N O V E M B E R 1 9 9 8
d r a c o
Draco Malfoy was soaked. His jumper, coat, trousers; everything was drenched through with bitterly cold rainwater.
It had been raining in London for three days now. He hadn't wanted to leave his apartment - if it was up to him, he would stay indoors permanently - but his mother had forced him out for a cup of tea at her favourite coffee shop. Now, he was climbing the stairs back to his apartment, feeling cold and frustrated, and planning on locking himself in his bedroom for as long as he possibly could.
He shoved his key into the lock of his apartment door, considering how ridiculous it was that mere bits of metal made muggles feel safe in their homes. No protection charms, just tiny, fragile locks.
He was hungry. He had declined any food and hadn't touched his tea; had left it turn cold in the cramped, dark coffee shop. Had raised his voice at his mother and stormed out.
Just as he stepped into his apartment, a door across the corridor was flung open. His heart sank.
"Hey, neighbour!"
Draco turned to face the woman, forcing a smile that felt more like a grimace. Emily - a thirty-year-old, curly-haired American woman - moved close to him and stuck out her hand. He shook it, reluctantly. "Rain catch you?" she asked. Draco said nothing, so she continued cheerfully. "I don't know how we haven't met yet. You moved in, what, two months ago?"
He gave a slight nod.
"Right. Well, I know your face, I won't lie. Not to sound creepy, but my friends and I see you through your window sometimes, when we come back from nights out. It'll be, like, three a.m. and your light is always still on. You never sleep, huh?"
"Not much."
"Well, anyway. It's so nice to finally meet you." She leaned forward and placed a hand on his soaking wet sleeve. Draco stared at it. "Making friends can be hard sometimes, particularly with the locals, and-" She emitted a high-pitched, confused giggle as Draco shrugged off her hand to take out his wand. "Oh. What's that?"
"Obliviate," he muttered, pointing it at her. Her eyes fogged over, and he stepped into his apartment and shut the door before she could regain consciousness and see him again.
He had erased himself from Emily's memories over five times now. Each time she reintroduced herself was painful, but he had concluded that it was better to endure the same recurrent conversation than to have her think that they were friends. He shrugged off his coat and slammed his wand down on the kitchen counter, wondering if all neighbours were so nosy, or if he had drawn a short straw.
The chatter of radio hosts greeted him, sounding from the small plastic radio that sat on the windowsill. He had left the window open before he left, and now noticed a puddle on the wooden floor, where the rain had gotten in. He lived on the third floor of an apartment block in Hackney, and liked to leave the window open as much as he could. He liked the breeze, and the noise, too. He didn't like the quiet.
His apartment, he presumed, probably resembled every other one-bed in London. The kitchen and living room were in the same room, which the landlord had referred to as "modern" and "open-plan" but Draco thought was probably a way of justifying the tiny space. He spent most of his time in the small bedroom off the living area, staring at the ceiling and waiting for time to go by.
He had expected his family to resent his decision to move to London, but they had been surprisingly encouraging. They offered him a big apartment, high-quality furniture, all the rest - they had even offered a house elf. He soon realised that they thought he was trying to start over; to move to a big city, turn over a fresh leaf.
He thought they could stuff it.
He had emptied half of his Gringotts vault and exchanged it for muggle money. Then he visited the first apartment he found in a muggle newspaper and Confunded the landlord into taking six months' rent upfront. He bought a mattress and rolled it out on the floor, and decided he had no need for furniture.
He wasn't looking to start over; he just wanted to be alone. And true solitude, he decided, came not from escaping to a remote area, but from existing between thousands of people who didn't give a shit about you. True solitude came from being invisible.
He didn't want any remnant of the wizarding world to follow him here. He didn't want house elves or pointless, fancy family heirlooms. He didn't want to be stared at wherever he went; whispers of what he had done echoing behind him.
So he moved to a city so densely packed with muggles that he was unlikely to ever bump into someone who knew who he was. The London muggles were simple, grumpy, and seemed to always be in a hurry. He began to derive a delirious sense of pleasure from watching people's eyes skip over him like he didn't exist; from knowing he was completely irrelevant to their lives. He was somebody - but a nobody, to them. Just a body.
He had wanted a life with Isobel Young, but she was gone now. So he settled for invisibility instead.
He opened his fridge and stared into it. There was an old hunk of cheese, a few eggs and a single slice of pizza leftover from a takeaway he had gotten three nights ago. The top shelves were bare.
It was very strange to be entirely in charge of taking care of himself, with no house elves to do the chores he had never learnt to do. He hadn't a clue how to cook, and had never been taught even the most basic cleaning spells. He loved autonomy, but wasn't very good at it.
Despite his hunger, Draco was unwilling to leave his apartment for food. So he filled the kettle, to boil water for tea.
It was nearing 5 o'clock, and the sun was beginning to disappear over the skyline, so he walked back to the door and flipped on the light. Where he disliked the quiet, he hated the dark.
It was in the dark that he missed her most.
He felt Belly's absence wherever he went; from his bedroom to the kitchen to the shop on the corner.
When he went for tea with his mother or to a pub with his friends, it followed him everywhere.
But in the dark, he felt her absence most strongly. When all of the lights were off, and the world was quiet - that was when she really haunted him. That was when he was all too aware of the empty space beside him. That where he used to put an arm out, to wrap around her waist - now there was nothing. Just sheets. No warm, soft body. No quiet, steady breathing.
He had started leaving the lights on at night-time months ago, when he realised the problem. A few weeks later, he bought the radio, which he now left constantly plugged in. Not that he ever listened - he really couldn't give a shit about what was happening in the world, to be honest - but it helped to drown out that god awful silence.
He didn't forget that she was gone, he never would. He didn't have brief moments of forgetting and remembering. This pain was with him constantly; it never left. But in the dark and quiet, it was worse. So, if he could help it, he would never be in the dark and quiet again.
He threw his teabag into the sink, where it joined a collecting pile of other, cold teabags, and took his mug into the bedroom. He placed it on the ground and lay down on his mattress. Like every night before, and as he would for many nights after, he stared up at the ceiling, thinking that when he had lost Isobel, he had lost a part of himself, too.
