Anatomy of a Teardrop

A/N: It took me a lot of time to decide whether to post this or not, but then I decided if I do it, it has to be on a special day, the night before my 21st birthday. So here I am. Turning 21 tomorrow, and trying not to think about it a lot. :D I hope you'll like it.

Dedicated to Andrea.

Anatomy of a Teardrop


It starts with one single teardrop. Then another, slowly, cautiously travelling down the soft curve of my cheek towards the corner of my lips. My pain tastes like the sea, salty. I say pain but that’s too harsh a word for it. Too intense. Pain can’t exist without passion. And I have lost all the passion I once had.

Not because of the war. It has nothing to do with that. Of course it was terrible, I’m not denying that. It broke all of our lives in two. To see families falling apart, brothers fighting against each other, killing each other. There are no heroes in war – only victims. You always lose more than you gain, no matter which side you’re on. You have to give up yourself completely for a higher aim.

I was fighting for the Order alongside Harry for two years after my family pledged allegiance to Dumbledore. But did that make me a better person than I had been during our school years when I had mocked and bullied him constantly and had believed in the lies of a madman? Did I become a better person by killing for “the right cause”? Were we so different from Voldemort and his Death Eaters? Maybe our aim was, but not our methods. We used the Killing Curse as often as they did and caused even more deaths.

I try not to count how many Death Eaters died at my hands. I tried not to look at their faces; I didn’t want to recognise all those I had grown up with. My parents’ friends who used to visit us often, my mother’s sister. I try to forget my mother’s anguished scream after she had uttered the Killing Curse at Bella to save me. Marcus. Millicent. Vincent. Theo. They were all there. And Blaise. Sometimes I can still see the fear and determination in his dark eyes. He had no choice. Neither of them had. They had to follow the path their parents had chosen and their parents still believed – or wanted to believe – in Voldemort. If my father hadn’t recognised in time that he had better chances with Dumbledore then I would have been standing beside them.

On a battlefield. Ducking, shielding and throwing curses. Scared. Not only of dying. But of who would be the next you would have to face. Which friend? Then a sound from behind. You turn. First you see the wand in a shaking hand. You know you shouldn’t but you can’t help it and look in the dirty, terrified face of someone not so different from you. What do you say to someone who you have spent most your life with? What do you say to someone who you used to laugh with? What do you say to a friend who offered you strength whenever you felt down or who looked to you for comforting words after having his heart broken? What do you say to your best friend? What do you say? I chose Avada Kedavra.

So did I become a better person by switching sides? I still had to allow a part of myself to become what I was trying to destroy – we all had to. The only slight difference was in the way we treated those we let live. Our captives didn’t have to endure torture, pain and humiliation. They were more fortunate and knew it. I could see relief wash over every face when they handed over their wands. What they didn’t know, of course, at that time was that the relative safety of Azkaban only lasted as long as the war.

And afterwards? Well, afterwards innumerable lengthy trials were held against Death Eaters and those associated with them – which meant public humiliation and disgrace. Their wealth was used for rebuilding the Ministry, Gringotts and Hogwarts – although I wouldn’t be surprised if some of it had miraculously found its way into the vault of a couple of Ministry Officials. And at the end of every trial there was one word, clear and cold that was meant to heal one family and break the other:

DEATH.

No Death Eater survived.

Except Lucius Malfoy. It was no secret that Lucius had been one of the most reliable followers of the Dark Lord. But only very few knew why. They though it was their common hatred for muggles and muggleborns, but that was only part of it all. Lucius wanted power above all, he wanted to control people, to bend them to his will; and if nothing else, Voldemort had that power, so Lucius became a Death Eater, one of the best.

He was loyal and unscrupulous, but deep inside he loathed his master, and felt nothing but contempt towards his fellow Death Eaters, who were blinded by Voldemort’s theatrical speeches and showing off. Had there been a better way to achieve his goals, he would have betrayed the Dark Lord without much hesitation – as he finally did as soon as it became clear to him that the Order was more powerful. He joined the light side among the first and his tactics paid off.

There was – still is – much animosity against him in the public, especially from the families that were victims to Death Eater attacks, but no murder could directly be connected to him. Lucius Malfoy did what he had to do to prove his loyalty to whichever side offered him more, he manipulated, deceived and blackmailed people without a second thought, but he tried to avoid brutality – partly out of pity (although he would never have admitted it), partly out of caution. And it saved his life – that and blackmail, of course. All those years so close to the Ministry leaders weren’t in vain, he knew of secrets that could have ruined careers or families and he used this knowledge to purge his name and save his wealth. I’m sure some money changed hands to back up the power his information held and the officials grudgingly dropped all the charges.

But all other Death Eaters and even a great number of people who hadn’t been openly supporting Voldemort but were said to have been aiding him financially (something that couldn’t really be proven but was used as charge against many the Ministry feared and wanted out of the way) – they all were sentenced to death.

