Part 2 - Winter, 2002
Draco Malfoy wasn't sure when he had stopped thinking about this group of people as 'Potter's friends' and started thinking about them as his own, but he knew perfectly well who was responsible for that transformation. Johnny.
He had met Johnny in a pub - a Muggle pub. A long time ago, it would have been surprising that these were the places Draco chose to go. Not anymore. Four years after the war, he still had to endure whispers and looks from the people around him. It was like that at the office, and when he walked into the Leaky Cauldron, they had just intensified. The Dark Mark, he had learned a long time ago, was something he could never get rid of, even when it was safely tucked away under the sleeve of his wizard's robes. Muggle pubs were full of Muggles, had piss-poor beer and loud company, but there, at least, no one knew his face. He was no one. To Draco's own surprise, he had found that he liked it best that way.
On the nights he felt particularly angry, or frustrated, or bored, he'd allow one of the more attractive Muggles to pick him up, and then followed to his or her flat and have good sex, no strings attached. There was something to say in favour of a city with 8 million people.
That was Johnny when he had first met him. Another attractive Muggle for a one-night stand, and the sex was mind-blowing to boot. He had noticed him almost as soon as he had walked into the pub. Johnny was tall, muscled in just the right places, and had a boyish smile full of white teeth. When Draco first offered to buy him a beer, he had laughed and said with a trace of Caribbean accent, "I don't drink beer, but a whiskey would do just fine."
Already then, he knew that that night would end at Johnny's place.
Johnny's place was mostly tidy, except for some books and magazines that were thrown unceremoniously on the sofa, and had then been even less ceremoniously shoved to the floor when the sofa became the place for Draco and Johnny to try and out-kiss each other. They had moved to the bedroom later on, and thankfully, that proved much less tidy than the rest of the flat. As Draco got dressed the morning after, Johnny said lazily, "Drop by some time if you're in the neighbourhood," and as he looked around, Draco thought that he just might do that.
He never dropped by.
It was Johnny who found him again, of course, a couple of weeks later, back in the same pub, and the sex was just as good as the first time. They had actually talked this time afterwards, and it turned out Johnny had brains as well - well, for a Muggle, anyway.
The next time Draco had gone to the same pub he already had hopes that Johnny would be there, and he had not been disappointed. This, however, had been the first time to offer a challenge, as Johnny gave him a piece of paper with his phone number and asked for his own.
"I don't have a phone," Draco answered truthfully, but it was obvious Johnny thought he was evading him.
"Everyone's got a phone," Johnny stated flatly.
"Not me. Never saw the point in one."
"Not even a mobile?" Johnny asked, doubt in his voice. Draco just shrugged.
"Look," Johnny said, "I thought we were having a good time. If you're not interested, just say so." Draco realised, a little too late, that in the Muggle world, a person who declared a lack of phone sounded like someone who did not want to be contacted.
"We are having a good thing," Draco answered, looking directly into Johnny's dark eyes, trying to communicate his honesty. "I'm very interested." He didn't blink, even though he was all of a sudden overcome with the urge to. "I really don't have a phone."
Johnny looked at him for a moment longer, just long enough to make Draco wonder whether he was going to walk out without another word. But then he nodded and said, "Be here tomorrow at 5."
Draco went home alone that night, but he still left work early to stand in front of the pub at 5 pm. Johnny was a few minutes late, and showed up just as Draco thought of giving up.
"You're here," Johnny smiled at him.
"Told you I'm interested."
"Good." Without another word, Johnny started walking into the street, and Draco followed him. They didn't have long to walk, just a few hundred metres - just until the small shop that sold mobile phones. Johnny raised an eyebrow in a silent challenge, and Draco walked in and didn't look back.
The business with the mobile phone looked at the time like a challenge, but as it turned out, it was only the warm-up for the real challenge, the one that appeared out of nowhere three weeks later, in the shape of a small white envelope carried by a big barn owl.
Draco knew what it was before he had even opened it, but he opened it anyway. How could he not know? The entire wizarding world had been talking about nothing else for weeks now. He just never expected to be invited, to be included. But there it was, gold on white, and he read as he sneered at the tackiness of the colour-scheme: You are cordially invited... blah blah blah... Friday the fifteenths... blah blah... the happy families... blah blah blah... Ronald Bilius Weasley and Hermione Jean Granger.
Much as he wanted to throw the invitation in the rubbish bin where it belonged, he knew he had to show up. Not just because this was the social event of the new millennium, as the gossip columns and life-style sections kept on insisting. No; it was because the only thing that would be worse for Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater, than not being invited, was to be invited and not show up. He knew what Granger thought this was. She must have thought she was being so clever, so benevolent. Trying to breach the gap between them that she had been willing to leave bloody well alone for the past four years. It was just like her, too. Just like her not to notice that what she was really doing was remind everyone of the new social order. Remind everyone that in this brave new world, right now, she was on top, and Draco Malfoy was at the bottom. She could afford inviting a former Death Eater to her wedding, and everyone would say what a wonderful person she was, and she didn't even think that he would have to show up, and everyone would look him up and down and mutter, and he hated her all the more for that.
