Title: We Flood Empty Lakes
Author: 
turningleft
Team: Epilogue
Prompt: 15. He who can, does. He who can't, teaches the Dark Arts.
Wordcount: ~4700
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, darkfic, dystopia, Epilogue-compliant, mindfuck, non-linear narrative, highly non-traditional/experimental structure, pretentious prose, postwar, profanity, references to canon character death, major character death (story spans a period of 40+ years), slightly-dark!Harry, descriptions of feelings associated with panic/anxiety and obsession, implied infidelity, second-person POV.
Summary: In which there is nothingeverything left to lose.
Author's Note: The title comes from a Yndi Halda song of the same name. Many thanks to L, A and H for looking this over, as well as to B and A for holding my hand and dealing with my breakdowns on a nearly daily basis. I never would have finished this without any of them. ♥
We Flood Empty Lakes
War is a malignant disease, an idiocy, a prison, and the pain it
causes is beyond telling or meaning; but war was our condition
and our history, the place we had to live in.
- Martha Gelhorn
S H A M E
is what courses through you today, tomorrow, every day. you try to hide, you try to hide, you try to hide. but they're all looking at you. they're staring at you. so you try to hide but you can't, because –
EVERYONE CAN SEE YOU.
In the end, you stand near the back of the Great Hall, your fingers clutching tightly at the fabric of your torn, tattered robes. You keep your head bowed and your eyes fixed firmly on the ground as the silent, mournful procession of survivors pass you by. One, two, three, four, you count, your eyes tracing the cracks and the scratches etched into the old stone floors over and over again. Five, six, seven, eight. You try to find patterns, try to distract yourself, to keep from looking up. You can't bear to be reminded that you are surrounded by death.
This is your fault.
It is. There's no question at all about it, no matter what they try to tell you, what they try to say. You did this by failing, by taking too long, by rushing in without a plan and it's all. Your. Fault.
Hermione presses close and lays her head on your shoulder. Ron stands just in front of you with his arms crossed, staring out into the sea of people, almost as though he's daring them to come closer. She's trying to comfort you; he's trying to protect you. You appreciate it, you really do, because their presence is familiar and reassuring. But their words – their lies – don't mean a thing.
Not when you have Remus' lifeless eyes and Tonk's blank expression to speak the truth for you.
A few moments later (or perhaps it was only seconds, or maybe even hours, because to you it all feels the same) Andromeda approaches, the sound of her heels clicking loudly against the floor and breaking you from your thoughts.
"Harry?"
You lift your gaze from the ground. "Yes?"
Hermione pulls away, and Andromeda gently reaches out to pry your hands open. "Just hold him like this," she says as she maneuvers a silent, wide-eyed Teddy into your arms.
"Yeah, all right," you say dully, staring down into Teddy's bright orange eyes. He blinks back up at you, and suddenly the only thought in your mind is, Hello, Teddy. Today I killed your parents.
J U D G I N G
is what they do. they're always looking, always watching, always blaming, always JUDGING.
Many years later, Malfoy stares at you as though you are some sort of monster. "You need help, Potter."
It takes nearly all of your self-control not to reach out to punch him. "I do not have a problem," you say defensively as you shift on the chair and curl tightly into yourself. The room is small, and you try to get as far away from him as you possibly can without actually moving. "You're grasping at air, Malfoy."
"Am I?" he replies. His tone is biting, cold, and you don't have to look up to know that he doesn't believe you.
M O C K I N G
is what you do, because he's right there and it's so EASY. easy like one and two and three, so easy to do. and oh, but how easy it is to let yourself fall into old habits because making him miserable makes you. feel. BETTER.
It only takes two quick knocks before he wretches the door to the classroom open and says, "What can I do for you, Potter?"
It catches you off guard, because Malfoy is the last person you expected to see at Hogwarts. In fact, if truth be told, you can't remember having seen him at all since the day they dragged him to Azkaban four years ago, his wrists bound in chains. You had heard that he'd been released soon thereafter, a few months before his sentence was supposed to end, but it never occurred to you that he would find his sanctuary at Hogwarts.
"Can I help you, Potter?" he repeats, standing impatiently in the doorway.
You blink at him once, twice. Then you reach into your pocket and fish out a slightly worn, rumpled piece of parchment. "Is this the new Defense classroom?" you ask, confused. The layout of the castle has changed slightly since the rebuilding, and you are standing in a wing that you didn't even know existed.
