Lonely

"How do you get that lonely?

How do you hurt that bad?

To make you make the call-

That having no life at all

Is better than the life that you have?"

-Blaine Larsen

---

Harry dropped the paper in the trash. He hadn't wanted to buy it. It was a habit from wartimes - hard to think of them as that, it was only a year, hardly a year, since the fighting ended. But back then the obituaries had been on the front page. This wasn't the Daily Prophet, though, and there wasn't a war going on, so there was no reason to buy the newspaper. But still, he found himself paying for one. And, as though he had no control of his body, reading it. Which frightened him a bit. Anyone who could shrug off Imperius effortlessly would fear the power that could control them. Except he was the only one he knew of. Well... the only one alive, anyway. Which didn't count for much, nowadays.

It'd shocked him, for some reason, when he first read it. It was a Muggle newspaper. Maybe they had made a mistake. But, on the other hand, it was a Muggle newspaper. What reason would they have for misprinting the death of Draco Malfoy? If this had happened two years ago, Harry would have thought it was a trick. That Malfoy could be faking his death. Except Draco was free now. Pardoned of war crimes. Given the Order of Merlin, Second Class. He had retired. Like Harry wished he could. And besides, even back then, if Malfoy were going to pretend to kill himself, he probably would not blow a very real hole in his head. Wizards were as susceptible to guns as Muggles.

Harry strolled along the path, looking to all the world a frail middle-aged man with an occupied mind. His cap made him look older than he was, and the cane that couldn't hide his perpetual limp did not contradict the idea. He could have seemed fifty, to an untrained eye. He wasn't, but he did think it was interesting what war could to an appearance. No-one would guess he was eighteen.

Draco was eighteen, too. Almost nineteen. No- had been. Harry was mostly certain that the ex-Slytherin was dead. It was just one more, anyway. Their class - not that any had graduated - was slowly being picked off by the war. The ones that had died in battle - Neville, many Slytherins, Dean, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and so many more - were lucky; they had gone with the most dignity. Later was when the true horror began. Seamus had jumped from the Astronomy Tower. An excerpt from his sad sweet poetic suicide note was made into a plaque there. Padma had brewed her own poison after Parvati joined Neville's parents - a few stray Death Eaters had raided Witch Weekly, where she worked. Rumour had it Daphne Greengrass had killed her mother before slitting her own wrists, but as her mother had been 'missing' since before Daphne died, and a suspect in Blaise Zabini's murder, no-one had tried very hard to prove it.

Now Draco Malfoy, with a Muggle gun.

The article, all two paragraphs, had skated over the facts. Except for one sentence that explained that the young man had killed himself and that his ceremony was on Friday, it had been a political statement.

It makes one wonder what sort of epidemic is occurring, if an affluent, popular young man with so much life ahead of him, can choose death instead.

Harry had almost laughed aloud in the café when he read that. The reporter, Garretson or Garrison or something like that, knew nothing. Trying to make a cause out of this 'tragedy'. They chose the wrong death to epitomize. Because Draco Malfoy was not thinking about the 'life ahead of him'. And if he was, he undoubtedly realized quickly it was minuscule compared to the death behind him. Oh, how did he choose death? It's easy, once you've seen enough of it. That reporter hadn't done their job. It was their duty to tell the truth, but they hadn't.

How does a young man make such a choice, which will undoubtedly horrify his parents and destroy all who knew him. How can a youth be so troubled to not even give his family such consideration?

The journalist had probably asked around, found that Lucius Malfoy was a wealthy philanthropist who was away on business frequently and that Mrs. Malfoy was a beautiful, pleasant woman. The reporter knew nothing. For some reason, no lie had been created to cover up Lucius Malfoy's death in the Muggle world. To anyone that looked for him, he was 'away on business'. The ministry went to a bit of trouble to make the Muggles believe he was alive. It probably had something to do with Money. Harry shrugged, caught up in his thoughts. Bureaucrats weren't his business. That is, unless they made it so.

The-Boy-Who-Wasn't-A-Boy-Anymore thought back to the paper, now squashed in some rubbish bin, trying to remember the journalist's name. Garrison. Or Garretson. The byline was a bit blurry in his mental reproduction. Whoever it was, he had gone on and on about the tragedies of young suicide and how teenagers were prone to hormonal changes and what parents could do. Harry felt like asking the man if he had ever watched his loved ones die around him, if he had ever saved a stranger's life by killing a childhood friend, if he had ever turned in his own parents and saved the world. Draco had, and if that meant that he decided that he wanted to die, Harry thought that was his right.

Harry smiled, just faintly as he reached the edge of the park. Whatever came next - afterlife, whatever - no-one was going to send Draco Malfoy away. Saving the world had to give you some sort of good karma. The man sighed as he walked down the street, his cane clicking against the cobblestone; he hoped Draco was happier now.