Facing Eastward by phlox

Beta Reader:The usual thanks go to my alpha and omega: my beta, eucalyptus, who deserves a gold medal for patience, good humor, and extraordinary insight.

And, speaking of patience, my deepest appreciation goes to the mods of Dramione-Remix 2012 for graciously agreeing to more than one extension, allowing me to take part in this incredibly rewarding fest.

Author's Notes:

Please note, this story is DH-compliant until the final battle; Alternate Reality/Timeline commences and license is taken
from there to get canon to play nice with the prompt. *

*Winner, Mod Choice and third place in Participant's Choice in Round Two of Dramione Remix, 2012*

*Nominated for the Summer round of HPFanFicPollAwards on Livejournal - vote until June 30th, 2012 here: hpfanficfanpoll . livejournal *

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With a hoarse yell, he flung what felt like the very last of his magic at the barrier, only to watch the spell disintegrate against it like a Gobstone sling-shot into the surface of the sun. He released a hollow laugh. The futility of his struggle was nearly comforting in its familiarity.

It would be fitting if his magic met its end here; it was the end of everything else.

It had taken the last of his strength to command his legs to walk down the dark hallway, his arms feeling twice their weight as he hauled open the front door. The last of his willpower had been used up ignoring the taunts of Great-Aunt Wallburga's portrait, though they still turned his stomach with their bile-filled shame as he closed the door behind him. His options had been exhausted days earlier, comically spent at the very moment he'd made his first real choice.

Draco heaved a great sigh, raising his head as it echoed against the silence. Beyond the ripple of the wards, down the steps of the townhouse and past the street that ran before it, Muggle London lay still under the enveloping mist. A grey sky reigned over the morning air with a perpetual chill, a constant reminder of the Dementors' ever-growing numbers. The Dark Lord was out there, his power undiminished. He'd been on the run since the Battle of Hogwarts but he was not defeated, and the power of the Dark still held sway.

Draco felt stranded here at the top of these steps, poised on the edge of the world, overlooking a land of death and decay.

He couldn't stay here. There was nowhere else he would be safe, but it was not safety he was after. He would find no peace in the 'protection' afforded by the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix; nor would he sit still and await any judgment hanging over his head for crimes he'd been forced to commit. There was only death or imprisonment in his future, and now that he finally knew what it felt like to choose his own destiny, he knew which one to pick.

Buzzing with the need to go, he wanted only to throw himself into the tide of history and achieve his end. Only then could he hope to be released from the path of humiliation and regret.

The thought renewed the urgency in his gut, igniting his magic to burst forth in an explosion of color that attacked the wards confining him to the townhouse. His assault was as frenzied and erratic as he'd shown in the great battle only days ago: his Reducto rent the air with a crack; his Confrigo whistled as it cut through the air toward its target; and his Relashio exploded in an incredibly satisfying shower of sparks. Draco was struck then with the wild desire to unleash an even more satisfying stream of Fiendfyre, and the pounding of his blood egged him on as he raised his wand.

"Malfoy, stop. You're on the wrong track."

Her voice was soft, but it cut through the roar in his ears as good as if she'd screamed. Turning half-around, he saw her leaning in the doorway, dwarfed against the dark, ornately carved wood of the frame. Like a switch had been flipped, he could suddenly hear the noise of the world around him, and some small part of him registered surprise at the chirping of a bird in the distance.

"Bugger off, Granger," he said with a rather unconvincing level of spite. "You can't keep me here. None of you has any authority." What energy he'd harnessed to get him out the door had vanished, and he found himself out of breath and shivering in the cool air.

But she wasn't faring much better, by the look of her: Granger was paler and thinner than he'd ever seen her, and that doorframe was surely holding her up more than she'd care to admit. He didn't know why she was here, so far from the action, or what had left her so weakened and diminished. He was unlikely to find out, as there wasn't a lot of gossip in the empty halls of Grimmauld Place. The usual spark in her eyes was dimmed, replaced by tight concern, but a flint struck deep within them at his critical appraisal. She straightened then, mustering her dignity.

"No one's keeping you here."

"Oh, really? Then why the bloody hell can't I get through these wards?"

She crossed her arms, looking perturbed. "You're not under arrest; there are much bigger things to worry about right now than you. Besides, the Order isn't the Ministry."

