Chapter 46
It was still dark outside when Draco walked from the dungeon to the Entrance Hall. The cold early morning silence reminded him of the day they had come back from Azkaban, these hours when even the portraits were asleep and everything felt still and empty.
He was already in his dress robes. They would go to claim the body as soon as he came home and then have the funeral immediately after. There would be a memorial service later on where everyone who ought to be invited would be. Today, it was only himself and his mother.
The clack of his shoes on the marble floors echoed in the hall. He saw a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and started, whirling around to see Harry standing up from where he had been sitting, on the staircase to the upper floors.
"Hey," he said. "I've been waiting, I was starting to worry I might have missed you. I wanted to see you off."
He was in his crumpled school robes, hair sticking all over the place as usual, a wry smile playing around his lips and Draco's heart made a strange jerk at the sight of him. He felt suddenly self conscious in his stiff robes with all their silver clasps and polished jet bead fastenings. It wasn't as if Harry didn't know where he was going, but Draco had so far avoided telling him much about it.
"I'll only be gone for a day," he said.
He fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket. He couldn't even remember why he owned tailored funeral robes. When had he had them made? Had he thought about whose death they would be for?
"I know," said Harry. "Come on, I'll walk with you to the apparition point."
The air outside was clear with frost and the wind scraped frozen teeth over Draco's cheeks. The gravel crunched under their feet and Harry's shoulder brushed against his as they walked.
"Aren't you cold?" Draco asked him.
"I can do warming spells."
"Didn't see you cast one."
"Didn't see you cast one either."
"They put them in the fabric when you buy proper clothes."
"Amazing. Who would have known."
"Not you, certainly. Do you own anything other than your school robes?"
"Don't be an arse."
"It's a habit."
Harry snorted. Draco looked back towards the castle.
"So do all your friends know about us now?" he asked.
Harry shrugged.
"Sort of. Ginny, Neville and Luna do."
"You told them or..?"
"Yeah, Ron and Hermione helped. I don't know about Seamus and Dean… they might have figured it out. They haven't asked."
"How did Weasley take it?"
"Ginny? She was a bit weirded out, I think. "
"Makes sense. Considering."
A reluctant smile curved Harry's lips.
"Yeah," he said. "Considering."
They passed through the gates. Harry had his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, his shoulders drawn up like he was freezing.
"You know, I'm really sorry about your dad," he said.
Draco grimaced.
"It's fine, Harry."
"I don't want you to think-"
"It's fine, alright. Look, I'm apparating from right down here, so I'll see you tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah," said Harry. "See you tomorrow."
Draco nodded and stepped away from him. He waved quickly and then walked the last few feet down to the marker that meant he was outside the area under the anti-apparition spell.
o
It turned out there was a lot of paperwork involved in claiming a body. It took forever for them to even get their security clearance for entering the ministry, and then there had been some misunderstanding with the ceremony official and they had to find a replacement who would know how to deal with the wards in the Malfoy family mausoleum. When they finally returned to the manor, they received notice that the transportation of the coffin with Lucius' body had been delayed, and Draco almost started laughing at the absurdity of it all – him and his mother in their traditional mourning dress, as if death was something that could be dealt with with ceremonious dignity, and then it turned out the whole thing was just a mess of practicalities and bureaucracy and inefficient delivery services.
The burial itself was over very quickly. The aurors helped levitate the coffin into its designated space in the mausoleum and then the ministry official sealed it off. They had asked the official not to make a speech or anything like it, so he only offered his condolences and then a house elf escorted him off the grounds.
Draco and Narcissa went back to the manor. By then it was well into the afternoon and they hadn't had any lunch, but neither of them was hungry, so they sat down in the drawing room and had the house elves bring tea up there instead.
"At least we got to say goodbye," his mother said, breaking the long silence.
Draco scoffed.
"It's not like he knew who he was saying goodbye to."
"Some part of him did, Draco. He hadn't been kissed by the dementors, he was still in there, he was just… very far away."
Draco had long ago regretted his decision come home for this. He could have made an appearance at the memorial service, but there was no need for him to endure this awkwardness. His mother was looking intently at him, her eyes begging him to just talk to her. He picked up his cup.
