All Over?

When it was all over and the Dark Lord was all over at last despite every fear and expectation, Draco Malfoy sneered and pretended that Potter's absence from Hogwarts was another victory. He sat in the evening alone because it wasn't meant to end this way. Couldn't sleep so he walked along the broken shoreline around the lake and watched the ripples setting into another uncertain dusk and wondered whether the giant squid knew something that he did not. Knew something about certitude. Cried for relief and for remorse and for release and waited for the NEWTs results to be posted - pretended that this was enough. Wrote a long empty letter to his mother and didn't read the Daily Prophet.

He shook hands with Finnigan and Longbottom at the Leaving Feast and thought briefly that he might have to find a new cleansing charm after that, and then he laughed at his lapse into old habits and shook hands again. He thanked Snape and ignored Dumbledore, who was whisping between the tables offering sweets to everyone; and Draco walked away from Hogwarts; apparated just outside the wards and thought he'd never look back. It was some kind of disjointed hope that made him look back at Granger because she was clever after all, where she stood with the Weasel's smoky image beside her, for a short moment. It was an almost painful inhaled breath that he didn't understand when she looked back at him as though she understood - but he'd gone by that time. Home . . . and thinking he could leave it behind him.

* * *

Narcissa beautiful, bright, brittle and trying to apologise for what she'd allowed in the end and visits to Azkaban once a week. With the Dementors banished it was slow down, grey every day in the wizard prison with Lucius never saying what he really felt and Draco never asking. And nothing tasted sweet in this unsatisfactory aftermath. And there was no tingle of enmity or snitch eluding him to add a piquant spice to regret.

Voldemort was gone in a screaming ugly meltdown and it was none of his business any more. He looked at the bruised expectation of tomorrow and kissed his mother's cheek and moved into a tiny, tidy and lonely flat in October. Lucius wrote often and Draco wrote back and said nothing in the end. And he never thought about Potter at all - or more often than that - until the owl came in November. And he threw the parchment into the fireplace without more than a reminder to himself that it didn't matter now: and what did the Mudblood know about how he felt after all.

If all the pale opulence of peaceful existence in a Voldemort-free world was enough then he had it . . . had escaped the Dark Mark; had lent his hope to the Light for a little while . . . it was enough to be thankful for and enough to regret through the small dark hours when sleep eluded him.

* * *

What was this doubt? What was this - blast the Mudblood and her manipulative messages - drawing him back (or deeper) into desperate uncertainty? Curled his fingers around the coffee mug and thought about where he'd set Diagon Alley on fire tonight - in the most metaphorical and empty clichéd sense. Just because there was no tangle-haired nemesis to taunt him and make him alive. There was more than enough - and he supposed he owed something like thanks to Granger and Weasley for getting him out of it and back to the castle and saving him; except that Weasley never made it home. And it was a measure of Draco's own defeat that he'd gone to meet the Mudblood that time and now there was a crinkle of ash in the fireplace and it was asking something . . . a price perhaps . . .

and saying nothing . . . and reminding him of everything.

He sent the owl back with a curt response and set about convincing himself that it was all for the good. And dreamed that night about Snape lifting Harry Potter's battered body in his arms when they had all expected to die and had lived despite expectation and didn't know what to do about it. And Snape was looking at Draco with a question behind his white-faced agony while Voldemort was still a smoking ruin and a stench in his nostrils and Potter was lit with some kind of magical aftershock. He woke startled, sweating and trembling and didn't sleep any more that night and that was nothing unexpected.

In the morning Draco sent another owl and hoped that it didn't read like an apology and waited until Wednesday. Apparated to Saint Mungo's and didn't know what to say to Granger and Longbottom where they sat tense and wondering, and merely nodded to Snape where the Professor walked back and forth and scowled at them as though they'd added liverwort to a potion instead of woundwort. It didn't matter that Draco had never seen his head of house (the man who'd been his head of house) so disconcerted and uncomfortable - because they were all just a little . . . disconcerted.

* * *

The healers were tired and shadow-eyed and patient with their explanations and their practised lies about hoping for the best.

Granger was called in first. She came back into the small waiting room brushing her hand over her eyes and apparated straight away. Draco couldn't care anymore.