"Realized that, have you?" he said with a sigh. "Something is keeping me from leaving. I demand to know."

"It's a magic you don't understand," she said deliberately. "And you can only hope to conquer something once you can name it."

Her patronizing tone and pitying look turned the edges of Draco's vision red. "How dare you... you think I can't understand—"

His immediate impulse was to wield the purity of his ancestry like a hammer. But his hackles had risen merely out of habit, and they just as soon deflated to indifference. There was nothing left of that illustrious line of Malfoys anyway (or Blacks, for that matter), and what the last of them had become... well, that was nothing to brag about. He couldn't quite remember what he'd thought was so inferior about the woman before him either, and what did any of it matter now?

Here the two of them were, broken and left behind like children, waiting for the end of the world.

At his immediate response, she'd leaned backward slightly, waiting for his attack, steeling herself against the onslaught with a purposely neutral expression. Though it didn't come, her body was slow to relax, and Draco knew she would only be a hair's breadth away from full alert at the slightest provocation. His shoulders slumped in exhausted surrender, he raised his eyebrows and met her look, deciding to just hear whatever she had to say and be done with it.

"Yes, well," she said carefully, "I didn't say you couldn't understand it, Malfoy – only that you didn't... yet."

With that, she very primly took her leave, walking back into the house with a slow, unsteady gait. She left the door open behind her, and Draco debated whether she'd done so as ridicule or invitation. He realized with a sigh that it was neither; it was an acknowledgement of fact. He wasn't going anywhere.

He walked back in with heavy limbs, only to see her watching him from the entrance to the library. Turning to go in, she very pointedly left that door ajar. The message was clear, but Draco couldn't be bothered to follow. Dragging himself back up the stairs, he returned to his bedroom, the icy void inside him smothering the anger, the will, and the purpose that had taken him out the door.

He was clearly a prisoner here; it didn't much matter who was the jailer.

oOo

It only took two days before his curiosity won out. He'd wracked his brain of all the spells, wards, and enchantments that could construct barriers, but was forced to conclude that identifying the magic holding him here was going to take real research. Knowing the history and proclivities of this branch of the Black family, Draco guessed their library would be nearly as extensive as the one at Malfoy Manor, so it would surely hold the answers he needed.

It was what else he knew he'd find there that was the problem, but there was nothing for it. Dreading it with every step, he headed to the library, hoping the metaphorical tail between his legs would be easy to hide.

True to form, Granger was sitting at one of the tables in the front, surrounded by stacks of books, head down, quill to parchment. He nearly shook his head to clear it of the overpowering déjà vu; minus the Hogwarts uniform, it was exactly the way he'd seen her countless times throughout school. The sight loosened his grip on something deep inside, making him feel something other than wind rushing through the emptiness. But then she raised her head to catch him staring and gave a small smile. Draco summoned a scowl and scurried to the back of the room to begin exploring.

Every day for the next week went much the same, with Granger already spread out and deep in her work when he arrived in the dark, cavernous room shortly after breakfast, and each of them buried in their studies until supper. In the evenings, they both kept to themselves, reading in their rooms. They never spoke; tacit agreement between them seemed to hold that as for the best.

Draco started with wards and their dismantling, thinking it was surely just a more complicated type he'd never encountered, but trip after trip back outside to battle against the thing showed this to be the wrong direction. Curses, jinxes, and ancient blood charms were the next logical step, but he couldn't figure how the Black ancestral home could have an enchantment that could be altered to limit the coming or going of a pure-blood. After all, the Order had been soundly thwarted by a portrait with a Permanent Sticking Charm; his money was on his forebears' unyielding nature in the face of change. Each time he tried something against his invisible nemesis though, it responded in ways completely unlike anything his research foretold, and by a week later, he was running out of avenues for investigation.

As for Granger's business, he couldn't quite figure it. One day she'd have stacks of books on magical objects, the next, minerals and precious stones, followed the next by tome after tome on wizarding ancestry. He couldn't discern any sort of theme or pattern to it, and he was struck more each day with the need to find out. The one thing that never varied (and which illuminated matters to him not at all) was an ancient, ornate edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, always open and within easy reach under the large brass lamp on her table. He took to making a circuitous route about the library and going on unnecessary trips out the door and back, just to get a chance to peek at her mess of books and paperwork.