Justice? Or just petty revenge? It depends on which mother you ask – that of the 17 year old Death Eater or that of his victim. The truth is relative. There are no heroes in war – only victims.

But these trials reached their aim. They demonstrated power. A power the Ministry didn’t have. The victory wasn’t theirs but that of the Order and Dumbledore. Not even Harry’s really – never mind what the Daily Prophet said.

With Dumbledore around and surprisingly strong, Harry didn’t have to bear the burden of fighting the war alone. He didn’t have to lead the battle and could concentrate on avoiding any Death Eaters and fighting Voldemort. They came face to face finally. The moment everybody had waited for so long had arrived. They raised their wands, determined, controlled. But then something ridiculously tragic happened. The moment the Dark Lord uttered the Killing Curse, a fragile body pressed itself between Harry and the fatal green light that would have no doubt killed him – he had been too slow to counter it or shield it.

For a moment nobody moved. Every eye was fixed on the limp body of Ginny Weasley. She did become a martyr after all. Just as she had predicted in one of her many fights with Harry. They had been fighting a lot in the last months before the final battle. She wanted Harry. Harry wanted Ron. And Ron, caught between the two of them, just wanted to disappear to sink into one of his wild fantasies of kissing Hermione chastely on the lips or running his fingers through her bushy hair, I guess.

Ginny was furious and didn’t miss a chance of hexing Harry before and after every meal we shared at Grimmauld Place – with the Bat Bogey Hex, of course. And then each time she added with fake tears in her eyes: “Fine then. If I can’t give you my love, I’ll give you my life. Just wait, Harry. One day you’ll see how much you mean to me.”

I never thought she would be true to her word. And when I saw her lifeless, almost tiny body lying at the cold ground I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry at the scene. I think Harry couldn’t either. He looked as if he was waiting for her to jump to her feet laughing that she had finally had the chance to prove her love and make him feel miserable for not wanting it. I don’t know how long we stood there in silence but Voldemort was the first to recover from the shock and raised his wand at Harry, who didn’t even notice.

Avada Kedavra.

Green light shot out of his wand at Harry who didn’t even raise his hand and just seemed to be waiting for some miracle. And it came. The green light of the Killing Curse seemed to crash to an invisible protection wall just a couple of inches from Harry’s chest and hit Voldemort.

It was just priceless. The Boy Who Lived defeated Voldemort the second time. Right. Yes, that would be the official version. I don’t think anyone, not even the faithful readers of Rita Skeeter would believe that Destiny could have just an exquisite humour as to save Harry in the same way twice. I think Voldemort himself let out a breathless chuckle before that green light hit him and he fell to the ground lifelessly. It was almost anticlimactic.

But apart from the almost comically tragic ending of the war, it had been terrible. Moody, Kingsley, Mr Weasley, Fred, Dora Tonks, Neville, Severus. All those losses and destruction.

But at least we knew what we felt – that we felt. I was surrounded by death and decay but I have never felt more alive in my life. My senses sharpened as I regarded every second of life another gift because I knew that every breath I took could be the last. I forced myself to feel everything more intensely and completely. I could almost taste life on the tip of my tongue.

In a way it felt like those fights with Harry at school. Back then, whenever I saw him, every moment seemed slowed down and sped up at the same time. In a way it was like slow motion – I was oddly conscious of every little movement but still everything happened in less than a second – one moment I was walking in the corridor and saw Harry the next I had a broken nose and a bleeding lip. In fact those childish fights seem to have been some kind of a foreplay to the real thing, the war, which came like an intense orgasm, when everything just breaks loose and you can’t decide whether it’s torture or the freedom you’ve always longed for. I know it sounds crazy to say something like that, to associate the terror of war with freedom, but I did feel free. Having my future, my life stolen from me liberated me in a way I can’t really explain even to myself. Everything became easy, almost frighteningly easy. I don’t know.

During the war, just like during our fights with Harry, we were full of some emotion between hate and love – I guess it was passion. How I long to feel that again. That intense burning when you think your cells are on fire and you’ll burn to ashes like a Phoenix just to be born again and again. This feeling of dying through a friend and then going on living through another – THAT was a miracle.

But after the war was over everything went numb just like after an intense orgasm. One should be able to pick up the threads of his old life and adapt his heart to the more gentle, less violent stimuli. But I failed at that. I mean I could find a well-paying job at the Ministry that I even like most of the time. I’m still living at the Manor to please Mother, who had been shattered after she had to kill Bella, but I have my own wing and can retreat there whenever I feel like it – after casting a silencing charm even with company. Unlike many others, who had lost their house, their family, their health, I did get my life back.

But my heart – it just wouldn’t adapt to the changing circumstances. After the violent explosion of the war the peaceful stream of the days seemed dull, grey, and lukewarm. Saying it like that it sounds so simple. Yes, of course, the war can do that to people. But it wasn’t only the war. The war had only been the wrong medication to an illness I’ve been carrying for a long time without even noticing it and has only made everything worse with all its side-effects.

