Chapter Text
Draco was of the opinion that it was impossible to be broken-hearted on the Côte d’Azur. Technically, the Malfoy summer home in France was located in Provence, but with a sip of ageing potion and Andromache Malfoy’s wand, quaint cafés looking out on crystal blue ocean were merely an Apparition away.
Father and Mother had taken him back to the Manor from King’s Cross for a single night so that he could rest up from the train ride and gather what he might want from the Manor. The next day, they took an international Portkey, and had supper with a backdrop of lavender fields.
Holidays in France had been a healing experience for as long as Draco could remember. As a child, he’d thought it was the fresh air and good weather that made everything seem shiny and new. Now, he understood it had more to do with escaping the ghosts of the First Wizarding War.
French wizards, for all they might have watched events unfolding across the Channel with concern at the time, did not care much about Monsieur Voldemort, as they called the Dark Lord with disdain—when they bothered to refer to Him at all. The faded Mark on Father’s arm signified nothing to them except for unwise decisions more than a decade in the past.
The relief of not having to toe such a stark line between reputation and reality showed. Even this year, with the dual stress of having the Dark Lord’s survival confirmed and the vicious rumours about Draco that were, even now, being spread across Wizarding Britain by hordes of children freed from their yearly exile to Scotland. For just a little while, they all tacitly agreed to put aside their worries and be happy.
One morning, Mother had even been inspired to start singing as she tended the houseplants. Father was holding a book, but he wasn’t even pretending to read as he watched her, completely besotted. It should have been endearing to see, but it only made Draco heartsick. He’d lost two loves in the past year—one admittedly much fresher and more uncertain than the other—and now seeing other people in love made him want to break things.
That was the day Draco tried out the adjusted ageing and went exploring on the coast. He found an adorable little bookshop with a surprising collection of rare medieval French texts mixed in with modern novels. The witch who ran it seemed to like keeping her patrons on their toes. From there, it was only a short walk to his new favourite café with a view of the water. He would drink coffee and page through his latest purchases or stare at the journal and tell himself that today was the day he would open it and read whatever messages Potter had left him—it never was.
Vince and Greg came to visit for the first week in July. That interrupted Draco’s trips to the coast, but he didn’t mind. They did a perfectly good job of distracting him on their own. When they weren’t exploring the local Wizarding market, they were playing Beaters games of Quidditch. Or, at least, they played until a minor row between Father and Mother (he gave permission for them to play when she thought it was too dangerous) put an end to that shortly before Vince and Greg had to leave.
It was the abrupt loneliness after Vince and Greg’s departure that finally prompted Draco to open the journal. There were pages full of Potter’s lamentable handwriting after the last line Draco had written. That had been his signal that the Slytherin common room was empty before they went to the third floor. It felt so long ago, even though it was barely more than a month. It hurt to think about. Then came the messages following the year-end feast, and those hurt worse.
You didn’t come to the Room last night.
Not that I blame you. I don’t.
I wasn’t in the mood last night, either, but I’d hoped we’d get a chance to talk in person about what Dumbledore did.
I can’t believe he did that.
I was so angry, I thought I’d be sick.
I’m still angry.
I kept thinking you’d say something, but you never did. Why didn't you say something?
Talk to me. Help me understand.
I would have backed up anything you said.
Did you want me to say something first?
I’m sorry I didn’t. I thought you wouldn’t want me to.
Did you want to keep it quiet?
I can imagine you might not want your father to know what you did. I don’t suppose he’d be pleased that you helped me.
But why are you avoiding me if that’s the case?
I didn’t know.
I swear I didn’t know.
No one told me.
Why didn’t you tell me?
If I’d known, I would’ve done something. You have to believe that.
I’ve talked to the Gryffindors. They know what happened now. Or, well, close enough. They shouldn’t bother you any more.
Let me know if they do.
I’ll talk to the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws tomorrow.
I can’t get to them all together like I did with the Gryffindors.
Trapped them in the common room until they listened.
