Draco Lucius Malfoy (Head of Ministry of Magic Internal Liaisons, Governor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, CEO of Malfoy Corporation and Magical Monopoly, etc.) would like to express his most heartfelt condolences for your loss. If you should feel in need of his services, do not hesitate to call his assistant on the address written on the back this card.
Have the greatest of days.
"Excuse me, sir! But I think that this has more shit than the back of a Dungstick Beetle!"
Rose Weasley strode into the faculty room and threw the note across Professor Longbottom's desk. But it was not Professor Longbottom that she was trying to pick a fight with, it was the man sitting behind the desk. Said man watched her with cold, passive, liquid silver eyes.
"Should I add more pink and glitter to the stationary, my sweet?"
"You were supposed to be with her! Why weren't you with her? If you were with her then she shouldn't have-- she could still have been--"
It was an authoritative voice that stopped her. "Miss Weasley, I don't tolerate this kind of behavior. I personally think that you owe Governor Malfoy an apology." The years had been kind to Neville Longbottom, he managed to elude a receding hairline. He also grew a beard, well oiled and trimmed that gave him an air of wisdom and expertise. Or made him look like a gardener or a lumberjack, it all depends on how you look at it.
"I'd rather be with my dead mother!"
The enraged fourteen year old girl strode out of the office in tears leaving the two men with no power or authority over her. She was a flurry of fire against everything. Silence followed. Both of them were too affected to say anything.
"So do I."
Draco Malfoy rested his head on his open palm before wiping last night's sweat and grime from his face. Everything is going blurry again, the headaches are getting too intense. It goes for a moment but comes back with more intensity, like a vein somewhere will pop. It could be the hangover or the withdrawal from the alcohol. He's not sure, he's unsure about a lot of things these past few hours. He might be dying or it might just be his desire to die. Either. Living isn't how it used to be anymore.
Not since her.
They were so close. So fucking close.
He's finally going to get her to love him. Finally. After all this time.
Finally together.
Or it might just be wishful thinking.
It was all too cliche, a muggle driver and her just standing by a busy pedestrian and some muggle child chasing a dog or cat-- some random animal-- he had not been able to focus on reading the full article, he simply can't focus. Why does she have to be the hero?
Why can't she just use magic or something?
The Ministry will take care of everything. A mass obliviation should do the trick-- fuck all the consequences. Those muggles had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If only he was there...
Fuck the company, fuck Hogwarts, fuck everything and everyone.
Until there is nothing left because it might just be.
She was his all.
Neville Longbottom stared down at the man sitting in his chair, behind his desk. Draco Malfoy of all people. The last time they were here in this institution, he would have ran for his life the moment Draco's name was mentioned, the Slytherin Seeker was a notorious bully. Despite their similar blood status they can't be any more different.
For instance Neville never acquired the habit of calling people with their last name as was accustomed. It made him feel distant to people, he'd rather call them with their birth name, chosen by someone who loved them dearly or hoped to be able to someday. It was that quality perhaps that drew his unlikely new friend to him today. "Draco, how long have you been in love with her?"
"A specific point in time?"
Neville nodded, interested in what his former classmate will reply.
"Can you be any more corny?"
Neville didn't say anything as he watched the expression on Draco's paler than usual skin-- like he was half dead, his usually slicked back hair now a tangled mess. His every evidence of self neglect crystal clear in the afternoon sun. Like a once grand castle, left alone to decay.
"That's quite possibly the most trite thing that I've ever heard. Might as well ask everyone to gather around to hear my eulogy to her, why don't you?" He was laughing hard when he said this, laughter erupting from within him, cracking the ribs beneath his velvet vest. "Not that I have one. Fuck that."
"Draco..."
Draco stood up and stepped away from the window and into the center or Neville's office. "Fucking fine, I'll humor you," he waved an arm around as if to signify that this is petty, "I'm afraid I had to say that it was love at first sight." He laughed at the connotation. "I don't know if it was that bushy owl's nest excuse for hair or those humongous beaver teeth or her eagerness to wear those god awful robes we call our uniforms or perhaps that annoying smirk she does when she knows she's right..."
Draco intended for the answer to be sarcastic but it ended up being a too enthusiastic recount of what she looked like the first time they met. Platform 9 and 3/4 back when they were both eleven years old. The smirk on his face dropped replaced by a scowl then a grimace then a heaving of breath.
