Dread of Vanished Shadows

Dread of Vanished Shadows

Prologue

I had a dream, which was not all a dream...

The dread of vanished shadows.

Lord Byron

For good or bad, the wizarding world would never be the same. The war, which hadn't quite fully escaladed into an actual war, was finally over, ending in a house bathed in blood and baptized by fire.

The Daily Prophet proclaimed in large headlines that there had only been three survivors (although no one could actually identify or confirm said survivors) and that neither He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named nor the boy hero, Harry Potter, were part of that tragically small group.

Although there were vigils held to mourn the passing of The-Boy-Who-Died-For-Them, mostly the wizarding world was in celebration. People filled the streets in Diagon Alley, fireworks exploding high in the sky for hours and hours, confetti made of paper and lights dancing lightly in the air, and music pulsing in and around everyone.

Of course there were some nay-sayers, those who argued that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had been vanquished once before only to come back extremely pissed off. But just as soon as those murmurs began to wild fire out of control, a bereaved Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger stepped forward and tearfully told the world about their secret quest destroying hidden pieces of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's soul called horocruxes and how, with his body now destroyed, there was no portion of soul left to bind him to this earth.

The details of that fateful night was never released to the public, in fact, the only person who knew even remotely the events that had taken place, leaving the self-stylized Dark Lord and seventeen of his devoted Death Eaters dead, was Severus Snape and he refused both the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix's pleas for clarification. After a rather grueling interview with unnamed Aurors, he even went so far as to growl that they could send him straight to Azkaban before he'd relate the destruction of the Potter boy as fodder for the press. This was not met well by said press nor the wizarding world in general because as everyone knows, the more gruesome and bone-chilling the story, the more captivating it is.

Surprisingly, Severus Snape was never even brought to trial much less sent to Azkaban but that was most likely due to Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger lobbying loudly that he had saved their lives numerous times, spied for the Order at great peril, had personally destroyed one horocrux and supplied information that led them to the last soul remnant they had been searching in vain for.

It wasn't until months and months later did Snape corner Hermione at number twelve Grimmauld Place to whisper the secret she hadn't allowed herself to hope could possibly be true.

He had survived.

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He only remembered bits and pieces really. A few images haunted his dreams and replayed themselves when he allowed his mind to wander but they were only brief and distant. It was the emotions that had coursed through him that night that stayed with him always. The frustration and hurt. The throbbing hatred and ever-increasing rage. The single-minded focus on destroying those who would destroy him. And the final culmination of all, creating an unchecked madness in him. One that whispered of vengeance and blood and murder.

It still whispered to him if he let it.

Harry Potter had never understood those who had committed atrocities, unforgivable sins, and yet felt no remorse or guilt. But now he knew. The seduction into darkness was neither sudden nor gradual. It just was. The ability to be wicked had always tingled through his wand into his fingers, whispered enticingly to him from the shadows, he had just never considered listening.

But now that he had, it was always there, his constant companion. He was no hero. He was a murderer. And he also knew that one day he would kill again.

So he'd turned away from the bodies, the blood, the silver-blonde hair lying at his feet, and the penetrating, horrified, and -- even more appalling - compassionate eyes of his least favorite teacher, and he'd simply walked away.

He'd walked away from the only world in which he'd felt at home in and tried not to look back. He hadn't a plan; he had no concept of whether he'd intended to be gone a week or the rest of eternity. He'd only known that the further he'd gone, that constant state of movement had brought him closer and closer to some rough, desultory semblance of normality.

Months were spent wandering aimlessly, moving through France into Germany to Czech Republic to Austria and into Italy. He had learned fairly quickly that his skills at casting translator charms were lamentable and he'd made his way west over the pond where he could still get lost but speak the language.

She had been so young when he saw her sitting in the park that day, so long ago it sometimes felt like a dream. She had been just a child, really, barely seventeen. But he had been a child too then, and they had both seen their share of pain and thought themselves mature beyond their years.

Emma had been tiny, all soft curves and blonde sweetness, and he'd instantly fallen in love. She'd been running too, never seeming to be able to move fast enough to escape the memory of the past, but never pausing long enough to be consumed by it. It had taken six months and four states before her story had started to reveal itself. Her family was what she had called a Celestial family, one where families were large, children were obedient, girls were married off by age seventeen, and husbands were allotted space in heaven according to how many devoted wives they had. Emma had sometimes talked fondly of her "Aunt" Theresa and "Aunt" Debbie but never ever spoke of her father.

