The Realm Beyond
Halloween.
Having grown up in an esteemed, pureblood family which upheld the traditions of the wizarding world (even the more questionable ones), Draco had always regarded All Hallows' Eve as a day of reverence and respect.
Last Halloween, only two months after the initial tragedy that was the celebrated 'Victory Day' in magical Britain, Draco had spent the day in the country of Ireland. He'd been researching the Oweynagat, otherwise known as 'the Cave of the Cats'. It was where the origin of Halloween was born, in fact. A portal which—and this was according to muggle folklore—opened up to the land of the dead, allowing werewolves and demons and all sorts of monsters to walk the earth for an entire day. Disguising oneself as a harmful spirit was supposed to keep them away, hence the horrid practice of muggles dressing up as what they thought of as witches and such.
Well, the Oweynagat was just a hole in the ground, and nothing more. Draco had spent all day and night on last All Hallows' Eve in the middle of nowhere, hating his life and cursing the tenacity of Harry Potter. One of his more normal days, really.
Halloween in New Orleans was an entirely different matter.
Draco was beside himself. Everywhere he looked, muggles in garish, glittering costumes meandered past him—drunk, probably, if not high on something far more potent than alcohol. He could see that the tradition of pretending to be an evil spirit was entirely lost, too. The muggle women looked more like brothel whores than monsters (not that Draco was complaining), and the men looked more like rock stars than goblins (Draco actually felt underdressed compared to most of them).
He'd decided to come to New Orleans this Halloween for no other reason than he'd heard it was quite the party.
Oh, was it.
The sun had only just set, and already Draco felt like he was in some kind of strange mixture of a horror story and a glamorous festival.
During the day it had been relatively amusing. There was a parade, there were children running about, there was candy tossed in the air (Draco developed a quick abhorrence for War Heads, which were hard candies that looked like they would be sweet but which were actually awful), and it was really just a chaotic and colorful shit show, truth be told, but it was light and fun.
The moment night fell, everything changed.
Men and women in costumes that were far more appropriate for the holiday came out, wearing long robes of black and pointed, red nails that reminded him of his deceased aunt. Draco even saw people walking around with staffs and what looked very much like wands...
Very much like wands.
Suspicious, Draco began tailing a pair of 'witches' which he thought might actually be witches. Their clothes were convincing enough, and the 'wands' they carried looked legitimate, too...
But how could he tell? Deciding that there was no harm in it here, Draco pulled out his own wand and followed them.
But the streets were crowded and Draco had made the mistake of having two (more like four, but who was counting) drinks earlier that day (as well as having nothing to eat but deplorable amount of candy—well, they were just throwing it around, weren't they?), and so he was not exactly as agile as he normally was. His quarry turned a corner and he lost them.
Scowling, Draco looked left and right, lamenting his inability to track.
"Ah! Oh, sorry!"
A woman wearing some strappy, sparkly contraption stumbled into him. Draco steadied her and gaped.
She was bleeding.
There were two small but very bloody marks on her neck, and her eyes were glassy and out of focus, like she was in daze. Draco supported nearly all of her body weight as she leaned on him, grinning deliriously.
Well, it didn't take even a semi-magical education to see what had happened to her. "You've been bitten by a vampire," he stated bluntly, shocked.
“Yeah," she said, pushing away from him and standing uneasily on her own two feet again. "I know! He's over here. Or, he was. Sanguini!"
A thin, pale man seemed to emerge from nothingness at the sound of his name. The woman giggled and fell into his arms. "There you are!" she trilled, running a hand down his face and bleeding onto his shirt.
Draco stared at him, terrified. "You—you! Sanguini... You're a real vampire!"
"Of course I am," Sanguini purred. He picked the muggle up like a bride—one who was as high as a god damn kite—with surprising ease, considering how frail he looked. Draco could tell by the way he was looking at him and eyeing his wand amusedly that he thought Draco was just another silly muggle. "And you're a real wizard."
"I am a real wizard! And you, I know you—or I’ve heard of you, at least—you were at Slughorn's party, you were at Hogwarts—"
The vampire's face cleared in a second.
He deposited the inebriated woman into the arms of someone whom Draco hoped was a colleague of his, and not just some random stranger—but then again, maybe the woman would have been better off—before grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him around the corner of a building.
"What the hell is this?" Draco asked, before he could speak. "Are—are there just vampires and witches walking around all over the place, here?"