I feel like a fish on land. I don’t seem to be able to find my connection to life. I think I must have been this way from the very beginning I was just too young to know what was wrong. Life was new and exciting and frightening – I had to discover the world first before I could try to find my place in it.

And then the war came and in war everything is so easy. The trivial things, I mean. It’s easy to put aside your old grudge and make up with your enemies. It’s easy to accept any small joy life has to offer – like Molly Weasley’s excellent cooking or seeing your name on the Weasley family clock. It is easy to accept yourself as you are without worrying too much about what others might think because life is just too short and you can feel the cold breath of time in your neck. Everything is easy because you have too much on your mind to worry about little things – what does your confusion about your sexuality mean in the light of pain, terror and death?

The small difficulties are simply done away with but you linger in the feeling of happiness at the sweet smell of Christmas cookies and you feel a strange warmth around your heart when you unwrap a parcel with your name on it that contains a terrible orange sweater that will painfully clash with all your clothes and most importantly your hair. Your let yourself drown in a meaningless kiss shared in the attic. You tell yourself it’s love and believe it with all your heart. The mind is occupied with plans, strategies, curses and faceless death and leaves the heart unwatched, gullible and prone to self-delusion.

Charlie Weasley was my first male lover – actually first lover, full stop. I was hardly 17, he was 24. He was everything his flaming red hair predetermined him to be – fiery, rash, impulsive. He was controlled if necessary but he never brought his self control to our secret late night meetings. The raw, animalistic passion with which he pounded into me every night fascinated me. Uncontrolled. Unyielding. Passionate. Deep. Fast. Hard. Thrusts. Charlie…

But what amazed me most was that deep gentleness that radiated from him even when he took me with such ferocity that for days I couldn’t sit down without flinching. Every time he touched me I was burning as if he was soaked in the heat of Dragon-fire. It was electric.

Recently I have read something in a muggle novel that touched me deeply because it reminded me so much of Charlie and those long months of our scorching affair.

In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex passion is.1

But what do you do when the absence of your lover doesn’t bring the coldest winter into your heart and his burning eyes won’t make you weak in the bones? What do you do when the pointed sword of death disappears from above your head and the word “love” that was written in every fibre of your body with the sharpness of steel suddenly becomes a blur and you have difficulties in deciphering it? What do you do when you’re stuck somewhere in the middle, where everything is lukewarm and dull? Our fiery passion was simply washed away by the crimson blood of a madman who had believed he could stifle all that made him human – I think he was the most surprised to see that his blood was just as red as any human’s.

The world turned back to normal surprisingly fast. We buried our dead, executed all Death Eaters and with them our bad memories and sins. We went back to Hogwarts to take our final exams, Hermione was still waiting for Ron to conjure up enough courage to ask her out, the Weasleys produced even more kids – this time thanks to Bill and Fleur. Mother Nature awoke soon from the deep slumber forced upon her by the Dementors, another spring has come to celebrate the end off suffering and Charlie went back to Romania.

What hurt the most was that I didn’t even miss him. Our passion was gone as soon as we got our futures back and those 3 weeks after Voldemort’s demise were nothing like the moths during the war. We have continued our habit of meeting every night in the dusty attic of Grimmauld Place where we had been staying all along but it had become just that – a habit. We parted as friends and locked our memories in some dusty corner of our indifferent hearts.

I’ve had my fair share of lovers since then but no one stayed longer than a couple of nights. I was searching for something – in lack of a better word I called it passion. But I couldn’t find it in any of them. What I did find was pleasure, sometimes even deep affection that turned into a lasting friendship – as in case of Remus. He needed someone to talk to when the memory of Dora became unbearable and I needed a warm body beside me.

I visited him in his little cottage once in a while, we talked, he cried, we had sex and I slept peacefully in his protective arms until late the next morning. It was easy. I was his only lover because I was the only one he could touch without feeling as if betraying Dora. He never said why, maybe because I was related to her, maybe because I was only a friend, and there was no risk of either of us developing any complicated feelings.

He also knew I had many other lovers. Some of them were exceptional in bed, even better than Charlie and certainly better than Remus, who didn’t have a lot of experience and none with men – it were not his skills that were overwhelming but that intense longing he radiated during sex; I found it fascinating even if it wasn’t directed at me. We gave each other comfort, something I often needed more than sex, something I didn’t get from my other lovers even if their sinfully sensual lips, tongues and fingers were driving me to heights I had never even dreamt about – but still, those were just lips, tongues and fingers, two bodies pressed together, writhing, thrusting, clenching. Nothing more. It wasn’t enough.

My parents weren’t particularly happy with me bringing home another guy every night either. So they tried to help me – in their own way, of course, by fixing me up with girls from other influential families. Yes, girls. They found nothing particularly wrong with being gay, or even me being gay, it just wasn’t what they wanted me to be. So they simply ignored it.

