𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 2008

The Last Voice

Title: The Last Voice
Author: malachic
Team: Team Epilogue
Prompt: The Lovers
Wordcount: About 5,900
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Infidelity, cheating, angst?
Summary: Who knew a single letter could change so much?

During the war, every night, Hermione and I would talk about something . Sometimes they were just bits of advice, and whether or not they made sense. Sometimes it was horcruxes and Voldemort. But... I remember this old quote she told me, just because I thought it fit. She said that sometimes you mourned the loss of something that was never truly lost – either because it was never yours to lose in the first place, or because you imagined a loss where there was none, a tragedy in replacement of pressing, grim reality. In reality, you were so constantly worried over its loss, checking nearly every second to see if it was there, panicking for a moment if you couldn’t feel it... so often that you wished it would be lost, just to prove that your paranoia had a just cause."

I think I’m in the second group... no, I hope I am...

That was how the letter began.

~~~

Their relationship started four years ago, if there was a start, if there was anything to be started in the first place. Draco liked to think that there was, that this wasn’t only a delusion of his. Sometimes, he thought that it was. That it wasn’t important, that it had never been important. Then he remembered.

~~~

When you first changed... I don’t know. I want to say that there was a specific start, that I could put my finger on when it started to change, when you started to change, but I can’t... after the end of the war, that’s all I really know.

After the end of the war, it was chaos. No one knew what to do anymore... they had to be there. That without Death Eaters to fight and slander, life wouldn’t be the same. It was insane, how old everyone looked. The innocence was gone. There weren’t any more fairytales at night or Prince Charming. The first years no longer looked up in fear and wonder at the elders and asked about the teachers. They didn’t ask was it really true that Filch had whips in his room, or that McGonagall turned bad students into mice and ate them? It didn’t matter anymore. They’d seen death, and nothing else mattered.

~~~

Then... then you came up with this bloody brilliant, bloody insane idea, and goddamn, it shouldn’t have worked, but it did... it did...

Draco still remembered how he started it. He remembered sitting in a room, just waiting, and hating himself, despising the fact that he couldn’t do anything. He remembered Pansy’s scared, tired look in the middle of a meeting... he remembered Granger’s accusatory face, as if it was his fault, and he remembers Potter saying, in a calm, cool tone, "Everyone’s scared. This was all they had, and no one knows what’s happening... apparently, Voldemort was involved more than we know."

He remembered wanting to do something, change something. Just hold this whole bloody thing together, just a little longer. Just until it’s over. Just hold on until everything’s straightened out.

He remembered Lovegood smiling and saying, "Well, no one knows what’s going on. That’s the problem."

The Last Voice was born.

~~~

Your ideas are always insane, though, aren’t they? The newspaper, and... and us, if there even was an us...

At first, no one wanted to do it. They said it was stupid or insane or a waste, or all three. Then Lovegood just smiled, and said that surely her father would be proud of her if she helped. Then Creevey piped up and said that... that maybe, he could do justice to his brother’s memory this way. Bones said that she could do an how-to column. Pansy just smirked and said naturally she’d do the gossip column, darling and Chang said she could do an advice column, because who would know better than a Ravenclaw? Granger smiled at him a bit, giving in, and she said she’d write about the new government. Then the Weaslette said she’d write a Quidditch column, and Weasley leapt in and said no way was she doing that, that was his, and then Potter sighed, and said that he’d write about the Aurors, and maybe the interesting cases, and definitely Voldemort, since people couldn’t forget.