It was bleak. The future suddenly looked bleak. That most eluding thing was already on his fingertips-- within his reach, why did he have to let her go? He'll never see her again. Never. No chances.
"What even is 'love', Longbottom?"
Happily married to his soulmate for twenty years now, everyone would assume that Professor Longbottom would know the answer but he merely shook his head. "My family, my wife, Hogwarts? It's people and places for me, Draco, and what they make me feel. Expressing it in words just cheapens it. Don't you think?"
"I'd rather not think," he said.
Then he laughed at his own wordplay. Even louder than the first time. Isn't this fun? Having an afternoon a roll with an old chum while recounting all the good things that happened-- that could have happened. She will always be his could have. It never happened, never.
The laughter just kept bursting out of him. They were friends. Him and her. For a while, they were. It was a friendship thirty years too late but still it was something. She said that she admires him, it will be beautiful when-- if he asked her to be more. It could be.
Why didn't he?
Is he still that sodding coward that stood only steps away while she was tortured in his own house? The very same one who almost pissed himself and can't keep food down days after?
Even after she was brave enough to look past everything and see him as just him.
What a fucking coward.
You never even got to tell her, prick.
You bought your time when you should have bought her a ring, a book-- ANYTHING! Or you should have gone with her like it was intended in the first place before you decided to play hard to get and pretended to be busy. What's wrong with you?
EVERYTHING.
After all this time...
Draco laughed so hard at the comedy of the situation. So much so that tears had started to fall from his eyes, the very first time since the announcement of her death. He wiped it with the back of his hand but it just won't stop. He was shocked at how fast it was dripping from his eyes, down his face that he laughed even louder-- but his laughter sounded more like strangled screams. It was funny how sobs and laughter can sound so close, so very much alike. He fell to his knees and covered his face as he simultaneously laughed and sobbed.
Neville casted a muffling charm over the room to not scare any of the students passing by. Maybe if they're unlucky enough in love they'll get to experience a heartbreak this tremendous.
Draco wanted to stand up but couldn't. Neville didn't walk over to help him up and that was just about right. He summoned his sodding decorative cane to him and got up. The last of the tears fell and he sniffled like the man he was pretending to be. He grinned and held out his still wet with tears hand for Neville to shake, "It's always lovely to chat with an old classmate. Let's do this again sometime, shall we?"
His hand was left unshaken as Neville looked at him with frank concern, "We will see you in the funeral ceremony, right, Draco?"
"I think I will be quite preoccupied today, tomorrow and until the end of time but it's nice for you to offer," then he grinned that winning grin again that no doubt everyone in his family has sported when sealing a deal before walking out of an office. Silver eyes cold and straight white teeth all showing.
The corridors of Hogwarts are eerily the same and the scent was so hauntingly nostalgic-- always parchment and apples with hints of sunshine-- that he wanted to set something on fire just to have the scent of burnt ruin hide every single thing that started to crowd the front of his mind, putting every single detail about her in clear view. Even when his vest is heavy with all the secrets that he has kept since he was eleven years old.
This moment will be the last.
It's over now.
Twenty one letters, twenty one years since the war, twenty one steps until...
Give me a room where I can hide all my secrets away. Give me a room where I can keep...
The all too familiar door materialized in the blank wall in front of the portrait of the dueling trolls. Now it really is like his school days again.
Smuggle some firewhisky and body odor in here and it was like the yesteryears all over again.
He scoffed at his own thoughts as he got a flask of firewhisky from his coat that reeked of his own sweat and other people's-- people that he has no memory of interacting with since the news of her death.
He raised his veiny hand-- an observation that she made so many years ago just steps away from this spot-- to a mock salute before he downed the whole flask. The same burning warm sensation ran down his throat but instead of revulsion it numbed him for what's to come.
The door of the Room of Requirement creaked open to let him in. He was expecting to be eaten alive by the cursed fire that killed off one of his school companions, someone he wished he could have been friends with instead of treating him as a minion-- not that he will ever admit it to anyone. Too bad.
Everything was charred and burned down and there were no walls visible as far as he could see only darkness on the horizon. The room was well- lit even though there are no visible lights. It was a sea of soot and ashes, dust and charcoal, crumbled bits of once proud artifacts and masterpieces reduced to nothingness. How pathetic that all of those years that he kept her hidden away from everything and everyone will just be reduced to this. Another shameful regret in a room filled with other people's secrets.
