138Author's Note: So, the big news is … drumroll, please … this story has a new title!
When the Jig Is Up is no more and will from now on be Pièce de Résistance. I decided to change it because I've felt for a little while that this story has outgrown my original title from when I began writing this fic five years ago back before my hiatus. To me, Pièce de Résistance fits the story (and where it is going) much better. However, the fic will remain searchable in both AO3 and FFN under When the Jig Is Up, so hopefully nobody has too much trouble finding it. And as ever, thank you for all your lovely reviews and encouragement!
Anyway, here is chapter seven (a few days late but longer than planned). As much as I adore Draco with a good, old Slytherin squad, I wanted to take somewhat of a different direction. May I now formally introduce Dennis.
PLEASE NOTE: This chapter depicts physical violence and pain (nothing gory), contains strong language and mean language, and deals with grief surrounding the canonical death of a character. If you are worried about the depiction violence, pain, and/or unkind language, then I recommend that you skip to the Tuesday, 9 July 2002 heading after Dennis says, "What's that supposed to mean?" If you are worried about the discussion of a grief then I recommend skipping the chapter—unfortunately, it's not easily avoided in this chapter. I am happy to provide a summary and/or answer questions for anyone who needs to skip, please just ask.
Going forward, I will include notes (such as this) at the beginning of chapters when necessary, but a number of tagged elements are consistent themes. Please read as will be enjoyable and healthy for you. (If this is a benchmark that helps at all: as best I can predict this story will stay M rated.)
Shorter note next time. I hope you are healthy, safe, and well.
-AFOR (August 5, 2020)
P.S. There was an error in earlier chapters that has now been corrected: Rose is a Hufflepuff, not a Gryffindor.
Chapter Seven: The Surviving Brother
Friday, 21 June 2002
Dennis knew he was in a rotten mood, and it only made him angrier. Everything irritated him: how the sticky summer humidity lingered from the afternoon's rain, how Jimmy laughed louder after each drink, how Ruth couldn't take her eyes off Jimmy, how their waitress was flirting with Ritchie, how nobody seemed able to talk about anything other than the Ministry's shit-brained marriage law, and—worst—how strong his firewhisky was, even though it still wasn't strong enough.
It had been such a bloody long day—a bloody long week. Just Sunday, he'd been sitting in a folding chair on the Hogwarts grounds beneath an overcast Scottish sky as Professor McGonagall sent him and the other seventh years off with tried and tired platitudes. Curfew violations, firewhisky, and Rose had filled the next several days. Then, Tuesday morning the owls delivered the Prophet. MINISTRY'S NEW MARRIAGE LAW: MANDATED LOVE?
All Dennis's graduation plans had plummeted a few hundred feet. With marriage suddenly looming on the horizon in massive, Ministry-mandated letters, everything seemed distorted: Rose's plans for wandmaking, his apothecary internship, their apartment together. And all the glorious, choking uncertainty they'd been dreading for months, anticipating for months, now had a guillotine waiting to cut it short. Five years—four for him—never seemed nearer.
Dennis had left all his packing for last minute anyway, so the news had only turned the chore into a needed distraction and concentrated his focus. Wednesday, though, the Hogwarts Express back to King's Cross had been utterly soured. He and Rose had secured a compartment and successfully driven off interlopers with some, admittedly, heavy-handed snogging. But after most of the students had settled in, he and Rose had spent the majority of the trip back to London reading and rereading that morning's Prophet as well as the special edition Evening Prophet from the night before.
And Dennis barely remembered where Thursday had ended and Friday had begun. He'd gone home to drop off schoolbooks and pack up summer things and belongings, then had shrunk it all down, moved into Ruth and Jimmy's flat, and started unpacking. Graduated, packed, moved, and unpacked in a week.
Tonight was supposed to be a celebration of all that with friends, so he was trying to keep in good spirits—he really was—but damn, if wouldn't be satisfying to punch somebody. Not anybody in particular, mind, just a nice, solid punch.
"You wish you had my coffers," said Draco Malfoy snidely over his shoulder, walking into The Hopping Pot.
Dennis recognized all four of the others with him as Slytherins several years above him at Hogwarts. Two of the three blokes and the girl had been the same year as Malfoy. The reserved, fair-skinned, chubby-cheeked bloke with slightly mussed brown hair had been in the papers occasionally around the news of his father's arrest: Theodore Nott Jr. Names escaped him for the other bloke, a thin, handsome, Black man whose head was close-shaven, as well as the grinning girl with a smattering of spots across her pink cheeks who had her sandy brown hair pulled into a loose ponytail. But the shorter third bloke with deep ochre skin, a short-bridged nose, and friendly crinkles at the corners of his eyes had been a few years above the others. He was walking arm-in-arm with the girl, rolling his eyes to her about whatever Malfoy was saying.
