imagine this was a terrible burden to bear during Voldemort's time. Even though I knew about his downfall, I saw the terrible price it would come at. I had to live with not being able to prevent it. Not being able to save them.
'But after... after his downfall, the respite was unbelievable. I could have kissed that little Harry Potter,' Vincent smiled at the memory.

Draco, irritated by the name mentioned, and more than a disturbed by the priest's tone, gave him a wary stare. Vincent caught the look and made his most outrageous grin yet, holding up both hands innocently.

'Hey! Far be it from me to perpetuate stereotypes of the Catholic Church,' he laughed, 'his father on the other hand...'

Vincent trailed off, staring lazily at some unknown object behind Draco, who was blinking incredulously.

'Damn me, I could have watched that ass all day,' he snorted and then became more serious, 'back on topic. I had some time to collect my thoughts with Voldemort gone. I needed something to focus me. Something that could give me freedom from the guilt. I became a priest, and have spent my days since then helping people as best I may.
'Long story shorter: you need helping boy,' he said abruptly. Draco made a face to indicate that he had been waiting for this point in the conversation.

'A little girly once stole your heart. The girl in the picture,' Vincent looked into Draco's eyes, 'you once saved her when there was nobody else to do it. You went against everything you had been raised for, everything you once believed in, even your own family, and you did it for her. It took bravery, and I really admire that in you. So did she. Too bad she'd already given her heart to someone else.'

Draco clamped down on his emotions and his thoughts with expert control. He had practiced. Even so, he still saw the images as clear as if they were unfolding before him. He remembered the way he felt when he saw her and knew he had to do something for her. He remembered the way his Father had looked on him when he banished Draco from their house forever, disowning him. He remembered the glowing, shining eyes she had as she embraced another man, and he remembered how that felt, knowing that he had lost everything for her. But he knew, even now, that it had been worth it, even if she would never turn those eyes to him.
Folding the memories away into his mind, he looked at Vincent calmly. The priest nodded as if agreeing with Draco.

'Get over it,' Vincent said simply.

'That's your advice?' Draco asked blandly, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

'If you don't you'll never be complete again, and I kind of like you, so I wouldn't want that to happen,' Vincent told him softly. Draco nodded and stood.

'Well thanks. I'll try to keep that in mind,' he said cheerfully, and made for the exit once more, 'I feel better after that. Hell, I've been over her for ages anyway.'

Vincent watched as Draco left the church. He smiled sadly.

'No... you haven't.'

He sat, staring up at the cross for what seemed like hours before he spoke.

'Can you blame me? I never stopped trying, even after all these years,' he asked, smiling gently, before resuming his recline on the bench and closing his eyes.