It was all about control in our family, always had been. Lucius wanted everything and everybody to follow his orders, he wanted to dictate everything and he did. He decided when we should have our meals, when we should retire to our rooms, when and where we should spend our holidays, what I should wear and who I should be – which was particularly annoying because he didn’t really take the time to get to know me but still tried to interfere with my life just so he could convince himself (and the world) that he was a good father. He never used his power to harm me or Mother but after 20 years even these small, trivial things became unbearable.

With Mother it was different. She loved me more deeply than I can even imagine. She had desperately wanted a child from an early age and it really didn’t matter to her who the father would be. She had never been a very passionate and adventurous woman and didn’t believe in the kind of love that burns down the whole world so that the lovers could rebuild it together. She liked Lucius, his good breeding, his politeness to her family and she didn’t discover his well hidden bad qualities until well after their marriage. She knew it could have been worse – he didn’t drink, didn’t hit her or cheat on her, but it was much colder in their bed than she had imagined and soon after I was born she moved into one of the many guest rooms and placed my cod next to her bed.

First she reasoned it was only because Lucius couldn’t sleep with me crying all night, but she didn’t move back even after I slept through the nights. She didn’t put me in my own room either even when I became big enough to sleep in a bed. Instead I was allowed to sleep with her in her big four-poster bed for years until my father decided I was too big to be so dependant on my mother and let the house elves prepare a room for me. But most nights I sneaked back to her bed and we talked and laughed with muffled voices so as not to wake Lucius.

These nightly visits only stopped when I returned from my third year at Hogwarts. I still needed her closeness but it started to become too much, although it took me some time to discover why. It was after the war, when I returned to the Manor from Grimmauld Place to help Mother get through the horror of killing her own sister. First she was distant and seemed to retreat to a hidden place in her mind, perhaps with happier memories of her childhood with Bella.

To be honest, I think I did the same at that time, I mean being distant. It was the first time I felt the urge of defining myself and of having clear views on life and what I wanted from life. I had never thought it would be that hard to know what you want – I had been raised in strong beliefs about Voldemort, Dumbledore, Muggleborns, the Malfoy family and their place in the world and I had to learn how to behave in public in a way that radiated our importance. But all this came from the outside not from me, from the core of my being. And now that most of these beliefs simply lost their validity, I realised that I had to figure out my own beliefs and views instead of parroting others.

But after her first period of shutting the world out, Mother from one moment to the next became clingy and needed more love than ever. Of course she couldn’t get that from Lucius, so she turned to me. It wasn’t difficult to give her love, we had always been close but sometimes it was difficult to put up with her neediness. Without realizing it she invaded my being with her love and the fragile knowledge of myself seemed to bend under her affection.

In some ways she was like Lucius, she did try to influence where my life was going, although not out of need of control but out of love and because she cared for me and wanted the best for me. What she couldn’t see was that it’s better to make your own mistakes than living someone else’s life without making any. And I couldn’t just tell her that after all she had been through, so I tried to be the person she wanted me to be.

I found it easier to go to all these arranged dates with girls than arguing with my parents, especially with Mother – she just wasn’t prepared to give up on being a grandmother. So I met these girls and dumped them before dessert just to head off to some bar and find a guy who could erase their faces from my mind.

But then along came Pansy. She was just the same as in Hogwarts, beautiful, nosy, just a bit arrogant. We met often after the first date, much to my parents’ and her mother’s happiness. Her father had become a Death Eater to keep his family away from harm and became a spy not much later to ensure the protection Dumbledore had offered. They made it through the war without much difficulty, however, being a spy didn’t save him from the Ministry’s wrath and despite expensive and skilled lawyers, was sentenced to death as all the others, leaving his family in a very difficult financial situation. That’s why Pansy’s mother was overjoyed at the possibility of a marriage with me – it would have solved their financial problems and restored the family name. I was almost sorry to deceive her.

We did like each other with Pansy but not romantically. She was in love with a muggle painter who was even poorer than her. And me, well, there was one thing I knew with complete certainty about myself – I was gay, and I liked it. So most of the times when we were to meet we pretended to go somewhere together, but she just went to her boyfriend’s atelier and I headed off to one of my favourite bars or to Remus.

But Mother’s interference didn’t stop here. She subconsciously wanted me to have the same taste and the same interests as she did. She didn’t realize how frustrating it was to try to be her perfect son while searching in vain for who I really was. It weren’t the big things that mattered. She didn’t try to tell me what to do for a living or what to do with my money. But the small, trivial matters, like the clothes I wore on weekends or when going out. She thought my jeans were too tight and my T-shirts too small (meaning tight and sexy).

Once we had an argument about my hair. I let it grow long, like Lucius, though not because I wanted to look like him but because I liked to bind it together. We were sitting in the kitchen, she was making dinner – something she just loved doing and wouldn’t let any house elf deprave her of. I was sitting on a high stool and was telling her about a great book I have read. Then suddenly she interrupted me in the middle of a sentence.

“Draco, I think you should get a haircut.”

