i s o b e l
Isobel sank to the ground. She pressed her palms to her face and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
He was gone. After every close encounter, every worry and qualm that something might happen, that one of them would be made to leave. . . He had gone. It had actually happened.
Her chest felt tight and her breathing was shallow. She looked up and around her, at the plastic stars. The charm she had cast to enhance their glow had been removed, and now they seemed dull, their colour muted. The empty space seemed a far cry from the magical, luminous green room that it had been days before.
She forced herself to stand, and left the room on shaky legs. She left the stars, too. She could not bear to take them down.
The living room was entirely empty. Not a single possession remained, not even a piece of rubbish stray in a corner. She opened the cupboards of the kitchen nook one by one, but all were empty.
His windows were still wide open. That, at least, was the one sign that he had once lived here. That it hadn't all been a dream.
As she walked closer to the window, she noticed a tiny, white, dried flower on the sill. She picked it up and held it in her trembling palm, and wondered where it had come from. Draco didn't seem the type to keep flowers for their aesthetics.
"Hello?"
Isobel turned. In her shock at seeing Draco's empty apartment, she had forgotten to close his door. In the doorway, now, stood Emily, peering nervously into the apartment.
"Hi," said Isobel. She could manage no more.
Emily regarded the empty room with a bewildered expression. "Has Draco moved out?"
Isobel nodded. She tucked the flower into the pocket of her coat. "Just today, I think."
"That's strange," said Emily. "I've been home all day and didn't hear a thing."
"Did you hear any visitors, by any chance?" asked Isobel. "Did anyone come to see him?"
Emily shook her head. "I didn't hear anything today. Though now that you mention it, I did overhear an argument last night. . ." She frowned. "There were raised voices. There was a man. . ."
"Did you hear anything they said?"
"Not really, it was the middle of the night -" Emily tilted her head, looking concerned. "Were you unaware that he planned to move out, Daphne?"
"Oh," said Isobel. "My name is Isobel, actually. Sorry, I -" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
"I thought your name was Daphne."
Isobel turned to face the window, barely registering Emily's confusion. If a part of her had expected something bad to happen over Christmas, she hadn't expected it to happen so soon. And not like this. She hadn't expected Draco to be stolen away, for his entire presence to disappear without a trace.
She heard Emily take hesitant steps into the apartment. "Do you know who the man might have been? The one who was shouting at him last night?"
Isobel's eyes flicked from the street corner to the shadowed alleyway. "That was his father."
"Oh," said Emily. "Do you know what the argument might have been about?"
Isobel didn't respond. After a moment, Emily said, "is everything alright?"
Isobel stuck her hands into the pockets of her coat and clenched them into fists, trying to stop them from shaking. "No," she mumbled. "I never told him to extract his memories."