"Basically," Sanguini answered, tugging Draco further into the recesses of the privacy of an alleyway and shoving him against a brick wall. "I would ask who you are—obviously, you were a student at Horace's little party—but I don't really care. In fact, let's just pretend like we never even ran into each other in the first place. Does that sound... agreeable to you? Or do I need to be more... persuasive?"
His dark eyes flickered down to Draco's neck, and Draco instantly pointed his wand in his face. "Are you threatening me, vampire?"
"Of course not," Sanguini replied. He smiled up at Draco, revealing two very long, pointed fangs. "But keep in mind that I can move extremely fast and cause a lot of damage very quickly... Do you feel like you can take on a vampire? There is nothing holding me back, today... But I have no intention of harming you if you just walk away, and we pretend we never saw one another."
Draco swallowed thickly. Sanguini watched the way his Adam's apple bobbed as though fascinated. "What the hell is this madness," Draco muttered, trying valiantly to sound unafraid. "Witches and wizards out in public, vampires just biting people out on the street—"
"That's only scratching the surface," Sanguini interrupted, laughing softly.
"H-how? Doesn't the American magical government or whatever care that this is happening?"
"Of course they do," the vampire said, his tone clipped. "Typically, the MACUSA is extremely strict with their laws, especially those involving magical creatures and magic being performed in front of no-madges—muggles."
Sanguini smiled wickedly, trailing a spidery finger up Draco's throat in an action that was so unexpected that Draco just stood there, frozen.
"But this is Halloween, boy... and they gave up on New Orleans a long, long time ago."
Then, just as Draco thought his knees might buckle from fright, Sanguini turned and vanished, his
cold voice ringing in Draco's ears.
Draco stood there for a long time afterwards. His heart raced as he watched the people wander past.
Suddenly, every single individual was a mystery—was that really a muggle, or was that a witch? Was that man with the crazy ears and huge fangs really some hybrid, werewolf monstrosity, or was that just a really good costume?
Draco frantically searched the sky, exhaling an audible puff of relief when he saw that the moon was only a thin sliver in the sky. Thank Merlin.
After several minutes of deep breathing and thanking the universe that he had not been murdered (or worse) by a vampire... Draco began to feel exhilarated.
Halloween, in New Orleans... If there was anyone who knew about a real connection between this world and the next, or whatever existed in between, they were sure to be here.
The night was young.
Draco was amazed.
The closer it got to midnight, the crazier people became. Witches were selling voodoo dolls on street corners that looked disturbingly like they might be real; there were shrunken heads hanging from necklaces, the kind which Draco was sure he'd seen being sold in Knockturn Alley at some point... He even saw a goblin—a real, actual goblin—go walking past, and heard a muggle say, "I'd dress up as a leprechaun, myself, if I were a little person."
Even wilder was that Draco actually felt offended on the goblin's behalf.
Draco began actively looking for people who were probably real witches or wizards, then. Someone who could point him in the right direction, possibly to a Seer or some Voodoo- practicing Sorcerer who may know something.
Hell, Draco thought, maybe séances were real, and not just some muggle-contrived imagination. Maybe he could find an actual medium and have a conversation with Harry that way.
Except Harry's not dead, Draco reminded himself firmly. He is not dead. I am Draco Malfoy, and I am looking for the realm beyond; for Harry Potter, the Master of Death...not a dead boy.
He hadn't even realized he'd been staring vacantly at some decrepit-looking old woman until she spoke.
She was mostly concealed by shadows, so it wasn't like Draco had been purposefully staring at her. Tiny, too; a very small, hunched woman in black, ratty robes that made her look more like she might be part elf. She glanced up at Draco with milky white eyes and smiled.
Something about her scared Draco far more than the vampire had. "Draco Malfoy..." she whispered in an unnaturally low voice.
Draco's mouth ran dry. "What the—how the fuck—?" he spluttered, backing away and pointing his wand.
The old lady only smiled more widely, completely unperturbed by his reaction. "You seek the realm beyond, do you not?"
Draco stared. He lowered his wand a fraction of an inch.
"I... yes," he breathed. "How did you—"
"We've been waiting for you."
Two more hunched, old women emerged on either side of the first, like figures forming from the
shadows themselves. "We've been waiting for you, Seeker of the Master of Death..."
Draco's breath hitched in his throat. He could not have invented a more appropriate title for himself.
"How... How did you know?"
