Chapter 4
Potter was back in his yellow overalls when he opened the door the next day, with what was actually a tasteful cream jumper underneath, only it was ruined by the yellow monstrosity on top of it. On Potter’s feet were very worn black docs that Draco found strangely charming.
“Ready to go?” Potter asked and Draco just nodded, stuffing his hands into his pockets, a nervous habit his father used to yell at him about. He followed Potter down the path that led away from the cottage, staring at his Chelsea boots as he placed them steadily, one in front of the other. He felt like maybe he should say something, thank Potter for the invitation, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up, let alone open his mouth and speak to the other man, so he remained quiet. Time passed unnoticed, and at some point- neither soon nor after long, as Draco had paid no attention- Potter stopped.
“Hey, Draco, look,'' Potter said, quietly, as if not wishing to disturb the bubble Draco was in. surprised, Draco jerked his head up and gasped in surprise. He was surrounded by verdant green. Fields stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with sheep and quaint cottages and houses not unlike Potter’s own. It was beautiful, there was no other word. The kind of nature that made you so aware of your own fragility, that reminded you how wonderful the world was, how lucky you were to live in it.
For a moment, the wrong disappeared, and all Draco could feel was right. The fresh spring air filled his lungs, the slight chill tinging his nose a soft pink, and Draco felt like maybe he would be okay. Maybe England wasn’t hell on earth, if it could look as divine as this. He recalled an old muggle hymn that he had heard once, about a lamb, and England’s mountains green.
Potter didn’t try to speak more, simply settled on a rock and watched the view himself, for which Draco was grateful. He found that being with Potter wasn’t so bad, if it were in silence. That it was… nice, to have company, so long as he wasn’t expected to speak. For the first time since arriving, he found himself not missing his little world back in saint-emilion. Maybe he would have to find somewhere like this in France, and make it part of his life.
Eventually, Potter stood up and nudged him gently, before turning back the way they had come. Draco followed behind, this time looking around him as they returned, rather than staring at his feet.
“Would you like to come in for a hot chocolate? We don’t have to talk, but it's nice to have company.” Potter said when they reached the door.
Draco hadn’t realised that Potter had been so keenly aware of the lack of conversation. He also felt… good, that Potter didn’t expect that of him. He nodded, and followed Potter into the kitchen, handing his scarf and jacket on the back of his chair. Potter clatters about, taking things out of cupboards, but Draco ignores it all, staring out of the window, trying to relax back into the feeling of rightness from before, but now he was away from there, back inside, with a soundtrack of clattering, he can feel the unease creep back in at the corners. His skin starts to fit wrong again, his heart beats just that half-step faster. He misses France. God, but he misses France.
Potter places a steaming mug in front of him, and they sip in silence, and it is peaceful, Draco must admit. The cottage is the epitome of cozy, and Draco knows that if he didn’t have his tiny apartment, he would want to live somewhere like here, where the walls are stone yet warm, and all one can see from the window is green. This is a home, and even Draco, as a stranger and an enemy, can feel that.
“I’ll let you get going, shall I?” Potter says eventually, breaking the silence, smiling gently at Draco. Draco hadn’t known Potter was capable of gentleness. The seven years he was away he had maintained the image of Potter from the trials; angry, always so angry; closed off, and tired. This Potter wore yellow and knew how to be gentle. Draco wondered if he had changed that much in the interim, if he had improved at all.
He went straight to his room at home, reading his book for hours until he could no longer keep his eyes open.
--
The next week passed in a haze of his mother and an all encompassing feeling of unease. He ate breakfast with her everyday but it never came in a bag, it never came from his bakery, and it was never tartine.
After breakfast, he would walk around the grounds, or read, or generally avoid his mother until she either left him in blissful silence for her social engagement of the day, or dragged him with her.
Thursday was tea at his aunt Andromeda’s house. He knew there was a child living there; there were toys on the floor and badly-painted pictures on the wall, and a high chair stowed in the corner of the spacious kitchen, but the child wasn’t present.
“With his godfather” Andromeda had said. Draco wondered if he wasn’t trusted with children. He could hardly blame them. Children were precious, and pure, and Draco was tainted. He wouldn’t let himself near them either.
Tea was pleasant. There was no hot chocolate, so he drank only water, but the homemade scones were nice, and he managed to eat a whole one so he didn’t seem rude.