Here we go again. That was about the 4th time just that week that she brought up the subject. I felt myself getting annoyed not only because once again she tried to bend me to her will but because it was clear that she was doing it again – seemingly listening but thinking of something completely different.

“I like my hair like that, Mom” I tried to keep my voice nonchalant and I think I even succeeded because she didn’t reply just continued cooking. So I resumed my monologue about the book I wanted her to read because I knew she would like it.

“I really mean it, Dray, I think you would look lovely with slightly shorter hair. Not too short but just the right length. I’m sure Pansy would like it.”

“Mom” I moaned tiredly. I didn’t even know what to say, I just didn’t want to argue with her. “Why do you keep going on about my hair? I like it. Besides it’s the same length as Lucius’, why aren’t you pestering him too about getting a haircut?”

“Because he looks good with long hair.”

“And I don’t?”

“That’s not what I meant, but, he’s more masculine it suits him better.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She could just as well have said I look like a common tart, I’m quite sure that’s what she meant. She must have felt my growing anger because she stopped cutting the carrots and turned towards me.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult, you know that. All I said was that I think you would look even better without shoulder-length hair. I was thinking of the length you had at Hogwarts, you used to like it, didn’t you?” I didn’t even reply just stared at the little pieces of carrot beside the kitchen knife. I knew she meant it well, she always did, but that didn’t make it less difficult. I was desperately trying to hold back my complaints, I didn’t want to hurt her. So I stood up to go to my room before I said something I would regret later, but she grabbed my hand with her long, pale fingers and looked at me with light blue eyes.

“It wasn’t an order, Draco, only a suggestion.” And she pulled me into a hug that melted away my anger in a second. I remembered how I used to fall asleep in those fragile arms. She was smaller than me now, her head buried in the crook of my neck, her pale hand resting on my chest – it made me want to protect her.

“So you won’t be angry if I decide not to get a haircut?” I asked cautiously.

“Of course not.” she whispered, freed herself from my embrace and took the kitchen knife in her hand again.

Next day I got a haircut. Mother looked happy and made my favourite for dinner. I put a smile on my face but couldn’t enjoy the food. I felt miserable and I even liked my new hairdo.

Another issue that caused constant confrontations was how I used my free time. She always told me to use my time wisely and didn’t approve of the thing I liked doing the most – needed the most, actually – writing. It was not the kind of writing that led to anything, but I needed it to get certain emotions out of my system. I needed it like water. Whenever I felt down I couldn’t just think of something happy or go out with some friends to chase away the bad feelings. I needed to literary drown myself in my misery through writing so that I could purge myself from it. Once I told her all that.

We were sitting in the kitchen again (the one place Lucius never went to) both of us nursing a rapidly cooling cup of hot chocolate. She had told me stories about my childhood with such adoration in her eyes that it almost made me cry. She loved children and mourned every day that she didn’t have more – but Lucius had never been keen on having any, all he needed was an heir and once that was done, he couldn’t really be bothered. And Mother never dared to question his decisions, only hoped that one day she could have loads of grandchildren to make up for her loss. That moment in the kitchen I was painfully aware of how disappointed she must be. I did feel that sometimes – her disappointment, although she would never have admitted it even to herself. And it wasn’t all about my sexuality and that she would never have any more children to tend to. I just knew that sometimes she wished I was more like she had imagined – more, I don’t know, more interested in things she thought important, like Ancient Runes or History of Magic. But I couldn’t help it. I like History of Magic but in my own way. I don’t care about all the dates and facts – those are just lifeless numbers and words to me. What I really matters is what all those peoples we learned about felt. I used to close my eyes and imagine I was …

“What are you writing about in your stories?” she suddenly asked after a long silence. There was no hidden reproach in her voice, she was genuinely interested.

“Nothing… and everything.” I sighed. She looked puzzled. So I told her how I felt about writing, what I went through every time. Her bright eyes darkened, I think it scared her a bit that she couldn’t fully understand the feelings I was talking about. She didn’t say anything when I finished and we didn’t discuss it again, but from that day she never complained about the amount of time I devoted to this slightly masochistic pleasure of mine. Once she even asked me whether she could read any of them. I wouldn’t let her. She would have been scared of how much she didn’t know about me. Not the facts of my life. She knew about everything that happened to me (apart from my love life obviously), we shared everything with each other. But there were emotions I just couldn’t share with anybody, that’s what I had my stories for – and showing them to her or any of my friends would have been like carving out my heart and put it in their hand to do with it as they liked. Writing helped me to cope with life and everything it involved. It was enough. At least until my 20th birthday.

Nothing extraordinary happened that day – apart from the huge not-so-surprise party Mother arranged and the fireworks Lucius seemed to think necessary. I had a great time and couldn’t stop smiling all day. But later when I was lying in my bed alone I couldn’t get rid of the uneasy feeling that I have lost something – or rather lost the possibility of having something I never had but always longed for. I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I was scared.