Thus, on one such journey, he spied the theme of the day: wand lore. It wasn't until he'd made his turn toward the back of the room, however, that the pieces fell into place. The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Precious stones, magical objects... the history of wands. The Tale of the Three Brothers.

Feeling as though he'd been doused by an ice-cold bucket of water, he stopped in his tracks. His legs, working of their own accord, pulled him to stand by Granger's workspace. His eyes roved over the collage of words and figures and pictures, and the rest of her research suddenly coalesced to an obvious conclusion. His brain nearly burst with the force of the epiphany: the Deathly Hallows; Antioch Peverell; the Wand of Destiny.

The realization shocked him back to the room with a jolt, his heart pounding as though he'd just raced for and won the Snitch three times over. Suddenly remembering himself, he glanced quickly down at Granger. She was already watching him, her gaze steady.

"You think he has— Dumbledore's wand... is it...?" Her look darkened to deadly serious, and he spoke the rest in not much more than a whisper. "The Dark Lord has... the Elder Wand?"

Crossing her arms, she nodded grimly.

"I'd thought it was just talk. I didn't believe a bumbling fool like Dumbledore actually had the thing. You mean to tell me, the Dark Lord's out there, with this invincible wand, and they're just... what? Trying to track him down to do battle with him? Its—" He laughed incredulously. "I thought you lot had a chance to beat him! The bloody Chosen One was going to save us all, and now what?" he asked with a sneer.

Granger stood, taking a few steps toward him, crossing her arms stiffly. "Well, we don't know for sure yet what—"

"You're damn right you don't know. You don't have any idea what you're up against. What he'll do, what he's capable of. And if he's got a weapon such as that..." He shook his head, and a cynical laugh bubbled up out of the numb weight of sheer inevitability. "I'd thought maybe there was a chance I was facing Azkaban, but... total annihilation it is, then."

She pursed her lips in annoyance before schooling her features, saying, "You're right, Malfoy, we – I – don't know anything for sure, but that's what I'm trying to figure out."

"Forget it, Granger. Just be grateful you've been left behind and that you don't have to charge off into that. As a matter of fact, you might as well let me out of here so I can join the fun, because it's just my kind of cause, apparently – a lost one."

That dig got to her, and she puffed herself up. "I told you, no one is keeping you here, Malfoy. Believe me, you're not that important. What I was trying to say is that I have a theory that the wand isn't working properly for Voldemort—"

The name seemed to hang in the air.

Slowly, the world screeched and pushed itself into slow-motion, and a distant ringing filled his ears. The Name had been spoken. The Taboo had been activated. Everything within him seemed to freeze in horror, waiting. Then Draco's world exploded in white light.

Everything was lost to him under a wave of terror as the room spun. He heard a whimpering, high-pitched whinge, which he vaguely realized was himself. Instinctively, he covered his ears and dropped to the floor, keeping low, making himself as small and unnoticeable as possible for the arrival of the Death Eaters... the Snatchers... the Dark forces he knewwere hurtling toward them this very moment. He struggled to breathe as the memories took him.

The Dark Lord arrives to inspect the great catch, the smile unnatural on his face, his eyes shimmering with feral glee as he stands over the trembling Professor Burbage... His Mum's face tightens at the noise in the foyer, her soup spoon frozen on the way to her lips; Draco's spoon still clutched in his own hand as he's marched away by men in masks, and his aunt croons to her sister about the great honor he's about to receive... Every muscle in his body strains to keep himself from running at the sight of them, dragged in by the Snatchers, beaten, bruised, and swollen, and his anger at them for being caught gives him purpose... Snape hissing 'follow my lead' makes no difference as they enter His lair, and he's forced to watch his professor, mum and dad suffer for his failure before the wand is turned on him...

The echo of memory sent the pain of the Cruciatius ripping through him as though it had just been cast, and the blackness at the edges of his world consumed him.

He woke to find himself in his bed.

Well, not his bed, he acknowledged. It was the same thought he had upon waking every day: hisbed was lush and pristinely kempt, the sheets soft, the bedding warm, the centuries-old frame priceless. This one, though it had surely been very fine and worth plenty at one time, was threadbare, scratched, and faded. It was the only bed he had now, but it was always jarring to return from dreams (or even nightmares) to his dark little cave of a room at Grimmauld Pl—

He sat up with a start, recalling in a flash all that had happened just before he'd blacked out. His hand scrabbled blindly for the wand on his side table as he scanned the room. Upon seeing movement in the shadows, he finally grasped the wood and aimed it confidently. His breath heavy, all of his senses were wide awake.

