A/N: Okay, I'm rather happy with how this turned out. I hope this chapter will eventually show up because ffn net is being rather a pain at the moment… Title sort of from Hadestown, because I listened to it while writing this. Please leave a review!


Title: wherever you go the wind blows

Summary: Draco visits his father's grave.

Word count: 1,424

Characters: Draco M., Astoria M.

Genres: Hurt/Comfort, Angst


The wind was cold. It was the same wind as in Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. Bitter, and large, with a certain supernatural smell to it. At least, that was what Draco Malfoy thought as he stood still, like a statue, a cool marble statue in front of his father's grave.

He had been there since early this morning, watching the November timidly creep out from behind the horizon and start to thaw the frost on the ground. The sky was now grey, the sort of grey that shut you out and the wind was howling in his ear. Apart from that, there was not a noise in the graveyard. And when the only thing you can hear is the wind growling at you, and your own heartbeat racing to its death, then you truly feel your crushing loneliness.

Lucius Malfoy

13th March 1954 - 3rd November 2000

That was all that was written on his grave. No epitaph, nothing. Just a name that meant everything and dates that meant nothing. Maybe one day they would be learned by a bored student in History of Magic, only to promptly forget them.

The other graves around him had flowers, fresh and fragrant, from the 1st of November. Two days later, they were slightly wilted, slightly brown, slowly dying from the cold, but the thought still made then stay alive, at least for the dead. His father's grave was just a cool slate of granite.

The wind whispered icy reminders of why there was nothing on the grave and the cold filled him more deeply, into his very heart.

Someone placed a hand through the crook of his shoulder.

"Draco," the person said.

He tore his eyes away from the grave. Astoria, in all her warmth and love. He hadn't even heard her coming. He could feel her heat just from her gloved hand on her arm. Chocolate eyes bore deep into him and as usual, she could read right into his frozen heart. She placed a hand on his cheek.

"Merlin, you're freezing. How long have you been here?"

"A couple of hours," he admitted.

"Draco!" she scolded, but there was no anger in her voice. "You're going to catch your death."

She unwrapped her scarf, pine green. Her hair spilled out into rivets of black satin, gleaming in the glaring November sky. She handed it too him with an insistent thrust and tried to wrap it around his neck.

"Astoria, no. What about your illness?" he told her handing the scarf back. "You shouldn't have come."

She scoffed. It was what he loved about her. She seemed so delicate and fragile, ready to break at any moment, and she probably was, because of her illness, but she had a fire burning at the bottom of her that made her appear unladylike. Truthfully, if there was one of the two that was going to shatter, it was him.

They were strange that way, two glass foundations, holding the other up. Frail, complicated, but still intricate and beautiful. Seemingly ready to break at any given moment but holding fast in all circumstances.

"Draco, if you don't do anything, you'll become a snowman within the hour." She sighed. "Look we'll share it."

She huddled up to him and brought the scarf around both of their shoulders. It was quite comical, as he was much taller than her, so the scarf barely covered any of them. Draco knew it didn't matter though, as she was giving him some of her warmth, and he was shielding her from the roar of the wind.

They stood there in silence for a few minutes. Draco's mind had been blank for hours before, trying to think of something to say, something to do, blank as the November sky. It wasn't that he hadn't loved his father. He did, greatly. But what does one say when the words refuse to come?

But now, with Astoria next to him, the words were rushing through his mind like water through a fountain. He thought of all the moments they had shared, good or bad, how he was grateful for his presence in his life, how he hated him for ruining it, how he disapproved of Astoria, what he would think of her now if he could see her now, huddled close to him while all the others had gone.

"Did you-" he started, when he felt like all had been said, or at least thought.

"-read the newspaper?" Astoria completed. "I did."

That was another thing he loved about her. The way she could always understand him with so little words. It was another part of their glass foundation: transparent, see-through. They knew everything about the other, and she could read into his soul like through a window. A very muddy, cold window with that.

