Fill the Silence

Disclaimer: I make no claims of ownership, nor do I profit fiscally from this work in any way.

Many thanks go to my wonderful beta, southern_witch_69.

This time, Draco knows that Potter is listening, and this time, he knows he's playing for him. He doesn't deny it.

When his fingers are tired, he stands. He turns and finds Potter in his corner, and he says nothing as he joins him. He still doesn't know why he's doing it, but he knows he can't walk away.

He sits down, and Potter speaks softly. "That's one of my favorites."

"Which one?"

"The last."

"Why?"

Potter shrugs.

John brings their drinks, and Draco thinks that life could never be considered ordinary. Here is a man who spends every night giving the same drinks to two men who spend every night drinking them. He never asks questions, not really. It occurs to Draco that perhaps ordinary means that every man is equally unordinary.

The silence is no more or less heavy than any other silence, but it is Draco's natural instinct to try to fill it, yet he doesn't know how.

Potter does it for him.

"We thought you were dead."

The words catch Draco off guard, but he doesn't have to ask who Potter means by 'we.' He means everyone. "That was the idea."

"Why did you leave?"

Draco can tell from the way Potter says it that it's a question he's wanted to ask for a long time. He thinks the answer is obvious, but then, Potter always was a bit on the thick side. He answers anyway. "I wanted to live."

"You had to fake your own death to live?"

That is one way of putting it, Draco thinks. "They would have crucified me, Potter. You would have crucified me."

Dark hair sways a bit as the other man's head snaps up to stare at him. He can feel Potter's confusion, and he wonders at it.

"For what?" Potter asks.

Draco's eyes narrow. He's always hated Potter's games. "For what?" he says. "What do you think?"

The intensity in those green eyes makes him uneasy. "For what happened sixth year?"

"Right in one."

"But...then...you didn't know?"

Surprise lights those green eyes, and something jolts through Draco, but he ignores it and asks, "What didn't I know?"

"That... your name was cleared."

Draco feels blood rushing through his head. The color in the room fades a little. He grips the edge of the table. Finally, he finds his voice. He speaks slowly, almost in a whisper, as he stares hard into Potter's eyes. "How could my name be cleared if I was dead... and why?"

Potter clears his throat and speaks carefully. "After everything was over, Hermione found a Pensieve with some of Dumbledore's memories. She talked to Snape, and he..."

"Severus is alive?" Draco's heart is pounding. When he'd left his world, Severus Snape had been in St. Mungo's with little hope of survival, branded a traitor to the Ministry, according to Lucius.

Potter nods. "He told Hermione about the Vow he and your mother made...under Veritaserum...and Dumbledore's evidence was enough to clear both of you."

Draco gapes at him, then simply laughs. "Potter, I was hardly innocent. I know what I did."

"And I know why you did it," Potter says quietly, still pinning him under his gaze. "You were protecting your family. He didn't give you a choice."

Draco knows who He was. He grips his left forearm without thinking. He thinks about it, and it's true; he really hadn't had a choice. He couldn't have simply let his family be killed. He'd had to at least try.

In the years since, Draco has thought endlessly about the things he could have done differently so that no one got hurt. He knows he could have gone to Dumbledore earlier, and he sometimes wonders what would have happened differently if he had. But that is neither here nor there now. He'd plotted and planned for a year, almost killed two people, and in the end, Draco knows that Dumbledore's death would have been impossible without his actions. He was guilty; the reasons were irrelevant. "You must be joking. Nobody in their right mind would pardon the man who orchestrated the death of the great Albus Dumbledore." Really.

Potter shakes his head. "Dumbledore was already dying. He knew it, and he knew about the Vow...and that you were trying to kill him. He made it clear in the memories he left that he didn't hold you responsible."

"What do you mean, 'he was already dying,' Potter?"

"I mean exactly that. Do you remember that his hand was blackened for the entire year?"

Draco nods.

"I still don't know exactly how, but his hand was only a symptom of a curse that was slowly weakening him. And there's more... I...the night he di..."

Draco notices that Potter's eyes have fallen. Whatever he was going to say, he seems to have decided against it.

"He was already dying," Potter says firmly. "What you did... He would have died that night anyway...or very soon after."

The blood drains from Draco's face as he realizes the truth. "Two years," he chokes. "You've been coming here every night for two years, and you never thought to tell me?"

"I thought you knew. When I saw you here, I realized you hadn't died, but I figured you just didn't want to be found. I wondered... but... Gods, Malfoy, how could you not have known?"

"Who would have told me?" he asks, still incredulous.

"You don't take the Prophet?"

"Of course not," Draco snaps. "How stupid do you think I am?"

Potter glares. "Fairly fucking stupid if you just left everything behind and never thought to look back. Six years, Malfoy. It's been six years. You're telling me you've severed all ties with everything?"