A dainty clearing of the throat preceded Granger leaning forward into the light from the high-backed chair beside his bed. Her finger held the place in the book she'd been reading, her other hand raised in mock surrender, eyeing the wand aimed at her heart. Though his mind grasped that there was no danger, he was slow to lower it.

"It's alright, Draco," she said gently. "It's only me."

"What happened?" His head was splitting and his voice shook.

"You collapsed. Kreacher brought you up here, and Poppy came to examine you. You seem to be fine, but she left some Dreamless Sleep if you want it." Her cheeks pinked and her expression was awash with remorse. "I'm sorry, Draco. I should have known that it could trigger you. I'm just so used to— It was thoughtless of me."

The incongruity of Granger apologizing to him led him to finally drop his wand, and he shifted uncomfortably at the thought of what she must have witnessed. He didn't know he still had pride to be damaged, but he couldn't quite look her in the eye. "But, I don't understand – why didn't they come? The Taboo jinx breaks through all wards and protections. The very instant it's spoken..."

"Not the Fidelius Charm. It's impervious to magic such as the Taboo." She took a breath as though choosing her next words carefully. "It's a powerful, sentient enchantment that can only be breached according to its own rules."

Draco laid back heavily against his pillows, staring at the unraveling tassels of the bed hangings, his heartbeat gradually slowing. He felt trapped here, imprisoned, the need to go a constant itch under his skin. But now he felt a strange warmth in his belly besides. It started to melt away the hollowed-out place there, and it wasn't an entirely pleasant sensation.

It was a palpable feeling of safety.

It struck him suddenly that the choice to live on or perish must indeed be his if no one was going to be able to get to him otherwise. Draco had dealt the Dark Lord a crushing blow that had precipitated his hasty retreat; it was rather remarkable to be so safe from his reach, given that the Dark Lord had not only the Elder Wand but quite a bone to pick with him. He'd be damned if that wasn't the first time in a long time that he'd felt that.

But then, he'd just found relief at seeing a member of the Order of the Phoenix keeping watch over him as he slept – the world had turned upside-down in more ways than one.

"Well, I..." She fidgeted with the book in her lap before closing it with a decisive snap and getting to her feet. "I'll leave you to rest."

As she walked out, he noted that her strength and color seemed to have returned in the past week, and a few more pounds were filling out her figure. He found himself strangely pleased at the sight of it; weakness didn't look good on Granger. No sooner had she pulled the door shut than she opened it, sticking her head back in, awkward and uncertain. It was girly in a way Draco had never seen on her, and he found it oddly becoming.

"I'll send Kreacher up with some soup. If you need anything, I'm just one floor down."

But then, perhaps he was just delirious from hunger.

Later, as he went back over all she'd said, a phrase from her explanation got stuck in his mind, repeating until something elusive clicked finally into place.

He groaned. "Of course."

How blatant, how right-under-his-nose it had been all this while. He'd have thought all that time wasted if he'd had anything else to do.

oOo

Granger looked up as he dropped a pile of books upon the table with a dramatic thump and took a seat opposite. After examining the titles in the stack, she sniffed and met his gaze guilelessly, unafraid of the perturbed raise of his brow. She broke the stare first as he pulled The Fascinations of the Fideliusby Alasdair MacFusty from the pile, and he caught her gentle smile as she turned back to her work. He glared hard at the side of her face, watching her cheek flush.

"You couldn't have just given me a hint?" he said, more snappishly than he felt.

"You could have asked."

"Would you have told me if I had?"

She looked up, twirling her quill as she pondered it for far longer than he thought the question merited before saying loftily, "There's a school of thought – in Eastern philosophy in particular – that holds no knowledge should be imparted until requested; no one is ready for any answer until they're capable of forming the question."

His glare intensified, and this time he meant it.

"You know, 'when the student is ready, the teacher will come...'?" She shrugged. "It's an expression, Malfoy."

"Is it? Well, it's the single most patronizing thing I've ever heard. And that includes years and years of experience with Professor Snape."

