Where It All Began
—
“So you've seen that too, then?" Draco asked, just about managing to keep the anger out of his voice. "Me and her?"
“Not everything. Just bits and pieces, but I've seen enough." Her eyes flickered down, and she smiled affectionately as she ran her thumb back and forth over the new ring on his left hand.
"It suits you."
"What? Father's ring?"
"No." She met his eyes again and her smile only grew.
"Devotion. Being in love. She brings out the best in you, I can't wait to thank her personally, if I get the chance to meet her.”
“She—she’s not here?” He felt his heart plunge to a depth he hadn’t known existed. The idea of spending eternity, or whatever this was, without her was a possibility he dared not even think about. For the thought alone, threatened to undo the little that was holding him together.
“No. Not here. But somewhere else.” His mother said softly. Her words were quiet, her eyes somber, and she began gripping his hand tightly as if tethering him to her.
“I have to find her.” Because without her, he was lost.
“I know.” Narcissa said, while looking at the man her son had become. Any remnant of his occlumency had been shattered, replaced with something far more potent. The singular constant in her life that had her watching over him even after she drew her last breath. The one thing more powerful than death itself.
Love.
As if being beckoned by that very thing, a roar resounded across the manor grounds. One that had sent men to their knees and one that welcomed him home. Gone were the dragon’s broken bones and bloodied scales, she was as majestic as the sun itself. She landed mere feet away from him, and let out a tuft of smoke before burying her muzzle into him.
“She missed you.” Narcissa Malfoy said, creating a respectable amount of space for the beast. “She nearly destroyed the manor in what I assume was an attempt to find you.” That was when he noticed upturned trees, the crumbling gates and the burnt manor grounds.
“Don’t worry, tomorrow everything will return to its original state.” Narcissa said, with a hint of sadness that laced her words. “It always does.”
His dragon made a soft mewling noise as she nuzzled her nose further into him while he continued to take in his surroundings. The manor was like an uncanny memory, so close to what he remembered but not quite home. Because something was missing—or rather someone was missing.
“Go to her, Draco.” His mother’s words weren’t a suggestion, they were an order.
“Your soul will not find rest until it is united with it’s other half.” She knew, Draco thought to himself, had she always known?
“Where do I find her?” His voice cracked. Just like the thing in his chest did when he thought of her.
“The place where it all began.” Narcissa replied.
He looked at his mother as understanding dawned on him. He drew her in, as if committing the image before him to memory. She looked like a muse that haunted the dreams of artists. Something they would sacrifice their mortal lives to bring to life. Only to realize their handiwork was but a shadow of the real thing. She was all long lines and graceful dips. Her skin was luminous as the moon and her hair looked like it was made of spun silk. Narcissa Malfoy was beautiful in life, but in death she was ethereal. Death became her.
“I’ll be back.” Was all he said as he hoisted himself up on his dragon's back and gripped tightly. He didn’t have to tell her where they were going, she intuitively knew, as she always had. Each beat of her wings sent them soaring until his mother faded behind the clouds.
Even if he didn’t know where she was, he would roam the skies and travel the earth to find her. And once they were together he would do it all again, with her. They would start with the Northern Lights, then Mexico, France, and Italy, like she wanted.
Somehow he just knew she wasn’t at Hogwarts, although that would have been a good place to start. No, she was someplace else, he knew it in his bones. A place he had seen so long ago, a memory more precious to her than all the gold in Gringotts. One that felt like sipping steaming mugs of butter beer on a cold winter’s day. Or perhaps what it felt like to score O’s on your N.E.W.T finals, another thing the war had taken from both of them. Without the war she probably would have gotten straight O’s on all subjects. He would have bet his life on it. He knew her like the well-worn pages of his favourite book, one that he never wanted to end. But the war had ended it for them before it even began.
Soon he was soaring over London, watching as Kensington, Hendon, and Golders Green winked out. As old brick homes that were squashed together gave way to the shady expanse that was Hampstead Heath.
Slowly they circled over a house made of Cotswold brick that was covered in ivy. The estate was as modest as a home could be in Hampstead, surrounded by neatly trimmed hedges, a proper English garden, and a quintessential Mini Cooper parked in the driveway.
“The roses are quite lovely this year, aren’t they?” A female voice floated up to him through a pair of French doors, painted in a grey and blue shade.
“Yes, dear.” A male voice responded from within the house.
There was music playing in the background, some famous muggle singer crooned from what sounded like an old record player, “…at last, my love has come along.”
“Anyone want some tea?” The female voice rose above the song.
“Yes, mother.” A familiar female voice replied. It was a voice that reminded him of fresh ink, old books, and the restricted section. A voice that he had become accustomed to. A voice that felt like home.
From a distance roughly twenty feet away he caught glimpses of them. A middle-aged woman, with wild brown hair twisted into a knot, was fussing over a kettle in a nearby kitchen while an older man sat next to a younger woman on a well-worn tan leather sofa that was accompanied by turn-of-the-century wooden furniture. Thick cream carpets lined the floors and an assortment of mismatched picture frames of family photos hung on the beige walls. It was a room he had etched into his memories. Hermoine’s memories. One where a six-year old girl and her friends gathered round a birthday cake. Where a younger version of the man and woman at Hermione’s side beamed at her as they sang “happy birthday to you…”
The place where it all began.
As if merely thinking of her name had summoned her, she emerged from the house. She was wearing an oversized cream sweater, tan leggings and two fuzzy brown slippers that somehow managed to make her hair look tame. A fluffy ginger cat was busy twining itself between her feet as she stepped forward, framed by the French doors. For the first time in years she looked at peace. It was the most beautiful and heart breaking thing he’d ever seen.
It was at that very moment that she saw him. It felt like time itself stood still and neither of them dared to even move. As if some external force might pluck this from their grasp, as so many had been taken from them, scattered and lost like fallen leaves.
So for a moment, or an eternity, he wasn’t sure, they did not even breathe. It was as if they had been turned to stone. She had been the one to break the spell. The one brave enough to face this head on. The first one to move. Ever true to her Gryffindor heart even in death. His little lion.
It was her that started running towards him first, a mess of wild brown hair, a blur of limbs, shouting his name as she bolted towards him. “Draco!” She somehow both cried and laughed all at once. “What are you doing here?”
”I think you already know the answer.” He said as he dismounted from Narcissa and caught her in his arms. He held her tightly to him, pressing her into himself as if imprinting her on his body. In another life she was taken from him. In this one he would never let go.
She tilted her face up to meet his. Her lashes were wet, her brown eyes shone, as she half sobbed, “why?”
He gently wiped the tears from her face as he repeated the words he had promised her in what seemed a lifetime ago, “did you think my love for you is so fragile that something as simple as death could keep me from you.”