"Well, they're worse for wear now," quipped the handsome, Black Slytherin.
"What's a hundred and fifty thousand galleons?" Malfoy shrugged, smirking.
Laughing at something the waitress has said, neither Ruth, Ritchie, nor Jimmy had noticed Malfoy and the others enter. Laughter subsiding, Ruth brushed away a tear from her eye.
"I'll get you that round, then," the waitress said with a wink to Ritchie and took the empty pitcher with her.
"So, who's this bird I hear you're with? And how come I've not met her?" Ritchie teased. "I don't even know for sure she's real, do I?"
Dennis forced a smile onto his face.
"Afraid she'll fancy a beater better than you?" ribbed Ritchie, brushing a hand across his forehead, just skimming the edge of his afro.
"Reserve," Ruth tacked on, in a deadpan. "Reserve beater."
Jimmy laughed enthusiastically, and Dennis's own smile felt more genuine.
"Better than you," Ritchie said to Jimmy.
"I don't need loads of concussions, now do I?"
"Says the man atrophying behind a desk."
"True enough," Jimmy conceded. Tiredly he rubbed at his forehead. "God. Earlier this week they had me copy out files then do it again a different way, then once I'd binned the first lot they decided they liked it better the first way, so I had to do it all over again. I'd give anything to be on a broom all day."
Clearly not having intended to genuinely lower his mood, Ritchie amended, "Don't have to worry a bad hit'll do you in, though, right? The stable career's smarter than what I'm doing."
It'd been surprising, when Dennis had returned for fourth year after the war, that Ruth had taken such a liking to Ritchie and Jimmy. She was subtle and graceful where they were not. Despite him, Jimmy, and Ruth all being in the same year, his friendship with Ruth had always stayed separate from his and Colin's friendship with Jimmy and Ritchie, who was Colin's year. It had been his and Colin's absence that Ruth, Jimmy, and Ritchie had bonded over during the year he and Colin had spent in hiding.
When Dennis returned for fourth year it had been very different: Colin was gone, leaving a gaping silence; Ritchie was a seventh year, thinking about life after Hogwarts; Ruth and Jimmy were now a year above him, beginning to prepare for their O.W.L.s; and Dennis could not share in their struggle to recover from months of abuse by the Carrows. His fourth year, grief had bound them together and filled in any cracks that there might've been in their friendship.
The next year Dennis, Jimmy, and Ruth had grown closer, but on the Hogsmeade weekends he wasn't playing a match Ritchie would visit and the four of them would spend nearly all of Saturday huddled around their favourite table in The Three Broomsticks.
Sixth year had been much the same as fifth—Saturdays spent with Ritchie in Hogsmeade and late nights studying in the common room—but it couldn't be avoided that Jimmy and Ruth were seventh years and Dennis was not. The closer the end of term drew, the more N.E.W.T.s and after-Hogwarts plans had pushed Jimmy and Ruth together. Interestingly, few enough sixth years had opted to take Alchemy that all four houses had been lumped into one class. And what had started out in February as a partner assignment with a random Hufflepuff quickly filled the hours of spring term that Jimmy and Ruth were off studying, as well as a good portion they were not.
This past year, with Jimmy and Ruth gone, his friendship with Rose—or more accurately, flirtation—had blossomed. After one false start in November, he and Rose had found their stride in January, and things had been going well since. They'd agreed to take it slow, but still it had been hard as graduation approached not to inadvertently factor her into his plans, and he sensed it was the same for her as well. So, he'd moved in with Jimmy and Ruth to their flat in London and would begin his apprenticeship at Slug and Jigger's Apothecary on Monday. And Rose was staying with her parents through the summer, waitressing at The Leaky and Fortescue's while she waited to hear about the Ilvermony Heritage Wandcraft Internship. If they accepted her, she'd leave for America in late August and stay through early June.
As with everything else, they had no idea what lay ahead: if she'd get it or not, if they'd have weeks or months. But since Ritchie had spent the spring flying reserves for the Caerphilly Catapults he had yet to meet Rose. And he'd grown rather insistent that he meet her—really get to know her, see what sort of bird she was. It'd be good Dennis kept telling himself, though it was hard not to think of how limited his time with Rose might be. Hard not to be impatient with anything that would eat away at happy summer afternoons just them alone.
Tonight, though, Rose was having Shabbat dinner with her grandparents and Dennis had all night to put up with good friends. The waitress brought them another pitcher of butterbeer, and he ordered two shots of gigglewater, which helped, and second firewhisky. And soon enough Jimmy's laughter was familiar, Ruth's sheep's eyes were endearing, the chips and vinegar were excellent, and Ritchie's poor attempts at seduction were the funniest thing he'd seen.
As the evening wore on, despite himself, Dennis was having fun.