He said it so unthinkingly that it shocked him, and he blinked down at the book in his hand without seeing for a long moment. His mentor and protector was gone, his end hard and unjust. Severus Snape was not someone to be mentioned casually, if at all. Draco had forgotten himself... what little he knew of himself anymore.

"Then I'll take that as a compliment," she said simply, returning to the papers in front of her.

Leave it to Granger to interrupt a perfectly fine self-flagellation. Grateful for the sentiment and glad to let the moment pass, Draco took deep breaths until the image of a gashed throat and splatters of blood against a rough wooden floor faded from his mind's eye. Once the words in the book he held ceased to be a jumble of letters, he began to read. He immersed himself in the companionable silence, learning far more than one man ought to aspire to know about the Fidelius Charm.

Having lived his whole life to that point without knowing that it had been invented by Benedictus Viridian (to keep the neighbors from finding the cellar where he stored his prize-winning rhubarb chutney), he felt his life was none the richer for it now. It was fascinating to find out how a secret was dispersed in the event of the original Keeper's death; assuming it had been Dumbledore, the members of the Order were all Keepers of Grimmauld Place now, a fact which he struggled to find some use for. A darker discovery was made, however, in An Anecdotal History of the Fidelius, where in the back pages, Sirius Black had written his own addendum, scribbling furiously his account of "The Traitor, Peter Pettigrew," such that the anger and pain of his scratchings burned on the page. But it was hours later, as high tea sat cooling and abandoned, that he found what he was looking for (in the last book, of course).

He had to hand it to Granger – she could not have given this to him. For this answer, he wouldn't have even known how to begin formulating the question. He closed the book and set it on the table in front of him, knowing without looking that she'd be watching him, waiting. Taking a deep breath, he raised his head and met her narrowed gaze from across the table. There was concern in it, but calculation also; she didn't have all of the answers either.

"So... what? To leave this place, I'll have to take some sort of pledge of fealty to the Order, is that it?"

"No, no..." she said with a breathy laugh, waving away the question as nonsense. "The spell comes from the Latin 'fidelis,' meaning 'faithful.' People generally take it to mean loyal and devoted, and then follow that to mean faithful to a cause, as anyone must be to use the charm to protect something they hold dear."

Draco crossed his arms and said tightly, "I well remember introductory Latin, thank you."

She was too deep in the academic thrill to be affected by his tone. "But what people forget is that the obscure, obsolete meaning of the word 'faithful' is... full of faith.' The charm works because the secret is encased in the soul of the loyal, and what is hidden is revealed to anyone trusted to share it." She paused, looked down at her hands, and when she looked back up, she was wearing her most tactful expression. "The spell only recognizes those of like mind. Those... full of faith."

His confusion must have shown, because she dropped the lecturing tone and said carefully, "Months ago, while Ron, Harry and I were... traveling on our own, we were discovered while on a... mission at the Ministry—"

"Yes, yes, I heard all about that little adventure of yours, Granger. I even had the pleasure of being present for Yaxley's punishment for letting you lot get away, so just get to the point."

She pursed her lips and huffed, though her expression was serious. "That isthe point, Malfoy. Yaxley chased us, grabbed hold of me just as we Disapparated, and I couldn't shake him loose until we'd touched down just outside." She pointed out in the direction of the front entrance. "Right on the front steps there, just inside the charm's boundary. I'd presumed he got a look at the door – the number, and maybe the surroundings – and thought that meant I'd unwittingly revealed the secret. As one of its Keepers, that would mean I'd allowed him entrance. We Disapparated immediately to somewhere safe and didn't return until, well... until after the battle.

"As you can see, he wasn't given the secret. This place isn't crawling with Death Eaters, and it's just as safe as it's always been. Yaxley was brought, carried into the charm and saw the building without having its location revealed to him. So even though he knew he was in view of a safehouse, he couldn't see it or enter it, and he knew he wouldn't find it again once he left. The same as... well, just as you were brought in, when you were Apparated here, unconscious.

"But you were given the name of the place by a Secret Keeper when you awoke inside, so you know where you are. Were you to leave, you would not find your way back unless it was revealed to you properly. You're snared in the charm's web, caught between one to whom it's been revealed and one who stands on the other side of it, seeing nothing."

She sat back, waiting to see if he'd followed her the rest of the way, and Draco swallowed it all with what dignity he could muster. He was ready to ask the question now, because he already knew the answer.

