The frightened by love
Will be gone
The atrium was deserted on a Sunday afternoon. It was near four when Cybele reached the counter. She had no wand with her to register. Since her status had become official, thanks to Professors Neville and McGonagall, she didn’t have to carry the loathed stick everywhere anymore.
‘Astoria Greengrass’, she stated, tasting the loathed name unpleasantly on her tongue, ‘I am looking for the Muggle association workshop, you know… PAMI?’ She had not even asked Amanda the proper name. She had always been bad with acronyms, she reflected, remembering that it had taken her a couple of weeks before figuring DADA was actually one of her classes in Hogwarts.
‘The Philius Association for Muggle Integration, yes, down there in the Auror training centre’ gestured the man.
‘If anything, I will have taught Draco a word in ancient Greek,’ Cybele, though, not daring to hope that might mean more.
The Auror training centre was open but the corridor was dimly lit. Several doors, though, stood ajar and happy voices floated in the air. Cybele approached the first room where a group of young men and women burst in laughter. Her throat grasped by her crazy nerves, Cybele came to the door and heard a young-sounding voice commenting, ‘And that is what happens when a wizard tries to magic an electric transistor.’ A few more laughs, and the voice concluded seriously, ‘Always make sure that your spouses are aware of the magnetic and electrical devices you use at home! Any questions?’ The group burst in happy chattered as Cybele dared a glance through the door. A tall and skinny middle-aged man was answering questions to a group of young Muggles at his desk. Two more rooms were lit down the corridor and Cybele’s heart was beating madly now.
Soft voices were coming from the second room and as Cybele took a quick glance, she realized Draco was not in this room either. A round table of a dozen middle-aged men and women were having a talk on the topic magically lit on one of the wall, –My child is a Wizarding-Born Muggle.†Cybele smiled at the new politically correct way of saying Squib. She realized that nobody had actually ever thought of a proper community structure for these people before, and now Draco, of all people, had made it. People liked it, Amanda and all these Muggles.
‘The problem is,’ a woman was saying, ‘she keeps seeing her father using his wand, you see, and she wants one too, how can I explain her that she won’t be able to be like her dad? And shall I let her play with a fake wand or is this going to make things even more difficult later?’
Groans of sympathy and understanding came from the other parents as the old lady she now recognized as the recently retired Mrs Sprout answered.
‘There are many places in us were magic can lie. I think that’s what your children, like my grandson, need to understand. In life, they will work their magic a way or another. They have to learn to love and be proud of the way they work theirs, even if it is different from their daddy’s, mummy’s or their siblings’. And you, all of you, know very well that there is a lot more about life then making big bangs and clangs with a magic stick.’
The group let out groans of approval and Cybele went to the last room, hoping and dreading that Draco would be in. She felt ashamed not to have expected it. Draco was her friend, she had boasted, wasn’t it what she had said to Severus after their fight? Were those only words? How comes she was so surprised by Draco’s virtues and his change for the better? Shouldn’t she have trusted him? ‘I just tried to protect myself,’ she heard herself think defensively. It was true, she would have suffered if she had raised her hopes only to find Draco back with his family, prejudiced as ever and married to one of his pureblooded childhood friends, and the higher she let her hopes go, the worse it would have been. But she felt guilty nevertheless, and anxious. ‘What if he did not forgive me for letting him do all this by himself? Was it fair to go and leave him with an ultimatum, what right did I had to do that?’ she wondered, and, unexpectedly, ‘What if he is married to one of these charming Muggle girls?’
‘And this is the end of this introduction session,’ said the unmistakably cool voice of Draco from the last room. ‘You have all done brilliantly. Hopefully, you will never have to use any of these tricks; the Wizarding World is at peace now and is a safe community.
‘There’s just one more thing I would like to share with you all before we part. When I conducted this session for the first time almost two years ago, I did not know anything about the Muggle world. One of my students offered to show me his car and to teach me how to drive. Well, I’ll skip the details because I’ve got my pride, but let’s say it was a total failure.’ The group laughed. Cybele’s world was suspended to Draco’s very words. His voice was the same but its quality had changed, somehow.
‘This young Muggle, nowadays, has learnt to care for magical plants so well that he has become a renowned magical herb provider for wizarding potions brewers; whereas I still cannot change gears.’ More laugher burst at that. ‘My point is, you’ll find jackasses everywhere, among the wizards just as much as among Muggles. Now, I don’t want any of you to ever let anybody in this community belittle you because you cannot handle a wand; remember that the person in front of you would probably lose a battle against an electric toaster! Now off you go!’
