Drarry Oneshots 2

Shame Keeps Its Watch

Top!Harry

Bottom!Draco

Summary: The post-war world is not an easy place to navigate when you are Draco Malfoy and none of the certainties you grew up with are valid any more. Basically, you are a bit of a mess. But at least you're hot - that has to be worth something, right?

Author: raitala (on ao3)

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"Have you ever just wanted to go back — miserable as it was. Horrible as it was — go back because at least then, things made sense; everything seemed as though it was exactly as it was supposed to be, and you never had to wonder whether it was just you — "

Lettered, IDK, My BFF Hermione? (2011)

The hall was cold. The sealing charms around the windows had never been quite the same since they had been forced in the Auror raids on the manor at the end of the war. There was a fierce draft, but the candles had been charmed not to gutter.

Draco stood mutely by his father's bier. His mother stood opposite him. The fine gauzy folds of her mourning veils were not charmed and fluttered gently around her. She looked like smoke.

They had been there for three hours. The low winter sun was already fading from the west window. Shadows were a forming in the corners of the hall and beginning to creep towards the catafalque. Draco's mind drifted. He could remember his grandfather's funeral. He had been eight at the time and his father had supported his strenuous claims that he was old enough to stand with the family through the twelve hour vigil, from noon to midnight.

The hall had been packed, he remembered. Around the bier had stood his father and mother. The Lestranges had been there, the Averys, Crabbes and Goyles and a number of old wizards, associates of his grandfather's that Draco didn't know. The Minister for Magic had been there for a few hours. Further back in the hall members of lesser families, tenants and clients of the Malfoy family had appeared to show their respects. These people had shifted in an out, their places taken by others, only the family and close mourners had stood the full vigil.

Draco had been so proud of his place at his father's side. He hadn't been particularly sad. He and his grandfather had not been close and he had tended to stay out of his way. Drawing Abraxas' attention invariably resulted in generating criticism. "When is the boy going to go to school?" – "He is too noisy." – "He is too mousy." –"That boy has no discipline." – "That boy has no spirit. At his age I had a gang of lads following me and we used to get up to all sorts."

Draco hadn't grieved about his grandfather. He didn't think his father had either. His father had stood, tall and stern, bathed in the golden light of hundreds of candles. Though ostensibly there to mourn Abraxas, every eye in the hall had been on his father. Draco had understood, even then, that they had come to see the new head of the Malfoy family. The respects they paid were to his father, not the dead.

Draco looked at his father now. His features were sunken and grey and his hair leached dry. Azkaban and failure had left their mark and even the glow of candle light could not soften a face turned pinched and bitter. He tried to feel something ... appropriate, but nothing came. He wondered if his mother mourned. Behind the veils she was inscrutable. Had anyone ever sincerely mourned in this hall? Perhaps that was what this vigil represented: a rigorously enforced pageantry to mask the reality of a fundamentally unlovable family?

There was no one now, come to pay homage to the new head of the family. Mostly this was a relief. There were no other eyes here, apart from his mother's, to witness how far they had fallen. No one there to judge just how poorly this last Malfoy measured up to his forefathers. But, of course, their absence was itself a judgement.