Even after Ritchie left early to get back to Wales for his match the next day and even though Jimmy had gotten himself plastered, it was wonderful to talk with Ruth. Side-by-side in the booth her pixie-cut brown hair balanced her square jaw and flushed cheeks, and Jimmy was rugby-tanned as always, his blond hair wet with beer sweat. Ruth seemed content to lean into Jimmy's side and talk with Dennis late into the evening just like they had done so many times back in the Gryffindor common room.
They talked about nothing and everything: she despised the new summer collection from Madam Malkin's but Gladrags had introduced muggle styles into their selection brilliantly. And well, sure, marketing quills and stationery was a bit dull, but she liked Scrivenshaft's well enough—at least enough to stomach it another year or two, until she'd saved enough to cover the Istanbul Institute program in magical history.
And it was hard sometimes for him to think about the future when he felt behind everyone else. But he didn't really think she or Jimmy had it all together, did he? Well, it did seem that way and sometimes it was hard not to. But couldn't he see they were just as confused as he was? Her plan was to go for the history mastery but maybe she wouldn't, and she had barely even had a chance to think about how the law would affect things. So, who even knew what she'd be factoring in two years from now. Yes, exactly! He was going through that now with Rose—if she went to America what would that mean for them?
A quarter past midnight, with Ruth off in the loo helping Jimmy hurl his insides into some sink basin, Dennis paid the tab for the table and headed outside to wait. In a quiet spot on a side street of Diagon, just off Carkitt Market by its lesser-used entrance, and not many passers-by wandered past The Hopping Pot tonight. Overhead, the stars glittered down at him through the magical dome shielding Diagon from all of London's ordinary light pollution and smog: their own private window into the universe right there in the middle of the city. The summer warmth was nice, the stars were sparkly, and the butterbeer was sweetening his veins.
The door to The Hopping Pot swung open, and Malfoy's group pushed outside, settling a couple metres down the pub's wall from Dennis. Only the Slytherin who'd been a few years above the others—the shorter man with deep ochre coloured skin—was having a smoke, the others just talking. As he lit and sucked on a cigarette, his girlfriend coughed pointedly.
"Greg drank – I swear it must've been ten shots before he was pissed enough to even try to go for Pansy," Nott said, continuing with the story he'd been telling. "She told him to fuck himself. I mean, obviously."
Malfoy shifted, plucking his wand from his robes for something to hold. "Greg still won't write me back."
"That's not really much of a loss though, is it?" snickered the handsome, thin, Black Slytherin.
"You're a right git."
The older Slytherin blew out a lungful and sighed. "Why do you waste your time with that idiot, Draco?"
Before Malfoy could respond, the thin Slytherin coughed on the cloud, "I don't understand why you insist on smoking, Adrian—I mean the smell alone – how do you stand it?"
"Because he's addicted," the girl answered with a reproachful glance at her boyfriend, the one they'd called Adrian.
"I'm not," said Adrian, and tapped his cigarette so a few cinders fell onto the cobblestone.
Laughter rose from the others. Malfoy leaned rigidly against the stone wall of The Hopping Pot, twirling his wand. The thin man held Theodore Nott's left hand, inconspicuously stroking his thumb against the back of Nott's knuckles. And the girl stood close to Adrian, batting the cloud of smoke away from her face.
"It's a filthy muggle habit," said Nott.
"Please, Theo. Have you got to say it like that?" groaned the girl.
"Theo's not wrong," defended the thin bloke.
Adrian shook his head. "The two of you."
"Come off it, Adrian," said Nott.
"Off what? You and Blaise still believe in blood purity. How am I even supposed to argue with someone who's never eaten a bloody cheeseburger?"
Ah, that was right: Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini.
"A what?" sneered Zabini, still thumbing Nott's knuckles.
"This is what they want," Nott said. "Us to kill ourselves on muggle poison and fall for their food and fashion until we lose our magic or they can burn us alive. They're trying to destroy us—Clafton, Potter, the lot of them. Why else do you think they passed the law?"
"Do you even hear yourself?" asked the girl contemptuously. "Merlin, Theo, I don't even know why I put up with you."
"You like the law, then, Daph?"
"Of course not!" she snapped.
"Really, mate?" asked Adrian, and his hand not holding his cigarette came up to wrap reassuringly around his girlfriend's waist. "Don't say that sort of shit to Daphne."
Nott shrugged. "You wouldn't believe the things I've overheard witches saying this week—the number of mudblood bitches scheming to get their hands on a real wizard …." he trailed off ominously.
Dennis turned fully and stepped towards the cluster of Slytherins. "What's that supposed to mean?"
All five of them looked over sharply, noticing him for the first time.
"The fuck?" muttered Nott.
"What d'you mean real wizard?" Dennis asked again, moving forward until he was standing just outside the group's semicircle.