Anyway, it would be helpful if you told me who specifically in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw have been bothering you the most.
I think McGonagall’s on our side.
You should have seen the look she had on when she was giving me detention today. I almost thought she was going to offer me a biscuit.
By the way, did you steal the potions you brought to the third floor?
I told Snape I did it when he asked, so either I’m covering for you or someone I probably don’t even know.
Somehow, I don’t think he miscounted.
I wish I knew what to say to convince you to talk to me again.
I suppose this is my sign it’s over.
I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to really even start. I’m sorry for my fault in that.
I know you’re probably not reading any of this. Hell, you might have got rid of your journal for all I know.
On the off chance that you are, though, would you look for Tom Riddle’s diary while you’re home for the summer?
If it helps, think of it as stopping a little girl from getting possessed by Voldemort, instead of doing me a favour.
I miss you.
I keep thinking how it won’t be the same when we get back to Hogwarts, and I don’t know what to do.
God, I just want to be able to do something.
Tell me what to do.
I have too much time to think right now.
Are you having a good summer?
Did you go to France?
You said your family goes there every year.
I can imagine you there, speaking French and eating baguettes.
In my head, you’re wearing a beret and sitting under the Eiffel Tower.
Do wizards visit the Eiffel Tower?
I asked Fleur that once, and she just looked at me.
I never figured out if that was because it’s more a tourist thing to do, or if it’s because it should be obvious that they don’t.
I hope you’re having a good summer.
I miss you.
Sometimes, I’m afraid it’s not you I miss, but everything else.
And I’m only thinking it’s you because this journal was the only thing they didn’t take.
I don’t know how I convinced them it wasn’t magical.
But, then, I think of how it felt the last time, and I know it’s you.
I miss everything else, but I miss you, too.
There was no way to tell for certain when any of this was written, though Draco had guesses for parts of it. Was Potter still actively writing, or had he given up by now? How would he react if Draco wrote back?
A part of him wanted to write back. He wanted to say that he was in France but nowhere near Paris and that he’d never worn a beret or visited the Eiffel Tower. He wanted to point out that there were other types of bread in France than baguettes. He wanted to say that he missed Potter, too.
He put the journal away without writing anything.
Instead, he set himself to the task of tracking down the Horcrux diary. It astounded Draco to know that the Sorting Hat had ever suggested Potter might be fit for Slytherin because the manner of his asking Draco to look for the diary was so patently non-Slytherin. A proper Slytherin would have pointed out that securing the diary early would mean one less thing that could be used against the Malfoy family, and Father in particular, after the war.
Not that Draco was actively hoping for the Weaselette to get possessed. She was, after all, just a little girl, like Potter had said. And no one deserved to have the Dark Lord in their head. If the Horcrux could be destroyed without her getting hurt, all the better.
The problem was that Draco didn’t think Father had taken the diary out of England. It might be safer in France, but getting it there was a huge risk. Of course, it wouldn’t do to miss the diary just because he deemed its location too unlikely. So he spent hours scouring the house when he could get away with it.
When he couldn’t get away with it, he either went flying or he did research.
Occasionally, flying meant leisurely jaunts over the countryside. Mostly, it meant Quidditch drills. Draco was determined to not only make the Slytherin team on talent this time, but to beat Potter to the Snitch in November. He had a few moments of doubt where he worried Potter would not try out for the Gryffindor team out of some kind of misplaced pity for Claverdon since he’d caught the Snitch during the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match. For the most part, though, he was secure enough in his knowledge of Potter to recognise that he wouldn’t sacrifice his place on the team like that.
His research was focused on figuring out why Dumbledore had called him a natural Occlumens. Was it simply that he was more skilled at Occlumency than a twelve-year-old ought to be? Or was there something more to it? And, if there was, could he turn it to his advantage?
Unfortunately, none of the books on Occlumency did more than mention that it was possible to be born an Occlumens. Most failed to go into any depth on the subject, even when touted as “advanced” books on it. Only one even suggested that Occlumency could be used to evade Veritaserum, for example—though it was a fact well known by the Auror Department.