That night I did it the first time. First it was an occasional thing, once or twice a month. But with time it became worse. It wasn’t enough anymore. I started to do it every week, then every day. First just at night when my parents were asleep, but it became more and more difficult to restrain myself during the day. Afterwards I could go on living for a while like everybody else. It was almost pathetic – the way I needed to release myself through tears. It made me feel in control, but it became harder and harder to reach this feeling of satisfaction.

And then came Harry.

I hadn’t seen him very often since the end of the war, only occasionally on official receptions or Ministry dinners where he was the special guest. We didn’t talk much. Not because of our old grudge, we have gotten over that after the first week of my stay at Grimmauld Place, but because the Minister of Magic practically never left his side. I knew of course that he finally had accepted the job of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts after a year of convincing from Minerva McGonagall. Although he apparently spent more time on the Quidditch pitch with older students than in the classroom. They loved him. Especially since he was only a couple of years older than most of them – he was in fact more like a student than a teacher. But apart from that I didn’t know much about his life. I had no idea if he was married or if he had a girl- or boyfriend.

Of course, there was that one big scandal about two years ago that I later learnt to have been true. I would have had to live on the Moon not to hear about it. Apparently Hermione got tired of waiting for a certain Weasel to conjure up that oh-so legendary Gryffindor courage of his and ask her on a date, so she decided to play saviour angel of another red-head – George Weasley. The war had been a great blow to the Weasley family, but George took it the hardest. They have lost half of their family, but somehow they managed to find a way to keep on going – Percy was trying very hard to become Minister of Magic (still is, actually and I’m praying everyday he’ll never succeed), Bill had Fleur and their children, Charlie his precious dragons (and a dashing new boyfriend as I heard), Molly had to take care of her children and grandchildren, and Ron, well he was concentrating so hard on finally asking Hermoine out that he didn’t really have the time to break down. But George. All he could do was to burry himself in his work that only reminded him of losing his other half. It was scary to see him wander around alone, gloomy, with dark circles under his eyes. There was a time when I was convinced he wouldn’t survive. But he did and married Hermione 2 years ago, and now they have an adorable daughter, Mary.

Ron was shattered, of course, and made it quite easy for Harry to seduce him. Anybody in their right minds would have known that this was a fatal mistake but we are talking of Harry here, to say that he’s completely bullocks at emotional stuff is the understatement of the century. So he got his fiery night of passion with Ron that he had been waiting for most probably since he knew how to spell ‘cock’, but at a great prize. He lost their friendship forever. Ron could never forgive Harry for seducing him when he had been vulnerable and I can’t say I blame him. Harry was not more than an inconsiderate child at that time, but for once – very uncharacteristically – he learned from his mistake and has since then really grown up.

But that didn’t bring back the friendship he had lost. Ron left for America and we didn’t hear from him since. Some say he has left the wizarding world and made his solely purpose to populate the entire world with a hoard of red-heads, others say that he has invented some priceless potion in the US and made millions by selling it to the government, and the only reason we haven’t heard about it is that it’s so important that it’s kept secret by a special wizarding department of the CIA – yes, some people actually believe that. I think he’s simply drunk in a muggle bar most of the time, brooding over his misfortunes – that sounds more like Ron.

But apart from this juicy story that the press feasted on for months, I didn’t know much about Harry’s private life. It was not until he started dating Luna that we saw each other regularly. She was (still is) working at the Ministry of Magic at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Don’t ask me why anybody in their right minds would employ Luna for this job, the Luna who keeps seeing creatures that aren’t, but the new Minister did, and I must admit, she’s not worse than all the other assholes I have to work with all day. Her ramblings about imaginary creatures and conspiracies needed getting used to, but after a while were more endearing than annoying, and I was glad to be sharing an office with her and not any of those two-faced bastards working there.

One day Harry came to see Luna at the Ministry. I was working on some files in our office when he burst into the room with a huge smile on his face.

“You won’t believe this, Luna… Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to… Hi, Draco, haven’t seen you in a while. How’s it going?”

“Fine. Luna’s not here, she had to see the Minister about some matter.”

“Oh. Well, do you mind if I wait here for her?” he asked already sitting down behind Luna’s desk.

“Sure. I must warn you though” I added with a small smile. “It could take some time. You know how Luna is, talking about conspiracies and God knows what all the time. And the Minister is not very good at coping with her, he always gets angry and they start shouting at each other. Actually he’s the one who’s shouting, while Luna just keeps smiling at him angelically. I think she does that on purpose to make him angrier.”

“Probably.” he laughed. “She’s quite a handful, isn’t she? It must be hard to work with her sometimes.”

“Not as hard as one would think. I quite like her. If I was into girls, you would have serious competition, Harry. Not that I would ever tell her that, of course. Actually, I’m afraid I have to kill you now that you know.”

It was nice talking to him. We were talking of old times, of Hogwarts, of our jobs, he told me he only came to tell Luna that the Gryffindor chaser managed to pull off the Wronski Feint that afternoon and how thrilled he was because it most probably meant they would win the next Quidditch match against the Slytherins – as if they could – we were talking and laughing for almost an hour before Luna arrived.