A sole light glinted at him.
He instinctively shielded his eyes. He hasn't a slept a wink since the news and it was hard to suppress the urge to close his eyes.
But curiosity got the better of him.
He walked towards the object that shone in the marvelous mountain of cinders, perched on the very top of the mountainous heap of soot.
The glinting object was half buried and he had to pull it out from the cling of everything that didn't survive the fire. He doesn't know his purpose but he has the time and there's nothing holding him back. It could be one of those deathtraps hidden here by a former student and that this will be his death day but he couldn't give a single getaway fuck.
And so it was how Draco Malfoy found the Mirror of Erised.
He never had the chance to glance at it back when it was rumored to be somewhere in Hogwarts in their first year. It wouldn't have made sense then-- he has no want for anything. He has everything then. But now he has nothing. Which would have been funny because he could drop everything and still be able to support ten extremely bourgeoisie generations of his name.
Images started to materialize in the cracked surface of the mirror.
It was him. He laughed at how the younger version of himself smirked at him. "You ignorant, prat. Just you wait." How could he wish to be that? How could he want to go back to that? Innocence just waiting to be destroyed. To those chaotic times...
Then the reason became obvious.
His image looked over his shoulder and held out his hand, another image materialized-- it held mirror Draco's hand.
She smiled at him through bushy hair and large front teeth, smooth freckled skin frank and unadulterated with life's hardships. She was wonderful. Brilliant. She was even wearing her Gryffindor necktie.
Mirror Draco smirked at him as if saying he has won. He will always win. With her by his side, he's practically everything he wants to be.
Watch as he holds her hand. Watch as he dances with her. Watch as he grows old with her.
Draco Malfoy with his balding hair and aging heart could take no more, he took his wand from his pocket and casted a killing spell. The very same one that he was unable to hit Dumbledore with.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
He said it with such certainty that the mirror shattered even before it was hit with the spell. The spell disintegrated with a green fizzle in the air with no one to direct it's power to.
He didn't realize that it will take so much out of him. His chest heaved as if something blocked his airways and a pain settled where his heart should be and his vision blurred.
Oh, Merlin. He's in tears yet again. How funny. Do people really cry unconsciously?
A glittering light struck him from the broken shards.
Maybe it will help to blast a good Reducto on the whole room before he left the letters here, starting with the bloody Mirror of Erised.
Shard after shard crunched beneath his dragon skin boots as he walked to the mirror. The golden frame still stood. It's clawed feet ever more sturdy and the reverse inscription still without fault.
I show not your face but your heart's desire.
And Draco would have had another go at destroying the frame if it wasn't for the locket that dangled at the very center of it. The most curious thing. It must have been hidden behind the mirror and now it has been freed.
It was platinum with a silver chain, a pure white crystal stone in the middle of it. He held out a hand to touch it, the metal surface cold against his fingers. He gently yanked it and it seemed to effortlessly fall on his open palm. Most curious. This one also has inscriptions.
For the one who wish to change the world
"Don't tell me who to give you to. You're going to Borgin and Burke's, you cheap little son of a who--"
He felt something prick his open palm and realized that the locket has rooted itself in his skin and started sucking his blood and depositing itself on the crystal stone wherein it turned blood red, like a ruby but darker in the enchanted light of the room. He bit down the urge to scream as he felt his blood being pumped into the crystal but his other hand was frozen and unable to move to remove it.
For the one who will destroy his world to change everything
The crystal started to rotate and many things happened all at once but all Draco could see clearly was seeing the shattered Mirror of Erised put itself together again. Then everything went fast and slow, so slow that he swore up and down because he realized he was then going backwards.
Backwards to his time in Longbottom's office...
Backwards to his time in the pub with the random blokes and slags...
And ever more backwards still.
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boom. plot twist. firepowersssssss.
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So, yeah. I have been editing this chapter for like every single spare moment that I have this week (which is not a lot >__<) because I am scared to death of what you guys will think. Jesus. Please do tell me what you think. Oh, and massive thanks to everyone for getting us near 17K! It has been cool beans x
Song up top is 'Impossible' by Shontelle cover by James Arthur. This song clears my tears ducts.