"I never wanted to see him like that," he said, looking down at his hands curled around the porcelain. "That's not how I want to remember him."
"And you won't," she said. "We can choose how we want to remember people. To me, your father will always be the man he was before the Dark Lord ruined him-"
"Mum, please-" he began, but she kept talking:
"The one who managed to keep going after the first war, who rebuilt his entire reputation and ended up standing beside the Minister for Magic for years as one of his most trusted confidants, the one who loved his family more than anything, who loved us more than anything – and he was so proud of you, Draco. He loved you so much."
"I know," he said, his throat tight.
"I always tried to tell him he was spoiling you, but he wouldn't listen. You remember that summer you kept going on and on about how Harry Potter had gotten a spot on the Gryffindor quidditch team, and you weren't even allowed to try out for Slytherin until your third year? You didn't even ask him for anything, he just went out and bought those brooms, no questions asked-"
"I know," Draco snapped. "I know all that, but I just – you saw what he turned into, the way he begged and grovelled, and prattled on and on about how pure we were and everything would be better when the Dark Lord won, as if he still believed in any of it."
"We were all scared-"
"And he didn't even recognize us! You dragged me all the way to that fucking prison, and then he had no clue who we were!"
She put her cup down with a gentle clink of porcelain.
"I shouldn't have taken you with me," she said.
"No, you shouldn't have!"
He hammered his cup down and stood up. He wouldn't be able to keep himself from crying if he had to look at her crestfallen face.
"Draco-" she said softly, but he cut her off.
"Potter's patronus is a bloody stag!" he yelled, because he had wanted to yell that at someone ever since he found out. "Because that was his father's animagus form, and I can't even produce a patronus if I think of my father! I tried, and it didn't work."
"Draco, dear, I'm so sorry, I don't understand-"
"Yeah, fucking Potter taught me because he thinks I'm his bloody friend, and all his friends are just fine with that, and they all have people who are dead because of what we did, and I can't just go home and cry about my Death Eater father and still have that-" Draco's voice broke pathetically.
He wasn't even sure what he was trying to say anymore.
"I don't deserve it," he said. "I don't deserve what they're doing for me."
Narcissa stood up. She put one hand on his shoulder, the other one against his cheek, turning his face towards hers. Her rings were cold against his skin.
"Draco, look at me," she said.
He did.
"You're allowed to be sad that he's dead."
Draco swallowed.
"I'm exactly like him."
"No," she said. "You're not. Your father was a wonderful man, and I promise you, some day you will be able to remember that about him. And in some ways you are very much like him, but he was a very flawed person, and this war destroyed him. It did not destroy you. You will get through all this awfulness and you are going to be a braver and kinder and better person than he was, and all the terrible things that have happened to us are going to make you stronger."
"You don't know that. Harry doesn't know that, and he – I don't deserve him."
"That's nonsense, darling. You deserve all the kindness you are given. It's not your job to reject the people who want to forgive you."
She dropped the hand that was on his shoulder and instead took hold of his forearm.
"You've made mistakes, Draco. And those mistakes have had consequences, but this was not your decision."
Her grip tightened and her thumb pressed against the dark mark through the fabric of his sleeves.
"That was your father's mistake, not yours, and it is the one I will never be able to forgive him for. But it's not your fault, Draco."
"I wanted to take the mark," he said, his voice thick.
"You were sixteen, you were in over your head in something you didn't fully understand, and a decision was made for you. It doesn't matter how you felt about that decision – Draco, don't look away, listen to me: It wasn't your fault."
The hand against his cheek held him in place and forced him to look at her until his vision grew blurry and he felt the warm tears spilling over and running down his face. She let go of his arm and pulled him into a hug.
"It's not your fault," she repeated softly, running her fingers through his hair. "It wasn't your choice."
Once he had started crying, it felt like it would never stop. His nose was running, he sniffled and all his breaths came out as loud sobs. He clung to her and he cried over the humiliation of his family, over the hearings and his mother's distance from him and his own distance from her, and over Azkaban and his father's imprisonment. He cried because Harry liked him and he was terrified by how much that mattered. He cried because his father was dead and as awful as it was, as sad as it was, it was also a relief. It felt like the real end of the war, the one he had been waiting for. The moment from which things could finally get better.