After he had met Emma, the whispers had quieted. He felt a measure of control over himself again but he could still feel something unnamed and terrifying creeping at him from the peripheral shadows. But it wasn't until the first letter from Hermione had reached him (bearing money and the ever-present support) followed swiftly by violent nausea at the reminder of what he'd left behind, that he had finally realized that he was happy in his anonymous running with Emma in a way he had never been and never could be in the wizarding world. With Emma he was allowed to remain along the edge of society, letting the dark mask his horrors and insecurities. In the wizarding world, he was constantly shoved, tricked, and coerced into the unforgiving light of fame that illuminated all he wished to hide.

But he couldn't help thinking years and years later, now that he had the knowledge of what came after, that maybe things would have turned out better if he had made different choices. He supposed, like most that dwelt on past decisions and mistakes, that it made little difference now. Life was a constant stream forward and while you may be able to take small strokes backward, against the current, it was more likely you'd drown than make any headway back the way you came.

The latest letter from Hermione crinkled under his hand, a reminder of the decision that lay before him... before them.

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Hermione had always been the most stubborn sort of friend, endlessly pestering about homework and studies, constantly worrying about Quidditch injuries, and never backing down in an argument when she thought she was right (which, inevitably, was almost always the case).

When she first realized that what Professor Snape was telling her was the absolute truth, that Harry was alive but had left without so much as a word, she instantly fell to penning a letter of love and support to him and she was careful not to even hint that he was under any pressure to respond with anything more than a word just let her know that he was still alive. She also sent a good sized amount of pounds exchanged from his account that he had bequeathed to both her and Ron. They hadn't wanted to touch it, Ron because of his money issues, and her because it still hurt to think about it. When she told Ron about it later that night when he came home, he had smiled fondly at her through his tears of joy and relief and told her that she was always so practical. He wouldn't have thought about Harry needing money.

Her owl came back after three weeks without bearing any messages. She let one month become two without too much worrying. But when three became four, she was downright antsy.

"Why isn't he responding?" she railed at Ron over dinner one night, interrupting a story he was telling her about how Fred and George had unveiled their new 'adult themed' product line that was sending Mrs. Weasley into fits. They both stared at each other silently, uneasily, until Hermione hesitantly voiced the thought they were both trying to avoid. "You don't think something's happened to him..." She trailed off as her voice broke. "Do you?"

Ron was adamant. "No. He's just working everything out. You know how he is, never asking for help, always trying to be the hero and work it out for himself." He said the words solidly, decidedly, but she knew him too well to be fooled. His eyes told her that he was just as terrified as she was.

The next day, she did the only thing she could think of. She wrote another letter. She was going to stubbornly keep writing until he had no choice but to respond. She told herself she was not going to send more money, she was not going to facilitate his running away until he at least let them know he was all right. She sent some anyway.

The cycle repeated itself.

Eight letters and almost eighteen months later, Hermione was in her office at the Ministry arguing semantics with her boss over the latest report she had turned in which she knew he was going to have issue with because the findings were all off, when Ron stuck his head through her fire.

"Sorry to interrupt, but it's an emergency," he said excitedly. Mr. Plaskett, not one to accept being interrupted, looked skeptical and opened his mouth.

She quickly started speaking before he could start asking questions because, really, with the happy way Ron was grinning, it didn't look like too dire of an emergency but anything was better than sitting cooped up arguing with her boss all day over something completely insignificant. "I'll be right there, Ron." Hermione turned to Mr. Plaskett and tried to look apologetic. "Sorry to leave so suddenly like this but you know how these family emergencies can be. I'll floo you tomorrow if I'll be out any more days."

She made it back to number twelve Grimmauld Place in record time, mainly because it was after lunch but before the end of the day so she missed the crush of people that usually occupied the halls and lifts on her way out. When she reached the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen, a letter was shoved in her hand.

Questioningly, she turned the Muggle envelope over and her heart leapt into her throat at the writing. His writing.

Hermione threw her arms around Ron's neck and sobbed.

"I didn't open it," he mumbled into her hair. "I wanted to wait for you."

Smiling in a dazed sort of way, she nodded and slid her finger underneath the envelope's seal. Inside there wasn't a letter at all, but instead a Muggle photo of a small baby with golden brown hair and solemn green eyes. On the back was written three words: I miss you.

Hermione cried for much of the night.

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Olivia had come as a shock to the young couple, forcing them into marriage before they had planned, but the moment Harry held her in his hands, he felt as close to whole again as he had in a long, long time. It was the happiest day of his life but he didn't have anyone but Emma to share it with. So he sat down to write a letter. He sat there for two hours not knowing what to say after staying silent for so long before fingering through the newly developed photos on the table. Before he knew what he was doing, he turned one over and wrote I miss you. He held the pen poised to write more but he realized he was crying and his hand was shaking so he shoved it in an envelope, the kind with the blue pattern inside that makes it so no one can read through to what's inside, and went outside to find the owl he had told to stick around.

