Disclaimer: Yes, I own Harry
Potter! Yippee yippee!...not. The day I own Harry Potter is the day you see
Lord Voldemort dressing up like a pink bunny rabbit and all the titles are
suddenly changed to Draco Malfoy and…
Smiling
“Potter.” It was strangled,
almost, choked, as if the speaker was fighting with herself to be civil. Harry
whipped around from the broom he was inspecting with his wand half out of his
robes; old habits died hard. His wand clattered to the ground, along with his
jaw, when he saw Narcissa Malfoy standing there before him with an almost human
look on her face. The ice queen demeanor was gone, vanished as though fire had
come and burned it away, only patches melting in the heat to remind anyone that
there had once been a proud and beautiful being here. This woman was ragged,
desperate, circles under her eyes and only her Malfoy pride keeping her
together and on her feet, it seemed.
“Excuse me?” he asked
uncertainly. He and a Malfoy just didn’t click, but ever since Draco Malfoy had
turned to the Light side in their 7th year, he and Narcissa had refrained from
outright insulting each other, though the unspoken truce did not protect him
from snide comments.
“Potter, you need to help me.”
Now he blinked; he was the last person he could think of from whom Narcissa
Malfoy would beg help.
“What?” he said bemusedly,
sounding as though he had just been Confunded.
“I know we don’t like each other,
but, please, for my son’s sake. You need to help me. Please. For—for Gr—her
sake. Please, you have to come. Weasley wouldn’t. You and your wife—please.”
Harry stared at her. That Ron had
said no was not surprising; his hatred of Draco Malfoy—any Malfoy— ran far
deeper in his veins than in Harry’s. But what could be wrong with Draco? He had
seemed to recover from the War and its aftermath quite well, better than
himself, even, as he had locked himself up in a room for a year. Ginny had been
worried out of her mind. Vaguely he remembered that Draco, too, had locked
himself up in a room for a few weeks as well, but had come out long before
Harry.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“He’s always—always smiling,”
said Narcissa.
Now Harry gaped. “Uh—isn’t that
supposed to be a good thing?” he asked, trying to be polite.
“No, you don’t know my son. He
doesn’t smile—he never smiles! Never laughs, never overly polite—oh, of
course he doesn’t throw things, but he says please and thank you and goes out
of his way to be pleasant and accommodating, he apologized for bumping
into someone the other day, and always—always, he smiles, that horrid jokey
smile plastered on his face, over the hurt I know is there. He never cried, you
know. Never. He never cries now, never breaks down, never gets upset, always
smiles. This is not my son! You need to help him. Please. He’s never gotten
over her death.”
“Let me get Ginny.” Harry turned
and Disapparated to the Burrow immediately. He was not particularly fond of
Draco—they were not and never would be best buddies. But they had worked
together and fought together and lived together, and they had a certain bond
that only men who have been in fear of death together can have. They were on
first name basis now, though just barely, but he had not seen Draco since he
had come out of seclusion. And now he was worried. Because much as he hated to
admit it, Narcissa Malfoy was right. Draco was just not that kind of person. He
was sarcastic, and witty, and sometimes went too far because there was the
perfect comeback that he had just had to say, and his stupid Malfoy
pride kept him from apologizing. He had exquisite manners when he cared to use
them, and rarely let down his guard so far as to relax his face, and never—never!—smiled.
Something was wrong.
“Harry! Wha—”
“Ginny, wait. I need to talk to
you.” Rapidly he filled her in on what Narcissa’s diatribe on Draco.
“But that’s awful!” she said,
then made a face. “That sounds so cliché, doesn’t it. The pretty compassionate
little girl, whose heart breaks for every bugger on the streets, and clutches
her heart and says, ‘Oh, that’s awful!’” the last words she said a
high-pitched, annoyingly sappy voice.
Harry grinned—even when he was
worried sick, Ginny could always make him feel better. “Just like you, huh?
Come on, we’ll be Flooing direct to Malfoy Manor.” Working as an Auror made
your reflexes quick in daily aspects of life, not just fighting, and it was a
surprisingly short time later when Harry and Ginny popped out of the fireplace
in Malfoy Manor, slightly ashy but none the worse for the wear.
“Potter, Wea—Potter,” said
Narcissa, sounding slightly awkward as she realized her slip-up but refusing to
let it fluster her. Already her cold demeanor was returning, her grief and fear
allayed by their arrival. “He’ll be just down. Draco!” she called. “You have
visitors!” The last words were spoken in a falsely cheerful tone.
“Coming, Mother,” he called,
making his way down the stairs. Harry looked up to see his old—what was it
exactly? Friend? Maybe not quite friend. What was the word you used for someone
who you didn’t joke around with, hang out with, go to the movies with, but who
you trusted with your life?—something. There he was—the same trademark platinum
Malfoy hair, the milky skin, classically handsome features, but something about
him had changed—something so drastic, so intense that even mere acquaintances
could have seen that he had changed.
“Harry. Ginny.” The words were
flat, forced, distorted, as though they had started almost distastefully then
been pushed through a screen of cheerfulness. He quickly recovered, though, and
a huge smile lit up his face. “How nice to see you again!” the tone, the
expression, none of it was like his old friend—yes, Harry realized, friend, or
it couldn’t hurt so much to see him like this—and he almost winced before he
caught himself.
“You too, Draco.” The two men
shook hands, and Ginny and Draco, to Harry’s complete surprise, exchanged a
platonic hug. Not that he was jealous—he trusted Ginny—but Draco had never been
a hugging sort of person. Neither had he, until Ginny. Was it possible that
Draco’s wife had changed him too? But he didn’t think it was something that
could be wiped away with a wave of the hand. Draco was not outwardly
affectionate.
