Draco

They are almost at the end.

Draco can feel it, how things are changing, like a sort of electricity pumped in the air. He had settled into the idea of a routine, and a lot of that routine is tied up in the idea that things will not change—it is burrowed into the bones of Grimmauld Place, wrapped around the idea that there is Luna and Ginny before they be Luna-and-Ginny, the promise of forever that Harry had handed him, all of which is now looking so unsteady, like one strong push might send it all tumbling down.

He tries not to freak out about it. No one else is, and he keeps trying to tell himself that change is inevitable and not always for the better, that this is the only way that you can move on to your bigger and better things that everyone keeps telling you to reach for, but it had been so long since Draco had a place that he considered safe that he cannot consider giving this up, even if the walls in his house are eternally moldy and the stairs creak and he is caught in a never ending cycle of wedding planning. He would take it, just so things could stay the same, because if things were the same, Draco would not have to worry about unpleasant surprises.

“Hey.” Harry bends down to press a kiss to the cheek before straightening up to check his reflection in the mirror. “You alright?”

Sort of, except that you told me that I should look at places to live, too, and I did, Harry, how bout that, found myself a nice place in the middle of muggle London with black iron gates that are spelled to not open to strangers and a big garden out back, only I really don’t want to go there, so please, whatever you are going to do, I think you should say it now before I up and run away, but you won’t, because you don’t know anything about this, because despite everything, I still have inherited my mother’s knack for keeping secrets and my father’s ability to reason any amount of subterfuge, even when I know it’s going to hurt.

“Perfect.” Because he was, perfect. He had a boyfriend that he loved, and who loves him. He was planning a wedding for two friends who he cares deeply about, who have iven him for all past transgressions. And he was at perfect liberty to do whatever he liked, thanks to the ministry pardoning him. “Are we about ready to go?”

“Almost.” Harry knew something was wrong, Draco could tell, but he wasn’t going to say anything. It was hard to see the truth when the lie was so much easier to deal with, so much more agreeable for your current situation. “I just have to grab the present.”

The present was for Luna and Ginny’s bachelorette parties, which was actually just one party for both of them. Harry had rented out the Leaky Cauldron for them and stuffed it full of balloons, then packed the place with a hundred of their closest friends.

And the Weird Sisters.

That part, Draco had to admit, was more extra than even he was willing to go, despite how good of a party planner he considered himself to be.

“Harry, you arse!” Ginny found them both as soon as they walked through the door, crushing the present between the three of them when she hurtled towards them, throwing an arm around both of their necks and pulling them down to her height. Draco caught an elbow in the neck, but he was pretty sure it was on ident. “I can’t believe you got the Weird Sisters to play at my party!”

“It’s Luna’s party, too,” trilled Hermione from somewhere near Draco’s elbow, and he turned to find her sitting down at a booth already with a large plate of cheesy fries in front of her, rather giggly and pink in the face. Ron rolled his eyes at Draco, then shrugged. Hermione’s an incredible lightweight. And lately, always incredibly hungry.

Ginny ignored her, which Draco thought was best.

“Called in a favor,” Harry said, grinning. “Thought you might like it.”

Draco snorted. Called in a favor, more like, called them up and told them who was speaking and then found the Weird Sisters had mysteriously cleared their schedule for the next month and a half, at your service Mr. Potter, anything you like. They could have played during Molly’s Sunday night dinner, for all they cared.

“Still, thank you. And you,” She turned on Draco, narrowing her eyes, and he had the strangest suspicion that she knew somehow, about the house and the doubts and how he stays up late at night trying to memorize what it feels like to have Harry lying beside him, just in case. “Do try to have fun tonight, won’t you? Luna’s worried about you.”

Draco squirmed ufortably, because if Ginny had an idea about how anxious he’s been the past few weeks, then Luna knew for sure, would have been able to tell what was wrong with just one look at him.

“I’ll be fine.” He tries to smile convincingly, but then he looks over and finds that Harry has disappeared from his side, swallowed up by the crowd that was Dean and Seamus and Neville. Draco would not be wee there, even if they all smiled and made polite small talk. There is a difference between iveness and belonging, he’s finding, and it’s more of a chasm than a fine line.

Ginny reached over, squeezed his elbow. “He loves you.” Her words are insistent, hitting him like a stunning spell to the chest. “Trust me. I know what it looks like.”

He finds his way to the bar, expecting to find old, gap-toothed Tom, but finds Ge Weasley instead, throwing drinks to the people whoe to him without waiting for a request and scowling down at the table top when he is left alone again, like he is reading some particularly offensive word that a previous patron had carved into it. Draco checks, but nothing is there.