His irritation and anger bubbled within him all day long, and the next, and the one after that too. The invitation came a week before the event - very late, he knew, but not late enough to stop the anger from turning into a vague sense of anxiety by the weekend, downright fear as the next week went by in a whoosh, and full-blown panic by Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday afternoon he was standing in Johnny's kitchen and eating one expensive chocolate after the other without tasting them. Johnny stood there stoically without saying a word. He had asked Draco what was up a few days ago, at some point around the time his irritation had become more like anxiety. Draco said "Nothing", and Johnny let it drop. That was another one of the reasons Draco liked Johnny - he knew when to let things go. But Draco was getting the feeling that this might be testing this tendency of his to the limits.
When Johnny opened his mouth to speak, he didn't ask why Draco was acting like a caged lion, though. Instead, he asked in a casual voice, "What do you wanna do tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" Draco swallowed the chocolate, only vaguely aware of its sweetness.
"Tomorrow," Johnny smiled. "You know? One month? One month since I bought you that mobile, anyhow. Feels like that's the best place to start counting from."
"One month. Shit." Draco closed his eyes and tried to calm down. Why why why, he wanted to scream. Why now. To hell with you, Granger. "I'm sorry. There's this wedding I have to go to."
He knew what Johnny was going to say before he had even opened his mouth. "Sounds like a date, then!" Johnny said brightly, and Draco groaned loudly.
"I don't think that's a good idea," he said quietly and opened his eyes. It was as he feared - Johnny was looking at him with cold, angry eyes.
"You're ashamed of me?" he asked quietly. "You don't want to show me to your friends? Is that why we never go to your place? Afraid we might run into people you know?"
"I'm not ashamed of you," Draco said, slightly more harshly than he intended. "And they're definitely not my friends."
"Then why are you going?"
"It's... complicated."
Johnny wasn't budging an inch. "Explain, then," he said.
For a moment, Draco thought of storming out of the overly-tidy flat, throwing the phone and never looking at Johnny's face again. A Muggle and a Pure-blood - no, a Muggle and a Malfoy. It was never going to work anyway, so why waste his time? And that was what everyone at the wedding was going to think, wasn't it - if they'd ever believe Draco had dated a Muggle in the first place. They'd say it was Draco who had ruined it all, Draco who had found it impossible to have such a relationship. In a burst of real fury, he decided at that point to make his damn best to make this relationship work just to spite them all. If Johnny would walk out tonight, he thought, it would be because the Muggle couldn't deal with it, not because Draco Malfoy didn't try.
"Come on," he said abruptly, grabbing his jacket. "We're going to my place."
Johnny was surprised, but said nothing. He just took his own jacket and followed Draco into the night.
Draco's flat wasn't that far; he lived right at the edge of Diagon Alley - in the Muggle part, in fact. He wasn't quite sure why, but he drew perverse pleasure out of that fact. They waited for the tube, rode the train in silence for five stops and finally, after no time at all, Draco got up, Johnny still following.
"This is where you live?" Johnny frowned when he realised they weren't changing trains, but had reached their destination.
"Yeah," Draco answered.
"Doesn't look posh enough."
"It has its benefits."
They climbed up the quite filthy stairs to the third floor, where Draco didn't even bother with the key but just opened the door. Johnny's brow wrinkled even further at that, but still he said nothing.
At least, until he could see behind the door.
There was a very good reason he had never been to Draco's flat, of course. It wasn't just the size, or the general shabbiness - after all, places around Diagon Alley cost a fortune, which didn't leave much for luxury furniture. No, it was the family pictures.
As soon as Draco opened the door he walked into the kitchen and sat down, watching Johnny. Johnny didn't realise at first what he was looking at. His face swept the corridor, rested for a moment on Draco in the nearby kitchen - and then his brain registered what he had seen and he turned to looked at the photograph again. Behind the heavy frame, Draco's mum was smiling indulgently, his father was wearing a frown, and Draco, aged 7, was flying around with his toy broomstick, zooming in and out of the picture.
Johnny stared for a moment longer, then turned to look at Draco. Just to drive his point home, Draco pulled out his wand and flicked it once at the air, conjuring two glasses, and again at the bottle of firewhiskey that stood on the counter. The whiskey followed the summons and advanced towards Draco, opening itself and pouring the drink into the two glasses. There was a fair amount in Draco's glass, but he was careful not to pour too much into the second one. No point in wasting good firewhiskey, he thought, still sure Johnny would not stay long enough to drink the drink.
Johnny didn't move the whole time. Only when the bottle was resting safely on the counter once again and Draco had already taken a sip did he open his mouth and speak. "How...? How did you do that?"
