Draco

After a depressing Christmas during which Draco and Theo treated themselves to the Zabinis' finer alcohols, New Year's Day began with Draco taking a newspaper straight to the eggs and bacon. As he threatened the delivery owl with non-payment, Lancelot also flew in through the open window and knocked over his water. The damn bird didn't even have the grace to look apologetic.

Nothing like starting out the new year as a fugitive with a ruined breakfast.

Theo still hadn't woken up by the time Draco finally paid the delivery owl and set to reading the paper. A curse escaped his lips as he looked over the front page. He shouldn't have paid the owl. He should have just sent the whole thing back.

British Minister for Magic Awards Order of Merlin, First, Second Class to 28 War Heroes

"Nope," he said, folded the paper and tossed it in the pooled water. "I don't need the news today."

An outrageous yawn sounded in his ear. "Is that a picture of Potter?" Theo asked, picking up the paper and drying it. Twenty-nine blotchy hands waved a thank you for getting rid of the water. Theo squinted. "It kind of looks like Potter. The water stain makes it rather hard to really see..."

"Don't you think that might have been the point?" Draco growled.

"Order of Merlin, hmm? I'm surprised it took them this long. Fudge would have handed these out two days after the war."

"Shacklebolt's by-the-book. No one's buying themselves an award this time around."

Theo Summoned his plate from where Draco set it up in the kitchen. "Potter, Weasley, Weasley, Weasley, Weasley—wait is that a misprint? Your wand's previous owner was awarded both a First and Second Class."

Draco pulled out his wand and gave a half-hearted wave. Celebratory red and gold sparks shot out of the end. "Bloody Gryffindors," he muttered, and then face-planted in exactly the same place where the newspaper landed as the Taboo Stunned him.

When he came to, Theo was chortling at the vision of bushy-haired, brunette Draco Malfoy glaring across the table from behind a mask of scrambled eggs. "I detest you," Draco spat.

"Hey, you broke the rules. Not my fault."

"I'm not the one who placed the bloody Taboo on the names of the Hogwarts Houses."

Theo ignored him and waved the paper. "Granger, Longbottom, and Snape were all awarded First Classes as well."

"Snape?" Draco said, his frustration pushed out by overwhelming confusion. "Snape was a Death Eater."

"And a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and according to this he killed Dumbledore at Dumbledore's request."

"Bollocks. It's all bollocks. Snape was a Death Eater."

"Snape was in love with Potter's mum when they were in school. He turned coat after the Dark Lord killed her."

Draco frowned. "How do you know that?"

"There's an article on page four about it."

"Wasn't she a Muggle-born?"

"When did you ever hear Snape say a negative thing about Muggle-borns?"

"I—"

"You didn't. He maybe didn't say anything in defence of them, but he never spoke out against them."

Draco was still confused. "But he was a Death Eater. The Dark Lord's inner circle."

Theo rolled his eyes. "Don't you think it's a little convenient that Daphne, Longbottom, and the rest of the bleeding hearts knew exactly when Snape was calling a meeting with the Heads of Houses when we went to smuggle out the Muggle-borns?"

"He tipped you off?"

Theo nodded. "I'm not saying Snape was a good person—I'd never name my son after him—, but he was brave enough to work against the Dark Lord. And he didn't like seeing us hurt. Any of us. He did the best he could under the circumstances, but the Carrows and their merry band of Sly—Death Eaters-in-training were too far out of control."

"Someday you're going to slip up and get Stunned. I will commit that day to memory."

They dismissed the topic of Snape's posthumous Order of Merlin, though Draco kept running over the details in his mind. He had watched the man murder Dumbledore without the faintest flicker of regret. Even if he were to entertain the notion that Dumbledore had requested Snape kill him, wouldn't the Potions Master have shown some remorse? Some semblance of humanity? Was Snape so broken that he could euthanize an old man without hesitation?

Draco remembered staring at Dumbledore's wilting form at the top of the Astronomy Tower, his wand shaking. He could still feel the chills brought on by doubt and the clamminess of his hands. He remembered their last conversation word-perfect and how he had scoffed when Dumbledore had asked him not to say 'Mudblood'. The old man's composure in the face of death broke something in Draco. He'd expected more of a fight. In those final moments before he lowered his wand, he realized that he had depended on Dumbledore's reaction to fuel the hatred that would allow him to kill the man. When Dumbledore offered protection to the Malfoys before Snape arrived, Draco was stunned to discover he believed the headmaster would actually help them.

Dumbledore, broken as he was, remained calm and showed Draco he was broken, too.

"Hello?" Theo said, waving the paper in front of Draco's face and nearly hitting him on the nose. "Earth to Draco."

The conflicted young man pushed back from the table. "I need to go for a walk."