Malfoy purses his lips. "You've got the right classroom, Potter." He steps aside and motions at you to step inside. "Come on, then."
You step inside and speak before thinking, your mind still reeling at seeing him here. Even to you, the words sound C R U E L. "Didn't they take away your magic, Malfoy? What the fuck are you doing at Hogwarts?"
Malfoy stiffens beside you. "It was only temporary," he says, "I received limited use of my magic after I completed two years probation. I'm Professor Flutes assistant."
"Limited?"
"I'm allowed to perform Level 3 magic, and any magic lesser than that." He does not look at you.
You do the math in your head, pulling on the knowledge of the magic levels that you gained through Auror training. Your lips twist into a cruel, mocking smile when you say, "You're stuck at a third year magic level. You can't even defend yourself, Malfoy. I could attack you on the spot and the most that you'd be able to do is to throw a stunner at me."
Malfoy does not reply, but then you both know that he doesn't have to.
O B S E S S I O N
and it is always in your thoughts. always. you eat it and you breathe it and you sleep it. and it's there and it's there, pushing its way to the forefront even when you know that it's wrong and bad and wrong. and you eat it and you breathe it and it's. always. there. bubbling below the surface, waiting. watching. always always always always there and you eat it and you breathe it and you sleep it and –
You spend the evening of your twentieth birthday in the Forbidden Forest, your boots scraping loudly against the ground as you trudge through the brush. You spend the better part of an hour searching, retracing the path that you took three years earlier from memory as best you can.
You do not find the stone.
L I V I N G
is hard to do.
You are sixty–eight the year that Malfoy dies, and the two of you have been together for exactly twenty years to the day. Later, you will look back and remember that the irony of the date never occurred to you at the time.
You don't remember the specifics. You don't remember the words Neville spoke, trying to comfort you, to tell you that Malfoy – that Draco – wouldn't want you to go out and seek revenge. They said it was an accident, but you know that a healthy, sixty–eight year old Wizard doesn't just drop dead one evening.
All that you remember is the comforting weight of the stone in your pocket and the determined, triumphant feeling that had coursed through your body when you had finally, finally, finally found it buried in the Forest that night, your fingers curling tightly around it and a whisper of, I'll fix this falling from your lips.
H I D I N G
is all that you can do, all that you know. you hide the photos and the letters and the memories, lock them away in a shoebox. a trunk. a lockbox. the basement. anywhere that you can think of, anywhere that you can't find them. that they can't find them.
You find Albus sitting at the kitchen table early one Sunday morning in June, an old book sitting open on the table in front of him. Upon closer inspection you realize that it's a photo album – the very photo album that Hagrid had given you so many years before. "Where did you find that?" You're proud that you've kept your voice even and calm, because in that moment, you can't remember having ever felt so panicked.
Albus looks up, a guilty expression passing across his face. "Morning."
"Where did you get that, Albus?"
He looks down at his shoes and mumbles, "I found it in your old trunk."
You press your lips together to keep from snapping at him. He's only seven, you remind yourself. You decide to bypass the subject of how Albus managed to break into your trunk entirely, mostly because you already know that it was probably James or Teddy who taught him how to crack locks. You'll berate them later – right now, you go for the more pressing matter. "What have I told you about taking things that don't belong to you?"
"Not to do it?" Albus mumbles, still staring at the ground. "Sorry."
He looks pathetic, hunched over the table and staring at the floor as though willing it to open up and swallow him whole. You take pity on him and sit down in the seat next to him, deciding that you can go a few more minutes without coffee. "I haven't looked at this in years," you tell him. You sound tired, even to your own ears.
He looks at you for a minute, as though trying to decide if this is some sort of trick. Once he seems to decide that you aren't going to ground him, he points at one of the photos and asks, "Is that Teddy's dad?"
Remus smiles up at you from within the photo and waves, almost as though he knows that you're talking about him. Beside him, Snape looks up from a large piece of parchment spread across the table and glowers at you. He mouths something that you swear is, Murderer. Seeing them in the photos makes you feel sick, but you push the feeling down because you know that you have to do this for Albus.
For yourself.
"Yeah," you say, swallowing. "That's Remus – I think this photo was taken at Grimmauld Place."
"Who's the angry looking guy next to him?"
"That's Professor Snape."
Albus bites his lip and looks as though he's thinking. "Who's he?"
