Chapter Text
Chapter One
The stars had swallowed his sun and now, Draco burned.
Flames devoured, consuming the light within him to heat the landscape of his body to a blazing inferno that could tear itself apart. They consumed him with storms that raged, eradicating air and filling it with smoke. What pieces of his soul remained after his mother breathed her last breath were Hermione’s to use for kindling. What embers lay dying after his father betrayed him were hers to incinerate.
There was no room in his lungs to scream. They were blackened to a crisp, splintered with cracks that scorched his spirit. The only air the cosmos saw fit to grant him was hers. She breathed in the stars. Fire danced in his exhalation of starlight.
If there was a moon, the smoke of his charred heart was too thick to see it.
Tick tock.
The clock in the probation office had grown to become the bane of Draco’s existence since June of the previous year. It was one of those old clocks that elementary school teachers always had hanging high above the whiteboard, and it ticked, and it tocked. So loud that it grated on Draco’s nerves.
The door swung shut behind him with a loud click. The entry room looked typical for any sort of office building, with eight or so chairs, end tables adorned with bowls of candy, and a front desk complete with a typing secretary.
She sat with her back straight in her swivel chair with acrylic nails longer than Hermione liked to get tapping at the keys. They flew across the keyboard at a pace that Draco could neither match nor fathom.
“Hello, Draco,” she said in the sort of amused tone that a girl might have when she’s pretending not to have a crush on the class flirt.
“Kenzie,” he replied in the same tone, a smirk playing about his lips that was as much a mask as it was playing the role of who he used to be. “I’m here for my appointment.”
“Obviously. Not like you’re here to shoot the shit. Hang on a sec. Finishing an e-mail.”
Draco stood there with his hands slipped into the back pockets of his skinny jeans while Kenzie tap, tap, tapped the keys. He rolled his neck until it cracked, offering himself a tiny amount of stress relief.
That morning, he’d nearly wanted to call a mental hospital and have them wing Hermione in there.
It was the last Saturday of January, and he’d had two hours of sleep. He’d woken to find her categorizing the fridge. Fruits and vegetables by color, packaged items in alphabetical order, drinks by height. She didn’t say anything when he entered, like she didn’t care if he saw.
On its own, organizing the fridge wasn’t that big of a deal. But when she finished and didn’t get up, instead starting to take everything out again, he understood.
This wasn’t the first time that she was categorizing the refrigerator.
She started caring about his presence when he physically grabbed her by the waist, hauled her to her feet, and dropped her kicking and screaming onto the couch. He’d had to grab her wrists and pin them to get her to stop slapping at him and when he’d looked into her eyes, he saw a measure of terror there that could only be connected to Paris.
No matter how angry he was with her, he would always hate that man more.
The first two times she’d had one of her meltdowns had terrified him. Both were his fault. He could still remember that first time it happened, in the kitchen, when he’d boxed her in after they argued over the dishes. Then the second time, when her parents showed up at the apartment, all because he’d made the mistake of telling Cormac.
And now, here was the third time. He was grabbing her body and lifting her, pinning her down and restraining her. He’d never hurt her like that, but when she had a meltdown, it was like nothing and no one could get through to her. She was no longer in her body, no longer Hermione. The way she’d looked up at him that morning from the couch, so feral and afraid and furious.
He’d left the house immediately and sat in his car for hours before his eleven-o-clock appointment.
Tick tock.
Kenzie was a slight little thing, with bleached blonde hair, blue eyes, and arms covered in tattoos. She was just as old as Draco and had the same energy about her. That same air of deadpan acceptance of everything around her that enabled her to hide her true feelings behind a mask of indifference.
Over the summer, she was one of the girls he matched with on the dating app. Realizing who it was, he’d chickened out of messaging her.
She still liked to give him the flirty eyes and smirk she always had, but neither of them had ever brought up the fact that they could have hooked up. They simply greeted each other at his monthly probation appointments like normal, two passing ferries in the night.
And today, as Draco checked in for his appointment with visions of today’s routine drama with Hermione over her breakfast, he couldn’t help but wonder what his life would be like right now if he hadn’t chickened out.
“You know I can smell the weed on you, right?” Kenzie said with her drawn-in eyebrows risen, running her tongue across her teeth. Draco knew she had a smiley piercing and that it bothered her sometimes. “There’s a few judges here in Crystal Springs who just love putting y’all back in for that.”
“My probation officer ignores it.”
“I know.”
“It’s legal in Oregon.”
“I know. But still.”
“Maybe he feels bad for me.”
