An Interference of Portraits

Epilogue - A Nuisance of Portraits

Saturday 22nd November 2003 (two and half years later)

I arrive several hours early at the stadium, leaving Hogwarts the moment my Saturday morning detentions finish and Flooing to Grimmauld Place from my Office. From there it was a hurried change and then Apparition to Clapham Common. Dray is already there. He has been since the early hours. He is looking harangued but we're in the fifth weekend out of seven of the Ogden's Home Nations and he always looks harangued by this point. It is time for me to take matters in hand and remind him this is the third year of the Championships and he knows what he's doing now and everything is under control.

When he finally notices me, I see his shoulders drop. He still shoos me away, ironically saying everything is under control and he doesn't need my help, thank you very much. But I can come and meet the teams in an hour. It has become a routine before every match as if I'm some fucking royal patron or something... I suppose I am, in a way... still, I don't like to think like that, this is Dray's baby.

I know better than to argue. There will be time later for me to drag him back into reality and shower him with the love he needs and deserves because I think this is heroic. It turned out to be a far bigger venture than either of us imagined but the success has been phenomenal; to the degree that people are questioning why the championship never existed before. Dray's team has grown substantially and they now have official offices off Horizont Alley. I only get publicly involved on match days now; my name is no longer needed. It is Draco Malfoy's name that's on everyone's lips when it comes to talking about the Quidditch Home Nations.

Instead of getting under his feet, I climb up to the gods of the stadium and it reminds me of the first professional Quidditch match I attended back in 1994 when the Weasleys and I sat all that way up into the roof. The London Stadium isn't nearly as big and is located in a highly Warded corner of Clapham Park where it's hidden in plain sight amongst trees. The inside of the stadium is lower than the ground level outside so the players can circle high into the air but never go above the tree canopy.

I climb a narrow ladder I found three years earlier in a moment of panic and push open a hatch that lets me out onto the roof, breaking through the Wards that silence the currently empty stadium. It reveals the noise and bustle and din of South London far below me. I can just see across the tree line and spot the Canada Square building on Canary Wharf, the light on top of its roof pyramid bright, even in the cold November sunshine.

I'm amused as I look towards the railway arches of Clapham Common station and spot the billboards advertising the release of the final Lord of the Rings film. There's a familiar face and piercing blue eyes staring back at me and I smile. I have followed the Trilogy avidly, dragging Draco to the Muggle cinemas.

It seems to me that this is an auspicious sign for the day as I nod towards the White Wizard on the Billboard with his wizen face and long white hair that outshines Lucius Malfoy's. Lucius was most put out when I teased him about being a hair double for the actor the previous year when The Two Towers was released and the images of Gandalf the White were first released to the masses.

It is doubly auspicious because, this week, the Section 28 Local Government Act was finally overturned in England and Wales. The campaigning had been fierce by gay rights advocates, particularly Stonewall, a LGBTQ+ charity founded back in the late-80s. We had, in the Magical World been able to add our weight to the protests in a different way and Kingsley and I had even met with the Muggle Prime Minister Tony Blair. The united complaint was that the legislation was intolerant and unjust because it discriminated against Queer people. Our biggest issues were the removal of funding for support groups and the way that teachers were unable to protect victims of homophobic bullying. As we argued, Section 28 was actually endangering vulnerable Muggle children. Although Kingsley and I weren't in any way responsible for ending the legislation, we were another voice adding pressure to the Muggle British Government to finally get rid of a law that seemed to sanction homophobia and inherently made dangerously wrong assumptions about homosexual men being predatory and perverted.