Draco Malfoy and His Quest to Sensibility

by cleury

Chapter XXIV

Draco attended the simple funeral Hermione held. This suited him just fine. He was sure the only two people Crookshanks loved in the world were there mourning for his death. They buried him next to the field of flowers at the edge of the psychiatric ward. By the time he and Hermione had finished piling dirt on top of the shallow grave, they were both sweating. A small, flat tile which Hermione had charmed Crookshanks' name onto marked where he lay.

Draco wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his black shirt; he had dressed in his most somber attire. Though he normally wore black, he wore his best suit and shoes to the funeral as a sign of love and respect to the ginger cat. Hermione was also dressed in all black and had made small holes in the grass with her pin-heeled shoes. A passerby looked strangely as the two of them who mourned in front of a pile of dirt. Draco put a consoling arm around Hermione and she sobbed in his chest. He propped his chin on top of her head and closed his eyes, taking shuddering breaths.

After the funeral, Draco and Hermione headed back to the institute together. Draco sat in the reception room waiting for his session with Luna, for he was due for a therapy session in half an hour and didn't feel like going anywhere. Hermione gave him one last look and turned to leave. Draco felt tired and all he wanted to do was go to sleep. He didn't manage to catch a wink last night as the incidents of the day before churned in his head, replaying over and over. Draco imagined scenarios where he had done the correct thing, and from there, tried to imagine what the alternate future would've been like. But he could only delude himself so far before he came to his senses and realized Crookshanks had indeed gone…

Draco dozed off on the plastic chairs as he waited for his session.

"Draco!"

Draco jumped at the sound of his name to see Luna in front of him. "Follow me."

He followed Luna into her office and sat in his usual position on the sofa. Luna took her place in her chair and they looked at each other. "I'm sorry about Crookshanks," said Luna, her voice so soft she almost whispered.

"Don't be. You hardly knew him."

Luna twisted her face into a wry smile and looked at Draco. "You really loved him."

Draco would have lashed out at Luna if she had phrased it as a question. Instead, he nodded and closed his eyes, trying to deal with his death.

"You can talk to me when you're ready," said Luna. "But I'm going to assign you with something this week. You don't have to do it today—I just hope you do it before our next session." She held up a plastic balloon, string and some parchment.

Draco frowned. "What for?"

"I want you to write your feelings and anything you've been holding back onto this piece of paper," said Luna, handing him the items. "When you've written everything, tie it onto the balloon and watch it rise up into the air. Keep watching it until it disappears completely out of sight."

Draco opened his mouth, it seemed wrong to make a point here, but he needed to say something. "Balloons don't float." He knew releasing the balloon into the air and watching it float away was supposed to be a symbolism of his letting go of all the pain, fear and secrets he possessed. Even if it was working on a symbolic level, Draco didn't think he could handle it if the balloon fell to the ground when he let it go. It would feel like all his pain, fears and secrets were grounded and would stay with him forever.

Luna looked at Draco quizzically. "It's been charmed," she said.

Draco glanced up at Luna before staring at his hands, and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Just wanted to make sure, since we don't breathe out helium." He paused and swallowed as he tried to suppress an urge to giggle at the prospect of humans breathing out helium. He knew that Muggles breathed in helium to make their voices sound high-pitched or to numb pain. Maybe he ought to invest in some.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," said Luna, snapping the man back to reality, "but here's the balloon."

Draco took everything from Luna's hands. "Is that all?"

Luna nodded. "We can't do anything until you've done this."

Draco glanced at Luna dumbly and got out of his chair. He carried everything in his hands, his movements mechanical.

After he had been admitted out of the institute and taken to visiting Crookshanks in the morning, Draco woke naturally at six. Now having lost reason to visit the ward, Draco used the extra time in the early hours to sulk and mope on his bed. He was in effect, a shut-in, and he ignored his business, refusing to go outside; he ordered elves to bring him his meals into his room. He could tell people were worried about him. Adrian had visited once, asking him if he was all right but he didn't speak to him. Draco feared if he had opened his mouth, he would snap at him or scream. Maybe both.

It was funny how much the impact of loss varied. With his father, he had been sad about the fact he would never see him again—but the sadness and loss he felt was not because he would never seen Lucius' again, but because of the new responsibilities impressed onto him. At the tender age of eighteen, losing his father meant losing the final vestiges of childhood; and he was but a child playing and masquerading himself as an adult in the business world. He had been too busy with making sure he acted tough and smart so the predators wouldn't be able to take him down to properly mourn for the loss of his father.

"Why?" he asked himself. It was stupid really. He had known the cat for two-three weeks the most and yet he had cried more for his death more than he did for his father. He had closed the drapes permanently across his window and he had cast a quieting charm around his room so he wouldn't hear anyone knocking or talking outside of his bedroom. Of course, he had locked the door so no one could come in and visit. Even his own shallow breaths assaulted his senses. A pressure built within his chest and he screamed in his pillow, smothering the sound of his voice to his ears.

After he finished his screaming session, Draco felt better. Be it the lack of fresh air in the room—Draco hadn't moved stepped outside or opened the windows for days, or his lack of sleep got to him, Draco felt a mind numbing fog settle over his brain and shroud his thoughts. It made him feel terribly detached from the world and lonely, knowing there was no one else in the world that could possibly understand how he felt.

Except there was.

Hermione.

Draco shook his head. He didn't want to see her right now. If there was someone in the world who knew how he felt, he didn't want to talk to them. He didn't want to ever connect to something so he could never feel the stab in his chest when he lost that thing or person.

The Draco set up, realizing something.

"You really loved him."

When he first went to the psychiatric ward he could feel no emotion but hate. Slowly, he had regained a few of his sensibilities: remorse, relief, shame, gratefulness, and finally... love.