Her facial expression contorted. “Why?”
“Because my mom’s dead,” Draco replied, his tone flat. “Died at my trial.”
Silence.
She gave him a look of discomfort. “Sit down and I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Tick tock.
Draco slouched in his seat, stretching his long legs out with one foot flat on the floor so he could bounce his knee anxiously while he waited.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he tipped his head back against the wall and stared out the window. It was blurry with late January frost, crystals of ice gathering white on the edges of the windowpanes. If it weren’t for that infernal clock, he might find it peaceful, just gazing out at the grey sky and listening to the keys on Kenzie’s keyboard clicking away.
His stomach curdled and churned. He hated this. Hated being in an office that was meant for bad people, for criminals and offenders and people who hurt other people intentionally. He didn’t want to be thrown together with people like this.
Tick—
“Arthur? Draco Malfoy is here. He’s early.”
“Oh, good.” Officer Weasley’s voice wafted out from the unusually loud speaker. “Send him on in. Better early than never.”
Kenzie set the phone back in the cradle, offering Draco a smile. “He says he’ll see you now.”
As much as Draco wanted to snark at her that he was sure that the entire building heard him, he simply returned her smile with a half-one of his own and headed down the hall.
The office was large enough, with bookshelves and accolades hanging on the wall. There were medals and awards and honors from before his retirement, displayed sporadically amongst countless pictures of his wife, kids, and grandchildren. The entire room smelled like apple cinnamon, the scent coming from a wax warmer perched on the windowsill behind his desk.
Officer Weasley was a redheaded man of short stature, robust nature, and warm disposition. He had freckled white skin that turned as red as a beet no matter the weather or level of exertion, and he liked to wear three-piece suits every time Draco saw him. He seemed to maintain a smile regardless of the circumstances of the conversation.
It didn’t matter what mood he was in, though, because he was always seated in the same position when Draco entered his office: with his hands intertwined on his desk amongst a mess of paperwork and stationery.
“Well, well, well,” Officer Weasley said in that soft voice of his. “Look what the cat dragged in. Take a seat, young man. And shut the door to my cave. You’re lettin’ all the light in.”
Draco’s face relaxed into one of those awkward smiles that one gives when an older person speaks in idioms and closed the door behind him. Once they were shut in with the apple cinnamon aroma and the sound of country music playing faintly on the stereo, Draco took a seat at the soft cushioned chair in front of his desk.
“So, Draco,” he said, still with that same trademark smile, “What have you been getting into? Staying out of trouble?”
Which should he tell him first?
That he was living with a girl he just fucked in the backseat of his car after nearly killing them both by speeding on the freeway a week ago? That he was on the verge of hatred with her, toeing the line between rage and giving up on her entirely with each day that he had to fight to get her to eat? That she’d manipulated him for so long it made him sick?
“Yeah,” he said.
“That sounds like a pretty loaded ‘yeah.’ Do you have anything you need to talk about?”
Draco shook his head.
“Well, let’s get the business out of the way,” Officer Weasley said with a sigh, shifting some papers so he could withdraw Draco’s file from beneath them. He opened the manila folder while he wrote the date and Draco’s name on the top of an official check-in form. “Do you have your check for this month’s payment of your fines?”
Draco ran a nervous hand through his hair, reaching into the pocket of his hoodie and withdrawing the check he’d filled out in the car. He slid it across the desk to the officer.
God, why was he so nervous? Officer Weasley was nice. He liked him. And this wasn’t the first probation appointment.
He’d thrown the gun into the river, so he should have nothing to worry about.
“Good. You have a ways to go.” Officer Weasley fixed him with a stern eye. “Don’t you go missing a single one. I don’t want to see them throw you back in jail because you forgot to write a darn check.”
“Right.” Draco breathed a laugh to hide the fact that his heart had begun to knock on the wall of his chest.
“All right, let’s pull up the warrant check on you. I ran it before you got here but didn’t look at it yet.” While still writing with his right hand, the officer used his left hand to move the mouse on his computer. He typed slowly with one hand, talking to himself under his breath. “Okay, here we go. It’s loading. And here we go…nothing. That’s good. Just make sure you keep it up. I don’t want to find out you got pulled over for—for drunk driving or something stupid. The last time you were pulled over was enough.”
Draco swallowed.
“All right, crap’s over with.” Officer Weasley crossed a T and dotted an I on the form, and then moved to the large white box on the page. “Time to tell me about how things are going.”
Draco grimaced. “My grades are bad.”
“I know.” Officer Weasley frowned while writing it down. “Your school faxed the report over today. Any reason for that?”