"Wait." Zabini glanced over him a second time. "Aren't … aren't you the – no, you're the brother of the one with the camera, aren't you?"
"And what if I am?" asked Dennis.
"Nothing." Zabini shrugged. "Just wondered why he'd be in Diagon, since he'd died."
"Blaise!" gasped Daphne.
"Sorry," said Zabini unrepentantly.
Nott hadn't looked away from Dennis. "I'll bet you're happy—you can get your grubby hands into our vaults now, isn't that right? You and your brother—mudbloods always do chase after better wizards. Shame he chose Potter."
Cold, dreadful fury numbed Dennis's chest—like the breathless pang after running hard. Any other night—
But damn, if he hadn't itched to hit somebody all night.
Dennis's fist connected with Nott's cheek and a gratifying ache spread across his knuckles.
Nott stumbled back, hunching over. "What the fuck!?"
"You muggle cunt!" Zabini's fist slammed into Dennis's nose.
Hot, metallic pain pulsed loudly in Dennis's ears. Blood dribbled down, between his lips and onto his tongue: coppery and salty. He staggered backwards and down. Against his palms the worn cobblestone was cool and damp.
"Stop it, Blaise!" Malfoy shouted.
How – how dare they? Since he'd died … just wondered … wondered … our vaults … chase after better wizards … Potter—
No! Colin hadn't chased after anyone. He'd dreamed of photojournalism and when the most famous wizard of their time had walked in front of his lens, he'd taken his shot. Every opportunity he had, Colin had put his beloved camera to use—the one that Mum and Dad had saved up to buy him for his Hogwarts gift. Colin had been no one's ankle-biter.
When Dennis looked up, Zabini was rooted to the street, cursing at Malfoy and struggling to unstick his feet as Adrian and Daphne held back Nott.
"You fucking mudblood!"
Trying to undo Malfoy's sticking charm, Zabini aimed his wand at his feet—in just seconds he'd realize that he could as easily turn his wand on Dennis.
Dennis yanked his own wand out of his sock band, scrambling to his feet.
"Hey!" Malfoy caught Dennis by the arm, knocking his wand out of his hand. It clattered to the cobblestone. "What are you doing?"
In a second Malfoy had Dennis's back against his chest, arms wrapped around him firmly, trapping him and keeping him from reaching his wand. Christ, Malfoy must've been half a foot taller than him—a fair bit more muscular too—and Dennis was practically enveloped in his grasp.
"Let me go!" Dennis struggled, twisting and turning in the tight grip. He jabbed an elbow hard into Malfoy's ribcage.
Malfoy grunted. "Seriously?!"
But Malfoy's hold only strengthened. Dennis jerked abruptly one way then the other, trying to throw him off.
"Would you just," Malfoy panted as Dennis writhed, "stop – fuck! – moving?"
Malfoy readjusted his hold and then—still in his hand from charming Zabini—Malfoy's wand was suddenly within Dennis's reach.
With a kick to Malfoy's shin, Dennis pulled his left arm free. His fingers pried at Malfoy's right fist, trying to wrench the wand away. Malfoy's arm around his chest tightened, his elbow digging painfully into Dennis's side. Dennis's grip on the wand was slipping, except – no! Dennis clawed harder.
Malfoy's hand opened, the wand fell, and with a two sharp kicks, Malfoy sent both his and Dennis's fallen wands skittering across the stones into the shadows.
"You kicked my wand!"
"Well, now you can stop trying to duel Blaise."
Like Dennis cared if he had got a wand. It was Nott, standing there smugly, who'd said what he had about Colin and Zabini beside him, who'd hurled slurs unflinchingly.
"Let go! I don't need a wand. Let me go! Colin's a million times the wizard you'll ever be! Any of you!" Dennis shouted, thrashing, and rammed his elbow backwards.
"Fuck!" Next to his ear Malfoy inhaled sharply and said over coughs, "Come on, you don't want to do this."
"Sure, I do," snapped Dennis, panting.
"You know, if you do this, all you'll be is the muggleborn who attacked Blaise Zabini and wasn't civilized enough to do it with a wand."
"Fuck you, Malfoy!" Dennis kicked backwards and missed as Malfoy sidestepped. "Fuck you!"
"Honestly, it's not like that." Malfoy sighed, still holding him firmly. "Actually think about it."
"LET ME GO!" Dennis pushed hard against Malfoy's forearms trying to get away so he could wrap his hands around Nott's and Zabini's necks. But Nott first.
"You don't want to do this," insisted Malfoy.
Dennis pushed harder, Malfoy's muscles tensing under his fingertips. "Why do you even care?"
"I don't know," said Malfoy in a straining, calm voice. "Just thought you might, Creevey."
With a high, shrill creak, light spilled out into the street.