Longbottom - Neville - was next. And he stumbled past them when he came back and seemed not to see them. So much for Gryffindor solidarity . . . and Snape hid his smile and Draco wished him luck with the boy-who-lived-to-kill Voldemort-once-and-for-all and land in a locked ward at Saint Mungo's for his trouble. It didn't do to think about Potter just before he'd disappeared at Halloween with a small, fey smile on his face that Draco imagined was meant for him. He wouldn't think about that moment.

And the clean, bleached smell turned into an aching head and a dry mouth after four days of waiting. Only Draco left now and his hair seeming to fray like his hope after four days of cleaning spells and three nights of thinking about sleep and he wondered why he hadn't just put an end to it all after Snape had left looking finally defeated.

Dumbledore looked old-worn and tired out just like the others and he shouldn't be able to leave Hogwarts except that he had and was here. Draco turned his mother's letter in his cold fingers and thought about butterbeer in The Three Broomsticks a cold time ago when they were all still alive.

"Do something more than I believe you can." Snape had gripped Draco's shoulder and he'd walked out of the close, stale room and away from it and the stench of wasted life muttering something about useless visits and guilt.

* * *

Harry didn't turn his head when Draco came in. Didn't respond to the empty platitudes he'd prepared; watched the wall - no, was merely turned towards it -until Draco couldn't say the empty words anymore and let his frustration loose: "Alright, Potter; sulk for the rest of your life just because you couldn't save everyone. You deserve it!" Thought he might leave then and tell Dumbledore that there was a sad ending after all to his machinations on behalf of the Light. And no hope for atonement. Then despite the dampening charms Draco felt wild magic there in the white-walled room and it smelled like burnt memories.

And reminded him that there had been an afternoon in Hogsmeade a lifetime ago when doubtful green eyes looked at him and asked a question . . . again . . . a moment when Draco doubted back and almost ran . . . and couldn't: and stayed.

"Yes . . ." Potter was looking at him. Thin shoulders hunching under the hospital gown. "I know, thank you."

Whatever spell had been in those green eyes a year and more ago was still there - distorted, flickering against the white walls and flickering against Draco Malfoy's hard-won indifference.

"I . . ."

"That's enough for now!" An efficient arm around him, guiding him out of the dim room. The light flickered and then blazed. And Draco stumbled as he turned away.

* * *

He wanted to run again. He was good at that: self-preservation. Wanted to curl his fingers into his palms and draw on the darkness inside him but remembered that darkness had become a blood-spattered shadow where Potter breathed at his shoulder and asked questions and had no answers except for his wounded certainty. So he walked away from the darkness where it invited him in: walked away with calm certitude cloaking him and knew that they were the only ones left and knew that the world was half-glad and wholly fearful because they hadn't expected this. And he tried to remember why he'd come here.

* * *

He came back and sat in the chair he'd adopted a week ago and his teeth almost hurt at the strength of the restraining and muting charms around the isolation ward. And grunted some kind of greeting at the tall shadow leaning against the wall opposite him.

Coffee - warm dark strong and his fingers folding and unfolding around it and the brief burn against his lips. He shouldn't think any more about Snape's long stalking steps amongst the dead or that blank look on the potions master's face or Harry's dissolved defiance when they'd all come back from a brink of ending.

Ginny Weasley burst into the smooth-bland waiting room just then and didn't cry or do anything expected; sat beside him and asked if he was okay . . .

"Never better, Weaslette."

"So glad, Ferret."

Except there was a long dying in the waiting and too few of them left to order things otherwise.

"I'll be back tomorrow," said someone; Granger was there too. Harry should know that they had to keep coming back here - he should know why. They were caught in this battering unrelenting circle until he broke it or broke them. Longbottom just curled into his seat and looked as though he was waiting for something - he'd transfigured a straight-backed chair for comfort rather impressively despite the dampening charms. And the coffee tasted bitter-sweet against Draco's lips and the sun kept rising.

Albus Dumbledore walked into the reception hall at Saint Mungo's and offered everyone sherbet lemon sweets. Smiled when no one allowed themselves such trivial distraction and maybe they couldn't see him. Smiled more broadly when Draco Malfoy accepted a sticky handful.

"I tried to think of sharp moments you know?" The old wizard shook his head. "With Ron and Remus gone what other choice did I have, dear boy?"