Yeah, my life is a fucking mess.
“No, I just have some trouble sleeping. I forget to do my homework, too.”
“Well, you have to work on that. All you have to do to follow the rules and stay out of trouble is focus on school. That’s it.” Officer Weasley gesticulated with his hand. “Just focus on school. Get good grades, graduate, stick around until probation is up, and head off into the sun to some university or another.”
In the beginning, Draco hadn’t been able to understand why the probation office would require his school to send in his monthly progress report, but now that he’d met Officer Weasley and heard directly from the judge who set the terms of his probation himself, they both just wanted rehabilitation for him. In their minds, school was the answer. The best chance he had at a future with the hand of cards he’d been dealt.
And he was fucking it up.
“I know,” he said, the words coming out in a mumble of shame. “I did good fall term, but I’ve been…stressed out recently.”
“And you did really good while you were still in jail. You’ve only got three terms left, Draco. Then you get your associates. I’m telling you: do not drop the ball.”
“I won’t. I mean, I’m not. I’ll work on it.”
“Make sure you do.” The officer finished writing everything down and then said, “How are you handling things with your family situation?”
“Uh, well…I reconnected with my godparents for Christmas,” Draco said. “That was okay.”
“Oh!” Officer Weasley said with a large smile and an appreciative tone. “That’s great, Draco. So you had a good Christmas?”
Draco nodded, running a hand through his hair again.
“That’s really great to hear. We had the same Christmas we always have. The entire family heads on over to Lake Michigan. We have a lake house out there. We do the whole shebang: tree, presents, food. Even some ice skating. You know how that lake freezes this time of year.”
“I’ve never been there,” Draco said. He could almost see himself there, holding Hermione’s hands as they both stumbled over the ice. Perhaps he’d get to see her smile reach her eyes then. “Maybe someday, though.”
“And your father? Have you spoken to him?”
In seconds, Draco’s lifting mood crashed back down to Hell.
“No.”
“Are his letters not getting to you? I know you said he sends letters. I can make a call.”
“No, I don’t want to speak to him.” Draco clenched his jaw for a moment to alleviate the tension in his body. “It’s okay.”
Officer Weasley held his gaze for a moment, one that was so drawn out that Draco started to get antsy. Then, when he thought he might simply keel over and die, the probation officer reached over to a pad of small blank papers. He peeled one off, grabbed a pen out of a cup beside his computer monitor, and scrawled something down.
“I know this might be overstepping a bit, but I wouldn’t be able to sit still if I knew I didn’t try to do something to help.” He held the paper out to Draco, who took it and looked down at the solid, bold handwriting. “That’s the number to my family therapist. Me, my wife, my kids, and my grandkids all see her. You’ve been through a lot, Draco. I wouldn’t want to see you fail school and end up back in jail because you needed someone to talk to.”
Draco frowned, his brows gathering as he read the phone number over and over again.
A therapist?
He didn’t need a therapist. He needed a miracle. He needed someone to grab Hermione by the hair and yank the eating disorder out of her throat so she could breathe. Because if she could breathe, then he could finally rest. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep all week. The self-imposed vigilance as he listened for the door to her bedroom or the bathroom to open until the darkness faded to early morning kept him from knowing peace.
He just wanted to sleep.
“Thanks, Officer Weasley.”
“Do you promise to call her?”
At this point, he would rather die.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Well, I’m gonna let you go now. I’ll make sure this check gets to where it needs to go, and I’ll finish writing up your monthly report. And we’ll see you next month?”
Draco nodded and stood to leave.
“That’s a nice necklace, by the way, Draco. Did you get that from Crystal Springs Caverns? My wife and I went there last summer. Can you believe it? Thirty-five years in this town, and we’d never been to the caverns. I tell you.”
Draco looked down at the necklace, memories of his dreams with Hermione flashing by as fast and as fleeting as happiness seemed to be for him. What had sometimes felt so beautiful now tasted like rot. Like the cracks in the faces of the crystal were filled with poison.
Hermione hadn't worn hers since the day she called him toxic.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I did. But it wasn’t a necklace.”
“Really?”
He closed his hand around the sharp edges of the amethyst, lowering his gaze to the floor where he imagined he could see the outline of his mother’s haunted smile traced in the whorls and lines of the hardwood floor. “My mom turned it into one.”
“That’s very nice, Draco,” Officer Weasley said in that tone. The one that people used with him whenever they found out his mother was dead. “Anyway, see you next month, Draco. Get those grades up.”