The door to The Hopping Pot was wide open, and standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the overflowing light, Ruth and Jimmy stared out at them. Outlined in brightness and chiselled shadows, Adrian and Daphne had their wands drawn and raised, watching him and Malfoy apprehensively. Zabini had freed himself from Malfoy's sticking charm and had one arm slung protectively over Nott's shoulder while the other hung at his side gripping his wand. Together, Zabini and Nott's eyes glittered meanly.
For a moment everyone around him and Malfoy stayed motionless.
"WHAT!?" Then Ruth was rushing forwards."Dennis!"
He stilled, exhausted, and Malfoy eased his hold.
Ruth's hand latched vicelike around his wrist and pulled him from Malfoy's grasp. In her heels she was about Dennis's height and did not make a particularly intimidating figure, but she drew him to her side defensively anyway.
"What's going on?" she asked, looking sharply between Malfoy and him.
Breathing hard, Dennis said nothing.
After a moment, Malfoy frowned. Through ragged breaths he started, "He … er – he—"
"He fucking punched me!" yelled Nott.
"Dennis, really?!" Ruth's grip around him squeezed harshly against his bruising muscles.
"You didn't hear what he said about Colin—" Dennis stopped short. Her scathing glare had wilted pityingly.
He sighed. "It's nothing. I—"
A jet of purple light drove into Dennis's sternum like a knife, lodging in his lungs, heart, veins.
"Blaise, what the fuck?!" someone shouted.
Around Dennis people were moving and saying things, but the world was spinning, his eyes were slammed shut, and all the air was gone from his lungs. It hurt so loud. And the loudness all around him hurt. And something was pushing at him. Something shouldn't be pushing at him—pulling at him?
"Come on."
There was a gentle pressure against his arm.
"We need to go." Ruth tugged at him.
"I … uh, I – I can't."
Little lights spun against his eyelids. They were so distracting, moving in strange patterns like a million camera flashes.
"Dennis."
"No." He groaned, trying to focus on something other than the demanding, dizzying lights. "No, I need – I need my wand."
"What? What happened to your – no, Jimmy, he said he needs his wand."
Now the lights were moving, shifting, dancing a waltz around him, faster and faster: a stampede of electric sparks, sizzling and flickering.
Over shouts and murmurs, Ruth's strained voice in his ear was loud. "No, I don't know what happened, Jimmy. He said he doesn't have his wand. Well, how would I know where it is? Can't you just summon it, please?"
The lights' electric waltz quickened and morphed into asterisks, hash marks, ampersands, and dollar signs swirling like Saturn's rings around and around and around in neon sunspots.
Then, his wand pressed into his hand and his fingers wrapped gratefully around the wood. There was some firm pressure under his arms and Dennis was being carried.
Tuesday, 9 July 2002
The small advert in the Prophet's classifieds had not prepared Dennis for how muggle the office would be. It was a posh waiting room: nice hardwood floors, plush carpets, leather armchairs, artful black and white photographs of proud albino peacocks in frames on the walls, and several healthy potted plants that seemed more the doing of Samar, the pretty receptionist, than the rest of the room did. When Dennis had come in, she'd efficiently finished readjusting a beaded pin in her hijab, introduced herself with a smile, and copied down his message before waving him to the chairs to wait.
"Creevey?"
Dennis looked up. Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway, looking utterly confused.
"Malfoy, you have a few minutes?" Dennis asked, standing.
"Er – yes. Sure."
The building was not large, and Malfoy's office was not far—just down a short hallway that had only one other door along it. Law was not what Dennis had imagined Malfoy would be doing, much less in a firm of his own, and even less with information pamphlets that advertised in full-sized font: negotiable fees and pro bono counsel available, as needed.
Compared to the waiting room, Malfoy's private office looked decidedly magical: in wizarding style, the furniture was a century and a half out of date by muggle standards, some of the books on the selves quivered ever so slightly, and expensive quills filled the pen holder on the desk. On the wall facing his desk a wizarding photograph hung prominently of the same albino peacocks from the waiting room. They strutted proudly amongst a grove of short, gnarled trees.
Turning away from the photograph, Dennis took the open chair and waited while Malfoy circled his desk and sat.
"So, I've been thinking about what you said."
All you'll be … do it with a wand … not civilized enough … all you'll be is the muggleborn … the muggleborn. Actually, Dennis hadn't been able to stop thinking about what Malfoy had said for the past two weeks.
Malfoy's expression crystallized smoothly into impassivity. "I say a lot of things."
"About how it'd look if I fought Zabini."
"Ah, well … yes."
"Yeah, and I don't get why you said it."
"Oh." He gave a slight twinge of surprise, but otherwise stayed as still as the glassy surface of the Black Lake.
