Aspen Sunlight - A Summer Like None Other

The flames whooshed in the grate, and then began flashing green as largish boxes wrapped in plain brown paper tumbled out.

"Stay back," warned Draco in a low voice, motioning Harry farther away from the fireplace. Harry was sort of offended by that, since he was more prepared than Draco to protect them, after all. But then he saw that Draco was stepping back, too, and Harry swallowed, telling himself that his brother was just concerned for his safety.

Five parcels later, the fire in the hearth abruptly died.

Draco gave the boxes a critical glance, then shrugged. "Probably our gifts, but best to be certain, I suppose." He began casting, checking for hexes and curses and such.

Harry felt something like a slow burn of anger begin in his belly. Draco was his brother, and he loved him and all that, but sometimes he could be mind-bogglingly selfish. "Their son was killed, just last night! I hardly think the Weasleys have nothing better to do than pack up a lot of stupid presents--"

"They aren't stupid. They're coming-of-age gifts, which means they're important. Any wizarding family would understand that," said Draco quietly. For once, he didn't mention Harry's Muggle upbringing as some sort of deficiency. "Besides, Harry, don't you know that when somebody close to you dies, you . . ." Clearing his throat, he shook his head and didn't go on.

The burn in Harry's gut became an ache. He hoped that Draco wasn't thinking of Lucius. Maybe it was somebody else, though. "Remembering Pansy still hurts that much?"

Draco flicked his gaze toward Harry, clearly startled. "No, of course not. What I feel for Rhiannon puts all that in much better perspective."

"Then what were you trying to say? I mean, not say?"

"I was thinking of you."

"Me?"

Draco nodded, his hands moving a little haphazardly, but by then he was finished casting. "Remembering your godfather still does hurt you, I think. But when he died, Harry, didn't you need things to do, to take your mind off it?"

"Might have helped," said Harry tightly. "I spent most of the summer alone in my room. Lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, mostly."

"Your aunt and uncle let you? They really were disgusting specimens--"

"They didn't know that Sirius had died," said Harry, shaking his head. "I didn't want them to know, since having a dangerous godfather who cared what happened to me could come in handy, dealing with them."

"You're proving my point, you realise."

Harry smiled, a little wryly. "Yeah, I know. It's hard to get worked up over it, now. Maybe I'm finally ready to start forgiving them. And anyway, I can hardly blame them for not noticing what a wreck I was, last summer. Uncle Vernon must have been out of his mind with worry over his wife being so ill, and Aunt Petunia . . . she was so quiet, every time I ran into her. She looked bad, now that I think about it, but I was in no state to notice that at the time. But now . . . I think she must have been pretty afraid of dying."

Harry sighed, feeling vaguely guilty. He'd thought about the afterlife a lot after Sirius had died. Constantly, that summer, but he'd hardly given any thought at all to what might have happened to his aunt. Thinking about it now, he winced. "Do you suppose . . . do you think Muggles go to the same places as wizards, after they die?"

Draco abruptly sat down, his forehead creasing. "No, I don't, and before you start calling me names for thinking there's a difference, just remember that that's one of my nightmares. That when Rhiannon dies, I'll never, ever be able to see her again."

"Maybe you will," said Harry bracingly, though he actually didn't want to see Petunia or Vernon ever again. Not even to tell them what he really thought of them.

"Ha. Only wizards can come back as ghosts, so by extension--"

"You don't know that for certain," said Harry. Nearly Headless Nick had once alluded to something like that, but considering he haunted Hogwarts, he might just not know any Muggle ghosts. "Look, there are loads of ghosts stories, some of them of really famous people. They can't all have been witches and wizards."

"Name one," said Draco morosely.

Harry cast about in his head. "Uh . . . well, there's this battlement at the Tower of London, called Elizabeth's walk, for where she used to walk when she was locked up there, I think. People say she still walks there, sometimes."

"Someone famous, I said."

"Princess Elizabeth?" asked Harry, almost smiling. " Queen Elizabeth, Draco? Henry VIII's daughter?"

Draco's fringe moved a little as he blew out a breath. "All right, that smarmy look on your face can only mean one thing. I need to study some Muggle history."

"Eh, well considering Rhiannon . . ."

Draco shrugged. "Maybe those Muggle Studies books'll have a smattering of history in them. Because there's nothing dark on any of those parcels. The handwriting detection spell did say there was a letter in that one, though." Draco pointed to the smallest of the boxes.

It turned out to be a short note from Ginny, apologizing for not packing up the presents the night before.

Harry bit his lip. "God, how could she think I'd even expect that?"

"She's not thinking anything like that," said Draco calmly. "I told you, Harry. She's keeping busy so she doesn't have to think about the other."

That made so much sense that Harry nodded. He could see Mrs Weasley deciding to knit, bustling about seeing to clearing away whatever remained of the party, and demanding that all her children help with de-gnoming the garden, even though Ron had spent a lot of the summer doing that, already.

Draco had several of the boxes open by then, and was lifting out gift after gift, his wand directing them to float over to the table.

Just seeing them made Harry feel the terrible contrast between the morning before, when he'd been so happy to finally be officially grown-up, and today. Only a single day had passed, and suddenly, the world looked a whole lot darker.

Harry sighed, wishing he wasn't so familiar with how fast things could change. He didn't realise that he'd spoken out loud--well, muttered, really--until Draco looked over at him. "Things could be worse, you know. The Dark Lord might have attacked later than he did, and you'd have had to give a speech."

Well, that certainly put things in perspective. Harry could hardly believe he'd been so worried and anxious over something so utterly meaningless. Other things, though, weren't so meaningless. "Call him Voldemort," he urged. "Please, Draco. I hate hearing you talk like . . ."

"Like a Death Eater?"

"Like you're in awe of him."

"Scared shiteless would be the more accurate term," drawled Draco.

His tone was dry, like he was making a joke, because of course Draco normally wouldn't admit to being afraid. He was though, and this was the only way he could say so.

"But being afraid of his name just makes that worse, don't you think?" Harry went over to help with the boxes, mostly because having something to do with his hands somehow made it easier to talk about this. "And it's like Dad said. We can't start thinking he's all-powerful, or we'll end up feeling powerless, ourselves. To think doom will fall just because you say his name, Draco--"

"It's not his name," Draco snapped, his wand flashing as he banished a box he'd finished with. "It's a style he's taken on, which is rather different. But--"

"That's nitpicking, don't you think?"

" But, " Draco continued, raising his voice, "I'll give your concerns all the consideration they deserve."

"And that's just snide."

Draco blinked. Then a smile slowly raised the sides of his mouth. "Oh. I suppose it could be, but I didn't mean it that way. You make some good points. Well, you and Severus, and if he can stand to say it . . . I'll think about it, all right?"