"No choice, Headmaster." Draco sucked on the bittersweet in his mouth. "They said I should stay here but I don't know what I'm doing. I left after the first time, you know . . ."

"You're here. We're all here because we can't do otherwise. Well I'm almost here." With a raised eyebrow ghosting through the wall and back again. "I'm here despite my inconvenient demise and you're here despite your equally inconvenient survival. That's impressive for both of us."

"I always admired your rather ragged panache, Headmaster, but Lucius would have grilled me over a slow fire if I ever dared suggest such a travesty of Malfoy acumen."

"Dear boy," ghosting away and back again, "I always thought you were more than you pretended."

* * *

"They said - the healers said - I should talk to you about the things we shared." Draco snickered. "We shared animosity, Potter. Should I tell about how I felt when you walked away from me? That time when we were bemused children and years afterwards?"

The green-bright gaze never quite focused because they'd taken his glasses away - and the potions and the dampening.

"I thought that was what I should do." Lost green eyes turned towards him.

"You do that? What you should?"

Fists knotting in the thin-worn, green-worn fabric of his meagre clothing. "Thank you for talking to me."

* * *

The others said that Harry never talked to them, never looked at them, never acknowledged their presence. They said that they were tired and that it was useless and they kept coming back.

And they looked blankly at the wards that sparkled around them everyday.

* * *

The magic was crackling in his hair and against his skin. The others never said anything about the magic and Draco found himself dumb whenever he tried to ask them about it. Dumbledore faded through the wall with an irritating insouciance before anything could be expected or asked of him.

And it started to feel like a waiting game.

* * *

"That's . . . It's fine, Potter. I need to talk to someone." Couldn't believe his own carelessness after that. Listened to the hum-deep and saxophone in a muggle pub for hours afterwards, and told himself that he was a Malfoy. And promised himself that he wouldn't go back.

Three weeks or it might be four. Draco waited until Daphne sent him into Harry's padded, shuttered four walls - always after the others had left, always thinking that the magic would incinerate him one day. He was good at survival but he wasn't that good.

"Why don't you talk to the others?"

"There's no one else. I think they're all dead. I think you might be dead too."

"I'm not dead. Dumbledore is - and he's just as irritating that way as he was when he was alive. Has he been to see you?"

"No."

"Conniving old bastard!"

"Yes."

A twisted half-conjured, quickly called back spell curled into thin fingers and into ashes on the floor between them.

"Do you want to leave here, Potter?"

"Not really. I don't think I can . . . I'm tired . . . and there's nowhere else to go."

He was bustled away again before he was ready to go - the healers looked more rested recently; survivors had died and survivors had recovered and Harry Potter hadn't blasted them into oblivion yet. Draco was sorry for it - all of it - and was smugly pleased that he didn't actually have to work for a living. So he stayed another three days on end before apparating back to his flat and reading his mail and writing back like the dutiful son and friend that he was. He didn't break anything . . . things broke around him.

Lucius rambled about the glory days and Narcissa asked when he was going to look up that "charming Parkinson girl" and Greg asked if he was okay . . . that letter taxed his powers of insincere eloquence but was written in the end. He wanted to thank his friend and he wanted to tell him that he wasn't okay. He didn't break anything . . . things broke around him.

* * *

There were days when it didn't pay to get out of bed . . . more of those than most people would admit to.

Draco never meant to kiss Harry Potter; not when his adversary was broken and bleeding uncontrolled magic that sent shockwaves through the carefully ordered halls of Saint Mungo's as though order was a figment of everyone else's imagination. Never meant to touch him but when he did he couldn't stop. And Draco felt almost free and almost whole.

"Don't leave me, Draco." A whispered plea and heat spilling between them. "Don't . . ."

Tucking his face into Harry's sweated body; tasting him: "If I leave, you have to come with me." And tucking deeper when the wild magic burst around them and burned him. "We can leave here together."

And that was too soon . . . a mistake. Nothing should hurt so much.

* * *

"Gods!" Draco couldn't quite stifle his exclamation when Dumbledore's ghost visited him again.

"I'm proud of you, Draco."

