(Untitled)
Harry knows they've spent far too long in this bar. He also knows that's his fault. He'd wanted to leave as soon as he got here but then...well, how could he walk away from here, knowing his mother visited? And now he knows his father does too - can he really walk out, pass up the chance to talk to him, knowing that he may never make it back?
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One of her Advanced Spell Composition assignments, however, requires a specific type of grading that requires open space and , judging from what's under the Guildmaster's arm, a carpet.
She spots Harry, watching and listening as he throws the stones into the lake. It's a familiar scene on a few different levels. There's so much she'd like to tell him, above all that things will be all right. But she's had trouble with this before, with Hermione. She still isn't sure if she did the right thing then.
So she'll try to keep this short, lest her mouth run away with her.
"Hello, Harry."
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'Hello. Er...Mia, isn't it?'
He meant to leave a note to thank her for the gift at Christmas, but he's had other things on his mind. He's not normally so rude.
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It's more sympathetic than happy at him remembering her.
"I can... Kind of guess what's going on for you now. I've been through it before when I was your age."
War in general, the Wizarding War in particular, the burden of expectation placed on the chosen, betrayal and the constant question of who you can trust, all of it.
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'You can guess?'
He's sure.
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She puts the carpet down and picks up some stones herself. Just holding them for now.
"I do wish I could make things easier for you, and I have tried. Or will try. Whatever tense things are going to be in. But those are actions. I doubt words are what you're looking for now."
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Sorry, Mia. But he's really not in a very good mood.
'That's not the problem though. Today. So don't worry about it.'
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Well, she supposes that's only natural. They are best friends. Though Mia does feel like she's let Hermione take care of the Guildmaster's responsibility to tell others of that.
"I'm not here to defend my husband's wrongdoings or to force my help upon you. But please remember that I am not Draco."
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And he is aware that Draco has got in a bit over his head but at the moment, nothing will change the fact that he had been planning to kill Dumbledore, and Hermione was tortured in his house. And that he's been a prat for more than six years of knowing him.
'I didn't say you were. But you can hardly be surprised by my not liking him.'
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It's been the biggest failing of trust on Mia's part in recent years.
"Oh no. I don't blame you for that in the least. Althena's sake, I hated him before I ever met him."
She finally takes a look at the stones in her hand and picks one she wants to try skipping.
"What I mean is, being married to Draco doesn't mean I'm like him. You don't know me, just like I don't really know you, shared burden of war aside."
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Malfoy had seemed...odd, the night they arrived. Different. But you don't just forget what a kid's like because of one fraught evening. He'll never look at Draco and not see him threatening Dumbledore's life, or that thing on his arm.
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Because book canon didn't say either way at the time.
"That is true," she says, skipping a stone.
It makes three jumps.
"We're both from old magic families. We were both raised in environments of prejudice, though my home's choice in discrimination was and, as Draco has learned, still is xenophobia. That's about all we had in common back then, though Draco did make a certain assumption about me that helped things along."
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'You realise nothing you can say changes anything?'
At least not today, when he feels like this.
'Whatever he's like now, with you - it doesn't change what he did.'
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"He wanted to. We even tried to help, at least in one case."
The sound of stones dropping to the ground is heard as Mia's fingers go slack.
"I've been wondering ever since I met you that night if I did the right thing."
He can pin this on Mia. This one is her failing.
"We wanted to tell Hermione what would happen. In fact, if Draco had found her before me, he would have warned her explicitly, timelines be damned. But I didn't want to risk messing up the timeline too much, so I gave her armor instead. Rings and pendants with protective charms, magic that would have greatly reduced the pain and injury."
Her left hand goes to her forehead, her fingers sitting in her hair.
"That was the rucksack I was asking about that night. Hermione had left it behind here."
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'You didn't want to mess up the timeline?'
He is so sick of this bloody timeline.
'Did you ask her? Maybe we want the timeline messed up, maybe that would actually help. If people would help, then we might actually have a chance of winning, instead of just getting bloody slaughtered!'
He's not talking about their real-time situation, really. Finding his parents here, young and alive, is messing him up and it's all the timeline's fault. Personally, he's all for smashing the thing to smithereens at the moment.
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She won't even tell him that Draco reacted nearly the same way.
Once he's quiet again, she says, "Okay. What do you want to know?"
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'What makes you think I'd listen to anything you have to say? Saying I should trust you doesn't mean it's going to happen.'
Trust Draco Malfoy's wife? Not likely.
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