“Oh. It’s you.” Ge looks surprised for a moment, but then his expression sours. “You want anything?”

“Thought you were just throwing things out there?” He had been, like crazy, throwing bottles into hands and pouring liquid into giant margarita glasses without checking the labels, and even when it had to be a downright disgustingbination, no oneplained, just coughed and spluttered and drank it all the same.

“Well, normally, but seeing as it’s you, I’ll make an exception. So I’ll repeat myself.” He was blunt, tonight. Draco supposes it must be hard for everyone else, to have gone from a friendly and cheerful Ge to this, but not for Draco, because to him this was the Weasley he had always known—a little sharp, a little brusque, the kind of intelligent that was just a shade shy of cruel. “What do you want?”

“Just a beer, thanks,” Draco said, settling down onto a stool, wondering why they had stuck him back here, of all people, and then realizing that it might have been the kindest place for him. Ge had told him once that every conversation was just a reminder of the lines that never would be said, where people automatically look to his left for the echo of his jokes only to find empty air, that he can’t take it. He might have had an easier time back here, where he is away from the jumbled mass of limbs and people only wanting the person he used to be, safe from small talk and idle hands.

“So boring,” Ge griped, but he passed the bottle along all the same, even attempting a grin.

Draco doesn’t want to ask. He wants to sit and sulk, take part in enough small talk to pass the night away without seeming like an arse, maybe search out Hermione later and then duck in to pass on another round of congratulations with Luna, then go home, claiming a migraine. It’s a plausible excuse and a doable plan, and none of it involves sitting here and playing therapist to Ge, but he was his friend, and thates with a certain amount of responsibility.

“You alright, mate? You seem…” He paused, because there’s no way to give an urate description without being offensive. “Down.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Ge says, and Draco can see the moment where he changes his mind and decides to tell the truth, an actual ripple across his face. “No, I’m not. I’m shit, actually.”

He swears, a long string of it just to make himself feel better, and the people closest to them stare, a huddle of Ravenclaws that Draco can only vaguely remember.

“Want to talk about it?”

“It’s just that he’s not here.” Draco didn’t need to ask who he was. “He’s not here, and he would have loved this, to be with her, to see her. She’s got this line of dances, like the father daughter dance, only one with each of us brothers, and there’s—there’s only five dances. There should be six.” He is gripping onto the tabletop so hard that Draco is half afraid that he is going to rip a piece off. “It’s like he’s being otten by everyone but me.”

“That’s not true,” Draco starts, but Ge cuts him off just as fast.

“I know it isn’t true. But it’s not fair, because it’s like when he died, he ripped away a part of me that I’m never going to get back, this whole huge chunk of my life that I’m never going to be able to fill, no matter how much I try to love the people I have left, or how much I invent, or work, or sleep, or drink.” He looks on the verge of panic, like he’s going to run away, and Draco knows that it is only love for his sister keeping Ge in place. “I know they all loved him, that they’re all trying to fill up the parts of themselves that belonged to him. It’s just the part of me that belonged to Fred is so much bigger for me than any of them.”

It was the first time that Draco had heard him say Fred’s name out loud. Draco wonders if it’s the first time he’d said it at all.

“It just sucks,” Ge says finally, looking around the room. “Doing everything alone when I thought we were going to do it together.”

“You aren’t alone.” Draco sucks at this, at grief, atfort. He wants Hermione to be here. She pops up every other time someone needs her, but tonight she is too tipsy for that. “You’ve got all of us.”

“And what a treasure it is, to be around you wankers,” Ge says, but he is smiling now, no matter how bitter it might look. “Now drink up, Malfoy. No one said that we had to do this sober.”

Draco drinks, and so does Ge, but he does not think there is enough butterbeer and firewhiskey in the world to make Fred’s absence easier to bear. It’s strange, how much heavier a person can be when they aren’t there at all.

He tries to find his way back to Harry andes face to face with Lavender instead.

“Do you know,” She says, bubbly, pleasantly, like she hadn’t ever sobbed from the witness stand while talking about a man that Draco used to eat dinner with, like those scars crossing her body were not in some part done by his hand. “That you’re the first person not to stare at my scars?”

The fact that she points them out makes him want to look at them just as a reflex, but he forces himself to look at her face instead, at the eyes, which are just as the same as they were in school. I’ve got my own scars, he thinks of saying, and yours aren’t so different, or maybe I live with Harry, he’s griped enough about the stares that I’ve learned not to do it, but whates out of his mouth is, “Well, I have seen you before.

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