The group laughed again and burst in applauses. Cybele heard chairs moving, people going to Draco and thanking him, but she did not dare to look through the open door. The first students started to come out by pairs, still talking animatedly, some exchanging Muggle mobile phone numbers. When the classroom had become silent, she took a deep breath, trying to ignore that her heart was valiantly trying to escape her body, walked through the door and bumped into a young Muggle man. The man let go of his clipboard, mobile phone and pen. Cybele immediately dropped to the floor, reaching, Muggle-style in her embarrassment for the man’s belongings, apologizing profusely.
‘It’s okay. Thanks,’ said the Muggle, taking back his belongings, ‘yeah, I’m ok, don’t worry.’ He stood up and walked off. Cybele saw a pair of shoes appearing in front of her and looked up to see Draco Malfoy smirking down at her.
‘As good at pick-up lines as ever?’ he mocked, reaching his hand.
Pulled by his firm grip, Cybele stood up an inch from Draco, who did not let go of her hand.
She looked around in embarrassment and gestured her free hand in an aimless circle.
‘Draco, all this,’ she started to stutter. But she checked herself. Yes, she had crashed at his feet, but she was not to put a display of awkwardness on the top of that. She flipped her head to face Draco and as her eyes found the grey ones for the first time in three years, she knew exactly what she wanted to tell to this man, whatever his feelings for her may be.
‘You are the bravest, most extraordinary person I have ever had the pride to call a friend, Draco. And I am here to renew this friendship, if you would still have me. What about that for a pick-up line?’ she added defiantly.
‘Better,’ Draco mocked. But he looked more nervous than Cybele now. She gestured again around.
‘Draco, this is extraordinary. What you did, you must hear it all the time, but it’s just huge!’
Draco grabbed her other hand at that and, pressing both in his dry, warm hands, and locked eyes with her. She saw a glimmer of what looked like fever in his eyes.
‘You know, you must know, that this is all for you, Cybele. It has always been.’
Cybele’s muscles let go of a tension she has not been aware to have built in. It was immediately replaced by a weak, shaking feeling.
‘So you have forgiven me? I had been so presumptuous; I could have lost you…’
‘You saved my life, Cybele. That day in Hogwarts, during the battle, you saved my life, you know that. Harry Potter saved my life three times that evening with his wand, but it would have been pointless if you would have not saved me with your words. I battled after you left and if I had not, I would have ended up in Azkaban. But more than that, I fought after the battle. I didn’t know where to start, you know. I first registered for Auror training, because I hoped it would come under the being-brave clause of our deal, but you had made it plain that it would take more, less and more in some way, right? So that’s how I started the association, when I was still an Auror in training. At the beginning, it was a blind attempt to abide to your demand. I had the right idea, but my heart was not in it, really. The first time I gave this defence class for Muggle spouses - that how it started, at the beginning - I would not shake their hands, Cybele, I would not even have shaken their hands, Cybele, can you ever forgive me?’
‘There is nothing to forgive, I was so hard on you, and I just left like a coward, I had not been here for you…’
‘Cybele, you had every right… you had never given up on me, after all the things I’ve done, I’ve said, when your friends were judging you for still believing in me…’
‘Draco, please, you have more than repaid… they now all respect you for what you have done after the war, and they are right.’
‘It is going to take more than a few training sessions to make up for a life of violence and prejudices.’
‘But it is more, Draco, it is much more. It is who you became. You have found the best in yourself.’
‘Thanks, Cybele.’ He was watching her, drinking in her face. ‘You have come back,’ he said in a whisper. The look he was giving her was tender and Cybele felt her knees become soft.
‘What have you found?’ he asked, bringing her back to reality.
‘I have found that in the beginning… I had once been this horrible human being and that nothing I could do would ever change the past or take back this knowledge from me, but that my friends could know it and love me yet, because they liked the person I had become.’ Cybele managed to smile weakly. Lee was right, she thought, we are just the same.
Draco didn’t press her for details, not yet.
‘Will you have me back, then?’ he simply asked.
‘Do you want to?’
‘Well, I have tried to complete my part of the contract. I have tried to be brave, I have tried to change my ways. There is one thing, though…’
‘What?’
Draco gently let go of her right hand and reached for a soft caress on her cheek, closing the thin space between them.
‘I think I still want to marry one of my childhood friends.’