"So," he asked in his most perfunctory manner. "Why could Yaxley leave when I can't?"

"Yaxley was loyal. Not to the Order, not to the cause for which the Fidelius Charm had been erected – but he was devoted to the Dark Lord. He believed in something. So, when he stumbled to back out of the void in which he'd found himself, the Fidelius recognized that fervent, faithful spirit, and... let him pass through."

The words hung heavily in the silence while Draco's newborn feeling of autonomy, of heading the charge of his own destiny, of choice, died a painful death. It left nothing but cold in its wake.

He forced a laugh. "Right, then. Looks like I'll be seeing the end of my days from within these walls, Granger." His eyes burned into hers, daring her to contradict him.

But Gryffindors took to a dare like moth to a flame, so she didn't disappoint.

"Well, I don't believe that, Draco."

He sighed. She was too easy, too predictable. "I don't give a bloody fuck what you believe. It's none of your concern." He stood to go, and she followed, facing off with him across the table.

"The Draco Malfoy I've known was proud and ambitious – to a fault, sure – but I don't think all that braggadocio has gone for good. You'd just throw away a lifetime of pure-blood pride, Malfoy? All of your ideals for 'upholding and protecting the world you inherited from being taken over by filthy Mudbloods?' What happened to that?"

It was a direct quote from him, and her righteous anger belied the hurt underneath. It was humiliating to have to make this confession, but he had to admit, the woman before him deserved to hear it more than anyone.

"It was killed, Granger. By a crazed half-blood who has no sense of loyalty, who sends kids to do his dirty work, and who kills indiscriminately: pure-bloods as easily as half-bloods, as easily as—"

He very nearly used the word. It was habit, but he didn't want to wound her anymore. Her nostrils flared, knowing, but he couldn't be sorry about it now.

"It was impossible to keep trusting and admiring the people who trusted and admired such a man, impossible to not see how the other side's strategies and tactics were vastly superior, especially when the Darkest wizards were outwitted, time after time, by kids."

He took a breath to steady himself and looked her in the eye. She was grudgingly accepting, still a little skeptical, but that was good enough and really the best he could have hoped for.

"Then why not fight against them? If you oppose everything they stand for, you can do something to make a difference."

Flashes of a black-haired boy's nose crunching under his boot... a writhing, retching body and screams that tear through the parlor... the mercy in kind, blue eyes and a chance he did not take.

He laughed hollowly. "And join up with your lot? I don't think I'd be welcomed with open arms." He noticed her about to make a token argument to refute that but pressed on. "Besides, how do you fight against something... when you're not forsomething else?"

"Then what of vengeance?" she said, with such pity in her eyes he had to look away. "For your parents?"

Flashes of white, flowing hair spilling over hardwood floor... the sickening thud of a body falling lifeless to the ground... dark eyes filled with madness... the death of the true believer.

"It's done," he said coldly.

She flinched at his tone but remained earnest. "You have a place in this world, Draco, a history. You're a Slytherin. What about your life, your friends?

Flashes of monstrous flames and smoke-choked screams... flesh sliding from a slippery grip into the abyss... the pool of blood that shrouded a senseless, lonely end... the living death of lost hope.

"Dead. I don't have anywhere to go, Granger. I was trying to get out of here to see which side could get to me first. I figured either one would like a crack at me."

Granger stood staring at him with eyes so wide and innocent, he wondered how she could be the same person he'd seen endure under his aunt's wand, the warrior with years and years of fighting under her belt. He suddenly felt sorry for disappointing her so, for not being able to live up to her view of the world.

For the sake of explanation and by way of apology, he pulled the wand from his sleeve and reached for an empty cup from the abandoned tea service. He placed the tip of the wood to his temple and pulled a long, silvery strand of memory from deep within with a shudder. Flicking it into the flower-speckled porcelain, he unceremoniously held it out as offering.

"Here, watch this. Then you can tell me what I have left," he said, not unkindly. He pressed it into her hand and she looked inside it with untamed wonder.

With that, he left the library for the first time that day. Walking toward the stairs, he didn't glance at the front door as usual, the lure of the outside world and freedom no longer tempting. As he slowly ascended the stairs, his life stretched out before him, with the inevitability of solitude, and the endless waiting, hoping, for the walls to crumble down around him.

As he lay down in what was surely now his bed, he closed his eyes and practiced being content.