"Magic."
"C'mon..."
"I'm not yanking your chain. Magic. That's how I did it. I'm a wizard."
To Draco's surprise, Johnny took a step forward, not backwards. Then another. Then he sat down next to Draco and took the second glass in hand, sniffing it suspiciously, before tasting the rich firewhiskey in it. "Smooth," he said, and they both laughed. The tension was broken.
The next hour and a half were the most bizarre in Draco's life. Johnny asked question after question - how magic worked, what kind of things Draco could do, what kind of things he couldn't do, where he had learnt it all... all the questions that Draco, as a Pure-blood, never had to deal with. He answered gladly, openly, but also in a slightly guarded manner that he hoped Johnny didn't notice. Some things he didn't want to explain.
He had almost allowed himself the hope that the whole topic of the wedding had been forgotten, when Johnny started asking him about it.
"So whose wedding are we going to tomorrow?"
"Granger and Weasley. The event of the year, apparently," Draco sneered.
"You don't like them too much," Johnny observed.
"I don't like them at all," Draco corrected him.
"Then why are you going? Draco Malfoy, wizard extraordinaire, has to show his face or people will think he's not important enough?"
For the second time that night, Draco found himself saying reluctantly, "It's... complicated." This time, however, Johnny's eyes weren't cold, but curious and warm.
"What happened?" he asked quietly. He could see it written all over his face, Draco knew. Something had happened, of course, and Johnny could see it.
"There was a war. I was on one side. They were on the other. My side lost."
Johnny gave him a calculating look. "Is that why you're going to regular pubs? Not wizard pubs?"
By now, Draco knew he wasn't wrong in his original assessment of Johnny - he was clever, clever and fast, and he didn't disappoint this time, too. Draco felt almost relieved. He wouldn't have to explain everything, after all.
"Yeah," he nodded. "Yeah. The looks I get sometimes, the whispers... it all gets too much after a while, you know?"
"So what, they're just rubbing it in now?"
Draco shrugged. "Nah. I think Granger actually means well. That - " he failed to find an epithet he would be comfortable using after all those years and in present company. "She probably thinks it's time to reach out for peace or whatever it is she's babbling about these days."
"And the other one? Weasley?"
"Oh, he hates my guts," Draco said with a smile. "He probably only agreed to invite me in order to rub it in."
"You'd think, seeing as they won, they could be nicer about it," Johnny said in indignation, and for a moment, his reaction warmed Draco's heart.
But it was an evening of honesty, and even though Draco would have preferred to be subjected to some pretty nasty curses rather than tell Johnny what really went on in the war, he couldn't allow this indignation in his name. "Don't think - it's not - they're right, though," he finally found the right words. "It's a good thing my side lost."
Johnny gave him another shrewd, calculating look, but this time, he didn't ask for an explanation. As if Draco needed another proof that he had much more common sense than anyone else around him.
-X-
If Draco thought he looked dashing in his grey dress robes, it was nothing compared to Johnny's deep red suit. For a moment, Draco's heart jumped with glee: not only was he coming to Weasley and Granger's wedding with a date, a Muggle date, but boy, was his date damn good looking. Instead of saying it, he just wolf-whistled.
Johnny, for his part, tried - and failed - to stifle a laugh when he saw Draco. "What are you wearing?" he demanded.
"Dress robes - hey, don't laugh! This pattern's the height of fashion in the wizarding world this year."
Johnny sniggered. "You wizards sure do have a weird sense of fashion," he said.
"I could say the same thing about Muggles."
"You could," Johnny conceded, "but after the way you just looked at me, I know you'd be lying."
Draco just smiled. He was caught, but he didn't mind.
Getting to the wedding wasn't much of a problem. The wedding was in London and, as Granger's whole family were Muggles, was fairly accessible. Draco was torn between his wish to show off to Johnny, now that his magic was out in the open, and between the fact that it was, in the end, much simpler getting there with the Tube. They went for the Muggle transportation in the end - practicality won. Another time, Draco promised himself, he'll show Johnny exactly the benefits of dating a wizard.
They got there just in time for the ceremony. It was tediously long and boring, with Weasley looking like a ginger prat as usual, and Granger actually looking decent for a change. After the ceremony came the reception, and Draco realised, to his surprise and horror, that people were almost as interested in him and Johnny as they were in Granger and Weasley. He stayed next to one table, suspicious and wary, and mostly undisturbed, but he could see people's eyes following him, and, once Johnny got up to get something to eat, he saw people getting up to talk to him.
For a wild moment, he wanted to hear what they were saying. Were they wondering what he was doing there with Draco? Warning him? Hinting - or outright telling - of Draco's past?
But it didn't seem to be the case. Johnny remained in a good mood, and became happily drunker and drunker on the good wine that was being served. "You," he pointed at Draco and laughed, "have got some cool friends. Feel like dancing?"
