Chapter Three
Sarah Potter froze mid-step on the stairway that led down from her bedroom. Her eyes bore into the wall separating her from Harry's room, her wand poised in her hand. She'd heard a noise, a thud, that travelled even through the wood and plaster of the house. She made no sound as she breathed shallowly, ignoring the light-headed feeling that it gave her.
It was just a noise, she told herself. This was her own house, there was nothing dangerous here and she was safe. Logically she knew it was true, but it still took a few minutes to really convince herself Harry was just throwing things at Draco's room again, and carry on down the landing.
She'd pulled a pair of stripy socks up to her knees, but her pyjamas were only a pair of shorts and a faded Holyhead Harpies t-shirt; the days may have been hot of late, but the nights were starting to make up for it in their coldness, and she shivered as she padded into the kitchen.
She never slept when she was supposed to anymore, and never for very long. It was not unusual to find herself wide awake in the small hours of the morning, rummaging through cupboards to satisfy her grumbling stomach that complained of missed meals and insufficient amounts of vegetables.
Sarah found herself staring at a jar of Honeyduke's finest chocolate covered jelly-babies, undecided as to whether or not she really wanted any. She ran her tongue stud over the back of her teeth, making a clacking noise that vibrated along her jaw. Greta said that her new eating and sleeping habits were unremarkable considering what she'd been through last year. She also said that expressing herself creatively was healthy no matter how alarming it might be at times. Hence the tongue stud.
Sarah smiled. Her mum had taken her to get all her new piercings, just how she always took her to see Greta, which is probably why she understood a lot more. Her dad was less approving, but her mum always shrugged it off saying she could take them out whenever she wanted. They'd both drawn the line however at a tattoo that said 'I survived Death Eater Mountain', and in retrospect Sarah begrudgingly agreed. Though she wouldn't admit it out loud.
Sarah knew Greta was expensive, and that several people were chipping in to cover the cost of her hourly rates, but she knew deep down it was worth it. The past few months had been awful, plain and simple. Even finding the words to talk about the night of the kidnap had seemed like an insurmountable first hurdle, but when Kingsley Shacklebolt had recommended Greta to go to, the words had eventually come. They were accompanied by weeks of destroying her room, screaming at anyone who approached her (including several members of the press and Ministry) and the inability to stomach any food whatsoever, but after a while the fury had died. Sarah learned that she could ransack her room all she liked, but when she was the one who had to put it back together the carnage became less cathartic. She realised that eating was actually one of the only things that comforted her when confusion and doubt made the world spin, and by talking to people like the Ministry she was in fact helping Harry out.
Harry. Sirius had warned her as kindly as he could not to divulge too much to Greta about his being from another dimension, but it didn't matter anyway. When Sarah talked about how she felt her brother had been a different person in Germany, and couldn't possibly understand because he hadn't really been there, Greta took it purely in psychological terms. She would nod earnestly and ask Sarah how that made her feel.
That was her favourite question, and to begin with it had driven Sarah mad. There was never much to throw in Greta's sparse office, but Sarah had managed to tip over her chair a few times before admitting that it never really made her feel better in the end. So she would sit, and she would talk about whatever was in her head. It wasn't always Germany, or Harry, or how she had seen Seamus Finnigan die. She saw the world in a completely different light and it angered her. Her old cares and woes seemed trivial to the point of embarrassment now, and when she would explain her troubled relationships to Greta, her fears about the world and her place in it, she would always find the path to make her feel better, more in control.
Sighing, Sarah finally caved in to the jelly-babies, yanking the lid off the jar. She was aware of the way her appearance had changed since last November, but her and Greta had come to the conclusion it was her way of shedding the little girl who had found herself at the mercy of the Death Eaters. Her long black hair was all choppy now and she liked to streak it with different colours, normally purple or blue. Her ears now held several studs, there was a bar in her belly button and a small crystal on one side of her nose. Most of her clothes had gone to the charity shop in the village, and she and her best friend Natalie McDonald had spent long days poking around vintage shops for bargains to refuel her wardrobe with. Sarah liked the idea of giving the clothes she bought a second chance at life, even if it often meant being ripped apart and cobbled back together again.
Sarah was aware her bad habits with food had meant she'd put on quite a bit of weight. Natalie told her sincerely that she'd been too damn skinny in the first place, so she wasn't to worry about it for a second, but it had taken some getting used to. She leant on the big wooden table and bit the head off a jelly-baby, which turned out to be yellow, her least favourite. She spat it into the bin then tried again, finding a much more pleasant pink one to dismember.
Her weight was certainly not the only thing she'd had to get used to. The world was shifting dramatically everyday to the point she barely recognised it. With You-Know-Who's regime dismantled the world had to find its feet again quickly and fill the vacuum of power he had left behind. Gradually people began to accept they no longer had to live in constant fear, and curfews were lifted and Floo pathways opened up. But it was within her own family Sarah had noticed the biggest shift. She saw the way her father and mother acted. Her mum had been closer to the other Harry, and she and Sirius had known who he was before he'd returned home. Her dad had known nothing, and she could see the way he sided with her brother on the matter. There was a coldness growing between her parents that scared Sarah more than her time in Germany ever had.
And Harry - well Harry was a stranger to her now. Greta said his distancing was part of his guilt at feeling responsible for what had happened to her, but she knew how angry he was at the other Harry, how bitter and twisted he saw it all and that was why he pulled back from everyone. He blamed them all for what had happened to Seamus, for what had happened to him and his body whilst the other Harry had been here.
But that other Harry had faced death for Sarah, had crossed a continent and offered his own life for hers. She could not share her true brother's rage, and neither could their mum, and so he removed himself from them as much as he could.