The response, a month and a half later, was not the long-winded confession of love and friendship and support in Hermione's careful script he'd come to expect, but in a scrawl so messy with emotion it was hard to make out at first.

Come home.

He traced Ron's words with the tip of his finger. If only it were that simple.

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He remembered the day when he'd realized that Potter was still alive. He'd almost not truly believed it after so long; he'd been to the funeral--hell, the entire wizarding community had been to the funeral--and he'd watched Granger and the Weasley bunch and the Order for any sign, any brief flicker, any reason at all to hope, but all he saw was pain and anger and deep mourning. It was stifling.

It had seemed wrong at the time that they were burying an empty casket but supposedly after the fire there had been nothing much left of him. If anything at all. Reports were rather sketchy on that. The papers changed their story from one sordid tale to another daily though so it was hard to pin point what was fact and what was speculation. It seemed regarding this, all was speculation though.

So Draco had held out hope even when Potter's friends had obviously not and didn't reflect on why he so desperately believed The-Boy-Who-Was-Bloody-Supposed-To-Live to have survived.

But after the funeral, that hope shrank and faded until it was all but nothing. A little bubble he carried around and petted from time to time but was so fragile that it could burst at any moment.

The years passed by and life went on.

Draco traveled and studied and life was life and the Dark Lord was gone. He had relationships that were meaningless and relationships that were meaningful, and yet, always there, was a small part of him that regretted the fact that he had survived to have these experiences while Potter had not, though most of the time he was hard-pressed to name the swirl of emotions as more than regret for life.

Eventually, he found himself with a nice cushy job at Hogwarts (no doubt thanks to Severus since Headmistress McGonagall never really did like him, even after everything he had done for their sodding Order) in a position he immensely enjoyed though that wasn't something he'd readily admit to. He even found that sometimes he could put up with the Granger chit who was also on staff. When the need be, of course.

Which was how he came to find himself in her rooms soon after he began working at Hogwarts. She had mentioned something about a book she had just read and how it might help with his class outlines and so he'd been polite (they were at dinner in the Great Hall after all) and said he'd be grateful for the loan.

"It's somewhere on the shelves." She gestured vaguely around her sitting room, every wall covered in books. "Just give me a moment to go put these down."

While she was in the back room, he began to look around. There wasn't much to look at excepting books; she obviously didn't feel the need to display meaningless knick-knacks and collectibles, which only served to highlight those few photos that were there. There was an old photo of her and Weasley and Potter taken sometime during their later years at Hogwarts that Draco couldn't help but pick up. They were simply sitting in the Gryffindor common room studying but there was an intimacy there between them that made Draco put it down just as quickly and look to another wall.

That's when he saw them. The photos. His eye was instantly drawn to them, most likely because all but two were unmoving. Awkward slices of life captured in mid-motion, never to follow through. It made him uncomfortable, yet he moved closer.

They all seemed to be of the same dark haired child. A step-by-step progression of life from infancy through early childhood illustrating the messy yet happy existence of a content and loved child.

"Find it?" Granger asked as she breezed back into the room.

"No," he replied distractedly, and he was rather proud of the fact that no insults accompanied it.

She shook her head setting her hair all aquiver. "Honestly, ever hear of Accio?"

Draco ignored her--easy enough to do--and picked up one of the wizarding photos of the girl. She was older, maybe seven or so, and stirring something in an oversized bowl with a long wooden spoon, brow furrowed in concentration.

"Who's this then?" he questioned, and then started when Granger swooped in and took it from him, replacing it back on its shelf.

Her hands wrung in front of her for a moment and then they were still. "No one. Just my cousin's child. Look, here's the book." She shoved it towards him. "Let me know if it helps as a supplemental for your text. I have the next volume as well."

He knew a dismissal when it was thrust at him so he nodded and left, trying hard not to look to the photos again so he wouldn't draw her suspicions.

Because just before she had taken it away from him, the little girl had looked up and Draco knew those eyes.

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They were living in rural Germany now, not too far from Saarbrücken but far enough away from the border that it was still innately Germany not that weird mixture of cultures that occupies border towns, and had been there for going on a year now. It was the longest he and Olivia had ever stayed in one place and it was getting harder and harder to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on now.