"Not really," Draco answered.
"Spoil sport. Well, do whatever you please, I'm going dancing," Johnny jumped up from his seat and went to join Granger and Weasley's friends who were butchering some Muggle music on the dance floor. Draco stared gloomily into his drink.
When someone next collapsed into Johnny's seat, Draco assumed it would be his date, who had had enough dancing by then. He was taken aback when he realised it was Granger.
"Hi," she greeted him, a radiant smile on her lips.
"Hi," he mumbled. "Er, congratulations."
"Thanks! It's a nice party, isn't it? I'm glad my family and Ron's are mingling so well."
"Yeah," he muttered. "Wonderful." What was she doing here, exactly?
"And I like your date. He's really sweet. And good looking!" she laughed. "He's a Muggle, isn't he?"
"Yes," no longer mumbling, he looked at her defiantly.
She wasn't gloating, or mocking him, or any of the things he feared. She looked - if that was possible - genuinely happy for him. "I was talking to him earlier. He's really sweet. A good catch, I think."
"Thanks," he said, unsure what else to say.
"Don't mess it up," she smiled, and got up again, and was immediately replaced by Johnny.
"She is wonderful. Remind me why you two aren't better friends again?" he asked.
Draco sighed. "Long story," he said.
Johnny gave Draco then one of his long, penetrating gazes. "Come on," he said.
"What?"
"I've had enough with you sulking here. You're getting up and dancing with me."
None of Draco's protests were any good. Johnny forced him to get up and dragged him to the dance floor, where one noisy Muggle song after the other blasted through the loudspeakers, punctuated at times by something by the Weird Sisters or, whenever Weasley's mother was allowed anywhere near the sound system, Celestina Warbeck.
Once he started dancing, Draco could see it wasn't half as bad as he had expected it to be. He bumped into other people every once in a while, but, perhaps out of respect to the bride and groom, none of them made a scene, and they all laughed it off. After a while, he really did start feeling better. The physicality of jumping up and down might not have been the way a proud, well educated Malfoy was supposed to behave, but as it turned out, it was fun.
Half an hour later, quite breathless, he collapsed into his chair in a laughing fit with Johnny. And other people filled the chairs around them - Granger, Weasley, Weasley's sister, Longbottom, that mad Lovegood girl... in short, Potter's old gang were all of a sudden sitting there, laughing with Draco at his boyfriend's jokes and having fun. He almost feared them calming down enough to notice who they were sitting with.
Longbottom raised his glass. "Hermione... Ron... may all your days be as perfect as this one!"
"Hear, hear!" they all sad. Only Granger had a strange, wistful look on her face.
"What?" Weasley asked her.
"Almost perfect," she sighed. All of a sudden, Draco realised what she meant. Of course. Almost perfect - but for the absence of one Harry Potter.
No one had heard from Potter for over four years. No one knew his whereabouts. It was as if the earth opened its mouth and swallowed him alive. For all they knew, he could be dead somewhere. Or in trouble. Or having a whole new life, with a bunch of new friends. Or he could be just next door, hiding from all of them. There was no word.
Longbottom seemed to think this as well. "You know, I've been wondering," he said quietly, so that only the people at the table could hear. "Maybe he is here."
Weasley raised an eyebrow. "I don't see him," he said.
"Yeah, but he could be under the cloak, couldn't he? Or maybe he took Polyjuice Potion - isn't that what he did at your brother's wedding?"
"Yeah, but that was so that other people wouldn't recognise him, we knew he was there," Weasley pointed out.
"I don't think so, Neville," Granger sighed. "I don't think he could come here and not say anything."
"You don't think he's - " Ginny Weasley started saying something, then seemed to think better of it and stared into her drink, all happiness drained out of her.
"I'm sure he's alright," Granger whispered.
"Erm, who are you talking about?" Johnny asked, and everyone jumped, shaking away the memories they had undoubtedly sunk into and getting back to reality.
"Just an old friend," Granger smiled and got up. She took Weasley's hand and dragged him back to the dance floor, for a romantic slow dance. The Lovegood oddity followed them, although her 'dancing' was anything but slow and romantic, and after a moment or two Ginny Weasley followed her, except that she went to dance with Dean Thomas. It was only Draco, Johnny, and Longbottom at the table now.
"You haven't heard from him, have you?" Longbottom asked.
"Nope."
"You'd have told us if you did, though, wouldn't you?"
Draco gave him a contemptuous look. "Longbottom, why would I tell you anything?"
Longbottom flushed and jumped to his feet. "Because for some of us," he emphasised those three words, "he meant a lot more than just a one-night stand," and left the table.
Draco could feel himself flushing as well. He threw his napkin in irritation.
"That wasn't very nice of you," Johnny said quietly.
Draco shrugged. He wasn't going to hear lectures about his treatment of Longbottom or any of the others, not from someone who didn't know anything about - well, anything, really.