He disregarded his hair other than pulling it into a ponytail so it would stay out of his face. How women tolerated it, he would never know. His decision to keep charming it into the tangled disaster stemmed more from his desire to stay anonymous—and it seemed appropriate when using 'Granger' as an alias. Not that he hadn't done everything he could think of to calm the mess, but the frizz and slight curls were resistant to every charm and every potion. If he didn't despise the damned Muggle-born so much, he might have empathized with the struggle she'd surely dealt with for the last nineteen years.

With his cloak firmly around his shoulders, he left the house and plodded through the snow. The green hedges and bright flowers around the Zabini residence defied the winter, but the blatant use of magic did more to shake Draco's nerves than calm them. If only his father could see him now.

The miles-long trek did little to quell the storm blowing in his mind. Visions of Dumbledore falling from the tower were chased by the memory of the Muggle Studies teacher being swallowed by Nagini, which were usurped by the never-ending list of people his Aunt Bella tortured on the floor of the drawing room. But none of them held a candle to the vision that introduced and ended his nightmares: the moment when Vincent Crabbe fell into his own Fiendfyre. Draco's screams of fear and grief still echoed in his ears, even if his friend had turned on him, even if they hadn't been close for two years. It wasn't easy to lose someone with whom you spent every moment of every day with for five of your formative years.

The wind was picking up by the time Draco reached the little Muggle town. After his second venture into the Muggle world with Theo, he had become somewhat fascinated by the town. They didn't use candles or torches or suspended balls of light to illuminate their buildings and streets. They used glass orbs with tiny snakes of fire, which the owner of the clothing store caught him examining one afternoon. He made up some weak excuse about getting easily distracted before he ran out of the store. He'd made Theo go in and buy their Muggle wardrobes after that.

The one place that drew him back most often was the bakery. While he decided it looked odd to frequent places like the lotions and potions store, the bakery was open to him every day since people had to eat every day. He went back to the store for two weeks straight after they first discovered it. He told Theo he was just exploring the Muggle world in greater depth. He told himself that it was just nice to have someone else to talk to besides his roommate. None of the other shopkeepers spoke anything beyond broken English, and he detested French.

He was pleased to see the window shades of the bakery pulled up. The Wilkinses had taken a week and a half off for the Christmas holidays. Theo teased him about going into withdrawal when Draco attempted to make a hot ham and Swiss cheese sandwich two days into the Wilkinses' holiday. The experiment hadn't gone well, Theo was a prat about the entire thing, and a very testy Draco ended the discussion by threatening to withhold Dreamless Sleep potions for a week before stomping off to his room. It wasn't his finest moment, but it had gotten Theo to stop talking. The unintended consequence of his tantrum was Theo also stopped making dinner.

The chime above the door rang as Draco walked into the bakery. Mrs. Wilkins peeked around the corner from the back room with a, "Je serais juste avec toi!" I'll be right with you! before she caught sight of the young man.

"Mon ami!" she greeted him, and dusted her hands on her apron. She waved at something in the back, presumably her husband, and walked to the counter. "How are you, Mr. Granger? Did you enjoy your holidays? You look rather dashing! A grey suit certainly brings out those hypnotizing eyes."

He put on an embarrassed smile and tugged at the sleeve of the suit jacket. Traditional Muggle clothes appeared to be little more than undergarments, and the suit jacket alleviated some of the awkwardness. It still felt odd not to wear anything over his trousers. "Thank you. How was London?"

"Busy. The days leading up to Christmas were a shopper's nightmare, but Wendell always leaves everything to the last minute no matter how often I tell him holiday shopping should always be completed by Halloween."

Draco gave a genuine chuckle, remembering similar arguments between his parents that usually resulted in his father making a last-minute donation to St. Mungo's or the Ministry 'in the name of' whoever's gift he forgot to purchase. A wave of nostalgia, sadness, and pain rolled over Draco as his mother's exasperated but affectionate chidings rang in his mind. In two days, it would be eight months since he chose not to follow his parents to America. He didn't even know if they were still alive.

Mrs. Wilkins cocked her head to the side and frowned. "Are you alright, dear?"

"Hmm? Yes. I'm fine."

A motherly smile twitched at the side of her mouth. "You have that same look Wendell gets when he's remembering something he doesn't want to think about."

Was he really that easy to read, or was Mrs. Wilkins just extraordinarily intuitive? "I'm fine, I promise. Are you missing Australia yet?" he asked, changing the subject and gesturing to the snow outside the window. The Wilkinses had spent just over a year in Australia before they moved to France in September. They were adamant that they would never spend another summer getting sunburned and finding spiders the size of doorknobs in the kitchen.

"Heavens, no. It was over thirty-five degrees for three months, and it was never cold enough for snow. No, a year was enough for us. Here you can bundle up, but there's only so many layers of clothes you can remove before you're peeling off your own skin."