When Emma was still alive and they moved into a new home, a new state, a new life, they always acted as though it were permanent. He had come to think of it not as running away but running to. It was a new place to try and heal their battered bruises, ward off the punishing shadows. It was supposed to be a fresh start. The last fresh start. A place to put down roots. To let Olivia have friends and just be a kid. It was never supposed to be one of many fresh starts. Or a false start as they all inevitably became.

But now, now he was older and tired and not as scared of the whispers catching up to him.

"I can't go back," he said aloud, suddenly realizing that he was only saying that because, up until recently, it was what he had always said. Except there was no longer any conviction in his words, they sounded hollow and empty, even to him.

He gripped the latest of the yearly letters from Hermione tighter in his hand before shoving away from the kitchen counter and heading down the hall to Olivia's room. She was seated cross-legged on her bed rereading an old copy of Quidditch Throughout the Ages that he had picked up in a wizarding town in Ontario a few years back. He had originally bought it for himself, purely for nostalgia's sake, but Olivia was enthralled with the idea of Quidditch and had to have read it cover to cover as many times as Harry had by now.

He leaned against the doorpost and waited for her to acknowledge him. After a moment, she bookmarked the page and looked up at him consideringly. "Are we moving again?" she asked after a beat of observing him, neither sad nor happy at the thought. Simply accepting. It was, after all, the only way of life she knew and it killed him that he did this to her.

"No. Well, maybe. I don't know. I was just thinking about you going to school." He watched as she drew in on herself, sinking into the pillows, becoming unobtrusive.

"I don't have to," she began but he waved a hand to stop her and sat down in front of her. It was the same thing she had said yesterday. And the day before. She had been trying to convince him for going on a year now that he could teach her everything she needed to know about magic himself. He knew that she was so adamant because she didn't want to leave him, didn't want to abandon him, while she went off to a traditional magical school. But he also knew that she desperately wanted to go. The invitation to attend Beauxbatons was pinned above her desk, reread more times than the Quidditch book in her hands. He didn't want to take that away from her much as he wished he could keep her with him always.

Harry brought his hand up to his face and rubbed some of the weariness away. "I've gotten a letter," he told her through his hand. "I've been offered a job at Hogwarts." He looked at the letter crumpled in his hand and then passed it over to her for her to read.

She went through it quickly and then went back to the beginning and read it again looking much older than her ten years. "They think you're dead?"

He had been confused by this as well but he supposed it was the reason why he had never been found even after all his moving around. Wizards had their ways, he knew. If they had wanted to find him, he doubted he could have remained hidden for so long.

"Apparently." A number of months before, he had sat down with Olivia and told her about his childhood, his school years, his friends, and... his enemies. He tried to be as forthcoming as possible, recognizing that she was about the same age as he was when he first came into the wizarding world and subsequently into contact with Voldemort. After baring his soul to her, she sat there staring at him for a good long time before asking for more stories of his adventures with Hermione and Ron. It soon became a nightly thing. He would tell her a story every night, sometimes about the Marauders, sometimes about Quidditch, sometimes about the Weasleys, and sometimes about Hogwarts. It didn't seem to matter what it was about, Olivia was enthralled.

Sighing, he pulled her to him, turning so that he sat cushioned against her pillows with her small frame tucked neatly against him. "How would you feel about going to Hogwarts instead? Hermione said even though you weren't on the list of students to get a letter you still could go. It would be nice to be able to go to school with you." Her small face lit up and he smiled indulgently. He knew that would get to her.

In fact, the whole idea of it solved so many of the dilemmas that had been plaguing him lately that he found himself actually embracing the idea of going back. Of finally halting the constant movement of their lives. Of seeing his friends again. Of not pretending. Of going home.

He sat there, holding his little girl, staring at the posters of unicorns and fairies that they put up together in each new bedroom she moved into, both knowing but not verbalizing the fact that she had outgrown them but her mom had bought them when she had been a baby and they had always been there, looking down on her from the walls. It was sitting there, in that moment, that he realized that it was time. It was time to face himself and who he had become on that day so long ago it felt like a dream. The day he stared Voldemort in the face and refused to back down until he'd won. The day he watched the life fade from the snake-like man's eyes. The day everything changed.

All his fears were still present - Would Ron and Hermione understand? Could he survive the spotlight of fame again? Would he be accepted? - but for once he actually wanted to find out the answers. And he knew even if all of his deepest fears came true, he and Olivia would still survive. They would endure.

Olivia tilted her head up and brushed a kiss across his cheek. "Are we really going?" Excitement and wariness warred in her eyes.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and wished, not for the first time, that Emma had lived to see their daughter grow into the hesitant yet intelligent preteen she had become. "Yes, my little turnip, I believe we really are."

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