"He taught Potions at Hogwarts when I was a student." You pause and tap your fingers against the table, a steady litany of tap tap tap tap breaking the silence. "He's one of the - you're named after him, Albus. His name was Severus Snape."
"Oh," Albus mumbles. He leans forward and studies the photo closely, almost as though trying to memorize the older man's face. Snape stares up at the two of you in outrage, and you have to close your eyes to block out his cold, hard gaze. He's judging you.
They're always judging, always accusing, always reminding you of what you did wrong.
"Who's that?" asks Albus, tugging impatiently on your sleeve.
You open your eyes and look down. Draco Malfoy stares back up at you from an old, yellowed newspaper clipping. His wide, frantic gaze meets yours and you don't need to read the headline to know that this is the day that they sentenced him to six months in Azkaban.
You remember everything from that day, clear and vivid, as though it had only happened moments before: the half–triumphant, half–horrified feeling that had coursed through you when they read the verdict, the heartbroken scream Narcissa Malfoy had released, the way Malfoy had looked at you when they dragged him silently from the room, his wrists bound in chains and his face a blank, empty mask.
"That's no one," you say sharply. You reach out and close the photo album with one hand and shoot Albus a bright, empty smile. "Why don't I make us some breakfast? Eggs all right?"
P A I N
and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts, pulling at you and pushing at you and it is ALWAYS there in your mind in your body in your heart.
The first time that you kiss Malfoy, you have one son at home and another on the way. You have a wife sitting at home waiting for you right this second, but in that moment you aren't thinking of them. You aren't thinking of the people that you've lost, the people that you've saved, the people that you've killed. All you're thinking of is the man you're with, the man who has always known how to set you off, how to make you angry.
How to make you feel.
You're pressing him against the doorway of the Defense classroom, your fingers digging and pushing into his skin hard enough that you know tomorrow, he will have a pattern of bruises littered across the curve of his hip, the stretch of his chest and back. He pushes forward, closer and you deepen the kiss, making it harder, bruising. You want this to hurt, want there to be pain and anger and –
He shoves you away, hard. You stumble back into one of the desk and send both it and you to the floor. You land hard, your limbs knocking against the wood, against the floor. You stare up at him, angry. "What the fuck was that for?"
He gasps for air. "Get out, Potter."
You frown. "Sorry?"
"I said get out," he repeats, leaning back against the wall. "You're not right, and we both know it. I didn't bring you here for a quick shag, you fucking idiot. I brought you here to help you."
You snarl at him. "I thought we already talked about this. I do not have a problem!"
"I saw you in the Forbidden Forest a week ago," Malfoy says quietly. "I've been keeping track. That's the fifth time in nearly six months. You're still looking for the Resurrection Stone, aren't you?"
You freeze halfway through the process of pushing yourself up from the floor. You do not look at him. "Don't be ridiculous."
"You need to move on, Potter." He looks down at you, his fingers tugging at the tie around his neck. "Do you really think that talking to ghosts will make everything better?"
You do not say anything.
He blinks for a moment and then his eyes widen. "You can't use the stone to bring back the dead, Potter."
You stare at the floor. "There are spells that –"
"No," Malfoy says, slamming his hand down hard on the desk closest to him. You look up and see that he is trembling. "The magic that you would need to do that falls into the realm of the dark arts."
You frown. "It's only a dark spell if you use it for a dark purpose, Malfoy."
"You know that isn't true," Malfoy says. "It might start out with good purposes, but dark magic is dark magic. The spells will twist your intentions, twist you. You've already begun to lose it, Potter."
"I have not." It sounds petulant even to your ears.
Malfoy rolls his eyes. "What would you call it, then? You spend your nights trekking about the Forbidden Forest and trying to molest Professors who happen to married. Which, coincidentally, you happen to be as well."
You don't know what to say to that.
Malfoy doesn't wait for you to say anything. He continues, his voice steady and calm. "Go home, Potter." He opens the door and stands by it, motionless. "If I see you in the Forbidden Forest again, no matter what the reason, I'll take matters into my own hands."
"And what? Teach me to death?" You sneer at him. "You still can't do any extreme magic, Malfoy. I can't believe McGonagall even lets you teach Defense when you can't perform the spells."
"Apparently I do a good enough job that I've been here for seven years, and spent five of those teaching on my own." Malfoy shrugs at you. "Even if McGonagall doesn't listen to me at first, I'm sure that all it will take to convince her to ban you from the grounds will be a bit of Veritaserum."