After that he came regularly, sometimes not even to see Luna, but to talk with me about Quidditch. They invited me for dinner quite often and I went to Quidditch games with Harry, which Luna was very glad about, because it meant she could stay at home and work on her book on about Retnold Ronips, a retired dimkor and his menashas – don’t even ask, it’s better to leave these things to her, we wouldn’t want her to start explaining it all, would we?

I enjoyed my time with Harry tremendously. He was really fun to be with and very attentive. He made you feel the most important person in the whole world by just looking at you. I found myself thinking of him more and more and soon even Luna noticed that I was daydreaming all the time – isn’t that the best proof that I was suffering from a severe case of romantic idiocy? I couldn’t stop thinking about Harry, his smile, his eyes, his voice, how tender he always was, how special he always made me feel, how different he was from the boy I had known at school, much more confident and…

“Did he already ask you out?” Luna asked one day, interrupting my thoughts. I had no idea what she was talking about. “I mean Harry, of course. He broke up with me two weeks ago to ask you out.” Ok, maybe he wasn’t so confident after all. I think I was staring. I just kept looking at her without blinking with a very stupid expression on my face, I guess, as if she was crazy – I mean crazier than usually. “I thought not. Are you free this Friday?” she asked with a radiant smile on her face.

“What?” That was all I could choke out. That woman was completely nuts… “Are you… I mean… you’re asking me on a date with your ex? Luna, this is even too much for your standards.”

“Well someone has to make the first step. And you can’t count on Harry in that. If I had been waiting for him to ask me out, I think I could have waited until purple liratinos learned to walk.” She must have seen the enormous question mark above my head because she rolled her eyes and said: “Liratinos – in case you didn’t know – are yellow and cannot walk, since they have no legs, they live in…”

“Luna” I interrupted her. That girl really knew how to give you a headache. “Does Harry know about this?”

“About what?” I think my heart stopped as I heard Harry’s voice from the door. Great.

“Oh, I just asked Draco out on a date for you. I think Friday evening at six would be perfect, or rather seven, then you have more time to get ready after Quidditch with the Gryffindors.”

It was amazing to see Harry’s face turn white from shock, purple from anger and then red from embarrassment. I think he looked very much like a Liratino – not that I have any idea what that is but it sounds as ridiculous as Harry looked that moment. I was desperately trying to hold back a chuckle and tell Harry without words how sorry I was for all of this. Of course Luna was blissfully unaware of everything and left the room with a content smile on her face, leaving me with Harry to sort out her mess. I wanted to say something but somehow couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth, it only just started to sink in what all that meant – Harry wanted me, he had broken up with Luna for me. I blushed and could look in Harry’s eyes.

“Um… do you like Italian?”

I was back to staring again. “What? Um… yes, yes, of course. I love Italian. My favourite, really. My mother is always angry with me because I always want to go to Italian restaurants not her favourite French one. But I hate snails.” Oh God, I was rambling. Great. Just great. But he just smiled.

“Friday then. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Our first date was wonderful. Harry brought me to a small Italian restaurant, the food was excellent, the conversation a bit awkward but nice. Our second date was even better. Harry tried to cook, then we ordered take-away – one of the very few things I like about the muggle world – and talked until dawn. After our third date we made love for the first time. It was wonderful.

Harry was an amazing lover – very surprisingly, I think, taken the amount of experience he had. I’m quite sure he did pick up a lot from Luna, she looks like a lamb, but I have no doubts that she’s a wicked little snake in bed. But there is something else in Harry that makes him so amazing – he pays attention to his partner. Not with the trivial things, like making sure he wouldn’t hurt me, no. But his every movement, his every touch had only one aim, to worship my body, to make me feel cherished. Everything he did radiated an intense passion that was beyond everything I’ve ever known before. And his passion had nothing to do with the horror of death and war above our heads – it came from inside him. With him passion was not just a creation of circumstances but it originated in him. He was passion. Everything he had ever done back at school or during the war, every impulse, every emotion was born from this passion.

And I was drawn to him like a moth to the fire, maybe always had been. He burnt me but I didn’t care. His every touch made me melt into him. We became one. I completely ceased to exist in his embrace but have never felt freer. All I could see were his deep eyes dark with a mixture of mysterious emotions, I could smell the simple yet intoxicating scent of his soap that clashed terribly with that of his shampoo but in a strange way still created harmony, all I could taste were his moans that came from deep inside his throat and sent chills down my spine towards the regions he invaded with his hard member that I could never get enough of. That feeling of him inside me was indescribable. The way he first pushed his way inside, probing, leaving me time to adjust to his size, was like swimming in a gentle stream towards the sea. He soon picked up speed and the rocking motions of his powerful hips were like the crushing of waves on sharp rocks and I was almost afraid of being crushed on them. And as he hit that hidden spot inside me, I knew I was dying, because no one could survive such intense emotions, I was sure of it. And when his eyes closed, his lips opened in a silent moan of my name and his hands found my aching member, I couldn’t hold back any longer and fell into a deep darkness pulling him down with me. I was still sweating and panting heavily when I buried my head in the crook of his neck and the world didn’t stop spinning until he held me in his strong arms.