"Of course I have! I'm dead, remember? I could hardly buy a subscription to the Prophet without calling attention to myself. And who would I have contacted for news?"

Potter appears to be taking this in. If he's thinking of anyone, Draco doesn't know it. Potter's thoughts appear to quiet, and he speaks. "And now?"

"What about now?"

"I mean, now that you know, what will you do?"

"I... I can't go back."

"Of course you can!"

"To whom, Potter? To my father? If anyone got a life sentence, it was him."

Potter nods. "To Snape."

That gives Draco pause. He'd missed his godfather.

"How is he?" Draco asks. He realizes as he says it that it's the first time he's let himself wonder aloud about the people he left behind.

"He never showed it, but I think he took it pretty hard when your body was never found."

Draco closes his eyes. During those years of the war, Severus had been more of a father to him than his own. He'd thought he'd figured out the man's true by the end of the war, but he'd never said anything about it. He'd known better.

He's glad to know that he was right, that at least Snape has his life back.

"How is he?" Draco finds himself asking again, then realizes he's asking the wrong person. Potter hates Snape. "Not that you'd kn..."

"He's fine. He's married actually, quite happily."

Draco's mouth drops open. He finds it hard to believe that Severus could let anyone close enough to marry him and even harder to believe that Potter knows Severus well enough to comment on state of his happiness. "Are you sure?" he asks, skepticism finding its way into his tone.

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"To whom?"

Potter smiles. "Hermione."

Draco sputters inelegantly. "Granger?"

"Granger-Snape now."

"How?" Draco isn't entirely sure Potter's not having him on.

Potter shrugs. "She worked with him to clear your names, and I guess they came to an understanding."

Potter makes it sound so simple, and it drives in even harder the knowledge that Draco has missed so very much. He closes his eyes tight, trying to fight the hurt he feels at being left out of his own world for so long, even though he knows his exile has been self-imposed. There's so much he's lost, so much he needs to understand. He can't help himself. He is Draco Malfoy, and this is Harry Potter, but he has questions, and Potter has answers. Who they are doesn't matter in this moment.

"What else?" he asks, and he hopes that Potter understands that he means everything.

"There's not much else."

"For you maybe. But you were there. Tell me."

"What do you want to know?"

"Well," Draco says, "considering I know nothing, anything you could tell me would be more than what I have."

Potter doesn't seem to be offended by his flippant tone. He nods, taking another sip of his drink. "I guess there is a lot. I don't know where to st..."

"My mother."

"Oh."

"Is she alive?"

"She's... yes, she is."

Draco closes his eyes and nods, relieved. He is afraid to ask, but..."Where is she?"

"At Malfoy Manor, of course. She never had the Mark, so she was never taken in."

"No," Draco says softly, "she didn't." For some reason, all this time, he's feared the worst. To know that she is alive and well, or as well as she can be, eases a burden in him. "What else?" he asks.

"Ask for names, Malfoy. I wouldn't know where to start."

"My friends...Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini, Pansy..."

Potter hesitates, and Draco's fears are confirmed. "Just tell me, Potter. I've gone six years assuming they were all dead anyway."

"They're not all dead, just Goyle. I haven't seen or heard from Crabbe or Zabini in a while, but I know they're fine. Just... living. Pansy... Pansy is..." Draco can read Potter easily. Something has happened to Pansy, and Potter doesn't want to tell him. He doesn't understand why that would be; he's already told him he'd assumed the worst. As long as she's alive...

"She's married."

Draco lets out the breath he's been holding. "Well, go on then. To whom?"

"Erm, Ron."

"Weasley," Draco says blankly.

"That's the one."

"Weasley," Draco says again. Perhaps Potter had a point, not wanting to tell him... "Right."

"I know that must be hard to hear..." Potter begins, pity in his tone.

Draco scoffs. "Come off it, Potter. I don't care that Pansy's married; I'm just surprised at her choice of..."

"Oh," Potter says, clearly caught off guard. Draco rolls his eyes. Potter goes on. "I just assumed..."

"That I was madly in love with Parkinson and that it would break my heart to hear she'd chosen another?"

"Er..."

"Hardly, Potter."

"Right, then," Potter says, and he looks uncomfortable.

If Draco is honest with himself, he does feel a certain amount of bitterness, but it has less to do with his friends marrying and more to do with the fact that everything seems to have been tied up in a neat little package. And Potter was there to see it all. Not Draco. Potter.

Silence reigns for a while as they work on their drinks. So much has happened, so much time has passed, that it feels surreal to be sitting here with Potter, having a normal discussion. Soon Draco's had enough alcohol that the surreal feeling becomes too much, and he knows it's time to leave before any more life-altering revelations come to light. Draco snorts as he gets to his feet, thinking that for not having a word to say in two years, Potter is certainly good at making up for lost time.

He pays for both of their drinks and says, "See you tomorrow, Potter."