“Que voulez-vous, Léo? L’occlumancie est l’art des menteurs,” Thaïs, the bookshop lady, asked when he’d gone in looking for a better book on Occlumency.
They’d become friends of a sort over the past month, though she clung stubbornly to using “vous” with him. She called him Léo because he wouldn’t give her his name. She had started by calling him a different name each time she saw him, but had been so amused by his reaction to the name Léo that it had stuck. That was the day Draco had made a promise to himself that he would never let Thaïs and Pansy meet.
For all her teasing, Thaïs did seem to relish the challenge of finding a book to suit Draco’s needs. Sooner than he anticipated, she was greeting him with a grin.
“Ah! Léo, j’ai quelque chose pour vous,” she said and showed him a very old volume. “Les mémoires de Perronnelle la Loque. Elle était une sorcière du treizième siècle qui a prétendue être occlumancienne-née. Mais personne sait la vérité. C’est possible qu’elle était folle.”
Draco snorted. “Ce serait tout simplement parfait.” He bought the book anyway because what else was he supposed to do?
Perronnelle turned out to be quite the character. It was hard to tell if she was mad or merely eccentric. She was the daughter of two Squibs who had been born to Pureblood families, so all four of her grandparents were magical, but neither of her parents were. This had led to some confusion about what her blood status ought to be, and she had ended up a perpetual outsider. Draco could not bring himself to believe all of her assertions, but her section on Occlumency rang startlingly true.
I taught myself to occlude from a very young age but did not recognise it at the time. My teachers did not recognise it, either, when they taught me to layer thick shields over my mind.
For most wizards, Occlumency is defined by absence. They can only hide what is there and hope the gap goes unnoticed. The truly skilled among them can make their shields so fine and small that only the most skilled Legilimens can spy them.
I can craft falsehoods that appear as natural as true thoughts. This allows me to control what the Legilimens perceives in my mind to the minutest degree. The only risk is in creating a falsehood that directly contradicts what the Legilimens knows to be true. Hence, my interest in mastering the art of Legilimency.
There was a note in the margin stating that a wizard named Goubert de Saint-Goubert had debunked this ability of Perronnelle’s and that such an effect was only achievable by editing one’s memories in a Pensieve and returning the altered memories to the mind.
Draco didn’t know what to think. He’d been crafting fictions in his mind and layering them over his Occlumency shields since Aunt Bella had taught him to craft those shields in the first place, unaware that this was not common practice for the skilled Occlumens. He’d walked into the very trap Perronnelle had described during his meeting with Dumbledore.
At the same time, Perronnelle spent twenty pages detailing her feud with a neighbour’s dog, whom she claimed spoke to her when no one else was listening. It was hard to tell fact from fiction with seven hundred years between them and a mediocre grasp of Middle French.
If Draco was truly a natural Occlumens, like Dumbledore said and Perronnelle’s account seemed to support, he would have to learn the extent of those abilities on his own. It was a daunting task, made even more difficult by the little voice in his head warning it would be dangerous to make assumptions about abilities he might not have. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he was led to believe he was more extraordinary than he really was.
He tasked Thaïs with hunting down the book by Goubert de Saint-Goubert to read that assessment of Perronnelle’s story for himself.
In the meantime, he finished his sweep of the Malfoy Provençal home. There was absolutely no sign of Tom Riddle’s Horcrux diary. Draco hadn’t expected to find it, but it set his mind at ease to be sure.
The beginning of August would mark his return to England with Father and Mother. At that point, Draco would have to search the Manor, a task much more frustrating and complex than the search in France thanks to all the spells Father employed to keep the Ministry’s nose out of his business. Of course, if the diary was being kept in the Malfoy family vaults, there would be no accessing it unnoticed until Father retrieved it.
But that was a worry for another day. For the moment, Draco was satisfied that he’d done all he could.