He loved Crookshanks. Love, not as the noun, but as the verb—the action of being affectionate and pleased with something or someone. Somewhere along the line, unbeknownst to Draco, Crookshanks had unlocked the final emotion within him. "I loved Crookshanks!" said Draco in amazement. He could love!With this realization only came more agony. Is that was the reason why concubines in the Old Ages threw themselves into the funeral pyre? Because they had nothing to live for and losing a lover was like having the universe torn apart for them?

He then spent the next hour ruminating on that thought.

And something within his brain clicked.

He wasn't well-versed in logic as Theo and didn't understand the intricacies of relation and causation of thoughts like his godfather did. Yet, chemicals in his brain sent signals to his body which induced an experience he did not expect. The most incapacitating and irrevocable bout of amusement. He roared with laughter, curling himself up into a ball, trying to stop the spasms rocking through his body. Draco had no idea what his brain was doing. He had been thinking of Crookshanks, his husband and himself as a concubine—he had accepted that idea without much thought but as he mulled and mourned over it, he realized just how preposterous it was."Are cats allowed polygamy?"

Would it have been legal for Crookshanks to have a harem of lovers? Laughter continued, sending Draco into more confusion. His puzzlement only acted as a positive feedback and strengthened the funniness of the situation. And that ensued more hilarity. It was most the pointless and half-witted thing his brain had ever conjured up and mulled over.

Unadulterated happiness, something he hadn't felt for years crept up on him and smothered him like an avalanche. Draco, instead of running away into the opposite direction of the emotional tidal wave, allowed the warm feelings overwhelm him. He sat up and wiped his eyes, still chuckling at his ludicrous thoughts and knew that somehow… just somehow he was going to pull through.

Draco closed his eyes and stood up, pulling open the drapes and watched the raindrops splatter on his window. He wished the rain would suddenly cease and a shaft of sunlight would shine down. Or a rainbow would form. Something that symbolized hope or happiness. It felt as though Draco's depression had been cumulostratus cloud: a thick, angry and grey blanket that covered the large expanse of land... and he knew he had reached the end of it, and could feel the warmth and sunlight.

In retrospect, Draco would have loved to say he had overcome his grief through the support and guidance of his therapist, his friends, his family or Hermione. It would've been sweet, but it would've been a lie. Though they had tried to be supportive and came to knock on his door everyday—so much so that Draco had eventually cast the silencing charm, the incredibly nonsensical idea of cat polygamy had made him do a sharp U-turn in his emotions. Something similar to happiness was once more on the menu for him and it felt unreal and good.

Draco took a shower and dressed. He changed his clothes and for the first time in days, brushed his teeth and shaved. As he did so, he literally felt weight fall off his face and saw a person giving him a wavering smile in the mirror. After he finished cleaning up, Draco sat down on his bed and began to write down a recount on how he overcame the grief. How it had almost consumed him and how after that grief, because of Crookshank's death—he had unexpectedly realized he could feel love again. He wrote how because of the cat's affections he had hope, he could feel happy again.

Happiness.

As a matter of habit, he scribbled and changed some lines in his writing, proofreading and reading his work aloud before he was satisfied. Draco took the piece of string and tied one end of it to the piece of paper and the other to the balloon. Pausing only to grab a coat, he stepped outside of his room. Instantly, Draco heard a sharp clap and knew that the elves had apparated from the outside of his room to alert his mother he had come out. Draco didn't think he had the emotional capacity to deal with his mother at the current moment and he had more pressing things to attend to.

He sprinted down the corridors in top speed—something he hadn't even dared do as a child, slid down the banner of the stairs, ran across the foyer and flung the front doors open, stepping outside. With a lurch, he apparated beside his favourite apple tree in his orchard and took a large inhale of fresh air.

The weather was still horrible. Draco felt mud squish between his toes and the ends of his trousers dragging in the mud, but he didn't care. He felt connected with the world—he felt alive. He stepped clear away from the apple trees—Founders forbid if his balloon popped on them—and looked at the balloon once last time. Then, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he let go.

Draco didn't believe in the idea of symbolism, but he liked the idea of putting his thoughts into action.

'Actions speak louder than words.'

He knew what Hermione meant now. It wasn't the fact he was doing the action that meant so much, but rather the physical affirmation; the consummation of the body and soul that created such a huge effect. He opened his eyes again and watched the balloon fly up, climbing high into the sky. As the balloon made its vertical ascent, Draco felt the shackles of guilt, the sadness and the loss loosen. He doubted they would fade—he had a feeling he would feel a pang of those emotions whenever he saw a ginger cat, but they didn't crushed him and hindered him anymore. Along with those shackles, his fear and uncertainties of how to live the rest of his life, relaxed its grip, and overwhelmed him no more.

"Thank you," he whispered up into the sky. The cat had given his life to him. Crookshanks was a super cat and he redeemed Draco's ice-cold heart. Draco didn't know how to express his thanks to something dead, but promised if he ever came across an abandoned cat, he would never leave it alone. He would make sure it was happy and if no one wanted it, he would take care of it, even if it meant his manor would eventually become overrun with cats. He slowly walked back towards his home. He took his time, savoring the sting of raindrops hitting his hair, face and neck. It was marvelous.

The wind howled around him and the leaves rustled against the blasts of air. Draco was completely saturated by the time he reached the front doors of the Manor. The elves brought him towels and fussed over him. Draco could only continue to smile like an idiot. If he could point to an exact moment and say when he didn't feel as though he was an empty husk of lifelessness and that his life wasn't a total mess anymore, he would probably pick that moment. Draco opened the manor's front door and placed a foot over the threshold. He turned his head and paused for a moment. He smiled and shook his head, stepping inside his house.

He thought he had heard a faint hiss and yowl.

And all that because of a cat. Fancy that.