Title: Kindred Spirits
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to someone else. The plot and the character Ann are mine; the rest I’m just borrowing.
Summary: After the war, Harry runs away from everything he’s ever known. Can he find the resolution he needs in America?
Author‘s Note: I wrote this a long time ago, but never liked it enough to bother posting it. I was in a weird mood when I wrote it, and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it. It’s a little angsty and depressing, but other than that… well, just read it and judge for yourself. Reviews would be greatly appreciated.

Told from the point of view of an original character.

Kindred Spirits

I’d just finished brewing a fresh pot of coffee when there was a knock at my door. I opened it to see a young man (he couldn’t have been more than twenty) with dark hair and startling green eyes hidden behind round-rimmed glasses standing uncertainly in the hallway. “Sorry to disturb you, but, er… I’m Harry, and… Well, I just moved into the flat across the hall. I haven’t unpacked or anything yet, and I smelled the coffee, and…”

I stepped back from the doorway. “Come on in. Just ignore the mess; I don’t get many visitors.”

He hesitated a minute before stepping inside. He didn’t seem to mind the mess, but that wasn’t much to say of a teenage boy. I started toward the kitchen. “What do you take in it?” He made a confused noise, and I turned to him. “Your coffee. What do you take in it?”

“Oh… er… cream and sugar, if you have it. If not, black is fine.”

“Cream and sugar it is, then.”

I took a pair of matching mugs from the cupboard. It was the only matching pair of crockery I owned. It had originally been a set of four, a gift from my daughter several years earlier. Two of the mugs had been broken. I filled the cups and added cream to both, then sugar to his. He was standing in the doorway to the kitchen looking uncertain. I nodded toward a chair and set his cup on the sad little table in the corner. He flinched slightly when the chair tilted after he sat down. Maybe I should have warned him that it was wobbly.

I took my own seat and we sipped our respective cups for a while. I didn’t mind the silence, but I figured after inviting in a stranger and offering him coffee, I at least deserved a bit of conversation. “So where are you from?”

“England. Surrey, to be exact,” he said between sips.

“What brings you here?”

He looked contemplative for a several minutes. Finally, “I just needed a change.”

With a laugh I said, “I take it you’re not one to dye your hair.”

That didn’t get the smile I’d hoped for. “Things were… intense back there. I needed to get away for a while. Clear my head.”

“I hear that’s what vacations are for.”

“My head needs more clearing than a vacation can manage.”

So young, and yet so disparaging. What had this poor boy been through? “Family problems?” It was just a guess, but what else would someone that young have to deal with?

“No. My family died a long time ago. I don’t even remember them.”

“That’s a shame. Everyone should be able to remember their family.”

“Yeah…” There were several minutes of silence, during which we finished our cups of coffee, and I refilled them.

“So what exactly brings you to America, young Harry?”

He shrugged. “Seemed like as good a place as any, at the time. What with it being the Land of Opportunity, and all that.”

He was looking out the window, but I had a feeling he was seeing more than the brick wall across the alley. “Are you here for school, then?”

“No. I’m done with school. I figure I’ll get a job now. Haven’t really thought about it.”

“What sort of job are you looking for?”

He went silent again. “Haven’t really thought about that either. Haven’t thought about much of anything since… Well, I guess now that I’m here, I should start thinking about those things, yeah?”

“It doesn’t seem like you’ve put much thought into this move at all. What happened that was so bad you just packed up your life and left without a second thought?”

“I killed a man.” He said it so quietly that for a second I thought I’d misheard. When it finally processed, my heart began to flutter. A murderer! I’d invited a murderer in to share my morning coffee. “I didn’t want to. It was self-defense. But still… I don’t have any family back there, and my friends… well, I just wish things could have been different for them. Ron was killed by his own brother; friendly fire, I guess you’d say. And Hermione… tortured until she went mad. She’ll spend the rest of her life in a hospital. And I walked out without a scratch. I stood face-to-face with the most evil man in the world, killed him without even flinching, and calmly walked away, all while my friends, my schoolmates, my professors were dying.”

I’d seen survivors from Vietnam go into trances like that. They’d start telling stories from the war, and it would take a force of nature to bring them back. I wasn’t a force of nature. I was just an old woman in a run-down apartment in a suburb of Washington, DC. So I sat there and listened. I didn’t have a television, so I wasn’t quite up-to-date on current events, but surely I would have heard about a war, even if it was in Europe. Wouldn’t I? But it was obvious this boy had seen war and death. I could see it in his haunted eyes as he told me his story.

