To the Ghost by Jintian (R)

[flyingtapes.livejournal.com]

Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: none
Author on LJ: hesychasm
Author Website: Jintian: Stories, Recs, and Musings
Why this must be read:

Well, I didn't necessarily mean to leave my month of recs on less than a positive note. But this is a great, deep gen that explores the way things might turn out, post-war, if certain people lived and others...did not. I find it moving because the balances of power and anger and fear have all shifted. Things are never as simple as they once were in school.

Years later, as he sat alone on the Hogwarts Express, Draco's thoughts drifted back to all of these things, like debris pushed onto shore. Outside his window the land fell away from the tracks like the slow-moving surface of a sea, at once familiar and strange, pushing memories from hiding places and old dreams awake.

A curve in the tracks made the train lurch, shifting his weight to his hip. Pain shot through the joint -- he made his ritual damnation of Ron Weasley, and just as painfully wrenched himself away from the thought. He imagined Hogwarts' long, drafty corridors, the cold damp stone of the Slytherin dungeon, and dreaded the coming winter.

To the Ghost