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

chapter 36

Epilogue~

The last eight months have gone by quickly, for all the change that’s been packed into them. He’s a godfather now, to the sweetest little girl he could imagine, all big brown eyes and bright copper curls. Rose is always more excited to see him than she is to see her other many and assorted relatives, and Harry likes to think it’s not just because she’s obsessed with trying to put his glasses into her mouth. Her single-minded determination reminds him a lot of her mother, and she’ll be a terror once she decides to focus it somewhere other than glasses-eating. He spends a lot of time with her, being the godparent he thinks Sirius would have wanted to be to him.

Harry’s also been speaking with the Healer that Hermione recommended, and he’s made enough progress to be able to admit that it’s something he should have done years ago. He sold his warehouse, and it was torn down shortly thereafter. He went back to the empty lot with Hermione, just once, and been both disappointed and relieved when Draco didn’t reappear. It'd taken ages to fall asleep that night, but when he finally had he’d slept better than he had in years.

And tomorrow he’s leaving England again, this time for Scotland. He’s finally accepted a teaching position at Hogwarts, and he’s already packed up the sparse contents of his small flat in preparation of moving permanently to the only other place that’s ever felt like home.

There’s just one more thing he needs to do before he leaves.

He lingers on the doorstep of the home he hasn’t visited in six long years. A part of him is afraid to set foot inside, but this is something he needs to do. This is the next step he needs to take. He opens the door and steps inside his house, and it smells musty and abandoned, and it’s nothing like he remembered. When he remembers this house, he remembers it bright and airy and warm, and Draco’s always in it. But this is nothing like that.

Grief clings to the corners like cobwebs. Loss and mourning and misery layer every surface like six years of dust. For a moment, memories threaten to overwhelm him, and they’re not good ones. Memories of despair and hurt and anguish, where he’d floundered and nearly drowned. He’d shut out all the good memories one by one because they hurt, all the quiet cups of tea and movies in the evenings and the lazy morning sex. Draco dancing to the Stones and flirting with a mug and the thousand smiles he’d given Harry. Somewhere in the depths of his grief, Harry only looked at what he’d lost, and he forgot to look back on what he’d had. He’d let five years with Draco be outweighed by each and every day without him.

Seven years has been long enough.

He rolls up his sleeves and gets to work. He opens the windows and lets the sunshine come streaming in. He casts spells that send miniature cyclones of dust rising from the floor and all the furniture to deposit themselves neatly into the rubbish bin. Another spell sets the mop to polishing the floors. Yet another spell sends a soft cloth to dust off all the shelves. And in the midst of all the magic is Harry. He swishes and flicks, and scrubs and polishes and scours in a way he hasn’t done since he was ten years old. He makes up the bed and fluffs up the pillows and shakes out the rugs. He throws out stacks of magazines and that old Quidditch catalogue. He clears up all the scattered clothing, the jumper from the sofa and all the scattered socks and the pants from the bathroom floor, and he starts a load of laundry. He fills the rubbish bin with the blue toothbrush and the stupidly expensive hair products that don’t do shit for Harry’s unruly hair and the prescription potion for allergies that Harry doesn’t have and the half-full pack of cigarettes that he’ll never smoke.

Finally, when he’s cleaned everything he can possibly clean in the rest of the house, Harry goes into the dining room. The table is still set for tea, and Draco’s warming and stasis charms are still weakly holding. The tea is barely lukewarm after all this time, impressive after seven long years, but then he had always been exceptionally good at charmwork. Harry stretches his hands over the mugs, straining for that lingering warmth, tasting the last faint wisps of Draco’s magic and savouring it like the final glass of a rare wine. He lets out a long, slow breath.

Then, with a murmured Finite, Harry picks up the mugs and carries them into the kitchen for washing up.