“Jesus, Potter. What happened?”
*dully* “Hello, Malfoy.”
“Sit down and tell me what happened.”
”… It was Angelina.”
*softly* “Who’s Angelina?”
“Angelina Johnson. She was on my Quidditch team at school. She married—she married Fred Weasley a few weeks before—”
“One of those war weddings. Little exercises in futile hope and masochism.”
“She loved him.”
“So?”
“She loved him! And he died. And she kept fighting and we won and I thought she was—I thought she was all right. I never went to see her, I didn’t want to think about any of it… And she killed herself. She did it two days ago, and they only just found her. I don’t want to understand why she did it. The war is over and things are supposed to be right and we’re all supposed to be so grateful—”
“You do understand it, though. That’s almost the worst part.”
”… Yes.”
“It never works the way it’s supposed to. It’s never like anybody dreamed or promised. It’s terrible for you, isn’t it? You like things to be so simple. Like a children’s story. You want the happy ever after.”
“Didn’t you? Is all you’ve ever thought of complicated?”
“All I’ve ever known or expected.”
*pause*
*quietly* “I should have gone to see her.”
“But you didn’t. And now it’s too late. Is that how you want to see it? There it is; that’s simple.”
“I try to stay away from them. All of them. It’s too hard to be around them. Nobody ever talks about it, any of it, and there’s nothing but empty spaces where people should be and empty spaces when the dead should be talking and empty beds where people have to lie alone and empty eyes which make you think…”
“Yes?”
“What if it’s us who died, and we don’t know it? And that’s where all the old vitality went, and we can’t touch the living and all we do is linger around in grey silence and pretend, and never speak of how we died. The dead seem so much more alive sometimes. Some nights—I could reach out and touch them. Fred. Ginny. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t reach out to Angelina.”
“It’s a quaint thought. Very pretty and melancholic. But it’s just battle fatigue, survivors’ guilt, destroyed nerves and a lack of—strength. To carry on. To rebuild.”
“It’s that simple.”
*pause, soft laugh* “No.” *another pause* “Oh, I remember this.”
“What?”
“The way your mind works. You can be so endlessly thick, and I can see the truth so much more often than you, but you keep looking, and then—just now and then—you can shoot it through the heart and show it to everyone. It’s a gift.”
“Lucky me.”
“I didn’t mean for you.” *pause* “What were you going to be?”
“What d’you mean?”
“If the war hadn’t happened. Haven’t you ever played this game? If there had been no war, and there had been nothing to stop you from doing what you wanted—what would you have wanted?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Maybe I would’ve been a professional Quidditch player. Or an Auror. I was fifteen—it was half way through fifth year when the war began. I was young, I didn’t have much time to plan. But I do remember wanting… a home. I never really had one. I kind of wanted that—dream home, you know. The one in picture books. With honeysuckle on the walls and a dog and the people you love.” *pause* “Something simple. What would you have wanted?”
“Oh, I always wanted a thousand things. You know me. I had a dozen different plans when I was fifteen—doctor tailor sailor soldier sailor gentleman apothecary thief. It’s a shame only one of them worked out. The problem was to stop wanting things, to choose. Except it was never necessary, was it?”
“Would it ever have been?”
“Of course not. We don’t have many choices. You would have grown up and done what Dumbledore suggested, what Ron Weasley was doing. You would have married Ginny Weasley and never have remembered that none of it was your idea. And I would have inherited the family fortune and followed the tradition of my ancestors and married Pansy, and had an heir I wouldn’t have quite known how to bring up right. People are so good at hiding the fact they’re unique.”
“Oh, but this is the game where there’s nothing to stop you doing exactly what you want.”
“Hmm. You’re right. Maybe it would have been something to do with Muggles.”
“What?”
“You know how I love to feel superior. If I’d associated with Muggles, I could have felt superior all the time. It would have been a kick. Maybe I would have been a male model.”
“A male model. You?”
“I could have been! I’m pretty. Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
“Your face is too pointy.”
“I. Have. Fine. And. Aristocratic. Bones.”
“They’re pointy. And you’re a bit on the thin side, quite frankly.”
“You are so one to talk!”
“I’m not expressing the desire to market my beauty to the world.”
“It was just an idea! All right. I could have been an actor.”
“Can you act?”
“I expect so, I never tried. The point is, I always wanted something—oh, huge and bright and spectacular.”
“And involving you getting a lot of attention and your picture taken.”
