Malediction: the love and life of Astoria Malfoy

Epilogue

With a last breath, a small exhale, the change is instant, obvious. The moment is frozen, a clear shatter through the lens of reality. They both tense. Scorpius grips her hand harder, shaking it slightly. "Mum --" he calls, the desperation, the fear, the shock manifests. "-- MUM --" he calls, lost, the heaviness, the truth of what has happened echoing through the whole house. He sobs harder, louder, curling up into her, gripping her body in a hug, a refusal to believe.

    But Draco cannot hear the sobs.

He can hardly see Scorpius shaking, rocking, holding her, crying harder and harder still. A frozen gasp fills his lungs, feeling them shrivel up inside his body. His exhale becomes a sob, as he takes his son in his arms.

    Scorpius cries and sobs, shaking his head, no, no.

He holds his son in his arms as he slumps down the side of the bed, unable to look, unable to possess any control over his body which is now both feathers and lead.

    Finally abandoning his denial, Scorpius buries himself into his father's chest, wrapping his arms around him with strength, with pain, with weakness.

    Draco holds his son, wraps him, holds onto all he has with everything he is. His cries and tears are muffled by the eerie, all encompassing wails of Scorpius.

    They melt into each other, staying there, just holding each other there.

*    *    *

There was a funeral, Draco is sure of it, though he hardly remembers how the day had passed and progressed. He hardly remembers how he's gotten to this point. How it's been five months and three days.

There he sits at the table, running his thumb over the ring on his left hand.

January 6.

"I tried to tell him that his marks are exceptionally high, and just one faulty potion doesn't matter in the slightest, but he still seems worked up," he says.

He says to himself.

He says to her.

He slips the ring off and examines it in his right palm, smiling down at it, the way it catches the light in it's silver glow. "But anyways. . . happy birthday, Astoria." He closes his eyes tightly while he says her name, gripping the ring desperately in his hand. His smile is still there, though a tear slips down quietly.

He takes in a silent, shaky breath, slipping the ring back on his left hand, where it will stay for as long as he shall live, and ever after.

There sits a broken man. And though death did separate, though death did cause these cracks and shatters within him, that ring still gleams, still shines. For she was his light in the darkness. She always will be. For no matter how many years may pass, how many moons may come and go, how many memories slip from grasp, how many tears fall, he will always love her. The love will live and grow, despite the gaps carved by fate. He will love her. Always.