Chapter Text
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“The git still lives with his mum, I can’t believe it,” Ron chuckled as they approached the manor’s doors.
“Twenty galleons says he’s bald already,” he added, elbowing Harry in the ribs.
Harry snorted. “I’ll take that wager.”
He hit the door-knocker, eyeing a peacock in the garden that was too close for comfort. A minute or two passed without answer; Harry checked his watch, then he knocked again.
“You sent the owls?” he said to Ron.
“Yes, I sent the bloody owls. He’s gotten one every week since he missed his hearing.”
Harry sighed. It figured Malfoy would keep them waiting. Harry and Ron had been landed with the task of checking in on Malfoy after he missed his latest – and final – probationary hearing.
Eight years of bi-annual hearings to attest that he’d adhered to the terms of his probation and Malfoy would be a free man with a clean record. It wasn’t enough, just a slap on the wrist, but it was what he’d been given – he was just a boy, they’d said at his sentencing. Horseshite. Harry and Ron had just been boys too, and they hadn’t done what Malfoy did.
Another minute went and Harry hit the knocker again – pounded it, really, this time. His irritation was growing into something more akin to resentment and his pulse thrummed in his temples.
“Aurors!” he shouted and slammed the side of his fist on the door.
Ron looked at him with his eyebrows raised.
Finally, light footsteps fell inside. The door creaked and opened just a few inches; pale, slender fingers with long, manicured nails wrapped around the wood. A woman peeked her eye through the crack.
“Uh – Mrs. Malfoy?” Harry asked.
“Can I help you?” She sounded inconvenienced.
Harry showed her his badge – Ron fumbled in his robes for his own – and she pursed her lips.
“We need to speak to Malf– to Draco. He missed his hearing last month and hasn’t returned any attempts to contact him. Is he here?”
“Draco isn’t well. I’m sorry, he’s not up to visitors.”
Ron scoffed. “We aren’t visiting. He’ll be lucky if we don’t take him out of here in cuffs.”
Narcissa lowered her brow and closed the door a bit.
Harry glanced over his shoulder with a look that clearly said to shut the hell up.
“We’ll only be a few minutes,” Harry assured her, wanting to be done with this and never think about Malfoy again. “Draco just needs to sign some papers and we can be out of his hair, forever.”
“Very well,” she sighed and opened the door, ushering the two of them inside.
The years years since Harry had last seen Narcissa Malfoy did not appear to have been kind to her; her hair had turned grey and thin, frown lines were carved around her lips, and her eyes were sunken under lavender circles. Harry felt like he towered over her, even if he only had half a head on the woman – the manner in which she held herself made her small.
“This way.”
The corridors were empty and lifeless – a thin sheen of dust covered the surfaces that didn’t see much use and cobwebs hung in the high corners. There wasn’t a sound in the manor, except for the fall of their footsteps.
“This place gives me the fucking creeps,” Ron whispered in his ear.
He teased, but Ron was tense and uncharacteristically twitchy – Harry couldn’t help thinking of the last time they’d both been here … Hermione was screaming worse than ever and next to him Ron was bellowing, ‘HERMIONE! HERMIONE!’
Harry blinked the memory away.
Narcissa led them through the back doors and into the garden. Malfoy sat with his back to them in a chair that had been put out by the roses. Holding out her hand, Narcissa instructed them to wait as she went and crouched beside him; she brushed a strand of hair behind his ear.
“Not bald,” Harry said to Ron under his breath. “You owe me twenty galleons.”
“Some of your schoolmates came to visit you,” Harry could hear Narcissa say softly, “Isn’t that nice, little bird?”
“Again, not visiting,” Ron chimed in.
“Ron, would you shut up?” Harry hissed.
Narcissa turned to glare at them, then she whispered something in Malfoy’s ear and stroked his crown.
“He’s tired,” Narcissa said when she left her son’s side. “Keep this brief, please.”
Harry nodded, not eager to spend more time here than necessary.
“Wait here,” he said to Ron, fairly sure he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from acting like an arse.
As he crossed the garden, and his feet brought him closer to the roses, Harry felt anxious – like he did before he apprehended dark and dangerous witches and wizards.
“Malfoy?” he said when he was just a step away.
But Malfoy didn’t turn, or even acknowledge that he’d heard him. Harry knelt in front of Malfoy – his knee sank into the soft grass. Malfoy sat with his legs criss-crossed underneath him and he fiddled with the fringe around the edges of the blanket on his lap; he didn’t look at Harry when he entered his space.
“Draco?” Harry said, a bit confused.
Malfoy picked up his eyes from his lap and met Harry’s. His hair was quite long now, though he looked much the same as he did years ago, if not somehow younger. But there was something unsettling about him too, a newborn naivety on his face. He smiled at Harry.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi …” Harry returned.