"So who were they talking about?"
"Potter," he spat, knowing it wasn't an answer at all.
"He an ex of yours?"
Now Draco flushed again. The memory of that night, four years ago, came back to his mind as vividly as if it were yesterday. "Sort of," he said. It was easier than explaining anything else. Johnny didn't ask more.
In Draco's opinion, that wedding was a complete disaster, and a good reminder that he should stay away from Potter's old friends. It was therefore a complete surprise when, a month or so later, Granger had caught up with him one day at lunch.
"Malfoy," she called. He turned around, slightly wary. What did Granger want with him?
"Listen, me and Ron, we're having a dinner this weekend, just for some people, and, well, we, I mean I, well, we thought, maybe you and Johnny would like to come?"
It was a good thing he didn't have anything in his mouth. If he had, he would surely have choked on it upon hearing what could only be described as an invitation.
"Don't take this the wrong way, Granger," technically she was Granger-Weasley these days, but that was a mouthful, "but why?"
She didn't seem upset at the question. "We like Johnny," she said simply. "He was a lot of fun at the wedding, and we'd like to see more of him - even if it means seeing more of you," there was some mischievousness in her smile. He couldn't quite get angry with her. "And you're a lot more bearable when you're around him. You were almost fun at the wedding, at times. Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are," she added, again with the same smile.
He laughed despite his better judgement. "Fine," he said, trying to turn the smile into a grudging annoyance. "Since your dinner party will obviously be ruined without my presence. I'll ask Johnny if he can make it - and don't worry, Granger, I won't show up alone, it's either the both of us or none of us. To be honest, you're a lot easier to stomach too, when Johnny's around."
"I'm glad we have an understanding, Malfoy," she smiled and was gone.
It turned out Johnny could make it - and that he was quite looking forward to seeing Granger and her pals again. Draco had got a moment's pleasure from taking him in side-along Apparition to their house, making good on his decision to show off a bit of magic to Johnny, and, encouraged by Johnny's delighted expression, they walked into the house.
To Draco's surprise, he didn't end up regretting accepting the invitation - the dinner was quite pleasant, the food good, and once Granger and Weasley pulled out a couple of expensive wine bottles, he discovered that alcohol made the company a lot more palatable. Before he knew it, he was sitting on a sofa next to Granger and having a heart-to-heart on how much they both missed Potter. It was the first time he had allowed himself to admit that he missed that stupid, bumbling git, and it felt better to say it out loud and to know that the person in front of him didn't think any less of him for admitting it.
-X-
After that first dinner, he was invited to Hermione and Ron's dinners even on the rare evenings Johnny couldn't make it. Johnny usually could, though, especially once things got more serious between the two of them and Johnny moved in with him. After a while, they started hosting these dinners as well, and were invited, in turn, to dinners not just with Hermione, but in Neville's house, with Ginny and Dean Thomas, and even Luna Lovegood had volunteered her house and cooking every once in a while, but everyone brought food to these because she was more likely to make gurdyroot beer and plimpie soup than food any human being would actually want to eat.
They soon started talking about other things. He found out that, out of school and the ridiculous House competitions, Hermione was truly clever, and had quite a number of long interesting discussions with her. Neville turned out to have a wicked sense of humour, and as he was trying to learn more about Muggles and understand a bigger part of Johnny's world, Dean Thomas, who was Muggle-born, was happy to explain some of the wackier things that Muggles did.
It was in no time that these dinners were Draco's favourite form of socialising with other people. It was not so surprising, if he thought about it rationally. He and Johnny could spend time with Johnny's Muggle friends, but to spend time with people who knew Draco, there were only Hermione, Ron and their friends. He was reminded of how much this was his reality when he had tried bringing Johnny to dinner a couple of times at his parents' home. The result, of course, was disastrous. He didn't know whether Johnny realised his father had something particularly against him, but after the second dinner spent in complete silence - other than the nasty looks Lucius Malfoy gave both his son and his son's boyfriend - he gave up on the idea. The shouting match the day after, that included too many instances of the words 'blood purity', 'Muggle', and 'shame', were almost enough for Draco to never visit his parents again. So Draco gave up on the idea of making Johnny one with his family, and decided to keep to his friends, instead.
That was what they became, in time - friends. Or almost friends, because the memory of Harry Potter kept hovering above them, always, even when he wasn't mentioned by name.
Every once in a while, his old gang got a nostalgia attack, and start bringing up memories and stories. "Remember that time he told Snape he didn't have to call him Sir?" Neville roared with laughter. "He had no idea Hagrid was going to throw him on Buckbeak, do you remember his face?" Hermione burst into a giggly fit. "How he flew against that Hungarian Horntail, man, I thought it was going to get him for a moment there!" Ron re-told the tale in an admiring look. Draco always sat stiffly at those moments, slightly apart from everyone. In this, he had no part.
