N O V E M B E R 1 9 9 8
SIX MONTHS AFTER THE BATTLE OF HOGWARTS
i s o b e l
Recovery did not follow a straight line; Isobel had learnt that the hard way.
A good day could follow a bad day, and a bad day could follow a good one. Sometimes she had several good days, sometimes an entire week felt miserable.
Today was a good day. Well - she suspected her standards had lowered for "good," given that she never felt particularly joyful, or excited - or whatever it was that had once made a day good. But she was out of bed, had sat in the garden for a while, and now felt hungry enough to eat a slice of toast. That was good enough.
She was home alone at the moment as her mother was out to do their weekly grocery shop. There was a small supermarket on the corner of the nearest muggle village, a twenty minute walk away. Isobel and her mother took turns to do the shop, having decided that going together would attract too much attention. She usually hated, hated when it was her mother's turn to go and she had to stay at home on her own, but today she felt... Calm, in her own presence. Not jumpy, not anxious for her mother's return. Today, she was doing okay.
They had lived in this house for half a year now, having moved here after the battle. Her mother had hoped that the way the house was built - in a secluded area, surrounded by trees - would mean that their new muggle neighbours wouldn't take much notice of them. The wizarding community were to stay away from muggles to keep things safe and stable; that was the way things were. Unfortunately, the muggles seemed fundamentally curious, and they were soon getting questions about their jobs, their lives, the absence of a car in their driveway. Isobel expected the muggles probably considered them to be quite rude, because they evaded all such questions. She and her mother kept to themselves, hardly ever leaving the little countryside house.
She knew it was better this way, but she felt increasingly lonely. She had seen several muggles of her own age on her few visits to the village, and wanted desperately to make friends with them. It would be nothing like having her old friends back, but it would be someone to talk to.
The physical pain that had plagued her for the first few months had faded a bit now. It had been horrible - searing headaches and sore muscles - but it had at least been something of a distraction from the immense weight of loss that stayed with her now, constantly. With everything she did, her heart ached for the things that were gone; the things that had once existed so simply.
She hadn't seen her friends since the battle. Maybe that was the worst of it all. Not being able to see them, speak to them, hug them. Cry with them.
Not being able to hug Ginny. Maybe that was the worst part; knowing how much her friends, too, had lost. Fred. Tonks. Lupin. Their faces rotated in her nightmares like portraits, immortalized in her mind. Never to age again. She often wondered if Hermione had managed to track down her parents yet. What if she never would?
Or maybe the worst parts were the parts Isobel couldn't remember. The blur in her mind, when she tried to think back too far, or for too long. Huge chunks of her life, missing from her mind. Maybe there existed worse things, still, and she was unable to remember them.
Maybe the worst part was not being able to remember those things.
Everyday, she trudged around the countryside house with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, trying to piece together her memories. She hoped that remembering something - anything - might make this all less painful. Her mother was a Healer, which meant Isobel was lucky: Isobel had it good. It meant that anyone else in this position, who didn't have the privilege of professional help, would be in more pain. But the overwhelming feeling that something was missing followed Isobel from room to room, never leaving.
The overwhelming feeling that of all the things she couldn't remember, one of them had once been very, very important.
Her first few years at Hogwarts seemed clear enough, given that she had been so young then. The more recent years were, counterintuitively, the haziest. She remembered Dumbledore's Army, and spending sixth year at home after her father died, and having meals in the common room in seventh year, and standing up to the Carrows. There were blurry snapshots in her mind of more mundane moments: getting dressed in the dorms with Hermione, eating breakfast at the Gryffindor table. She had hoped that the rest would trickle back slowly as time passed, piece by piece until they formed a whole again. But nothing new came back to her. And her head hurt if she thought about it for too long.
She remembered the Battle of Hogwarts. Parts of it; flashes. Those parts haunted her all the time, particularly in the night. Tears, bodies, screams. That green light. It never left her. She had escaped death by the skin of her teeth; had felt it come and go. Could feel it now still, lurking over her shoulder as she spread jam onto her toast.
She shuddered. She wished her mother would come home now.
She took her breakfast to the living room and knelt on the couch to watch the driveway.
There was something missing. In the big blur of things she had once known, there was something important, she was sure of it. When death had brushed past -had decided to leave her be, for a while - it took something with it. It stole something from her.
She knew it sounded crazy, but she thought she might have lost a part of herself after the battle.
What she didn't know was that two hundred and twenty-three miles south east of where she sat, Draco Malfoy was staring at the ceiling of his one-bed apartment, thinking exactly the same thing.
