J U L Y 1 9 9 9
i s o b e l
On the same day that two men in robes showed up on her doorstep, Isobel found Draco Malfoy in the Daily Prophet.
In the year that had passed since the war, her mother hadn't allowed her to order the Prophet once. She persisted that news of the wizarding world would give Isobel flashbacks; that it would trigger the trauma that the war had caused her. What Isobel needed to recover, according to her mother, was time.
But the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts came and went, and Isobel was feeling no less isolated or upset than she had before. After several more weeks of pleading, her mother finally conceded, and poring over the paper soon became a morning ritual for Isobel. While her mother hovered around her, Isobel would spread the paper out on their kitchen table and study every last inch. Taking in every piece of information she could about a world she still pretended to exist in.
With the anniversary of the war also came an influx of letters addressed to her mother from St Mungo's hospital, where she had worked years before as a Healer. Her mother had been unnerved at first because they hadn't told anyone where they lived, and she worried that somebody might follow the owls to track down their house. She had very little trust in the world still, since the war and since Isobel's father's death, but there was a shortage of Healers at St. Mungo's, and Maggie Young had once been one of their best. They sent letter after letter, asking for her return.
Her mother was torn, Isobel could tell. Going back to work meant leaving Isobel alone everyday, and also meant re-entering the society that Maggie had lost faith in years ago. But the hospital and its patients needed her, and, to Isobel, that seemed reason enough.
While Isobel had recently been feeling a bit better, her mother was starting to look gaunt and grey. Lonely as she was, Isobel had taken up hobbies and found ways of passing the time. She had started going out into the garden more, for one; doing cartwheels in the grass and lying in the sun. She spent hours in the living room playing their little wooden piano, which had once sat dusty and touched in their old house. Her mother, meanwhile, retreated into herself; eating little and sleeping a lot.
Her mother had used to read through the Daily Prophet every morning before allowing Isobel to even touch it, but had lost the energy recently, and let Isobel take over and read aloud anything of note. There was little of note these days; no attacks to speak of, most escaped Death Eaters rounded up and the ones that walked free tending to keep to themselves. It was, however, always unnerving to hear about someone who had once been associated with Voldemort, which was perhaps why Maggie's entire body went still when Isobel said,
"Mum, have you heard much about the Malfoy family? Since the war, I mean?"
"No," said her mother tightly. "Why?"
Isobel pushed the paper across the table. Stretched across the third page of the Daily Prophet was a picture of Draco Malfoy. He was at a street market, standing at a flower stall and holding a small bunch of striped carnations to his chest. Through strands of white-blond hair, he scowled at the camera.
"Do you think the flowers are for his mother, or for a girlfriend?" Isobel pulled the paper back to her, looking curiously at Draco. He looked so much older than she remembered him. "I know Pansy Parkinson had a thing for him that he never really reciprocated, but maybe he's changed his mind."
Isobel's mother gripped her coffee cup tighter.
"A surly, handsome and heartbroken baby Malfoy was spotted for the first time in months at a muggle market," read Isobel aloud. "Who are the flowers for? A new love interest, perhaps?"
"That's enough, Isobel."
"Oh, I'm sure he's harmless." She skimmed the rest of the article, but it expressed no more than Rita Skeeter's speculations of a new love interest for Draco. "I wonder why she says he's heartbroken? No more than the rest of us, surely?"
She watched Draco drop his gaze for a moment, before looking back up at the camera, his ice-grey eyes hard. Unable to stop herself, she traced a finger across his cheek. "God, he looks so sad, don't you think? It must be difficult -" She glanced up. "No interest in Draco Malfoy, Mum?"
Her mother was staring into her coffee. "I don't have much sympathy for Death Eaters, no."
Isobel felt her heart drop a little. "That's not what I meant, Mum. I hated Draco Malfoy in school, you know that. I just think he was a victim of his circumstances. We all are, I suppose."
Maggie stood and emptied the rest of her coffee into the sink. Saying nothing, she stood there, with her back to her daughter.
Suddenly, a hard knock sounded at the door. Isobel's mother dropped her mug into the sink and it shattered. She whirled around, staring at her daughter, one hand to her chest. Breathing quickly.
Isobel let out a nervous laugh. No one had knocked since their neighbours when they had first moved in, but she didn't see it as cause for concern. "Mum, it's okay. A quick Reparo will fix that. I'll get the door -"
"No!"
Isobel stopped, then laughed again. "Mum, I'm perfectly capable -"
A short hallway connected the kitchen to the front door, and veered off to the side there, to the rest of the house. Maggie moved quickly to the door and peered through the side window. "It's wizards."
"Really? Do you know them?"
Looking frantic, Maggie grabbed her daughter's elbow and steered her towards the hallway. "Go to your room, Isobel. Don't come out, okay?"
Isobel shook her mother's hand off her arm. Frowning, she walked to her room and shut herself inside it, hearing the front door open as she did so.
Sitting down on the floor, Isobel pressed an ear against her bedroom door, but found that she could hear very little through it. The men stayed for ten minutes, but Isobel caught only muffled snippets: "Your unbearable loss" ... "Haven't heard anything from you" ... "Just checking in" ... "So overcrowded" ... "Even just part-time..."
And then, with her face screwed up in concentration, Isobel heard: "Please know that our thoughts are with you. To lose both a husband and a daughter is an incredible loss."
When the sound came of the door closing and the two men saying goodbye, Isobel ran to her bedroom window. Through the curtains she watched them go, their green St. Mungo's robes rippling in the breeze.
In the kitchen, Maggie Young sat back down at the table. She put her head in her hands, and wept.
She wept, because she had lied, and it was all going wrong now. Because she had acted on a selfish, desperate impulse, and hadn't thought it through.
The Daily Prophet lay beside her, and the picture of Draco Malfoy glared up at her, still; scolding her. Telling her, you haven't only ruined her life. You've ruined mine, too.
Maggie Young's daughter was alive, and she was the only person in the world that knew it.