"I mean," Dennis asked when Malfoy had still said nothing more, "do you believe what you said?"
Malfoy frowned mildly. "I'm not really sure what you mean."
"Do you believe I'm less of a wizard than you?"
"I never said that."
"Whatever. Nott said it or whatever. Do you believe it?"
Malfoy shifted, considering. "No."
Why did it take that long to – what? Make up his mind?
"Zabini and Nott do," Dennis pressed.
"Yes." Placid water lapping at the shore. Not even splashes from the giant squid.
"And they're your mates?"
"Well," Malfoy gave a small sour laugh, "I haven't got many left."
"And you think the Prophet believes it?"
"I think the Prophet would print it in other words."
"Is there a difference?" asked Dennis.
"I think so," Malfoy said.
"So, you think the Prophet would make me out to be uncivilized and less of a wizard because I'm muggleborn?"
"Oh, they'd make you out to be anything that sells copies."
"So, you were – what? Warning me?"
"Well … well, I supposed so. Yes." Malfoy looked almost as surprised as Dennis. "I didn't want you to prove Blaise and Theo right."
Slowly, Dennis said, "I can't decide if I believe you."
"Oh."
The hints of ripples—waves—were tantalizing, and the glassy surface infuriating.
"You – you called me a muggleborn."
"Yes?" asked Malfoy.
"I mean, you—" It was strange how sincere Malfoy seemed. Tight-lipped but sincere. "So, you – like honestly disagree with them?"
"Yes."
"But they're still your mates."
"Well, I – you know, there are only a handful of wizards even willing to talk to me, never mind be seen with me."
"Probably'd be more if you weren't mates with blokes like Zabini and Nott."
"I doubt it," Malfoy said seriously.
"What d'you mean you doubt it?"
"I was a Death Eater," Malfoy said matter-of-factly. "Not many wizards are going to forget that. Merlin, it's hard enough that everyone hates me. But I reckon it's easier getting Theo and Blaise to ignore how soft I've than it is to expect someone'll be willing to look past the actual terrible things I've done."
"They think you're soft?"
Malfoy nodded.
"And you honestly think that I'm as much of a wizard as you?"
And the waters were calm but inviting.
Saturday, 14 September 2002
They had a tenuous … well, friendship was really the only word for it. They had a tenuous friendship, although a far more comfortable friendship than it had been on any of those first nights out back in July. Since Rose had left for America, and with both his flatmates deeply infatuated with each other, Dennis had rather little to do in his spare time. With friends who were either similarly entwined or whom he didn't particularly care for, Draco also had rather little to do in his spare time. And luckily enough, their spare time very often coincided. Which had all led to their rather unsteady, tenuous friendship.
"Where in America is Rose again?" Draco asked, sprawled aristocratically across Jimmy's second-hand couch.
"Massachusetts."
"And she likes it?"
"Oh, yeah. Apparently, it's amazing, what she's learning and she really likes the other students in the program – says it's a bit weird with all the younger kids, you know, a bit like being back at Hogwarts, but good, yeah. I dunno. She seems happy, but it's hard. I really miss her and I – I don't know. Like, what's gonna happen? It's a whole year. What if – if she meets someone?"
Draco glanced sideways at him. "Are you joking? Did you even see her before she left? She's clearly worried you'll find someone else."
"What?"
"She gave you a ring."
"So?" The thin silver band inlaid with a stripe of some iridescent stone sat wrapped around his left index finger.
"It's an old courtship tradition," Draco explained.
"It is?"
"It's supposed to symbolize the connection between a witch's and a wizard's magical cores. You're left-handed?"
"Yeah."
"Well, silver is one of the best magical conductors. Moonstone too. The ring is literally amplifying your magic."
"Moonstone. That's what this is?"
"Yes." Draco rolled his eyes. "Did you not pay attention at all in Potions?"
"Wow." The effort Rose had taken stunned him. She'd been so casual about it—just something she'd picked up—and since he'd just given her a signed copy of Ollivander's book it hadn't seemed like anything more than a thoughtful gift. She hadn't said. "That's – that's … wow."
"Feel better now?" Draco asked, amused.
"Well, a little."
Thursday, 5 June 2003
Dennis flung open the downstairs door. "Happy birthday, mate!"
Draco grinned, taking in the red party hat strapped to Dennis's head. "Thanks again for doing this."
"It's your birthday, mate!"
"Sure," Draco agreed good-naturedly, following him upstairs. "It's my birthday."
The flat was all theirs tonight: Jimmy and Ruth in Istanbul for the week while Ruth finished the last of her interviews for the mastery in magic history. And Rose would still not return from America for another week.
