The Five Stages of Mourning

The Five Stages of Mourning

Draco is not here. He hasn't been, ever since that day when he slammed the door.

"Good riddance!" shouts Harry, though he does not mean it. "Go away!"

And Draco walks, no--strides away, without a second glance.

Harry storms to the kitchen and down goes all the pots and pans and cups and plates and whatever else that he can break. Down they crash, and they shatter into a million tiny fragments; each piece piercing his heart. With nothing but rage boiling in his veins, he smashes everything.

He regrets it later of course, for soon the muggle police come, knocking on his door, taking off their jaunty caps as a mark of deceased respect. They tell him that Draco Aquilius Malfoy has been hit by a car, and more importantly, is now dead. Harry wishes that he has saved a couple of crystal glasses, because now he has nothing left to break, including his heart.

"You're fucking kidding me," he says, when the news hits, sending shockwaves of numbness through his body. "Draco got hit by a car? What happened to the car?"

The police are not amused. "Denial is a very serious stage," one of them says, and Harry is left with a feeling that he does not understand, scrunched up in the tiny sphere within the corners of his stomach.

Draco cannot be dead, he tells himself. Draco simply cannot die. Draco is angry and alive, with his pale cheeks flushed with the colour of his spirit. Draco is everywhere, is all Harry can think of, dream of. Draco. Draco is immortal.

And as if to prove their point, they then show him the body, the face battered and unrecognizable. Harry gives them incredulous looks. As if this is Draco. Draco is everything beautiful and there is nothing beautiful about this ... corpse, nothing at all.

But there is nothing mistakable about the long slender fingers, lying flatly on the cold gurney. Harry had seen those fingers; held them, touched them and kissed them enough to know their owner.

He hopes that it is all a joke. That curtains will swish open and Draco can stride in and mock him. "See, this is the reason why you can't live without me," he'll say.

Harry shall agree fervently. "Yes, yes, I can't live without you. And I already miss you, so come back home, you annoying little fuck."

But there are no curtains, and Harry has to face reality, whether he likes it or not. He hears a sound like a howl, so bestial and embarrassing, and he knows that it is him making that God awful noise, but he cannot stop himself. He cannot stop his trembling lower lip, nor the resonating crack as his knees give way.

Somebody helps him up and he lets them, only because he cannot feel his body anymore. His mind calls out to Draco, hoping to form some flimsy thread of telepathic connection.

As they lead him away, somebody places a cloth over Draco's head.

Draco walked away from Harry without a second glance. Try as he might, Harry cannot do the same.

*

"I'm sorry," cries Hermione, his best friend.

"Don't be," says Harry thickly.

Hermione looks at Ron, who has a brotherly hand clapped upon Harry's shoulder. "Realisation: the second stage," she whispers.

Harry shrugs the heavy hand off and walks away.

He barricades himself in his, no, his and Draco's room, only it isn't Draco's room anymore because Draco's dead and rotting away.

Harry looks out of the window and sees the lilies. Lilies are flowers of death and he hates, hates Draco for dying, and leaving him all alone with nothing but fucking flowers for company.

"I hate you. I wish I could bring you back just so I can kill you again," Harry whispers, fingers shaking with fury. The window panes tremble with the onslaught of his anger. The cupboards rattle, the drawers fly open and the glass in the window panes shatter. And Harry screams and screams because at least it won't be so quiet.

He lies on his bed, hate and anger bitterly lacing his heart, and he dreams of all the ways he can kill Draco again. Unforgivably, Draco doesn't die and comes back to him in a thousand different forms, and Harry smiles in his sleep.

Downstairs, Mrs. Weasley looks at her husband with sad, sad eyes. "I think he's past the third stage now."

"The third stage?" asks Mr. Weasley, fingers interlocked in his wife's hands.

"Anger," replies their daughter Ginny. "I think the third stage of grieving is anger."

Harry awakes and it is late. It is dark, so dark, he cannot see the numbers on the clock. He opens the door softly, creeping down the stairs quietly. It is too dark, and in a fit of clumsiness, he trips over the second last step, knee banging against the hard wooden floor.

Obscenities roll off his tongue and he suddenly remembers the time when Draco stubbed his toe and let loose a volley of words, brilliantly showing off his expansive vocabulary of vulgarities, while he, Harry, sat there grinning at all the imagery.

Harry will never hear Draco curse again.

Like blood dripping from a gash in the arm, Harry feels his eyes beginning to moisten.

Somebody walks past, he thinks that it's Hermione, who is clutching a book in her arms. She turns on the light, revealing his itching red-rimmed eyes.

"Poor Harry," she sighs, giving him a hug. Her finger folds the corner of a page marked Stage Four: what to do when it comes sorrow.

"I think I miss him," Harry whispers.

"Of course you do," says Hermione.

Harry says nothing, but he knows that no matter how hard Hermione tries, she cannot even begin to understand how he feels.

*

Harry watches them lower the casket, and he walks away, mind strangely blank. He wonders what life will be like tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. He wonders what life will be like without Draco's sharp comments and beautiful smile. It is like life without the sun, incomprehensible. Harry wonders how he'll deal, how he'll be able to get out of bed and live his life, pretending that Draco never existed in the first place.

The Weasleys watch his frail figure from a distance, with heavy hearts. They know that they cannot share his load, and are in a way, glad that they cannot. They are relieved that they never knew nor loved Draco as much as Harry Potter did. And they pray that the day Harry finally accepts Draco's death comes soon.

*

On a rainy morning, Harry gazes out and watches the rain stick to the window panes. It has already been five years and is now spring again. Harry watches, and he remembers drunken voices singing in Christmas time, and salty skin, sweet to lick. He remembers cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood, and soft lips on his veins.

With a foggy mind, Harry accepts that all he has are memories. He wonders whether they are enough to sustain him for the years to come. Because even though the memories may be better than the real thing, Harry knows that he would much rather the real thing.

Fin

Treasure your memories, because one day they'll be the only things that you'll have left.