Instead of answering with words, the three elderly women began to move in strangely slow, synchronized movements. One of them traced a triangle in midair with her finger, and the three-sided symbol remained hovering there as though she had burned it into the air itself. Then the woman on her right did the same thing, only she carved a circle inside of that triangle. The last woman then slashed through the center of these symbols, dividing them in half with a vertical line.
A line within a circle within a triangle.
Draco stared at the sign like he was witnessing something holy and inexplicable. "How did you know?" he asked again, his tone far more deferential.
The witches did not answer his question. "Come with us," the first said instead, one long finger beckoning him to follow.
Draco did.
The three old women led him to a deplorable looking pub that not even he would have chosen to go into. It was magical, for sure; Draco noticed the wards that must have made it invisible to muggles. A few suspicious characters in hooded cloaks sat in one corner, and a man who looked to be part giant stood behind the bar, but other than that, it was empty.
Everyone was out enjoying the festivities on Halloween.
Those who were inside paid Draco and the witches no mind as they took him through a back door, towards a steep and ominous staircase which led into a basement. Draco turned and looked over his shoulder, hesitant to go down.
"We live here, Draco Malfoy. You are safe with us," one of the women said.
"Why are you taking me into your home?" Draco asked, stepping away from them. "What, does your basement have some magical portal to the other side, or something?"
The witches all shared an amused glance. "Oh naïve, child," one said, reaching up and touching his face. Draco recoiled away from her—her fingers were freezing. "You have been looking for the answers in the wrong places," she said, pointing towards the door. "The way to the realm which you seek is not out there... but in here."
She then aimed her knobby finger at his forehead, directly between his eyes.
"We can show you," the second witch said.
"We can show you where the Master of Death dwells,” said the third, “if you are willing."
The first witch held out her hand, waiting for him to take it. Draco had never felt a stronger sense of foreboding in his life—and that, he thought, was saying something.
He didn’t care.
He took her hand and descended into the darkness.
"I have to be naked?"
The room which they brought him to was creepier looking than anything he'd seen in New Orleans yet. Not because it was filled with dark objects or anything—quite the opposite, in fact.
The room had nothing at all in it except a large, stone table, one which reminded Draco eerily of an altar.
And they had just requested that he lie down on it.
Naked.
"Why?"
"You cannot take anything with you, into the realm beyond," one of the witches responded. "Do not worry, Draco. We will conduct the séance around you in the most controlled fashion possible. We have done this many times... You are perfectly safe with us."
“Perfectly safe," echoed another.
Draco felt anything but. "This couldn't actually hurt me or something, could it? I'm just... It's just my subconscious that will go there, right? My body isn't going anywhere... right?"
"Your body will be right here with us, under our protection," one answered.
Draco bit his lower lip in confliction, staring down at the empty slab of stone. "...How much is this service going to cost me?" he said at length. It hadn't even occurred to him to ask before.
One of the women waved a wrinkled hand flippantly. "We can discuss your payment after the séance is over, and base it on how effective the enchantment was."
Draco’s breath hitched in his throat, irrationally excited and determined.
"Okay."
The witches turned away while he undressed, setting his robes, wand, and bag aside before climbing awkwardly onto the table. "Um. Do I just lay here, or—"
"On your back," one instructed. Lay on your back and close your eyes..."
Blushing, Draco did as he was told. He heard the soft sounds of the witches shuffling around him, but he didn't open his eyes to watch what they were doing.
“We are going to begin," one murmured. "You shall hear our hymn, and then it will feel warm and calming, like falling asleep..."
"Yes, just like falling asleep..."
Draco opened his mouth to ask a question, but they had already begun to chant. Wordless, nonsensical murmurings that were perfectly in synch between the three of them. The non-language had an immediate effect—Draco tried and failed to look at them, his eyelids suddenly feeling as though they were made of iron.
He felt so tired...
He felt so wrong.
There was no help for it. Draco struggled fruitlessly against the weight of slumber, but it swallowed him whole.
White.
It went on, and on, and on.
Draco was walking in a world that was vast, empty, and extremely quiet... But not in a disconcerting way. It was serene, pure.
It was peaceful, here.
Draco walked through the blank landscape for a time, feeling strangely calm. There was something about this place that made him feel... safe.
Then it began to snow.
Draco peered up into the infinite sky which was indiscernible from the equally spotless ground, and he could barely make it out against such a pristine backdrop, but what was falling gently from above... It was... No, it was not snow, but...
Flower petals.