Curiously, Malfoy tilted his head.
“Erm – Harry … Harry Potter …” he reminded, more than a bit annoyed that Malfoy was looking at him like he was a total stranger. Malfoy worried his lip between his teeth, then he looked over his shoulder at his mother.
By the doors, next to Ron, she watched them with her arms crossed and her face pinched in scrutiny. Harry fished the folded documents and a ballpoint pen out of his robes.
“Your probation's over. Just sign these so I can go,” Harry said. He dropped the papers and the pen in Malfoy’s lap and Malfoy looked at them blankly.
“What, you’ve never used a Muggle pen before?” Harry huffed his frustration and clicked the pen for him. “Sign your name there.”
He jabbed his finger at a line on the paper. Malfoy pressed the tip of the pen to the page – his script was loose and sloppy; Harry thought he remembered it being narrow and uniform when they were in school. He flipped through the pages and instructed Malfoy to sign each one, then shoved them back into his robes when he was through.
“Right then,” Harry said with a nod as he stood. Malfoy returned his attention to his blanket.
Narcissa pointed them to the floo, but she didn’t follow them inside.
“Well that was bloody weird,” Ron said as they found their way back to the foreroom.
“Yeah.” Harry laughed, but Ron hadn’t seen Malfoy’s face and it had left Harry uneasy. When Ron stepped into the hearth with a fistful of floo-powder, Harry lingered; he kept thinking about that blank, childlike look in Malfoy’s eyes. He feigned checking over the documents one last time before they left.
“He missed a page,” Harry lied.
“C’mon, mate,” Ron whinged. “I wanna get out of here; Mum’s making a roast – she’ll kill us if we miss another family dinner. It’s one signature, forge it, no one will know better.”
“Ah … I should just get this signed. Go ahead.” Harry waved his hands dismissively. “I’ll meet you back at the Burrow.”
“Alright, be ready to dodge Mum’s spoon when you show up late – I swear her aim is getting better with age,” Ron said with a laugh, then he sent himself through the floo.
Harry walked back through the manor and paused at the French doors in the back, watching Narcissa and Draco through the glass. She was crouched in front of him, holding both of his hands in hers and talking to him with a gentle smile that fell away the moment Harry opened the door and stepped out in the garden. She crossed to him with visible irritation.
“Did you forget something?” she said.
“Ah, no – I just …” He glanced at Malfoy and frowned. “He’s, uh – different.”
“Would you like a cup of tea, Potter?” Narcissa asked.
“No, thanks –”
“We’ll have tea,” she cut in, and ushered him inside.
She brought him to the kitchen and pointed at the table for him to sit, then she charmed a kettle to boil and poured two cups.
“Milk?”
“That’s alright,” Harry said and took the drink she offered; he dropped a cube of sugar in his cup – it sank to the bottom and began to dissolve. Absently, he stirred the steeping tea.
Narcissa watched Malfoy through the window and toyed with the tag on the string dangling from the edge of her cup.
“It was his birthday yesterday,” she said; she sounded sad. “I got him a pair of Gouldian finches – he was so excited. You know, he used to hate birds? The peacocks terrified him when he was small.”
She sniffed and wiped at her nose with a kerchief before she turned back to Harry.
“Twenty-six years old … and he can’t be left alone for ten minutes.”
“What happened to him?”
Narcissa took a sip of her tea; she wrinkled her nose and blew on the cup’s steaming surface.
“Draco tried to obliviate himself, Harry – last year on Christmas.”
“He …” Harry’s mouth gaped. “What? Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Because he was too cowardly to own his choices, Harry thought but didn’t say.
“Haven’t you taken him to a healer?” he asked instead.
“No, I … I couldn’t tell anyone. Performing that kind of magic was a violation of his probation – they’d have put him in Azkaban for it. I’m only sharing this with you because those papers are signed and it’s done now. Yes? The Ministry will leave him alone?”
“Mrs. Malfoy, I really don’t think Draco would be sent to Azkaban for … this.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Healers can’t help him.”
“It’s worth a try, at least –”
“Is it?” she interrupted, her tone sarcastic. “You must know – I imagine you’ve obliviated your fair share of people in your line of work.”
Harry cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his seat; she wasn’t wrong.
“Obliviation isn’t a simple memory charm or an alteration. It is an amputation. And to carve out your own memories like that … it’s like trying to bite out your own tongue. It can be done, but you have to mean it – to want it so badly you’d flout your body’s most basic instinct for self-preservation. There’s nothing left to bring back.”
Grief was all too clear in her voice.
“Does he remember anything?”
“Not from before.” Narcissa shook her head solemnly. “And now, I’m not sure what his mind holds onto anymore … not much, I’m afraid. I’m not sure he understands who I am – if he knows what it means when he calls me mother – but he knows he cares for me; he trusts me. Everyone else – well I was surprised, to say the least, that he took to you so kindly.”