He preferred to have no part, because when he did, it was always worse, like the time Seamus was re-telling what had happened the night of the great battle.
"So we're all sitting in the Great Hall eating dinner, right?" he said. "And it's all quiet just like the Carrows liked it, and then there's pudding, and Michael's brother used to work in Gringotts back then. So anyway, he must have told him something, 'cause we're all starting on pudding when Michael suddenly jumps up on the Ravenclaw table - " he jumped to his feet - "and shouts" - he affected an East London accent over his native Dublin one - "Harry Potter broke into Gringotts and escaped on a dragon!"
They all roared with laughter, except for Draco.
"I'm telling you, it's something, it was brilliant. Everyone cheered like mad, no one even heard the Carrows shouting. I can't believe - none of you were actually there, were you? Oh," he turned red, "you were there, Draco, weren't you."
"Yeah," Draco said and hoped they would change the subject.
Johnny, however, drank in every word. Draco had never asked him how much he managed to piece together about Potter, about the war. Whether he'd realised by now Draco's own part in it.
At the end of it, it always came back to one thing, he thought bitterly one evening when they were all sitting next to the fire and Hermione was hit with another nostalgia attack. They were all on one side, and he was on the other. There was no way around it. He wasn't really a part of their gang. He could never be a part of their gang, because they had all those memories of being on the right side together, and he was alone on the wrong side.
He wasn't even sure how the subject came up again. Perhaps it was the book Hermione was writing, perhaps the cooking, but she started telling them about the time they had been on the run and her sad attempts at fixing dinner back then. "Honestly," she laughed, "we must have learned to recognise every single edible mushroom in the British forests!"
They roared with laughter, but Draco only allowed himself a small smile. It was good that they could laugh at it now, but he still felt uncomfortable laughing with them. War memories were not something he could laugh about.
"Is that why you hate mushrooms?" Johnny asked Ron.
"Oh, yes. Trust me. Starving on mushrooms can give you a whole different attitude towards them. It's a shame," he looked with glazed eyes at the fire. "I used to love mushrooms. Can't stand anything with mushrooms now. Mum used to make this gorgeous mushroom pie, though."
"She still does," Hermione hit him over the shoulder. "You just never take from it anymore!"
"Yeah, well, that's my point, isn't it?" he asked and she roared with laughter, and everyone else joined her.
"Yeah," Dean joined in. "I remember when we were hiding in a forest - me and Ted Tonks, that is - we just stayed there 'cause we figured there were some fish in the streams there and fishing every once in a while was better than trying to collect berries and all that."
"Oh!" Hermione sent her hand to her mouth. "We never told you, didn't we? We were so close once!"
"Close? How d'you mean?"
"Well, we heard you, I think it was right after you met up with Griphook and the other goblin..."
He stared at her in shock. "You were there?"
"Yeah, we were camping right next to you; you couldn't see us because of all the protective charms over our tent..."
They all started laughing again at the thought of the two groups being so close and still missing each other.
"Hey, Draco," Johnny said out of laughter, "maybe you were somewhere around there too. Where were you camped during that war?"
The atmosphere in the room changed immediately. Johnny looked at them in confusion, as he must have registered the change from laughter to seriousness, how all the smiles drained away.
"Um," he said. "Did I say something wrong?"
Draco got up. "I'll go wash the dishes," he said quietly. He wasn't surprised when Hermione followed him.
He kept his back turned to her. He knew what she was going to say. He didn't want to have that conversation.
"Are you ever going to tell him?" she asked softly, as he knew she would. That was the worst part of it. Now that they were - friends, for lack of a better word - she actually felt sympathy towards him in these situations. Even though she shouldn't. Even though her sympathy was just as bad as if she had felt contempt towards him, the same contempt he felt himself, for being too much of a coward to tell Johnny the truth. To see his expression change when he realised exactly what Draco's side had done during the war. What Draco had done.
"No," he said shortly, leaving the rest unsaid.
"It was years ago, Draco. No one holds it against you anymore. We're friends now."
"Are we?" he turned to her, not quite sure whether he was angry with her, or perhaps with himself, but she was the easier target.
"Of course we are," she stiffened.
"Hermione Granger, Mudblood and proud," he intentionally said the offensive word, "friends with a former Death Eater? Really, Granger?"
"Former being the operative word here, Draco," she said, refusing to back down or get angry at his choice of words. "You've changed. You're probably not admitting it to yourself, but you've changed. I can tell."
"You can tell less than you think you can," he said harshly.
"It's okay to feel shame," she went on, quite undaunted. "It's alright to feel guilty."
"Merlin knows I have things to feel guilty about, is it?"
"Yes. You do."
He glared at her for a moment. Now, she laughed. "What?" she asked. "You expected me to say no? To say everything you did was just fine? To tell you it wasn't your fault? Of course it was your fault, Draco. Not as much as your father's, but you were old enough. You made at least some of your choices, and they were terrible, and petty, and wrong."