“I didn’t even wait around to find out who else was dead. As soon as I heard about Ron and Hermione, I left. I went to the house my godfather left me when he died, and I packed up anything I thought I might ever want, and I left. I stopped at the bank along the way, and got out enough to get me wherever I was going, and then went to the airport.

“I’ve never been to an airport before. I didn’t know you have to have a passport to leave the country. I stole someone else’s and changed it so it had my name and picture. I hate that I did that, but I needed to leave. I caught the first available flight, and it brought me here, to Dulles. I got here three days ago. I came here because the rent was cheap and the landlord let me move in right away. He was the first one that didn’t ask for references or a deposit. I guess they just don’t trust people my age. Can’t say that I blame them.” His eyes started to lose that distant quality that had me so worried. “You’re the first person I’ve really talked to since the final battle.”

Final battle? Does that mean the war is over? He said he killed the most evil man on the planet. Was that it? Kill one man and the war ends? That just doesn’t sound right. Then again, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it only ended for him. “I’m glad I could be here for you.”

He looked into his coffee cup and seemed surprised to find it empty for the second time. “You’re probably right. I probably didn’t think things through well enough. But I’m here now, so I don’t guess it matters.” He sighed and stood. “Thanks for the coffee.”

I followed him to the door. “You’re welcome here any time. I usually have my coffee this time every morning, if you want to come over again.”

“Thanks. That… that means a lot to me.” With that he left.

It was several mornings later before I saw him again. Once again, the pot had just finished brewing when he knocked on the door. We didn’t even exchange words as I let him in and filled his cup. It was as though we already had a routine going.

I decided it was best not to mention the bags under his eyes. It was obvious he wasn’t sleeping, but there wasn’t much I could do for him. “Every time I close my eyes I see them.” I don’t have to ask who he’s talking about. He has that haunted look in his eyes again. “Every time a car backfires I think it’s an explosion. Every time the toddler down the hall screams, I think it’s someone being tortured, someone dying. I hear footsteps coming down the hallway and all I can think of is: What if they didn’t get all the Death Eaters? What if someone escaped and is coming after me? I thought I was leaving the war behind, but it followed me here.”

“Then maybe you should go back. It’s clear you have some loose ends that need tying.”

“I can’t go back. There’s too much pain there.”

“It seems to me you’ve got plenty of pain here too. And no one to help you through it.”

He hung his head. “I don’t have anyone there either. I’m all alone.” Tears filled his eyes. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t won.”

“Don’t talk like that. You said yourself that he was an evil man. Face it, people die in wars. It can’t be avoided. But think of the lives you saved by getting rid of that man.”

“I know. I’m a hero. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a murderer. It doesn’t bring Ron back to life, and it doesn’t make Hermione sane. It doesn’t give me back my parents or my godfather or even my home.”

“That’s why you make new friends, and find yourself a new home. Tell me this: if your parents or your godfather were alive, would they want you living in a place like this?” He looked around and shrugged. “Well, I have a daughter, and I thank God every day that she had the good sense to get away from here. I’m happier only seeing her at Christmas than I would be seeing her every day, because at least I know she has a good life.”

He looked up at me. “You have a daughter?” When I didn’t respond, he apologized. “Sorry, it’s just that I’ve told you so much about me, and I don’t really know anything about you.”

“Yes, I have a daughter. Grandkids, too. A boy and girl. I’ve only seen them a handful of times. Sarah went off to California as soon as she got out of high school. Married an engineer. She showed me a picture of their house once. It’s nice. The sort of place I always wished I could afford. The sort of place I’d have liked to raise her in.”

“So, if you have a daughter, then… were you married?”

“I was. He died in Vietnam.” Harry’s eyes took on an new light, like he’d met a kindred spirit, someone who could share his pain. “It took a long time for me to get over it, but at least I only lost my husband. I had friends to help me through it.” He smiled a grim smile. “I hope you find someone to help you though it too.”

He stood. “I think I already have.” With that, he finished his coffee and left.

It was almost second nature after that. He would come over every morning and have coffee with me. After a while, he started buying me groceries and eating meals with me too. We talked when we felt like it, but the silence had a strange sort of comfort to it that I never wanted to ruin. Some nights after dinner, he would help me with the dishes and we would sit in the living room and talk for hours. Several times he fell asleep on my couch. I never bothered to wake him. For all I knew, that was the only sleep he got.

It went on that way for several months. I began to worry about him. He still didn’t have a job, and he never went anywhere except to get groceries. He never asked for money, and when I offered to pay for the food he brought over, he always declined, insisting that it was only fair for him to buy the groceries if I cooked. I knew a boy his age should be out with people his own age. He should have been enjoying life, dating, not spending all of his time with a pathetic old woman whose own daughter wouldn’t even talk to her.