Harry frowned. He wouldn’t have described their brief interaction as one that went well.
“I mean … he only said hi.”
“And that’s more than he’s said to anyone but myself since Christmas.”
“That’s … I’m sorry.” Harry looked at Narcissa with pity.
She turned away from his sympathy to check through the window behind her and sighed – it was a thin and exhausted sound. Malfoy was out of his chair and walking toward the treeline, blanket clutched in hand and dragging in the grass behind him.
“You need to go,” Narcissa said, and she hurried outside.
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As soon as Harry knocked on the manor’s door he regretted it, and he considered turning on his heel and apparating away like he’d never been here. He wasn’t quite sure what he was thinking, coming here again uninvited. But the empty shell he’d met instead of Malfoy haunted him; he’d hardly slept in the days since his last visit – he kept dreaming of dementors and their terrible kiss.
Harry wanted to say he didn’t understand what Malfoy had done to himself … but he knew what it was to want to forget.
The noon sun beat down on him while he waited on the steps and Harry had decided he should just go when the door opened.
“Mr. Potter,” Narcissa said shortly. “What’s this about now?”
“Erm –” Harry suddenly felt quite stupid for coming.
He grabbed the package from under his arm and held it out.
“This is for Malf–Draco. Uh … for his birthday.”
She glanced at the wrapped rectangle in his hands and the corners of her lips twitched upward.
“Come inside.”
The sunroom Narcissa took him to was flooded with bright yellow light through the ceiling glass and brimmed from corner to corner with lush greenery. Malfoy stood in front of a birdcage taller than he was and wider than his wingspan – his pale eyes flicked around as he watched the assortment of bright, small birds.
Like the last time, if Malfoy noticed Harry he didn’t show it. Narcissa approached him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Someone’s here to see you.”
Malfoy glanced at Harry – his face a newly blank slate.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” Harry said, stepping closer like he was trying not to startle a deer.
“Do you remember me?”
Malfoy studied Harry – pausing to look in his eyes for a long moment – then he stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a ballpoint pen … Harry’s pen. He didn’t even realise he’d left it – he was always losing them. Harry huffed a short, amused chuckle through his nose.
“I brought you something,” he said and offered the present to Malfoy.
He looked at his mother and Narcissa gave an encouraging nod. Malfoy took the gift and held it tightly in his hands; he furrowed his brow.
“Thanks,” Malfoy said.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
Again, Malfoy looked at Narcissa for guidance. “Go on,” she whispered.
Malfoy ran his thumb over the wrapping and his eyes flitted over the paper, reading the print – Harry only then noticed that the page he’d pulled out of that morning’s Prophet to wrap his gift in was a full spread advertisement for a chocolate-flavoured laxative potion. Malfoy glanced at Harry from under his blond lashes, then he tore the paper away, carefully, where Harry had taped the seams.
It was a book about native birds that Harry picked up that morning in a Muggle shop; he’d bookmarked the section about the various species of British finches. Draco smiled – a smile that reached his eyes; without any malice or arrogance left in them, his smile was quite nice.
“You like it?” Harry asked.
Malfoy nodded and his hair fell in his face. He took his new book and sat on a sofa across the room; Harry hovered where he stood and watched Malfoy flip to the spot Harry had marked.
“Why did you come?” Narcissa said, after a long minute of nothing but birdsong.
“I don’t know,” Harry admitted.
Maybe he just needed to see that it was true … that the Malfoy he had known was gone. And it seemed he was. Harry wasn’t sure what he expected to feel – he certainly didn’t expect for his stomach to turn with dread. He certainly didn’t expect to feel guilty. Yes, Harry had hoped he was miserable; he’d hoped Malfoy loathed himself. He hadn't hoped for this.
The sentencing Malfoy received for his crimes had been too light, but this self-inflicted punishment was one that no one deserved. Everything that made Draco … Draco was scooped out of him. And Harry’s dreams started making sense to him. The dementors. The kiss. Malfoy had done their work for them.
“Mother,” Draco said, waving her over with his eyes fixed on the open book in his lap.
She sat beside him and put an arm around his back; he pointed to the page. “Look at this one.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, and kissed his temple.
Harry suddenly felt like a voyeur, like he was intruding; he ducked his head and turned to sneak away.
“Are you leaving?” Draco asked, stopping Harry when his hand touched the door.
“Er – yeah, I ought to head out …”
Draco frowned. “You’ll come back?”
He glanced at Narcissa and she shrugged, eyebrows raised.
“Sure,” Harry said, not entirely certain if he was lying – and more than most of him hoping that Malfoy would forget that he'd been here.
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