Running On Air

Chapter 4

Draco had a very limited range of possessions, Harry thinks an hour later. It's surprising; he assumed Draco would amass a number of expensive but useless things.

But the first three cartons are lined with neatly-folded clothes. Well-made robes and quality cloaks, but hardly opulent or extravagant clothing. There's a small selection of ties for formalwear, and three tiny boxes that Harry first mistakes for ring boxes. But no; each one has a set of cufflinks inside. The next carton is filled with documents: tax files and the like. Draco's finances were kept in good order, Harry sees with a brief skim of the documents. No apparent investments, but his spending seemed quite limited.

The fourth carton is filled with personal possessions, items of which Harry can only guess the history. A set of photographs of picturesque countryside, several books (a well-thumbed car manual and a set of Hogwarts textbooks), a notebook, an origami rose, a bottle of aged whiskey, and a school tie. When Harry picks up the tie, it unravels and sends a prefect's badge spinning across the floor.

But beneath the tie, he discovers, is a small white jewellery box. More cufflinks? He snaps it open.

Draco's wedding ring.

It's a plain platinum band. Rather inexpensive looking, Harry thinks. He turns the band around, looking for an engraving, but there is none. The ring looks like it's never been worn.

He packs up the carton and goes to find Narcissa.

"It can't be all of it."

"I assure you," Narcissa says, setting her needlework aside, "it is."

Harry restlessly paces the room. It looks awfully familiar and he realises, with a jolt, that it's the same room that was in Narcissa's last memory of Draco. Narcissa sits by the gilded fireplace; on the wall opposite Harry is the family portrait at which Draco had spent so long gazing.

"There's practically nothing. Clothes, some paperwork, a few books and a couple of personal items. You're saying that's everything in Draco's life?"

"Draco became very..." Narcissa pauses, then picks her needlework up again. "The war changed him."

"The war changed everyone." Harry's voice is sharp, and he wonders why he feels needled by Narcissa's words.

"In any case," Narcissa says, drawing a long thread of red through the eye of a needle, "I assure you that all of Draco's possessions are in those boxes."

"Where's the rest? There must be other stuff. You've got his Hogwarts textbooks and a school tie — what about his cauldron set, then? Or his robes. Or his Quidditch stuff — he'd definitely have that." Draco was always unbearably smug about his flying skills, Harry thinks.

Narcissa shakes her head. "I don't know why he kept the textbooks, but he sold or discarded everything else from Hogwarts."

"Not his broom, at least."

Narcissa nods. "I assume he sold his broom. Both Astoria and myself removed all his possessions when I was granted the rights to sell his house. I assure you, we collected every item."

Harry is silent for a moment.

"Do you mind if I take the cartons with me?"

Narcissa says nothing for a long moment, pushing the needle through the cloth. "I don't wish for his possessions to be lost or destroyed," she says at last.

"I'll keep it in the evidence archives."

"Anyone could access it."

"My office, then."