Then one evening a stranger came. Harry came to my door about an hour after supper and begged to stay the night. He said someone had followed him from the grocery store, and he’d just lost them coming up the stairs. He said he was afraid to go back to his apartment. I let him sleep on the couch. I even put a chair against the door, wedged under the doorknob, not that it would do much good.

The next morning, I was half asleep when there was a knock at the door. I had forgotten that Harry was on the couch, and opened it, expecting to see a mop of black hair and bespectacled green eyes. Instead I saw a pale boy with light blond hair and eyes the color of storm clouds. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but I’m looking for someone.” He had an aristocratic drawl, but his accent was far too similar to Harry’s to be a coincidence.

“I live alone. There’s no one else here.” I started to close the door, but he put a hand on it, holding it open.

“Please help me. I’m worried about him.”

That makes two of us. “What makes you think the person you’re looking for is here?”

“I followed him up to this floor last night. The people in the other flats said he lives across the hall there, but he spends a lot of time here. I thought maybe you could help me find him.”

“What do you want with him?”

“I’m a friend. I want to take him home. Everyone back in England is so worried about him. He just disappeared. I’ve been looking for him for months.”

“He told me he didn’t have any friends left.”

The boy looked sad. “He probably believes that. But it’s not true.” His eyes began to fill with tears. “Please,” he said, a hint of desperation in his voice, “you have to help me.”

“Do you mind waiting here in the hall? I need to go put some clothes on, and I’ll be back out in a few minutes.” He glanced down at my nightgown and nodded. I shut the door in his face and went to the living room. Harry was sitting there looking at the door with a strange expression on his face. “Do you know him?” I asked.

“Yeah. He… um… he was a spy in the war. He was the one that told me the only way to kill Vol- the man I killed. Without him, I’d be dead.”

“Sounds like you have at least one more friend than you thought.”

“I never really trusted him. Even when he was spying for us, I kept expecting him to betray us, to betray me. He went against his own father to help me. I never even thanked him.”

“I think you should go out there and talk to him.”

“If I go out there, he’s going to take me back to England.”

“It’s where you belong.”

“I’ll never see you again.”

“Harry,” I said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Don’t let your life pass you by.”

After a several moments’ deliberation, he stood and gave me a hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, Harry. Should I let your friend in?” He steeled his resolve and nodded. I went to the door and opened it. “I have someone here you might like to see.” I stepped back and let the blond boy in.

As soon as his eyes found Harry, they lit up. “Harry! Finally!” He launched himself at the boy I’d come to love as my own. They held each other for several minutes without saying a word. Then the blond boy drew back and looked at Harry. “God, I’ve missed you.” They shared a kiss, and I decided it was time for a pot of coffee. I left them in the living room, giving them time to get reacquainted before interrupting them.

I gave the boys the matching mugs and found a new one for myself. I wasn’t sure what the blond boy might like, so I put the cups of coffee on a tray with the cream and sugar and took it all to the living room. The boys had stopped kissing and were sitting beside each other on the couch. I set the tray on the coffee table and took my mug to the recliner.

The blond boy was looking around my apartment with a faint scowl. He didn’t seem as comfortable amidst the decay and clutter. I wondered briefly if he’d ever been someplace like this. Then again, if he truly had spent months scouring the world for Harry, he’d probably stayed in worse places. Harry seemed deep in thought, but that was nothing new. Finally he came back to the present with a jerk. “Sorry, I never even introduced you two. Draco, this is Ann. She’s, um… she’s really helped me through these past few months.”

The boy - Draco - looked at me with a start. “Well, then I suppose I should thank you. I was worried he’d gone somewhere and cut himself off from the world. He has a tendency to do that when things get rough.”

“He basically did, but I guess he has a soft spot for pitiable old women.”

Harry gave me a small smile. “No, just a soft spot for kindred spirits.”


We spent a good portion of the day talking, but Harry finally decided it was time to leave. We said our goodbyes and he returned to his apartment to pack. I tried not to feel sorry for myself. I would miss his company, but he needed to go home.

I set out both mugs the next morning when I made coffee, but he never came by. When I set the unused mug back in the cabinet I noticed an envelope at the bottom of the cabinet. Opening it I found a plane ticket, several hundred dollar bills, and a letter.

Dear Ann,

You’ll never know how much your company these past few months has meant to me. I’ll never forget you. Since you helped me find my way back to the ones I love, I thought I might do the same for you. Here is a plane ticket to Los Angeles. Go visit your daughter, see your grandkids. Don’t let your life pass you by.

Love,
Harry