InsaneJournal

Chapter 3: In which an old friend catches up with Draco.


Late May, 2005
Wiltshire

Draco took his tea in the roof garden when weather permitted. The day was gray and dreary, but it was not raining, and that was permission enough to sit outside where he could feel a bit of breeze through his hair.

Pansy examined the orchids just beginning to bloom along the northern rail as Draco poured. The table and the orchids were partially shaded by a small ornamental birch that grew, to all appearances, directly out of the roof. There were no other trees, only shrubs and beds of flowers that bloomed in colorful rotation, like a clock, according to the season.

"Have you decided where to go first?" Pansy asked, running a delicate finger around the lip of an unfolding pink blossom.

Draco sighed as he replaced the tea pot on the table, heartily sick of the question. "Anywhere but here," he said after a pause to stir sugar into his cup.

Pansy laughed. "That covers a lot of ground, don't you think?" She sipped her tea and replaced the cup on its saucer with a delicate grace that reminded Draco of his mother. "Am I to believe," she continued," that Draco Malfoy has no plan?"

"I really don't, Pans," Draco said. "Nothing concrete, anyway. Maybe I'll just hop on my broom and fly at random, until I'm too tired to go on or run out of land or both."

She tilted her head to study him. "And you would, too." She reached quite suddenly across the table, catching his free hand in hers. "Draco, you know you can talk to me, don't you?"

He squeezed her fingers, then pulled his hand back. "I know. Thank you." He could not meet her eyes.

She was quiet for a few minutes, and he looked out over the railing toward the rolling hills beyond the Manor's wards. In his mind the Malfoy grounds were shrouded in a thick fog, like the presence of Dementors. The hills beyond taunted him with their vivid green and gold, always sunny when the Manor was shrouded in gloom. Perhaps it was only an illusion, but it held power over him nonetheless.

"Well," Pansy said at last, with a cheer that felt forced, "you can't rejoin society without knowing all the news. We'll get you in with all the right people."

"As you managed to do?" Draco asked with a grin.

Pansy had gone from pitiable wreck at the end of the war to powerful leader of a well-connected international network of witches, with the occasional wizard for variety. She smirked at his amusement. "Some of us still have ambitions in Britain, you know."

"Mm, and how is work, then?"

"You mean how is life as Granger's lackey?" Pansy actually smiled, then laughed out loud at the look on Draco's face.

He quickly schooled himself back to neutrality. "Well, you did loathe each other in school," Draco reminded her. He still had difficulty moving past old school rivalries, probably because he had so few other social experiences to counter them. One charity Quidditch match in seven years and the annual meeting of the Board of The Prince Trust did not a social life make.

Pansy waved away ancient history. "That was school. We were all a bit mad, then. She's not so bad, Granger. Bones is the real hellhound of the firm. Now that I've won a settlement for them perhaps they will pass the drudge work on to somebody else." Last spring Pansy had moved back to London as a partner with Granger and Susan Bones, solicitor advocates. They worked with several well-known barristers and had a satellite branch in Scotland to deal with Scots Wizarding law, for which Granger was also certified.

Draco did read the papers; he had followed the firm's expansion in the business section of three publications.

"And the rumors of a French extension?" he asked.

"False," Pansy said with finality. "Granger refuses to budge on her employment policies and the French Mugwump won't permit her to import non-human staff on a standard payroll. We're looking at Amsterdam instead."

Draco had visited Amsterdam only once before his house arrest. He wondered if he would still know his way around now. "Sounds lovely."

Pansy poured herself a second cup of tea and looked pensively across the table at him. "Do you get many visitors, these days?" she asked.

He had not expected that question, nor to be so shaken by it. "Not many, no," he said, keeping a tight rein on his temper. How he despised being at the mercy of others' whims. "How many people do you know willing to undergo a background check and Auror escort for a spot of tea with a Malfoy?"

There had not been many, not since that first year when everything had been chaos and legal maneuvering. In the first year, Draco had gotten out frequently to give testimony before the Wizengamot. Once the trials were over, there was nothing but the Trust to keep him from going mad, and he had been forced to work with Potter on everything. Draco had learned to tolerate Potter because Potter held the ultimate power over Draco's release from the house. Potter had gotten the wards extended to cover more of the grounds. Potter had secured the Minister's permission for Narcissa to have visitors from the local villages. Potter had ensured that every meeting of the Board of Directors of the Prince Trust was in London, and that Draco was always required. It was very hard for Draco not to hate Potter even as he cultivated the Auror's influence.