And that should mean precisely nothing because it was more of the same. And the grey man never answered his questions. And the child-sweet voices sang over him and Granger tried to invite him somewhere for the Yuletide. And he didn't go, just curled tighter into the grey chair in the same gutted antechamber of St Mungo's and laughed although he shouldn't and cried into his fingers although he'd sworn that he wouldn't.

* * *

"Take me out of this place, Draco." Small, pale smile and a desperation that was full of knives. And, once again, Draco thought the magic might turn him inside out and leave him eviscerated on the floor for others to find when it was too late.

Sweet, slightly chapped lips moving on his own and memories of choirs and the walls melting into viscous remnants of memory again.

"I can't do that."

And whatever sweet abandon he found here was too close to violation.

* * *

"We've set up a comfortable room for you, Mister Malfoy." Smooth, sympathetic words sliding back and forth today and yesterday. "So that you can stay."

All his life was closing into a fevered nexus of need and want and . . . thoughts that he might be saved . . . and Harry might be saved with him.

He knew they wanted him gone but wanted Harry gone even more than that.

"Thank you."

* * *

And a grey wondering seeping through his walls every night after night:

"Goodnight, Headmaster."

"Lemon drop, Draco?"

"Thank you, Headmaster."

* * *

"Don't leave me!" That's all there was left curled into a dark corner of a dark room because the magic was tearing safety away and no one could get to them. "Not now, Draco! Draco . . . don't leave me."

And he felt as though his skin was being stripped from his body and it was darker than his life before a small-voiced memory and Hogsmeade a year and more ago.

"Don't ask me to be brave, Harry. I don't do that very well."

"You said that once before. You were brave once before."

"Well, I think that might have been the once and only."

"I don't believe you. You're here and the others are too afraid."

"I'm afraid."

The walls thudded in and out of thought. And Dumbledore's ghost wavered and spread against them.

"Take him out of here, Draco." The old wizard's voice thudded in and out of thought.

"I can't. You know that. I thought you knew that! I thought you understood!" He had tried. The walls hugged his own magic into impotence and Harry was curled into him and the darkness was exploding into pain.

"Take him home, Draco." He thought that the mad, old Headmaster was standing beside them after all with a twinkle in his eye even as the room flew away from them and his own scream of fear caught in his throat.

* * *

There was no hue and cry. No one really wanted to find the Boy-Who-Lived-to-be-Something-Very-Scary-Indeed. No one except for those who'd been pulled into his broken desperation when everyone else wanted to forget that victory had a price.

Neville brought a potted something or other every time and Draco's small balcony was crowded with tokens of Longbottom's thoughtfulness and had to count his fingers more than once a day.

Granger drank tea and folded her lips around unwanted advice and hugged them both when she left with tears in her eyes. Draco found the tentacula particularly good company after those visits because the shields he'd worked on so hard wavered when Harry indulged in uncontrolled grieving and it . . . hurt.

Severus drank firewhiskey and pretended that his emotions were as subservient to his will as the impressive swirl of his dark robes. Harry almost looked at Severus.

And if this was some kind of fitted retribution or recompense for his childish mistakes Draco didn't mind very much when Harry was eager under his body and the magic turned glorious.

Dumbledore walked through their walls three times every day as though he'd been given permission.

And although the world was full of sudden explosions and sudden pain and sudden ecstasy Draco couldn't help but smile to see the grey-figured likeness of the old wizard seat himself in the most comfortable armchair and offer muggle sweets that disappeared in their hands and Harry laughed then.

And he wrote to his mother that he was quite happy, thank you, and no, he wouldn't be looking Pansy up any time soon. And he wrote to Lucius and told him that while he was rather pleased about his father's survival he really did think that he was an unmitigated bastard. And he wrote to Greg, congratulating him on his engagement to Millicent and thanking him for being stalwart despite everything. And turned his letters over with trembling fingers from time to time.

* * *

Draco became accustomed to the wild magic that turned him inside out but never hurt him more than he could bear.

Life breathing into him was as close as Harry Potter folded in his arms and waiting to be whole . . . and Draco would wait for that because his choices had been made before he even realised what they were. Wanting made him breathe more deeply.

And if Albus Dumbledore wandered into their bedroom again with an innocent apology on his insubstantial lips Draco might encourage his lover to indulge in a more conventional expression of his powers and exorcise the meddling old bastard.

Fin