He smiled as one fluttered playfully close to his face. Just a few, at first, scattered and sparse, but then more and more began floating down from up above. White flower petals, twirling as they made their slow, entrancingly elegant descent onto the immaculate ground upon which he walked.
It was beautiful.
They fell on his shoulders and landed in his hair. Draco stopped walking, holding his hands out wide on either side of his body and looking up, as if he could maybe locate the source from which they fell. They smelled so strongly, too, clouding his mind with the pleasant aroma of lilies.
The number of petals increased over time. Soon the air was full of them, forming into small piles at his feet. Draco closed his eyes and simply stood there, inhaling the floral scent.
When he finally looked up again, he saw it. A full one. A single, miraculously whole, white flower, complete with a number of bright green stamen poking out from the center. The tiny bit of color in this world of white stuck out like a beacon.
Smiling, Draco reached out a hand, waiting for it to float onto his stationary palm. It was just about to land, when—
Someone else made to catch it first.
It was a suspended moment. A hand, a pale, ghostly-looking hand had reached around him, and the lily was just about to fall onto his palm, when—
Everything changed.
The world of white flashed a violent red, and Draco heard the sound of metal clashing and a fragmented, haunting piano song—someone was screaming, and his body was writhing—there was blood pouring from somewhere, but Draco was unsure of where—he was in so much pain, he could not bear it, he could not, he—
Black.
...
It went on, and on, and on.
Draco was shaking, naked, and very, very afraid. He turned and looked all around him, unsure of what he was looking for—flower petals? A ghost? Some tiny bit of light?—but there was none. The world of peaceful white which he had just been in had vanished, replaced by nothing but shadows and obscurity.
It was cold, too. Draco hugged his arms around himself, shivering.
Draco did not feel safe, here.
"...Harry?" he called out, his voice small and feeble. He took a tentative step forward, and noticed then that the ground was covered in a small amount of water. It was like walking in a frigid dungeon, one which had never seen sunlight before. It was even quieter than the white landscape had been, only the silence hung heavy, terrifying him.
Draco's heart raced. "Harry?" he called again, forcing himself to keep walking. The sounds of his feet against the hard, wet floor made him cringe.
There was a spark. Draco whirled on the spot, his heart leaping in his throat at the sight.
There he was.
Harry.
His back was too him, but Draco knew at once that this was the Master of Death. His robes were long and silver, emitting a light that reminded him of the last vision he'd had, full of lilies and pureness. His hands were out on either side of him—on one, Draco could see the gleaming gold of that ring, and in the other, what was irrefutably the Deathstick.
"Harry!"
Draco ran towards him, but nearly fell when he did—the shallow puddle of water had suddenly become deeper, and it was like he had just stepped into a pool. It was freezing cold, reaching up to his knees. It stole the breath from Draco's lungs.
Harry turned to look at him over his shoulder. His eyes were an even more vibrant green than they had been before, and his skin was the color of snow. He tilted his head to one side, and he gave Draco a small, playful smile.
It was a mischievous expression. It was a look that said:
Catch me if you can.
He turned and slowly walked away.
"Wait! Harry—wait!"
Draco rushed towards him, sloshing through water that became deeper with every step he took. Harry was, somehow, impossibly, staying on the surface, walking on water as he left Draco behind.
"Harry!" he screamed, going deeper and deeper into the lake of darkness. It was so cold that it felt like it was burning his skin off. It was doing something to him, too, making it difficult to move, to push forward...
He was getting weaker...
"Harry!" he gasped out, desperate as the water began finding its way down his throat and into his lungs. He was sinking, he was drowning... His vision was becoming blurred as Draco struggled to keep his head above water, reaching for Harry, who continued to ignore his cries...
"H..."
He felt so heavy...
There was laughter... A high, cold laughter that did not sound like Harry at all...
"Malfoy!"
Draco's eyes flew open, instantly coughing in a violent fit as someone shook him awake. His body ached. There was blood everywhere.
"It's okay! You're okay..."
Once Draco finally caught his breath, he stared up in horror at the very unwanted face of Ginny Weasley.
“What... the fuck," he wheezed, instinctually trying to cover his naked body with his arms.
It was a futile action that made him realize where all the blood was coming from. Draco's sides and chest were covered in scratches—not very deep, but numerous. He glanced around the room, terrified at what he saw.
The three witches were on the floor—dead.
“What the fuck!" he shouted. "Weasley—you just—did you kill these witches!?"
