The Day After Tomorrow

HIDDEN IN THE FINE PRINT

21 - HIDDEN IN THE FINE PRINT

"DRACO darling, they're here."

He followed the lilting sound of his mother's voice into the drawing room, each step felt like a monumental effort like his body was physically dreading the mere idea of what was about to happen next. He'd been home for the holidays for a handful of days, feeling for the first time in as long as he could remember; serene. It had been a strange feeling, but then again, it had been a strange last week at Hogwarts.

Everywhere he went he'd seen her, head bent down in a book, figure disappearing around corners and always, always flanked by the red headed Weasel and Potter himself.

It was almost like they were trying to make up for all their past failures with an intense effort to remain by her side. Draco had scoffed when he'd spotted her rise from the breakfast table on the last day of term, and like they were connected by an invisible thread, they'd risen too. Without Ginny Weasley, he supposed they had no where else to direct their attentions, and now Granger had gone from invisible to inseparable.

Every once in a while, he'd catch her eye, and she'd stop short, her face the picture of surprise as if she couldn't quite believe he was looking at her, without malice, or a sneer. He'd glance away, feeling foolish and ridiculous and nothing at all like his charming suave self.

But what did she believe? They'd kissed for Merlin's sake, and something tugged at him at the possibility that whatever that moment had been, it meant more to him than to her. Why else would she not go looking for him, perhaps he should have tried to look for her. But that had felt clingy, Draco cringed at the memory, of that feeling of indecision that had taken up a permanent spot in his head. It was the same feeling that tugged him towards and away from the Gryffindor Tower, till finally end of term had made the decision for him. He was being tugged away, and he didn't quite like it.

Every day since had been an exercise of memory and analysis, relieving each of their interactions till his mind was a tiered of trying to unpack the quirk of her brows, the flash of a blush or a narrowing of eyes. All the while wondering what was she thinking? What did she want from him?

And then they'd received the official notice from Gringotts, and everything had changed.

Draco had always figured that he wouldn't feel anything when his father was gone, in fact in those dark days of Voldemort when his childhood home had become a torture chamber, he imagined he would actually feel something like relief.

As in good riddance.

Lucius had been the one to sign up their family to that maniac, offer up their home as the demented man's headquarters. But the grief had come on the sly, slithering between the fissures of his heart and slipping beneath the door of his private thoughts to settle in his mind like the coiled spikes of barbed wire.

He drew in a ragged breath, before stepping through the doorway his mother had called him from.

Below the arched bay window, by the antique coffee table, in an elegant settee sat his mother. She wore her black mourning robes, a silky dark fabric that made her pale face look almost white against it. She gave him a tight, close lipped smile, her blue eyes stern like she was trying to remind him of something important.

He straightened his back and tidied the room that lived in his mind, sweeping up moments and experiences with a broom into a box, wiping away the stains and fingerprints of his father with a rag till his mind was clean, blank and empty.

He saw his mother's eyes ease, the tightness drawing away from them like she was satisfied. The air was easier to breathe, and he managed the final steps into the room to the last empty seat without the same horrid sense of pain.