It wasn’t love. We both knew it. But it was as close as I ever got to it. And it felt so good. For a few moments, when I had my face buried in the crook of Harry’s neck, when I listened to those addictive moans and gasps, when I felt his arms around me – then I could almost imagine that it would maybe last. It didn’t of course. But it was nice to dream about it.

I miss Harry. No, if I’m quite honest with myself, I don’t miss Harry, I just miss all the small things Harry did. All the little touches in public that looked completely innocent to others but spoke of longing and need. The secret looks during office parties that told me I was wanted. Yes, that’s what I miss most. Being wanted.

I don’t really know what happened to us. We weren’t fighting, we just didn’t meet anymore. I don’t know if he had found somebody else, it doesn’t matter. One day he told me he was moving back to his flat from the Manor. He was smiling as he said it, I was smiling too. I had known it would happen one day and I was not surprised. So I helped him pack his stuff and we parted as friends. My heart didn’t break. My soul didn’t hurt. It wasn’t love. I was sad, of course, because I liked what we had, it made me feel alive and losing it just pushed me back into the state I’ve been before.

I fell back into my old routine with a force that made my head spinning. I fell hard and deeper than before. At first, before Harry, those tears were enough to keep me going for weeks. But now there’s no relief in them, no redemption, no salvation, they are hollow. But they come anyway.

It starts with one single teardrop. One. Two. Just slowly. Messengers to warn me of what’s to come. They are wiped away swiftly. But others follow, faster and it becomes more and more difficult to destroy them. Until finally I’m overpowered. I lie in my bed, defeated, clutching at a pillow that has no comforting scent to offer. I’m shaking from the core of my being. I have to press the pillow closer to my face to stifle the loud cries that desperately try to escape me, I’m almost suffocating. But I can’t cry out loud, no matter how much I need to scream, someone might hear me because no matter how big the Manor is, the walls are thin as paper and it doesn’t even occur to me to cast a silencing charm – all reason has left me alongside the first tear.

Sometimes I almost wish they could hear me. No, not they – only my mother. Lucius couldn’t care less, he would simply be annoyed by my weakness. But mother, she would be worried, she would let me hold her instead of the cold pillow until my sobs subside. But she would ask questions and I have no answers. What could I tell her? That I don’t feel alive? That everything seems trivial and silly? That nobody seems to be able to breathe some life into the empty shell I’ve become? I would only end up hurting her and that’s the last thing I want. She’s all I’ve got. So I press the pillow closer to my face and bite down on my bottom lip to swallow the cries of 20 years. 21, actually. It’s my 21st birthday tomorrow. Another year gone. And nothing has changed since my 20th when I promised I would pull myself together. Another lost year.

Slowly, painfully slowly my sobs subside and my ragged breathing calms down to normal again. My eyes sting and my throat is sore. I wipe away the tearstains from my cheek and turn the pillow so that the wet side faces the blanket. I lie on my back, watching the ceiling. I think of nothing, feel nothing. I’m floating somewhere between reality and fantasy.

Images flicker before my eyes – lovers, Quidditch games, Charlie, Harry. A memory of passion slowly creeps into my body and my lonely hand travels downwards. My mind crosses the borders of time and my heart forces itself back into the embrace of a lover as my cold fingers close around my longing member. The first contact is electric and the walls slowly melt away as I plunge into a depth filled with the shadow of something valuable. I take my time. I cherish every little shiver and twitch of my body with which I seem to have lost contact during the day. I force my climax back several times to make this few moments of fake bliss last longer but it’s still over too soon and I feel my orgasm wash over me. Just as my pain, I don’t cry out my pleasure either, it’s just a sharp intake of breath – no real freedom and complete abandon for me, not even through my release. It’s over. It wasn’t enough. It was nothing like real passion. It didn’t make my insides melt, it didn’t make me feel as if my whole body was being reconstructed by an invisible force. It only involved a hard dick and a hand that at least shouldn’t have been my own.

But my violent crying fit and my orgasm tired me enough that I feel myself drifting into sleep and I welcome it even though I know it will be far from the relief it brought me before. My dreams, even when I couldn’t remember them, managed to calm me and at least at night I could be free of my torturing mind and the shapeless whole in my heart. But by now even my dreams have abandoned me. They are chaotic and unnerving, and I can’t find any real rest anymore. I usually wake up more tired than I have been when going to bed. As if I had been running miles while asleep.

Still, as I wake up in the morning I try to stay in that once so soothing world of magic and fantasy, even if no real comfort awaits me there, but wakefulness comes far too soon and cuts into the dreamy substance of make believe. So I get up, put on my fake smile and start another wasted day in a job I even like most of the time.

1 Jeanette Winterson: The Passion (must read!!! :D)

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