"Witches?" Ginny, who had been touching his shoulder in a soothing manner, instantly retracted and put her hands on her hips. Draco noted her wand held firmly in her grasp. "Witches? Malfoy, you sodding idiot—those weren't witches! Those were banshees!"
"Wh...what?"
"Banshees!" she roared. "How could you not see that? Four feet tall, looking like old ladies, milky white eye—natural legilimens..."
Draco was speechless. "B... banshees," he said blankly.
Ginny sighed and grabbed his outer cloak, draping it over his bleeding, quivering body. "Yes," she said, clearly trying to keep her voice level. "Those were banshees. For Salazar's sake, Malfoy, didn't you pay attention for a moment in Defense Against the Dark Arts? We spent an entire year going over dark creatures."
Draco didn't respond to that, only stared vacantly down at the three deceased creatures on the floor. "You killed three banshees," he stated, blunt. He felt very lightheaded.
“I did," she responded.
"...How?"
Weasley shrugged. "They're not very strong, truth be told. They don't have a lot of magic—they drain the life out of other things, operating through deceit and tricking their prey into putting themselves it stupid, vulnerable positions."
She gave him a stern look.
"How'd you even get here?" Draco balked, pulling his robe more tightly around him. "How did you find me? ....Shouldn't you be in school?"
"Why would I tell you how I found you?" she snapped, completely ignoring his question about her not being at Hogwarts. "Then I wouldn't be able to find you again if you stupidly decide to run off."
Draco's eyes flickered to his bag in the corner... which Ginny Weasley was currently standing in front of.
"You shouldn't have followed me here," he growled, getting to his feet and ignoring the wave of dizziness that coursed through him. "I was fine, I was—I was just about to see him, to—"
"To die!" Ginny snarled. "Malfoy, were you not listening to a word I just said? Those banshees were about to kill you! You should be kissing my feet right now, I just saved your sorry life!"
"You just interrupted something very important!" Draco snapped. "You don't understand what I was doing—I was there, Weasley, I saw him, I know it was him—"
"You were having a fit, Malfoy!" Ginny's enraged face turned desperate and pleading. "You were probably having a fever dream while they were sucking the life out of you!"
"It wasn't a dream!"
Draco's outcry was so loud and unexpected that even he was shocked. Ginny backed away,
looking frightened.
"It wasn't a dream... It was real, I know it was. I saw him, he was there... You assholes all think I'm crazy, I know it, but he was there, and he isn't dead..."
Tears were welling in Draco's eyes, searing hot. Ginny slowly and cautiously spoke after a long
stretch of silence.
"I... I believe you," she said. "I believe that you saw that, and I d-don't think you're crazy. You may be right. Maybe h-he's not dead. Maybe he really is out there, somewhere... But that doesn't matter."
Her voice became so small and quiet at the end that Draco's anger dwindled. "It doesn't matter, Malfoy, because... he didn't choose us. He could have stayed. He could have, but he didn't. If he wants to come back, he will... But you can't hunt him down. It isn't your decision, Malfoy. You have to respect his."
"No."
Draco moved to step around her, towards his bag.
"No?" Ginny parroted back, incredulous.
“No," Draco said again. "No, I'm going to find him, and—"
"You're going to die!" Ginny pointed her wand at his throat. "You think this is easy for the rest of us? You think you're the only one suffering from this? Do you think it's easy for Hermione, who never had a real friend until she met him? Do you think it's easy for Ron, who thought of him as a brother? Do you think it's easy for me, when—"
Ginny's breath hitched, a sob cutting off the rest of her sentence.
"...You're going to get yourself killed if you keep doing this, Malfoy... People are worried about you. Your parents already had to go through your death once... Don't make them experience it for real."
Draco scoffed, despite the fact that his heart felt heavy with guilt. "My parents will be fine, because I will be fine."
“Your parents are anything but fine," Ginny growled. "Your mother, in particular, is going crazy. She and your father are at the Ministry nearly every day, driving my father mad, by the way—apparently they seem to think it's my dad's job to find you—as well as everyone else's. Your mum's offering stupid amounts of gold to anyone who can help them—"
"Oh, is that it, then?" Draco interrupted, sneering. "You've come to turn me in? Collect some reward money for having found the sole heir to the Malfoy family?"
Ginny looked so insulted by this that Draco almost flinched. "You think I've been looking for you for money?"
When Draco didn't say anything, she jabbed her wand into his chest, seething.