It was harder for Draco not to hate Pansy for escaping this punishment, for doing so well, for never coming to see him before this year.

But he needed Pansy, and she genuinely still cared.

"It wasn't easy," she conceded, "but it was worth it. It's not as if you've been solitary out here, either. Astoria -"

"Don't," Draco cut her off. "Just leave it, Pans. I really don't want to discuss her." Before Pansy could even open her mouth he added, "Or any of the others. All right?" The last thing he wanted was to undergo a Pansy-led dissection of the failures of his past relationships. His lovers had been nothing but distractions, most of the time, in any case. It had been unfair, and troubling, but somehow inevitable. After all, he was a captive audience to their charms, and any witch or wizard who had braved the dragons guarding Draco's tower deserved some reward, didn't they? Until their interest waned, or their expectations went unfulfilled. And then what could Draco do but accept being alone again, until the next brave or foolish adventurer washed up at his feet?

It was all rather sordid when he looked back on it, just a tiny step up from desperation.

"I didn't mean anything bad," Pansy said, reaching across the table for his hand again. "We're all friends, you know. There's something about being a survivor, it keeps pulling people together, even when we would rather not go."

"Even you and Blaise and Daphne?"

"Especially us. Blaise says its Gryffindor guilt at work." Pansy laughed. "But really, it's just sense. When you see someone who was there - it's like half the conversation is silent. You don't need to explain anything. They already know. You'll see, when you can come out with us. It's different now."

Draco wondered how different it could really be for him. "You haven't seen what happens when I walk down Diagon Alley," he muttered.

Pansy winced. "Even that will change. It will, Draco."

Draco did not hold out much hope for that, but he did not argue with her. Better to change the subject, ask about her surviving family, or for more gossip from work, than to let her try to convert him to optimism.

She had plenty of gossip and rumor to share, as it turned out, and the news proved satisfyingly distracting.

It was sunset by the time Pansy left, and the clouds had parted just enough to allow the light to stretch long shadows across the landscape. Draco heard his mother's familiar tread on the stairs.

He did not stand or even look around as she came up behind him. It was a familiar pose, one they had taken often during the long years without Lucius. Narcissa's fingers combed gently through his hair at the back of his neck.  

"You have a letter," she said after a moment.

It was not his day for letters. "Is it important?" he asked.

"It's from Luna," she answered, and extended a heavy parchment envelope over his shoulder.

A letter from Luna in the middle of the week was a bit unusual. Draco opened it immediately.

His mother sat down in Pansy's empty chair as he read the short note attached to a smaller envelope sealed with wax and magic.

"What is it?" Narcissa asked when he came to the end. She must have read the surprise in his expression.

Draco reread the beginning of the letter. Sometimes Luna's perspective made her correspondence a challenge, but this note was clear and impossible to misinterpret. "She won't be writing for a while, and wanted to tell me not to worry when she doesn't answer." He felt cold, and wished he had not let Pansy talk him into pudding with tea. "She has something important she has to do, and she doesn't know how long she will be out of touch."

Turning away from his mother, he quickly channeled the emotion rising in him as anger. He refused to accept anything else; he refused to be at the mercy of another fickle adventuress. He set the sealed envelope on the table, holding back the impulse to shred it, knowing that no matter how much he raged now, he would want to know its contents later.

In a way, he had been waiting for this. The fragile connection between him and Luna had stretched and stretched over the years, but without more sustenance than letters it had finally snapped. It was kind of her to give him warning, instead of simply vanishing. Yes, he would tell himself it was kind.

"Draco?" Narcissa said, and he had a feeling she had been trying to get his attention for a while.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'll just go down, if you don't mind. Finish this -" he tapped the seal, "in private."

Narcissa put a hand on his arm as he stood up. "Draco. Are you-"

"Fine," Draco repeated, shaking off her hand. "I'm fine. It's not like it's the end of the world, after all. It's just a few letters."

He did not like the look that crossed her face as he left. He did not want her understanding, or her pity.

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