Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You)

chapter 5

Harry hadn't thought he'd be able to relax this quickly, but the tension that had crept into his shoulders during breakfast fades quickly in the bright sunshine, and he goes on to have a remarkably ordinary morning. He walks around Muggle London for a while, watching men and women in business clothing go to work, and tourists with their cameras in hand and children in tow, and a thousand other people whose purposes he can't even guess at. Around him, the world feels too sharp, too bright and not quite real, like a stage setting, and Harry wanders aimlessly, awash in detail. A crack in the pavement. A woman laughing loudly at something her companion's just said. The sun reflecting off the window of a passing automobile in a quick flash. The sound of a coin striking the ground, someone coughing, a dog's bark. His stomach growls around ten, so he goes into the first coffee shop he passes and orders a large cup of tea and a croissant, and makes polite chit-chat about the weather with the barista as she hands him his drink.

He leaves, holding the door for a woman with a baby, nods politely when she thanks him, and goes back into the sunshine, nibbling on his croissant. For a moment, he feels a sudden flare of anger that today of all days has dawned perfectly blue and sunny. It should be grey and dark, there should be rain. The sun should hide and the clouds should weep and the wind should wail, because what good is the world if it doesn't have Draco in it? But the moment passes quickly, because if Harry's learned one thing from the war, it's that there are a lot of lives in the world and when one blinks out, all the rest go right on living.

His wanderings eventually carry him onto Blackfriar's Bridge, and Harry pauses in the middle of it, forearms leaned against the railing, to gaze out over the Thames. He watches the tourist boats trundling up and down the river, the tour guide's voice a distant squawking as it passes beneath him. At his back, cars rumble by. Pedestrians pass behind him, and he catches snippets of conversation. Harry finishes his tea and Vanishes the cup.

He's handling this well, he thinks as he stares down at the sunshine sparkling off the water like a thousand shards of glass. He remembers what a wreck he was when Sirius died. The initial disbelief swallowed up by the raging firestorm of his grief. How he'd shouted until his voice grew hoarse and how he'd smashed things, and then that long and painful summer at the Dursley's, locked up in his room, just him and Hedwig and that bone-deep sense of loss. But here, now, he doesn't feel any of that. He's become better at grieving, he thinks. Somewhere along the way, amid all the loss of the war and during all those interminable funerals afterward, he must have grown used to death. He feels sort of awful to admit that, even to himself, but mostly he just feels relief that he won't have to go through that sort of devastating pain ever again. Draco's gone, but Harry's still okay.

It isn't until later that afternoon, until the shadows have lengthened along the pavement and the streets have grown crowded with people on their way home, that he realises what's happening. He isn't better at mourning, he just hasn't started. What happened to Draco hasn't sunk in yet, and this isn't the worst part. He's still balanced on the knife-edge of grief, and when he finally falls, it's going to hurt.

Harry walks for another few blocks as he ponders this, but in the end he decides there's nothing he can do about it. Hermione will probably have a lot to say on the subject, but she's not here. At the thought of her, Harry feels vaguely guilty. She probably came by to check on him this morning, and she's probably spent the day in a tizzy because he wasn't home. He'll have to call her later and reassure her that he's all right.

Later that evening, after the lengthening shadows have swelled into night, Harry finds a deserted alleyway and Apparates to his favourite place for takeaway curry, because it's Sunday evening and that's what they always do on Sunday evenings. He pulls open the door and he's announced by the dull jangle of a string of bells tied to the handle by a black silk cord. The man behind the counter smiles warmly at him and greets him by name, and Harry smiles back, and for a little while there's only the comforting familiarity of a weekly routine.