"And you're just keen on reminding me that, aren't you," he said bitterly.
"No, I'm not. When was the last time we brought up what you did during the war?" she was raising her voice now, annoyed, and he raised his voice too.
"No, but you keep on bringing up what you did then!"
"Yeah, because we didn't have the luxury of staying at Hogwarts and hoping it would go away! We were running for our lives, Malfoy!"
"Yeah! From me and my pals! I know!"
"Not from you! From Voldemort!"
"Oh, I forgot, I just wasn't important enough to be one of the big guys, is that it, is that what - "
"What's going on here?" that was Ron's voice - and he was accompanied by Johnny.
Draco caught himself. He was holding a frying pan high in the air instead of soaping it. Hermione, on the other hand, looked as though she was about to throw the plates in her hand at him at any moment. He looked for a moment from her, to Ron - and to Johnny, wondering how much exactly he had heard, praying, as he always did, that he didn't hear enough to reach any meaningful conclusions. He lowered his arm and returned to soaping the frying pan in silence.
After a few moments, once Ron and Johnny went back to the living room, he could hear Hermione walking tentatively towards him, getting closer and closer.
"I'm sorry," she said in a much softer voice.
"Don't be," he said irritably.
"I mean it, Draco. I shouldn't have - "
"You don't get it," he cut across her. "You have nothing to be sorry about. That's the point, Hermione. I'm the one who's sorry, and that isn't going to change." He rinsed the plates in silence for a moment, until it burst out of him, because he'd got used to opening up to Hermione. "I wish I could go back and do it all again," he said bitterly.
"Draco..."
"Dumbledore offered, did you know?" she remained quiet, and he went on. "In the Astronomy tower, before Snape... before he died. He said they could arrange to hide my family from the Dar - from Voldemort." He still shuddered, saying the name. The habit of years. But he had promised himself he was going to start saying it. It'd been long enough. "I could have said yes then. I could have told him 'Yeah, let's cross over to your side'. I didn't. I couldn't imagine not being on the same side as Voldemort, even though he really did mean for me to die back then. And even later. Don't you remember? I tried stopping you all the way until the very end."
"If you had betrayed them and they'd won..." she whispered, making his excuses for him.
"Yeah, that's what I told myself, wasn't it? If Voldemort had won, and he learnt that I betrayed him, I'd be dead. Didn't stop you from fighting him. And don't go on about being Muggle-born, it didn't stop Ron, either, and he's Pure-blood."
"We know you made some awful choice, Draco," she sighed. "We can live with that. Maybe it's time you learned to live with it, too."
He turned his back on her and returned to rinsing the dishes. She was quiet for so long that he had thought she left the room, and was surprised to feel her hands on him, hugging him. "You can't change what happened back then. But I'm glad we're on the same side now," she whispered in his ear and was gone. He kept on washing the plates in silence.
-X-
It was a few months after that incident that an owl showed up in their flat, carrying a huge parcel. Johnny had by then learned to deal with owls, but he still was surprised at the sheer size of the package.
"What's in this?" he asked once he freed the poor owl and let it go on its way.
"Dunno," Draco answered. "Let's find out."
"Hey - it's from Hermione!"
"Oh..." Draco had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He thought he knew what it was now - and he wasn't wrong. Hermione had spent the last several months putting on paper everything she knew about Voldemort and about the war. She had received a very lucrative book deal to write the most extensive book on the subject, but it was more than that, she said. "I want people to know the full story. So they won't forget."
She had consulted Draco, of course, at least in parts. He could give her a better account than anyone about the time Voldemort had lived in their home; he could give her the inside details on what the meetings he had attended were like. How Voldemort was on a day-to-day basis. He didn't feel he had that much to contribute, but she still sat down with him and interviewed him for several hours. And now, he thought grimly, the result.
He was right - as soon as they opened the brown paper, they could see it was a book, and read the title. Tom Marvolo Riddle: the Rise and Fall of Lord Voldemort, by Hermione Granger-Weasley.
Draco took the large volume in a shaking hand. He wasn't sure he wanted to read it, but still, he felt drawn to it. And as he started reading, he found out something else. The details of Voldemort's life meant nothing to him. His childhood in an orphanage, his years at Hogwarts, his first rise to power - this was all new to him, but he didn't care. No, what he cared about was in the second part of the volume. Hermione didn't put in anything organised about Potter. There was no chapter titled 'The Boy Who Lived', no extensive biography of the Chosen One. She would never betray like that her best friend's confidence, even if he was mostly likely dead by now and anyway wasn't around to protest. But every once in a while, there was a snippet, a piece of information, something he didn't know about the great saviour of the wizarding world. A small comment here suggested an abusive childhood with Muggles who were afraid of magic and despised everything and everyone that had anything to do with it; a footnote there suggested he had held himself guilty for so many deaths that were out of his control during the war. A small paragraph showed the bravery of a fifteen-year-old, who was burdened with learning he had a fate he could not escape from. The climatic ending of the story wasn't what Draco thought it'd be, the last battle he had witnessed himself, but rather before that, when Potter had turned himself in. And mostly, the little comments here and there, some snippets of a teenager's life, that were full of affection and care. All those incidents he had seen from afar and despised at the time turned out to be sweet and innocent from up close, when told by a friend.