You leave.
L O V E
is overwhelming. and confusing. and you don't think you really know what it is.
Teddy gets married on a Thursday to a lovely, vaguely–confused looking girl named Rose. You don't exactly remember the specifics of how they met one another, but you do remember that it happened two summers earlier, the year that Teddy had accompanied Luna and her family down to South America on an expedition.
At twenty–four, Teddy looks like his mother and acts like his father. Sometimes it hurts to watch him, to see his parents so clearly reflected in his face and his actions. But you're better now – much better than you've been in a long time, and you haven't thought of the impossible, of the stone, in a good few weeks. You're not sick anymore (you're not, you're really not) and the years have dulled the pain, the ache. You no longer look at Teddy and think about having killed his parents, because when you look at him now, you think that they would have been proud.
Like you.
You couldn't be happier to know that he's going to start his own life, his own family.
They hold the wedding at the newly–revamped Grimmauld Place, where Teddy and Rose plan to live. It's strange to be back there, but not necessarily bad. After twenty–four years, it doesn't hurt quite as much as it used to. You don't feel sick looking around the house and you don't tremble when you find an old photo of Sirius in one of the upstairs rooms, his arm slung around your father's shoulder, their matching, grinning faces staring up at you and watching your every move.
The oddest part of the night occurs when you realize that Malfoy and his son are present. You remember later that Malfoy had been one of Teddy's teachers – his favorite, in fact.
"Hello," you say stiffly. You do not reach out to Malfoy, instead tightening the arm you have wrapped around Ginny's waist, pulling her closer.
"Potter," Malfoy says, nodding. He looks out of place without his wife by his side, and you entertain the thought of asking where she is, only to remember a moment later that she'd been murdered three years prior by a madman with a vendetta against Malfoy. A morbid, dark part of your mind entertains thoughts of what Malfoy would do if you brought the subject up, but you decide that this neither the place nor the time. You will not ruin this for Teddy, no matter how much you want to push at him.
Ginny excuses herself a moment later to speak with James, leaving you and Malfoy standing alone in the corridor, staring at one another, neither of you willing to look away first.
"Haven't seen you at the school in a long time," Malfoy says carefully.
You shrug. "I moved on."
(You haven't.)
O B S E S S I O N
and it is always in your thoughts. always. you eat it and you breathe it and you sleep it. and it's there and it's there, pushing its way to the forefront even when you know that it's wrong and bad and wrong. and you eat it and you breathe it and it's. always. there. bubbling below the surface, waiting. watching. always always always always there and you eat it and you breathe it and you sleep it and –
You spend the evening of your fiftieth birthday at Hogwarts, moving your things into the Transfiguration classroom that, come September, will be yours.
Malfoy stands in the back of the room, his back pressed flush against the wall and watches you move about, a light grin twisting at his lips. "I haven't seen you look towards the Forest yet."
You feel your own lips twist into a matching smile. "Yeah," you say. You walk towards the back of the room and pull him close, your fingers pressing into the curve of his back lightly, teasingly. "I'm better now. I told you, I'd moved on by the time Teddy got married."
Malfoy raises an eyebrow and say, "Good. Wouldn't want to have to stun your scrawny arse."
You grin again and lean down to kiss him, your fingers moving upwards and curling into his shoulders, pulling him closer. Malfoy kisses back and says, "Let's go to bed. You can finish this tomorrow."
You laugh and pull him out of the room and down the long, winding corridor. You do not mention to him that you plan on going into the Forbidden Forest after he falls asleep, because he doesn't know that you swiped the Invisibility cloak from James yesterday when you stopped by his home for tea.
Malfoy will never know, you assure yourself. After all, you just want to find the stone. You don't plan on using it.
You don't. You do.
D E A T H
is always in your thoughts because you think of those you lost those you killed those you'll lose later those you want to bring back and you think of dying yourself and never dying and death death death is all that you know these days and –
When Ginny dies, you don't feel the way that you thought you would. You don't act the way that everyone expects a newly widowed father of three to act, the way they expect a man to act when his wife passes away.
You miss her, of course. She'd been a part of your life since you were twelve, your wife for over twenty years. You were fond of her. You cared for her.
You don't think you loved her.
H O P E
comes in the strangest places and the oddest times and sometimes you don't think you remember how it feels to hope.