Dennis had not seen Rose for five months, since he'd visited her over the Christmas holidays. Hanukkah had been early, so they'd belatedly lit her menorah and then quietly enjoyed their snowy Christmas together in the mountains. The visit had been wonderful, but a little awkward and entirely frenzied. Now, in June, despite the many letters and weekly calls over the months apart, there was no telling how it'd be when she arrived back. They'd developed a comfortable cadence over the phone and in writing, but it wasn't the same as in-person. Letters took a few days to arrive, so phone calls were always somewhat summary and stilted and—on Rose's end—were often interrupted when the payphone ran out of change. How well would they readjust to being back in each other's company? Stomaching the pet peeves rather than savouring a brief, snatched week of them?
And then there was Dennis's full-fledged friendship with Draco, was which perhaps the biggest change for Rose to adjust to. While he loved Ruth and Jimmy and Ritchie dearly, his friendship with Draco was different—if in large part because he didn't share it with anyone else. Draco was a friend all his own and he was a friend all Draco's own.
Especially living with Ruth and Jimmy and seeing them every day, it was Draco who Dennis went out for drinks with, Draco who dragged him all the way to Paris and made him sit beside Narcissa Malfoy through entire incomprehensible wizarding opera, and Draco who he took to cricket matches on Saturday afternoons just to see him squirm with boredom and whine that this was shite compared to quidditch. Because for all that Draco complained and groaned, Dennis never doubted that he'd much rather spend his day at the Oval than with Nott or Zabini.
When Dennis opened the door to his flat, revealing four dozen balloons and the—ridiculously overpriced—croquet bush something or the other that he'd had specially ordered, Draco flushed pink. They ate and drank and watched Chariots of Fire … again, and just after quarter past eleven Draco tossed an envelope at him.
"Go'ahead," Draco slurred. "Go. See who it'is."
"You alright, mate?"
Draco shrugged and waved vaguely towards the envelope.
Taking the letter out of the envelope, Dennis glanced at Draco again. "You sure?"
"Go on."
He unfolded the letter. In big print at the bottom was printed: HERMIONE GRANGER.
"See," Draco said morosely, rubbing his eyes. "The fuck am I s'posed to do?"
Saturday, 15 January 2005
Dry stone competitions were not—by any means—a brief sort of event.
Which Dennis may have underplayed when he'd forcefully invited Draco to join him, Rose, and his parents for the Buckden Dry Stone Walling Winter Meet. From eight sharp until one, wool-jumper-clad guild members heaved and placed and balanced stone upon stone: four feet tall and two feet deep, the whole way along a six metre stretch of wall.
Leaning down to Dennis's right ear, Draco grumbled lowly, "Why did I agree to this?"
From when Draco had slipped into the passenger seat of Dennis's parent's Ford Escort at a quarter to ten that morning in front of the local apparition point, the whole drive from Skipton to Buckden, and now the hour and a half since they'd joined his parents, it had been: Why would anyone schedule this for January? And who bloody wanted to watch someone stack stones anyway? Didn't Dennis know that Draco hated the tightness of muggle cars? Given the two hours of whining Dennis had put up with already, it wouldn't really be that mean if he just—
"Hey, Dad!" Dennis called, making his father turn from where he and Mum were standing a few metres ahead. "Do you remember the name of that poem by Frost? Draco asked and I've forgot."
"Mending Wall," his father called back. "It's the second poem in North of Boston, published in 1914. You know, Draco, it's a stunning piece. Stunning. It's like Shakespeare, right? You can't just read poetry, you know? You've got to hear it. You ever heard Mending Wall before?"
Many thanks to his childhood etiquette lessons, Draco had successfully arranged his face into an expression of cordial interest. "Er – no, I don't know if I—"
"Excellent!" Dad said. "You're in for a treat, then. A right, good treat."
Sparing just one furious glance over his shoulder at Dennis and Rose, Draco crossed the little way over to where Simon and Lisa Creevey were watching the contestants' progress.
"Awful, you are," Rose murmured to Dennis, drawing her coat tighter around her and winding her arm more firmly around his.
"Tell me you haven't wanted to hit him all morning."
"Well, he's worse than usual today," she agreed.
He sighed. "It's the wedding. He's stressed."
"Don't you mean the marriage?"
"Who's awful now?"
Rose laughed and took hold of his hand—her right arm now fully twined with his left—and let her fingers skim gently over his ring. He'd worn it every day for the last two and a half years since she'd given it to him.
They'd had an intense few. Just before New Years Dennis had realized that Ruth's five years and his four had dwindled down to just a little more than two and one.
Rather than resolutions, he had written out a list of the conversations they still needed to have before they could get engaged. Both he and Rose had agreed that by February it be decided: either the conversations would have revealed an irreconcilable difference, or they'd be engaged. Not that his parents hadn't been hounding him for an engagement since July, but now he and Rose had decided: February first and no later.