“How about you three go out to
the veranda? I’ll be just out,” said Narcissa, breaking the silence with the
same cheerful voice she used around Draco. Harry realized that he had been
staring off into space and blushed, hastily agreeing.
A house-elf brought pumpkin juice
and refreshments, and the three friends chatted amiably for a while. Too
amiably. Once when Draco laughed out loud at Harry’s joke about the Healer and
Mimbletonia, Harry winced. He tried to cover it up almost immediately, but he
knew that both people sitting at the table saw. And he knew that Draco acted as
though he had not seen it and that Ginny agreed with him. He stood up, claiming
a headache, and strolled inside the house. This was not Draco. This was so not
Draco. Where was the old acerbic man he knew? The one who smirked at the drop
of a hat, the one who insulted him at every possible moment and then laughed
(slightly, not jovially as this Draco was doing) so he knew it was all okay? He
missed that Draco. He missed those insults. He would rather have been called
“Boy-Wonder,” “Scarhead,” or “Boy-Who-Should-Have-Died-But-Managed-To-Flub-That-Up-Like-Everything-Else-So-That-I’m-Now-Stuck-With-Him,”
than have this unfailingly polite zombie.
His feet had taken him to an
unfamiliar part of the Manor. He looked up, intending to turn back, but then
caught his breath sharply and stared. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he
turned, it was her. Pictures of her papered the wall, portraits of her
were framed and hanging. Her smiling, her laughing, her talking to her
friends, her kissing Draco, her—here his heart gave a painful squeeze—laughing,
her cheeks rosy, her ever-untamable hair messy, having a snowball fight with
him and Ron and Draco. He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring. Muggle
photographs and wizard photographs, Muggle portraits and wizard portraits,
though he noticed that those were empty, so many of them, all coming at them,
an avalanche, pouring toward him, overwhelming him—he broke away sharply and
struggled to breathe.
“Harry?” shit. Not now. Go
away. You do not need to find me like this. Shit shitshit. Go away.
“Harry? Why didn’t you—” she made
a strangled sort of sob at the sight of the room. He chanced a peek at her; her
skin was so ashen-white, her freckles were standing out starkly, like trees on
a snow-covered field.
Behind her he heard footsteps and
closed his eyes, mentally bracing himself for the explosion he was sure would
come. But there was nothing. He opened his eyes and saw Draco smiling sadly at
him. And now he knew the million things that had changed, all of them intensifying
in this room. The imperceptible slump in his backbone where before that been
erect pride. The slight bags under his eyes, almost unnoticeable. The absence
of the swagger and trademark Malfoy smirk. The dullness of his eyes, no longer
intense silver, or determined steel-grey, or angry iron-grey, but a dull
black-grey, the kind of opaque color that is flat and sucks in all of the light
and never gives any back.
“Draco, why—what, I mean, the
point of all this—she wouldn’t want you to dwell on it like this, she—” his
voice trailed off, unable to look the other man in the eye and continue to
deliver all the meaningless platitudes that had been just as empty to him as
well.
And now he knew. Draco hadn’t
abandoned his mask which had served him so well for so many years. He had just
replaced it. Ice had no longer worked—she’d melted it all away, so he’d
replaced with a cover of sunbeams, a sheet of light so intensely happy, so
cheerful, so normal, that it hurt to look through it.
“Draco…” his voice cracked like a
girl’s, but he didn’t care anymore. How could he have been suffering so long,
so much, and nobody have noticed until now except his mother? She would have
been so disappointed…
“It’s all right,” he said
brusquely, sounding for a moment almost like the old Draco, the one who
couldn’t stand being comforted. “It’s just—I need to look at her face every
once in a while, you know? To remember the color of her eyes. Do you know,
they’re exactly the shade of Honeydukes chocolate? And they used to have golden
sparkles in them.” His voice was dull, and Harry felt a wrenching pain in his
gut, like she was dying all over again.
“Come on, Harry. It’s time to go.
Remus will be expecting us,” Ginny said in an oddly gentle voice, the fire in
her voice oddly tame.
Harry looked back one last time
to watch Draco sitting down, his head in his hands, a picture of her in his
lap. And then Harry knew. Knew that Draco never had gotten over her, that he
couldn’t survive without her, that he was barely clinging to her memory by the tips
of his fingers just to keep on living. She had been an angel in his life,
bringing forgiveness and redemption for what he had done, and now she was gone,
leaving only a memory behind. It had hit Harry hard, but it had hit Draco far
harder. Harry had Ron, Ginny, the rest of the Order—Draco had nothing. Nothing
except a mother who turned to Firewhiskey to drown her troubles. He was just
trying to survive…
As Harry Disapparated with Ginny,
he could have sworn he heard a hoarse voice whisper, “Goddamnit, I loved you
Hermione…” He looked back just in time to catch it, the crowning irony of it
all…he was smiling.
“They tore
out your heart,
I miss
you…you were smiling…”
“ Imagine me without you
I’d be lost
and so confused
I wouldn’t
last a day, I’d be afraid
Without you
there to see me through
When you
caught me I was falling
Your love
lifted me back on my feet
It was like
you heard me calling
And you
rushed to set me free…”
Author’s Note: Thanks for
reading. Just popped in my head after reading two fanfics, and wouldn’t let me
rest until I typed it out. First lyrics from “Haunted” by Kelly Clarkson and
the second from “Imagine Me Without You” by Jaci Velasquez. Now then, there’s
that little purple button down there, it’s calling you…it’s haunting
you...doesn’t it look appealing?