He didn't blame Parvati though, Sarah thought, biting into another jelly-baby and licking the chocolate from her fingers. He was always with Parvati bloody Patil. Sarah decided to put the lid back on the jar before she gave herself tummy ache, and poured herself some pumpkin juice to wash the sugar from her teeth. She had never been very fond of Parvati, but now she couldn't stand the silly girl. Her hysterics fuelled Harry's irrationality, and she always stank of cigarette smoke. Sarah had asked her mum a while ago if she was now Harry's girlfriend. She had scoffed something rude into her cup of tea and told her 'I certainly hope not.'
A noise had Sarah's wand in her hand and the juice spilled on the table before her poor brain even had a chance to catch up. Her heart thumped as she tried to place it, remembering all the self defence moves Sirius had taught her. Now she was really listening, and not chewing or scuffing the wooden seats about, she could hear it again and again, almost rhythmically. It was an extremely faint tapping sound, like whatever was connecting was covered in cloth and muffled almost to the point of silence. Feeling the anger flare in her, Sarah stood and began edging her way towards it. The logical part of her brain knew the chances of there being intruders in the house was minimal. The part of her brain that was ordering adrenalin to fly around her system argued it had happened before and this time she would poke their eyes out if they dared mess with her.
Sucking up her courage, she spun around the corner into the family room where she felt the noise was coming from. What she saw, however, brought her up short. For there, sat at the dusty grand piano, was Draco Malfoy. He had his back to her as his fingers moved deftly across the keys, creating that soft thudding noise Sarah had heard. He must have put a silencer charm on the melody, but she could still hear the hammers hitting the strings repeatedly.
He wore a grey t-shirt and navy tracksuit bottoms, and his blond hair had at least been tousled on if not actually slept on. Bare feet worked the peddles, and Sarah could see the tension in the muscles between his shoulders and his neck. Curious, she stepped forward, breaking through the bubble of the silencer charm. The music washed over her, chilling and beautiful.
"The Moonlight Sonata," she breathed, gazing down at the keys. The second she spoke Draco's fingers lifted from the instrument and hung there.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" he said. He only half turned his head towards her, but enough that she caught the smile playing on his lips.
"Shouldn't you?" she shot back, throwing herself onto the stool, forcing him to budge up. He laughed a little, holding onto the stool as he leant back and regarded her. Sarah stuck her wand back in the elasticised waist of her shorts, then laid her own fingers onto the white and black keys. "I didn't know you played?" she said. She'd not touched the piano since Wormtail had snatched her and handed her over to the Death Eaters. She could still see the sheet music fluttering to the floor as she realised the man she'd always thought of as an uncle had a wand pointed at her head.
Sarah hadn't known what to think when her mother had told her Draco was going to be moving in with them. Her dad talked stiffly about how it was really their duty to look after him since his own mother was dead and father in prison. He said they owed him Sarah's life, but he didn't exactly seem thrilled. Her mum had Remus and Sirius on her side though, and the move had taken place in less than a week.
Harry had naturally raised all manner of Hell, and disappeared to Parvati's for so long Sarah lost count of the days. He'd said Draco was a traitor and a liar, but in Harry's absence Sarah had found herself drawn to Draco Malfoy, the tall quiet boy with white hair like a halo. She'd seen the way he'd tried to help Seamus as he'd died, how he and his friend Blaise had stood in front of her when they thought danger was approaching.
She'd won him over as soon as she'd asked what his little pet ball of sunshine was called. 'Oi you,' had been his answer, and Sarah had liked the way he'd raised his eyebrow. She admonished him, and re-christened the poor thing 'Sunny' immediately, which earned her another eyebrow and even a laugh. She'd then introduced them both to Barney the tortoise, and from that moment she had never seen anything treacherous about him at all. In fact he'd acted far more like a brother than Harry had since his arrival, something Greta said her brother was probably also resentful about.
That and Sarah much preferred Blaise to Parvati. Blaise had showed her how to put thick black eyeliner on, and taught her her favourite potions spells. Parvati made fun of Blaise's scar on her cheek too, but only when Harry wasn't around so she must have known how hurtful her words were. Sarah had told her Blaise was more beautiful than she would ever be, even with the scar, and that was when Parvati had stopped talking to her.
"That's all I can play," Draco admitted, running his fingers along an F and G sharp. "My mother taught me." Sarah had always been a fan of Beethoven, especially his haunting sonata, but had never advanced enough to play it herself.
"That's okay," she told him, taking her hands away from the keys and looking at him. "It suits you," she said with a smile. "It can be your party piece."
Draco grinned and rubbed the back of his head. "I dread to think what kind of party anyone would want to hear that at," he said, and it was Sarah's turn to laugh.
They both spent a few moments staring at their laps, the anxiety rising between them. "Are you scared?" Sarah eventually asked. Draco pulled at his fingers.
"Terrified," he admitted.
Sarah blew out a breath of air. "I can't believe it's tomorrow," she bemoaned. Greta had warned her that when things were out of her control she was bound to become worried or angry. Right now she just felt like being sick.
"I guess it had to happen someday," said Draco solemnly. Then he forced a smile that almost reached his eyes. "I'm sure you'll be fine though," he said, giving quick tug to the hair Sarah still managed to hang in a ponytail. She yelped and swatted him away, nervous laughter releasing some of her pent up tension.
"You'll be fine too," she told him genuinely. "I mean, you've done it before."
Draco couldn't quite mask his face as it fell. "Yeah," he sighed, staring out the window as his ball of sunshine bounced about happily. "That's what scares me the most."