When Lily is born, you are ecstatic.
You spend the day at Ginny's bedside, holding her hand and watching your daughter sleep the day away. Around noon, Molly comes by to drop off a curious, vaguely irritated James and a gleeful Albus. You balance your oldest son on one knee and your younger son on the other and shift closer to Ginny so that they can get a clear look at the bundle in her arms. "This is your sister," you tell them. "Tiny little thing, isn't she?"
James frowns petulantly at his new sister, clearly unimpressed at now having to share his parents' attention not only with Teddy and Albus, but with someone else as well. Albus giggles and reaches out a small, chubby hand to grab at his sister. You and Ginny laugh at their reactions and you reach out a hand to ruffle Albus' hair affectionately before pressing a kiss on James forehead.
You do not think of the stone that night, or the night after. Or the night after that. Or the night after that or the night after that or the night after that after that after that after that after that after that.
O B S E S S I O N
and it is always in your thoughts. always. you eat it and you breathe it and you sleep it. and it's there and it's there, pushing its way to the forefront even when you know that it's wrong and bad and wrong. and you eat it and you breathe it and it's. always. there. bubbling below the surface, waiting. watching. always always always always there and you eat it and you breathe it and you sleep it and –
Malfoy has been your obsession since the time you were eleven. He is always there, a constant in your whirlwind life. You hatelove him. You wish you had never met him but you know that you can't imagine your life without him.
The first time you see him, it's been two years since Ginny died and you don't remember who or what you are. Malfoy finds you one night, sitting in a crumpled heap outside the door to his office, an empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the floor beside you. He stares at you. He judges you and tells you that you need to stop obsessing over the stone, over them. He tells you that you need to start living your life.
So you take his hand and let him pull you up and obsess about him, instead.
L Y I N G
is suddenly so natural that you don't even think twice when you do it.
You see Malfoy standing across the platform and wonder why a Professor is there when he should be at the school, preparing for the students to arrive. A moment later you see a small blond haired boy peek around his side and you are startled when you realize that Malfoy's son is the same age as Albus, that they'll be in the same year. Your mind drifts and you think of hands not shaken, of first meetings and fights in the corridors and you wonder if their dynamic will be the same. If it will be different.
If they'll have one at all.
After a moment you force yourself to give him a quick nod. He pauses and stares at you, a narrow-eyed, searching look. You shift slightly, uncomfortable (he's judging you) and force yourself to keep eye contact. A moment later, Malfoy seems to accept whatever it is that he sees in you, because he gives you a curt nod in return before turning his attention to his family.
A few seconds later, Albus tugs at your sleeve. "What if I'm in Slytherin?"
You kneel down next to him, putting you at eye level. Then you stare him in the eye and tell him that it won't matter what House he's sorted into, that it won't change anything.
(He believes you.)
R E A L I T Y
sometimes you lay in your bed and you stare at the sky, your fingers curling tightly at the blanket in your grasp and you try to figure out what is real and what is wrong and you don't think you know anymore (you don't think that you ever did).
You wake with a start and gasp for air, your hands reaching out blindly to grasp at something, anything that can keep you from falling off of the bed. Next to you, Ginny stirs slightly and casts you a tired, baffled look. "What's wrong?" she asks, blinking.
"I had the strangest dream," you mumble. You reach out a hand and push back a stray strand of her hair. "It felt so real."
She bites her lip and looks at you, a serious expression on her face. "Was it a nightmare?" she asks, pushing herself up into a sitting position. "I've been having them a lot – it's only been a few days since the battle, and I can't get it out of my head."
You stay silent for a long time. After a while, you lean forward and press a quick kiss against Ginny's forehead. "I don't think it was a nightmare, really," you say. "I think it was just a dream…a dream that was mixed with memories of the battle. It was quite strange."
"Right, well." She shudders slightly at the cold and glances at the clock. "It's only six. Want to try to get some more sleep?"
"Yeah."
The two of you lay back in the bed and Ginny falls back asleep in minutes. You lay awake a bit longer, staring at the ceiling and thinking. About death. About life. About everything. Eventually, the steady litany of her breathing lulls you back to sleep and –
In the end, you stand near the back of the Great Hall, your fingers clutching tightly at the fabric of your torn, tattered robes. You keep your head bowed and your eyes fixed firmly on the ground as the silent, mournful procession of survivors pass you by…