"I don't give a damn about your money or your name. I came looking for you because I can't stand to see parents weeping over the possibility of their only son's death. I came looking for you because I don't want to see anyone else die at all, not even you, you arrogant shit. I came looking for you to stop you, because I know that you know that H-Harry wouldn't want you to do this."
Hearing her say his name made Draco's chest hurt. She looked suddenly so desperate and sad.
"And besides... I found this."
Ginny rummaged through her own bag, shocking Draco with what she revealed.
It was his book. The first book, the black one he'd been writing in at Grimmauld Place. The diary which looked just like the one that his father had slipped into her cauldron, years ago...
She held it in front of him like the sight of it didn't cause her horrible discomfort or pain. "I read it," she admitted shamelessly, dropping it on the stone table where it fell open on its spine. "I found it when I was helping Luna clean Grimmauld Place up, in the library... I want to know how it ends. I think the world should know how it ends."
Draco stared down at the diary. It had flipped to the very last page, where he could see Harry's messy, drunken scrawl.
You are loved, you are loved, you are loved.
"Please stop this," Ginny whispered, begging. Tears were clinging to her lashes and streaming down her face.
"Please... stop."
Draco was quiet for a long time. He knew it was over.
"...Okay."
Ginny wiped her eyes and smiled. "I-I'm going to try and send your mother a message," she said, raising her wand. "We're way too far away to apparate straight back, and I've gotten pretty good at sending corporeal patronuses—that, and I've seen more of your mother recently than I ever could have hoped to, so I'm sure it can find her—"
"I can do it," Draco said, making her eyebrows raise in disbelief. "Yes, I can, thank you very much." Draco grabbed his own wand, and then—
He paused. A happy thought. A real, truly happy thought. The idea seemed ludicrous, now. But then he imagined his mother's smiling face, and how happy she would be to know that her wayward son was finally going to stop putting himself in danger...
"Expecto patronum."
The stag burst into life, a white and silvery creature that hovered before him. It waited, tilting its
antlered head at him inquisitively.
“Mum," Draco started, his voice raw. "I... I'm okay, I'm perfectly safe, and... and I'm coming home."
The stag bowed its head and vanished.
Ginny was staring at him with huge eyes, completely stunned.
"Yeah, I know," Draco muttered, running a hand through his hair. His own tears came back with a vengeance, blurring his vision. "Fuck me, right?"
When Ginny moved to hug him, Draco didn't stop her. In fact, he welcomed the warm embrace like his life depended on it, on having someone with whom he could share this horrible sadness for the first time since it had happened.
Harry was gone, and Draco couldn't bring him back.
They cried until they couldn't anymore.
Months later, somewhere on the other side of the world, a girl woke up to the sounds of a sharp tapping on glass.
An owl.
There was a massive, brown owl scratching at her bedroom window. Her first inclination was to shoo it away, but then she saw that it had a package in its claws.
Feeling as though she might still be dreaming, the girl opened the window. The owl swooped in, dropped the package on her bed, and left again.
The girl was stunned, but not even that surreal experience could stop her from tearing the brown paper off of the package in seconds.
It was a book.
A black book—a diary, it seemed to be. There was a message written on the front cover.
'Dear Melody,
I hope you like this work of fiction. This is the very first edition, one that took a stupid amount of time for me to finally put all in one volume and make-up all the backstory. It's a complicated story, but a good one, I promise.
You may not know me, but I think you would like me, if you did. I think I would like you, too. I also think you would make a fine zombie killer. Oh, there is a check in the middle of this book. I hope I filled it out right. Anyway, it should be more than enough for a jet ski. Might I recommend the red one?
Sincerely,
A friend.'
Melody's jaw dropped when she found a check for fifty thousand dollars.
And maybe she would have ran out of her house right then and there, screaming her head off and going to cash the check and buy a jet ski—or twelve—but she didn't.
Instead, she read.
She read the entire book, which she discovered was titled 'House of Ghosts'.
She read all day, every single word. She found herself identifying with a girl named Hermione Granger and laughing at a boy named Ronald Weasley. She rooted for the tragic hero named Harry Potter, and was somehow both terrified and enchanted by this villain whose name nobody dared to speak.
And the narrator? Well, she felt as though she knew Draco Malfoy personally, like he was speaking to her and her alone when he wrote.
By the time she had finished it, she was crying. And even though she knew it was a work of fiction, that none of them were real—Harry, Hermione, Ron, Draco—she figured that didn't really matter.
She felt loved.