He almost made a comment about using a Cooling Charm before he caught himself. "I imagine that would be rather uncomfortable," he drawled instead.

The baker tutted. "It was nice to be somewhere different from England—have a break from all the rain, you know—but we were homesick after awhile. Did you know Perth has over two hundred days of sunshine?"

"If you were homesick for Britain, why did you move to France?"

She smiled a thoughtful-type smile that went all the way to her eyes. Mr. Wilkins walked out of the back and greeted Draco before he began examining the displays.

"We've always rather adored France, and there was something in us that said going back home wasn't a good idea no matter how much we missed it. And there's just something magical about this place."

Draco's heart stopped, but he took a deep breath and plastered a smile on his face. "Magical?" he choked.

"Yes. Did you know this is possibly the only town in Aquitaine or Midi-Pyrenees that has consistent snowfall in the winter? It's too warm elsewhere and just rains. We used to bring our daughter here—" And then she stopped. Her eyes glazed over for a minute before she frowned and shook her head.

Mr. Wilkins reached out and put an arm around her shoulder. "I think you should go lie down for a bit." She nodded and headed for the back of the store, still looking a bit dazed. Mr. Wilkins turned back to Draco. "I'm sorry about that. We don't have daughter," he explained. "Sometimes my wife gets confused when she's feeling overworked. We had a bit of an issue with the oven this morning."

"That's fine," Draco heard himself say. "It happens to everyone." A strange feeling sat in his chest. Was that pity? Muggles, Draco, he chided himself. They are Muggles. Muggles do not deserve any emotion, much less pity.

"She's fine most of the time. I guess I need to stop putting so much on her, but she's so determined. Have you ever met a woman who just won't stop pushing forward, even at her own detriment?"

Memories of a hand being thrust into the air over and over during Potions, even though the student knew Snape would never call on her, floated through Draco's mind. A bag of heavy books, dark circles, and shoulders hunched over a table in the library when he arrived and remaining when he left. "I've met a woman like that," he said.

"Aren't they a little terrifying?" Mr. Wilkins asked with a tiny grin.

Another memory of an open hand flying out of nowhere and landing with impossible strength against his jaw caused Draco to unconsciously rub the skin where Granger slapped him. "Sometimes they're more than a little."

Draco Malfoy, did you just tell a Muggle you're intimidated by a Muggle-born? Are you out of your bleeding mind?

Mr. Wilkins nodded in agreement. "Amen. Now, Mr. Granger, I assume you came in for a sandwich rather than a discussion on the mysteries of women?"

"That was my intention," Draco admitted.

Mr. Wilkins wrapped up the usual ham-and-swiss sandwich in brown paper and handed it off. "We're thinking about putting in some tables next to the windows," he said. "We thought that might add something to the atmosphere if we encouraged people to stay."

Draco nodded, and agreed before he could stop himself. "I would. I would stay."

He felt heat rise in his cheeks, but the shopkeeper didn't seem to notice. 'I would stay'? What kind of statement is that? You're getting soft, Malfoy, he thought. He rushed out of the bakery with barely a goodbye and headed for the woods.

As he began his trek back to the house, Draco practiced raising his Occlumency walls, and then extended the practice to his heart. He'd meant to hide among the Muggles, not become attached to them. Certainly not confide in them. Without magic, they were still lower beings, like pets. Although, the Wilkinses were considerably more intelligent than his father's peacocks, and less brutish than the Muggles in his mother's stories.

He knew about Muggle wars; he knew what they did to each other and the inventive cruelties they were able to create without magic. But try as he might, he couldn't imagine the Wilkinses binding the hands of their enemies, using projectiles to tear through the flesh of those they hated, and watching the lifeless bodies bleed out on the ground. Each time he tried to force the scenario into his mind, their faces were replaced by something darker. A cold laugh, a flash of red eyes. He saw the Wilkinses bound as metal rent their clothes, their skin, their hearts; not at the hands of fellow Muggles, but at the hands of his own people.

He shook his head, violently clearing the vision. He couldn't get attached to Muggles. He was a Malfoy and a pure-blood. He was not a Muggle-loving blood-traitor.

The sandwich weighed in his hand and for a moment, he considered throwing it into the snow to show himself just how much he didn't care about the Muggles. The detachment wouldn't come; his hand wouldn't open.

House-elves make food, he decided. I'm not attached to the Muggles. They're basically house-elves.

A nagging part of his brain argued that one did not have conversations with his house-elves. One did not imagine the demise Muggles at the hands of wizards with a whelming feeling of dread. Draco fought to create another wall, blocking those thoughts. Occlumency wasn't supposed to be used that way, but it helped. Or at least that's what he told himself.