Ephemeral

It all started on his eighteenth birthday.

His hair was pink and his eyes were blue that day; a combination which Harry told him was his mother’s favourite. It was a small party — twenty people at the most, and he’d used it as an excuse to invite some of his old friends from Hogwarts over that he hadn’t seen in a while.

He had been distracted the entire night, which definitely had nothing to do with the exceptional black number that Victoire was wearing (which really was exceptional), and by midnight he found himself seated in the corner of the room, eyeing his own party in numb disinterest.

It just didn’t feel right. And maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was alone; that he was entering adulthood without any real sense of belonging, with nothing but a dull empty feeling inside of him, or maybe he’d simply danced a little too much (and a little too atrociously), but he couldn’t shake off that heavy feeling of loneliness. And sure, he could easily talk to Harry, the closest thing he had to a father, but the sense of loneliness seemed to delve even deeper inside of him, bubbling in his blood and beating through his heart.

He was halfway through his fifth bottle of firewhisky when she approached him, and he deduced that this was the reason that when he looked back on the night her image had just been a blur. But startlingly — in spite of his foggy memory and inebriated state, he could remember the words that she’d spoken to him perfectly.

“He wanted me to give it to you on your eighteenth birthday. It’s his. Your father’s.”

The night after that had disappeared. He must have stumbled into his bedroom at one point, collapsed on top of his bed and fallen asleep — still fully dressed and drunk.

But however it had happened, and whenever it had happened, he had awoken with the bottle of his father’s memories clutched tightly against his chest.