So, there were a number of serious conversations being had: about children, about religion, about money, about work. They had determinedly set to peering beneath very facet of their lives to sort out their futures and whether or not those futures had a future together. And it seemed—as best Dennis could tell—that they did. Just Thursday night, they had ticked off the third to last of the big conversations and Rose had hinted that she was perfectly ready right then and there for him to propose. He'd insisted that they wait, as planned, until all were finished.
"But can't you celebrate just a little," she'd asked. "We're almost there. We still like each other. Cheer up."
"I'm happy."
Keeping eye contact, Rose had squinted doubtfully. "Yeah?"
"I am," he'd insisted.
Fiddling with his fingers, she'd nodded. "Okay."
"I am happy, Rose."
"Good." She'd spun the ring she had given him around his index finger before slyly sliding it up past the knuckle and off, then—with a shy look to him—she'd slipped it onto his left ring finger.
"You're really sure about this, aren't you?" he'd asked.
"Yeah, I am."
"I am too. It's just – you know, it's that like we've talked about—if there wasn't the law I feel like we'd both take a little more time before getting engaged and – I just want to make sure that we both know where we're coming from."
"No, I know you do. And – and I really appreciate that."
"Alright."
She'd played with the band now on his ring finger quietly for a minute. "How does the ring feel, though? Like if it was for real right now, how does it feel?"
Dennis had smiled. "It feels alright."
"Comfortable?"
"Yeah. Like really comfortable."
Dennis hadn't moved it back. Mostly because each time she caught sight of it a pleased smile unconsciously stretched across her mouth.
So, it had been an intense few weeks for sure, on top of which was Draco's new marriage, which they'd attended the ceremony for on Tuesday and which Dennis had supervised Draco's preparatory sulking for on both Sunday and Monday. Today with it done and over, Draco seemed less aimlessly on-edge and, instead, had a more directed agitation—now that he could concentrate on actual rather than imagined problems.
The dry stone competition continued on through the light drizzle that descended not long after noon, and when the whistle was blown at one the five of them—all shivering from the wind and rain—squeezed into the Ford Escort for the drive back to the dairy farm in Nidderdale.
The loss of Colin had left a quiet, constant awareness amongst Dennis and his parents: the sort of forgetful stillness when the liveliest of the group was out for an afternoon. Except it was every afternoon. Every afternoon without clumsy clangs, exclamations from the makeshift, years-untouched darkroom in the basement. Every afternoon without a blinding burst of light right when the answer to the crossword was almost—nearly just—on the tip of Mum's tongue. And before they remembered that it was every day and every day forever, the quiet was almost nice, relaxing. And then they'd remember like drowning, and sometimes Dad would run to the kitchen sink to gag, or Mum would slip out to the laundry line for an hour, disappearing behind the sheets and returning red-eyed.
But they made it through afternoon tea and parcheesi and the beginnings of cooking supper with Rose and Draco to fill in the quiet before Mum noticed Dennis's ring.
"Simon! Simon, good Lord! Simon!"
"Dennis!" Dad gasped, following her pointed finger. "Dennis are you really? You're – you're not just pulling our leg, are you?"
Once they had got through their first dozen questions and Rose had explained clearly and firmly and repeatedly that no, they were not engaged yet, Dennis caught Draco's eye deliberately.
"Actually," Draco began, "I – well, speaking of marriage, I got married this week."
"What?" Mum cried as Dad asked, "Dennis, why didn't you tell us?"
"That's wonderful, Draco!" Mum amended.
And then with another round of questions.
"Hermione Granger, do we know her?" Dad asked.
"Yes, yes – no, you remember, Simon? We've seen her in the paper – with all the hair? She's the one who Harry Potter isn't having an affair with."
Out of the corner of his eye Draco held back a laugh.
And soon enough Mum and Dad sensed Draco's discomfort and the questions fell away.
And it wasn't until Dennis and Rose were driving Draco back to Skipton that Draco finally admitted, "It's just that she doesn't talk to me. We're still at her flat. I don't know what to say—the DMFS could come any day and find out. I swear, I'm going back to Azkaban."
Reviews, constructive criticism, or rambling thoughts and reactions are all very much welcome and appreciated.
A few notes about a few things: The dessert Dennis gets for Draco's birthday is croqu-en-bouche—a caramel-fused tower of choux pastry puffs. Although the Buckden Dry Stone Walling Winter Meet is sheer fiction, dry stone walling competitions and guilds are real and a number of them take place in the North Yorkshire area around Buckden. And lastly, the Robert Frost poem "Mending Wall" mentioned by Simon Creevey is real and worth reading over.
P.S. Chapter Eight: The Sunday Edition will be up August 30, and I am honestly ecstatic to share it with you soon—it'll be from Hermione's perspective.
P.P.S. I am looking for alpha/beta readers. If anyone is interested, please let me know.