"And?"

"Only idiots believe what they read in the papers," she told him firmly.

He wanted to ask her again, but her tone cut him off. And if that didn't suffice, the warm, loyal, loving look she gave him rendered him mute for a minute.

The Daily Prophet, that morning, had published a whole article on the Anniversary of his father's death, one year today, using the occasion to list all of his father's crimes and his own, reminding the public all they had done. They were dragging his name through the mud, again – an expression he particularly liked. Irony was his old friend now.

Well, he said "they", because it was probably the opinion of more than one, but that cow Rita Skeeter was the one truly to blame. It seemed like she was the one in charge of isolating him from people, making them remember, giving him no chance at redemption. After all, there was a reason there were no flowers for Lucius Malfoy, and why everybody refused to employ him. The wind moaned into his ear; he brought Astoria closer.

"Rita Skeeter-" he tried again.

"-Is a mean cow who should learn to be a minimum respectful," she finished once again.

"I just feel so alone," he mumbled into her ear. The wind would not heart his confidences.

"They'll see above it all, one day," she promised. Sweet nothings, little lies but that Astoria truly believed. "They'll see how hard you're trying. How hard you're trying to make amends. But nobody knows it."

It was true. Draco was trying to make amends. He gave money to the War Orphanage, to the Ministry rebuilding fund, to Hogwarts, always in little amounts, so as not too make a show of it, but to truly show how much he wanted to help. He had gone back to Hogwarts, that horrible Eighth Year all those who lived through knew was almost the most painful. He had helped rebuild his school, lifting the stones with his own two hands. He had gotten his NEWTs, studied a couple of years in the Muggle world, learning their ways, their differences and their similarities. And then tried to find a job back in the Magical world, but there was little to nothing for him.

But it wasn't true. Everybody saw him give the money. Everybody saw him work for his school. Everybody watched him disappear in Muggle London. Everybody saw him try to get a job, a humble job too, not just bathe in his money like generations of Malfoys before him.

"They know it. They just choose to ignore it. Because of articles like this."

"Draco, don't be bitter," she cautioned softly.

It was the wind that was bitter. It left its taste in its mouth and poisoned his words as they came out.

"We'll work towards making it right, and soon you'll be surrounded by people who see you for your worth."

The wind had slipped into his heart and had poisoned it too, but Astoria was the antidote. The one who sucked the poison out and spat it back out at the wind. The hissing died down a little, like an animal retreating, accepting its defeat.

"You want to know something?" he asked.

"What?"

"I don't feel so alone when I'm with you."

She gave him a smile, one of those blazing smiles that he knew she kept only for him. "Come on. Let's go."

He turned to his father's grave one last time, wished whatever was still there goodbye and left with Astoria. The wind wasn't completely gone, still present with a tiny whisper in the crook of his ear, but it was slowly dying away, falling into a soft slumber.


FOR HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

House: Ravenclaw

Assignment #8: Task #2: Oracle Bones - Write about visiting a grave.

All aboard: 1) Loneliness

Gobstones: red stone – redemption – 8) angst – 1) scarf – 1) huddling for warmth

Scorpio Appreciation 4) Having someone's back

Founder says: Helga says 10) "You want to know something?" / "What?" / "I don't feel so alone when I'm with you."

Honeydukes Hoarders: 1) Draco/Astoria

Writing club:

Character appreciation: 4) Scarf

Record Collection: 11) Making It Right

Show Time: 1) "but nobody knows it"

Elizabeth's Empire: 19) huddling for warmth

Scamander's Case: 22) Only two characters

Film Festival: 28) "Only idiots believe what they read in the newspaper."

Forecast: 26) Loyal

Autumn Seasonal:

1st November: Dios Los Muertos: visiting a loved one's grave

Chemistry: 111) Respectful

UN: 94) Anniversary

Princess: 15) Treated like an outcast

Colour: 7) Pine green

Crystal: 7) Making amends