He then stared off into space as his aunt and his mother talked. At some point earlier in the week his mother had given up trying to get him to participate in conversation with anyone other than herself, and now whenever she looked at him her eyes were tinged with disappointment rather than fondness, and god, if that didn’t make his heart ache.
Yet again, he had become the disappointment, and he was only glad his father wasn’t around to see him act this way.
“Draco darling, why don’t you go and take a look around Andromeda’s lovely house, hmm?” his mother asked. That was another thing, she had taken to talking to him like he was a child again, everything said saccharine sweet and condescending. He sighed quietly, before getting up and wandering off.
The house was quaint, and homely. It was clear that strong love existed between these four walls, as he scanned the pictures of a small boy with ever-changing hair that hung on the living room wall. The garden is well-kept and tidy, with a wooden swing set tucked into a corner that makes Draco ache for his own childhood. He ascends the stairs, and turned into the first room at the top.
A child’s bed sits in the middle, with twinkling stars on the coverlet, and a vast collection of soft toys sat on top. There is a rocking chair, and a bookcase, and Draco can spy babbity rabbity, and some titles that must be muggle, as he has seen the french version in the bookstores of saint-emilion.
A mirror hangs on the wall and Draco starts when he sees his reflection. He looks small, tired. He is drowning in his jumper, shrinking in it, as if the jumper were wearing him and not the other way around. He tucks his hands into the sleeves and hurries out of the room, finding the first bathroom and locking himself in it.
His mother leaves him at home a lot more after that. It feels more or less like she’s given up on him. He feels a guilty sort of relief.
--
Narcissa leaving him behind didn’t mean she allowed him reprieve when she entertained at the Manor, and the next day Draco learned that Friday night dinners with Potter at the manor were a repeated activity. One might even call them tradition, quelle horreur.
“Draco, you may be a grown man but you are still my son and you will treat me, and by extension my guests, with respect. you had nothing negative to say about the walk you took with him, so I do not understand this immature and petulant hesitation.”
Narcissa’s response to his attempt to wiggle out of dinner hurt his feelings more than he cared to admit, and he was sullen as he dressed and came down. He was more sullen still when Narcissa greeted Potter with a tight hug, the type she gave Draco sometimes. He had thought them reserved only for him.
Potter had also bought with him a buggy, with the baby from last week sleeping in it, though Draco had seen no evidence at Potter’s cottage of there being an infant in residence.
Potter was in shorts this time, green denim ones, paired with a white t-shirt. He looked young, like a teenager. It was unsettling.
As he walked into the dining room ahead of Draco, Draco saw a strange tattoo on the back of his calf. It was a yellow car, a taxi cab, he thought muggles called it. This Potter that Draco had returned to got stranger and stranger with every minute Draco spent in his presence. He was a different man entirely to the one Draco remembered. It threw him off, this new Potter. Draco didn’t know how to act in the face of the somewhat impersonal friendliness.
And Potter’s friendship with his mother? It barely bore thinking about.
Draco stopped on the threshold of the cavernous dining room, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. He thought of his job, of the peaceful monotony of balancing accounts and doing sums in his ledgers all day, broken up with his lunch break with Delphine, who always had gossip about people he didn’t know-nor did he wish to- to entertain him. He could be normal with her, as they ate salads and toasties that she picked up from the cafe two doors down together at his desk. She always had coffee, he always had hot chocolate.
Feeling calmer, he opened his eyes and sat down. The baby with Potter really was very sweet looking, Draco decided. He waved at it tentatively, and it gurgled back. Draco looked up to see a dazzling grin spread across Potter’s face.
“She likes you” Potter said, ghosting his fingers across one the chubby cheeks of the infant. Draco felt himself blush, and busied himself by pouring a glass of water. Narcissa asked Potter a question that Draco missed, and then the two of them engaged in conversation around him, and he spent most of the dinner eating in silence. Seven years ago he would have felt bitter and left out, but now he felt relieved that no one expected him to say anything. The minute the plates had been cleared, he excused himself and fled to his room.
As he walked up the stairs he could hear his mother and Potter laughing and every echo of his foot on the step said wrong.
Everything was Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
He didn’t know how to make it right. He wanted to go back to France. God, he wanted to go back to France. He collapsed into the armchair in the corner of his room and picked up his book, desperately hoping the story would drown out the sick feeling that had taken residence in his stomach.