Fourteen Thousand Galleons

Harry Potter & Draco Malfoy Walk Into a Bar

Approximately one year earlier...

It doesn't matter if you're The Boy Who Lived, the world is still shit. He's fine with it, life is always throwing him the most ridiculous hurdles and he's well equipped to Bombarda the fuck out of them. It's what he does. Like any great British cliché, Harry Potter carries on. But tonight, when Ginny sits down with tears in her eyes and tells him that she's slept with someone else, he's just broken. He's sad and he's confused and his heart feels like lead in his chest.

Probably what bothers him most is that he's not sure if he's more upset that his marriage is over or that the last vestiges of his youth have been ripped to shreds. In any case, something inside of him snaps and the powerful glow of magic just sort of disappears. He feels empty, alone, and incomplete.

Things haven't been right for a very long time. Magic feels wrong, foreign. It's the realization he's lost the wonder of conjuring and charming that cracks through his tough shell and brings prickles of tears to his eyes.

He can't look at her and he tells her so. She understands, she cries, and she tells him there's no mending what's broken between them. It takes him ages to agree; he wants to fight for his marriage, for his heart, but in the end she's right and he crumbles under the weight of it. After hours of silence Harry asks her to leave, to await his solicitor's owl, to stay with her mum while she's on holiday. The kids are there having a sleepover with their cousins, she can spend time with them and he can try to figure out where he goes from here. He's had enough, she's right, and he's going to start taking care to remember the world he fought to save so many years ago.

Unfortunately for Harry, remembering the world that he fought to save also includes remembering that it has pubs. Better than regular pubs, it has magical pubs. With highly effective tonics to cure all ailments. Or, at least the ailments that are forgettable after attaining an inadvisable blood-alcohol level.

There's a wonderful pub in Surrey, just outside of the muggle part of town, where on occasion, he journeys with co-workers for a night of well-mannered frivolity. That's where he finds himself now. With less than well-mannered intentions. It's strange to be back in Surrey after so many years not for his muggle relatives, but for its magical offerings. Granted, Petunia and Vernon haven't lived in Surrey in quite some time, it's still interesting to see his old haunt in the distance from the pub. He doesn't smile, just wonders briefly if his life would be any different if he hadn't grown up with the Dursleys.

Undoubtedly, it would, but he can't dwell on it. Ginny tells him all the time that the past can't be changed and we need to move on in order to grow. How he'd go on without her wisdom, he can't quite know yet, but he's determined to try.

He walks into the familiar pub and it's quiet tonight. There are a handful of patrons dotted along the floor, some in booths, a couple at a table, a bloke at the bar. Harry removes his dark gray cloak and hangs it next to the door. He's left in his DMLE polo and is happy to find that the temperature in the pub doesn't reflect the chill outside. As he makes his way to the bar, a couple of the patrons tip their heads at him; regulars that he's met before. He sits on a stool that's probably too used to his particular shape and places several galleons down in front of him.

"Harry," the bartender greets him with a wide smile and sparkling blue eyes. "Fancy seeing you here without the rest of your troupe."

Harry offers him a tight lipped smile. "Just the whisky tonight, Amadeus."

"Of course, sir." There's still a bright playfulness behind Amadeus' eyes, and Harry's happy that his mood doesn't seem to affect the man's demeanor. "One on the house and one on your tab?"

Grateful, Harry tosses a galleon behind the counter and into a pitcher that holds a mixture of various coins. "Thanks, mate. Keep them coming, yeah?"