*modestly* “Well. If it had to be… I could have borne it. For my art.”
*soft laughter* “God. I—I like to see you. You still seem so alive.”
“Isn’t that ironic. The man whose life is over.”
“No. I mean—you’re only twenty-one. You’re so—in control.”
“I’m not in control. I’m in prison. And they’ll never let me out, not in a hundred years. I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a cell, and everyone I love is dead. There’s no way for me to be strong and rebuild my life. There’s nothing but—these walls, and the nightmares. Forever. So—stop being stupid.”
“I… Sorry.”
“You can still be alive, though. Have you contacted Parvati yet?”
“No.”
“It’s August. Go on a summer holiday, for God’s sake. Ask her to go with you—she will. Go take a walk on a beach by a foreign sea and drink some cocktails and eat an obscene amount of fruit.”
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“Oh yes, Potter, that’s it. I have no time for you anymore. You know we have therapy sessions together. We prisoners are assigned partners and we have to give each other hearty talks. Isn’t it a brilliant idea of Fudge Junior’s?”
“Almost as brilliant as him deciding to build an enormous marble monument rather then trying to rebuild people’s homes.”
“Funny isn’t it. How at the end of the war, the rats seem to be the only ones who come out victorious… and fat. But my point is, I receive all the fun I could possibly want from my weekly conversations with Confucius the ogre. Oh, you should see it, Potter. It’s a feast of reason and a flow of souls.”
“I see I’m now entirely unnecessary.”
“It brings tears to my eyes sometimes. ‘How’s it going?’ I say brightly. And he grunts. ‘You’re looking a bit peaky lately. You’re half the ungodly monster you were,’ I continue blithely. He grunts. ‘Had any news of the wife and spawn?’ I ask. He grunts. ‘Isn’t this intellectually stimulating?’ I query. He grunts and gives me this horrifyingly blank stare. I stare back at him in quiet horror and squeak, ‘Please don’t hurt me.’ He grunts.”
“I’m sure you two are kindred spirits beneath the surface. Still, two conversations a week doesn’t sound all that taxing.”
“Two conversations? What are you talking about? I talk to myself all day long. I keep myself amused with my witty repartee and sparkling rejoinders. I amaze myself with my own viciousness in gossip. I never seem to stop talking, I require almost twenty-four-hour entertainment.”
“Still, I don’t see how your advice is helping you. Unless you’re not quite as selfish as you like to believe.”
“Oh, I’m more selfish than the devil himself. At least he cares what people do with their souls.”
“So what’s in it for you?”
“It annoys me, to see people wasting their lives. Not doing what I’d do if I had mine. And…”
“What?”
*silence*
“Malfoy.”
*snarl* “You can’t imagine what it means, Potter. To simply hear another human voice. To have some company, to articulate what you feel until you can feel it properly again. I told you everyone I love is dead, you know I’m cut off here from anything like humanity. I knew what would happen when I went in here. I knew I was dead. If I start feeling alive again—if I start needing—”
“Malfoy…”
*savagely* “I don’t want it! I can’t be connected again, I won’t let myself. It’s too much like living and I can’t do that, I don’t want to try and then end up—do you hear me, Potter? I don’t want to be attached to anything. I can’t bear it. I’m here, I’m dead, and that’s the way it has to be, so why can’t you let me rot here in peace!”
“And if your life is so completely over, why don’t you do what Angelina did!”
“I’m too fucking stubborn!”
*pause* “That’s always been your problem.”
“Please, Potter. This is so futile. Please, please go away. Don’t ever come back.”
“It’s been… a long time since I wanted something I could have. Last night I had one of those dreams and I woke up screaming and I—I wished you were there.”
“In your bedroom? Without a chaperon? You shock me, Potter. I am not that kind of girl.”
“Fuck off, Malfoy, this isn’t funny. I want to see you.”
“Well, I can’t stop you, can I? I’m a prisoner here. I can’t go to a foreign beach or buy my own socks or be out when you drop by. That’s why I seem in control, because I have to seem in control, because I’m utterly helpless in here and I can’t turn you out and I can’t leave the room and I can’t do anything except ask you to please, for God’s sake, leave me alone.”
“I—damn it, I can’t say no and you know it. If that’s what you really want.”
“It’s what I have to have.”
“I’ll go. I’m—sorry.”
“Call Parvati.”
“Malfoy, will you—”
“Please. Go.”