i s o b e l
It was cold inside the Leaky Cauldron. Isobel was wearing at least three layers of clothing, and still, she shivered.
Three layers of clothing and even so, when she put her hand to her chest, she could feel her heart beating through them.
She was sitting in a round booth in the back of the bar. It was ten past one.
She had spoken to Draco for only a few minutes the night before. Or tried to speak to him. He had been so drunk, and so perplexed by her presence, and she had felt a crashing wave of guilt every time he had given her that sad, disbelieving look. As if - he wanted to believe that she was there, in front of him. But it couldn't have been true.
She hadn't known what to do. There had been no plan, no strategy. No beaten path for her to follow. So, in her unsureness and slight derision, she had taken the only piece of parchment she'd had on her. The letter, her precious letter that she'd clung to for months now, that she'd held in her fist like it was a part of her; and she had torn it. She had torn straight through Draco's melancholy words, and scrawled a note on the other side. An invitation to meet her here, so that they could speak; so that they could finally figure everything out.
Her knee jiggled nervously beneath the table. She was beginning to realise how many things might have gone wrong with that invitation.
The Leaky Cauldron was mostly empty, given that it was lunchtime on a weekend. Several individuals were scattered sparsely around the room, their faces barely visible from where Isobel sat. She had bought a beer for herself: it sat untouched in the centre of the dusty table.
At the back of the Leaky Cauldron was the entry to Diagon Alley. She didn't know which way Draco would come from - if he ever showed up. That distressed her even more: she didn't know where to look. Didn't know which door she should watch, to prepare herself for his entry.
The longer hand of her watch turned to three. He was fifteen minutes late.
It was fine, if he was late. That was normal. It wasn't something to worry about.
But God, she was worried. It had been different last night when she had seen him. She had been moving on adrenaline and alcohol, on her anger at Lucius Malfoy. Now, her thoughts were aggressively clear.
Firstly, there were no conclusions to be drawn from a marriage being arranged. Just because someone else had arranged for Draco to marry Astoria, it didn't mean he didn't like her - or even love her. It didn't mean he was unwilling to marry her.
Secondly, Lucius Malfoy was more than just a small annoyance. Draco's family were powerful, and Isobel worried that they had intercepted somehow. She was sure that if Lucius had found out about last night, he would be involved now, somehow - either by preventing Draco from coming to her now, or by joining him. . . If Draco were to arrive accompanied by his parents, or by Astoria - Isobel didn't think she could handle that.
Finally, it had been stupid of her to invite him here with a note placed in drunken hands. To assume that a note was a sufficient, reliable method of communication, that he wouldn't misplace it in his intoxicated state. It had been stupid of her to assume he would remember last night at all.
Memory loss was a formidable thing, had stolen from them moments, months, years. Emotions. It hadn't just torn holes in their tapestry, but had shred it entirely. And she was holding onto threads.
It was silly to worry now, she knew that. Silly to overthink everything when she might be minutes away from talking to him. But her stomach turned and her breath quickened and the smoky, hazy air of the bar made its way into her mouth and through her lungs.