It was Potter as he had never known him. Draco combed the book for all those minor pieces of information, all those little facts, and all the time he wondered how things would have been different had he been allowed to see this Potter back when he was eleven. How things could have played out differently. Perhaps better.
He had read the book time and again, looking for all those small details. He just hadn't realised that once the book was out there in the open, he was not the only one who could read it.
He came back home one Saturday night late from work. They had been pulling double shifts and working on weekends in preparations for some ridiculous inspection, and by the time he got home, he was cold, hungry, and angry.
"How was your day?" Johnny asked. He didn't quite register the careful, measured tone of voice Johnny used. If he had, his would have been put on his guard sooner. But Draco was too tired and hungry to pay attention to that.
"Awful. Honestly, I just wish that this inspection was behind us by now. If this doesn't end soon, I'm going to quit, honest. How was your day?"
"Interesting," Johnny said.
"Oh? What did you do?" he asked carelessly.
"I've been reading."
"Reading? What - " he froze. He was now in the living room, and could see the book in Johnny's hand - Hermione's book.
"Your dad's mentioned here quite a lot," Johnny said quietly.
Draco closed his eyes in horror. All thought of food had escaped him. When he opened them, Johnny was still there, looking at him that way - he didn't even seem angry, that was the worst bit. Draco could deal with angry. No, it was betrayal in his face, written all over his face. The truth at last, and what a truth it was.
"I said the first time I told you I was a wizard," Draco said, fighting to keep his voice calm. "I was on the wrong side of the war."
"But you've never said what that war was about."
"No," Draco agreed. "I haven't."
"You don't still believe - "
"Don't be stupid," Draco snapped. "You think I'd be living here with you if I did?"
"And your father?" Johnny asked quietly again.
Draco's silence was a confession all by itself. Johnny swore. "Hell, Draco, I thought his problem with me was the same as my parents, y'know, that I'm gay. Or maybe that I'm black."
"What? What kind of ridiculous Muggle nonsense is that? Why would anyone give a damn what you look like or that you're a guy?"
"Oh, yeah, wizards don't have any problem who you're fucking, as long as you make sure they have three generations of wizards on each side!" Johnny retorted.
Draco bit his lip. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "You're right, I was out of line."
"Yeah, you were."
"Look, Johnny, my father is still living in the Dark Ages," he said. "We don't need his approval. I don't need his approval and you most certainly don't. Yeah, he still believes all this rubbish about blood purity. He hasn't learned his lesson. The only reason he's not in Azkaban right now is..."
"... is Harry Potter," Johnny completed the sentence for him.
Draco didn't answer.
Johnny's expression softened. "It's just, whenever Ron or Hermione or Neville or whatever, whenever they talk about it, you know, all those stories they have. It's always jokes, it's always funny, escaping on dragons and fighting trolls and things. it's not... It's not this." He waved the book around, his face full of confusion, of uncertainty.
"That's because they're glossing over the bad stuff, Johnny. Who wants to remember all that shit? Who wants to talk about how my father tortured them or my aunt murdered someone close to them or how they had to run for their lives? I'm not proud of what I did back then. I'm not proud of my family, Johnny. I don't want to remember that shit and they don't want to remember that shit and that's how it is."
"Okay," Johnny whispered and leaned forward to kiss him, and Draco's heart allowed itself some hope, that maybe his finding out the truth wasn't going to be the end of the world.
It was only later that Potter's name came up again. Johnny was sprawled on the bed, his breath slowly returning to normal and his skin still glistening with sweat. Draco was also busy catching his breath. A moment later, Johnny leaned on his arm, studying Draco in silence.
"What are you thinking about now?" Draco asked, smirking.
Johnny didn't return the smile. "It sounds like he was a bit more than your ex, that Potter," he said.
Draco's smile left his face. He didn't answer.
"Sounds like he's the bloody second coming from that book, too, Draco," Johnny pressed on. Draco didn't know what to say. It wasn't that far from reality, was it?
"You're still in love with him," Johnny stated.
"No, I'm not," Draco said hotly.
Johnny looked at him in silence for another moment or two. "No, you're right," he agreed. "You're not in love with him. You love him."
Draco didn't bother denying it. They both knew it was true.
"What do you think, then?" he asked awkwardly, and to his surprise, Johnny kissed him.
"I'm thinking that I'm glad he's gone and left you for me," he said.