Twigs and Porcelain

Disclaimer: Look, even IF I felt like being sued by lawyers and even IF I was so stupid enough to claim Harry Potter as my own, none of you rabid JKR fans out there would believe me. Sheesh.

A/N: This is quite possibly the weirdest, out of it fic I have ever, ever written.

Twigs and Porcelain

You watch her walking up the aisle in that white white dress (white like a china doll) that looks so wrong on her golden skin (golden like the sun). Not golden golden but white golden, the kind of healthy exuberance you get when you play out in the sun and you spend your days enjoying life to the fullest just because.

(Just because I want to.)

And her ridiculously bushy hair has somehow been tamed down (twigs of brown) into sleek, shiny, smooth hair that doesn’t belong to her, not really, because that isn’t her, not the real her, standing up there in that aisle with that white dress (white like a china doll) when you know she doesn’t belong in white (not a china doll) at all.

She’s not a white person.

(Not a china doll.)

(No no can’t be, not really, not fragile, not her.)

And the picture is all wrong (all bent out of the frame) because she’s wrong, she’s not in it, not really, not the real her, the real her’s not here, (tucked up in a box with a porcelain figure), and the other person in the photo is all wrong too, wrong person (little rag doll) or is it the right person after all?

(Maybe it’s the frame that’s wrong.)

Because maybe little twig people don’t belong with porcelain figures but with rag dolls. Simple with simple. Lasting with lasting. Because twigs last, all woven together (all bushy hair and buck teeth) in a framework of brown and plants and living things.

And rag dolls are floppy and stupid and should all be cut up into tiny little pieces (floppy black yarn hair and taped glasses) and be put away in the earth.

Not in the picture.

But he is in the picture, and you are not, no, you’re a little porcelain figure tucked away in a box in the attic marked ‘Don’t Touch.’ Which is ironic really, because all you ever wanted was not to be touched (no don’t touch that Draco, it could break) at all. By anyone.

And then she came, and she touched him. (Little twigs poking at porcelain.)

And then he learned that it’s okay not to be perfect after all, that you can be flawed (sharp branches clawing at the glaze) because then you are human, and if you’re human, then you can love.

(Love love love love, love is weak weak weak weak not for perfect porcelain dolls.)

Love is for twig people and rag dolls that have gone through so much together.

That’s fate. A little kid who tosses her toys around her room, (blue and white room shaped like a globe) and then doesn’t bother to pick up the mess afterwards, so that the toys have to pick themselves up painfully and get to wherever they can before she tosses them around again.

And they end up in the strangest of places.

(Little porcelain figure in a box in the attic; little rag doll in a picture with the love.)

But now the little twig person looks like a china doll, and that hurts, because when she was a twig person you could persuade yourselves that twigs go with rags (filth and scum) but now she’s a china doll and you know that china goes with porcelain (no no Draco, china goes next to porcelain, not wood) and it hurts.

Rag dolls don’t deserve her (rag dolls with messy black hair and stupid scars)

Porcelain figures don’t deserve her either (porcelain so cold so messed up)

But porcelain and china belong together.

And looking at her now, maybe you think twigs and porcelain could have gone together too, if they’d tried. (try harder Draco, you know you can do it)

Only she didn’t want to try (little twigs scratching at him trying to break him)

And she wanted to be where she was safe

Comfortable

(because who knew what would happen if you did something against the rules for once little twigs are good little twigs who do what they’re told)

So she went in the little safe toy chest with the rag doll instead of the high dangerous shelf with the porcelain figure. Two dolls, safe in their loving cozy home, porcelain doll left high and dry on the shelf until he is shoved away in a box in the attic.

(picture doesn’t fit the frame)

But then maybe the frame was never meant to be after all (golden frame golden glowing with hope.)

All That Matters

A/N: Cookies to those who can guess whose POV this is from!

Disclaimer: Not Mine.

Title: All That Matters

It is the perfect date. We are in a romantic restaurant, the kind that is snobby to all but the oldest Pureblood families, even though after the War such things are frowned upon. It is of the highest class, very expensive, and I should be grateful that Draco has seen fit to take me here. In the background, sweet romantic music plays softly. Moonlight pours in through the window on the wall, painting everything with a silvery glow. Candles are flickering on the table, giving off a sweet aroma that reminds me vaguely of vanilla and cinnamon and a girl I do not want to remember. I frown. That is the last scent I want here, and I gesture to the waiter.

“Please take away these candles and replace them with something of a different scent.”

The waiter steps forward, but Draco stops him. “No,” he says with an inscrutable glance toward me. “Keep them.” The waiter hesitates, vacillating between the two of us, but Draco is the one paying the bill, and I make no objections. I am, after all, the perfect Pureblood date. I defer to his wishes, and in return, he pays me every compliment and panders to my every whim. This is the way it is. This is the way it has always been. This is the way it will be always be. This is the way she could never be, and that I will be.

Draco is mine.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~**~

He is the perfect boyfriend. Sweet, charming, romantic, handsome, witty, talented, pureblooded. He never fails to remember our anniversary, or my birthday, or St. Valentines’ Day, unlike that oaf Weasley, whose lack of romance Brown continually laments.

All the girls sigh over him, one in particular whom I hate. He is handsome, with perfect platinum locks that are perfect for grasping while kissing. Sweet, chaste kisses, of course, always delivered with perfect decorum. For some reason, we never experience passion, unplanned snogging in deserted corridors and broom closets. But perhaps, it is the way Purebloods are supposed to be.

He is charming. Never does he lose his poise. Always he has his façade, his perfect mask. Always.

Maybe this bothers me a little. Because after all, this is what a girlfriend is for, right? Someone in front of whom you can let down your guard, be yourself?

But he never lets it down.

Always his cold gray eyes, following me. I fear to let down my guard in front of him, always those cold grey eyes, judging me, weighing me, pondering whether I am found worthy. Never letting me in.

He takes off his mask sometimes. I have caught him at it a few times, when I have been lucky. Once while he was sleeping, and he smiled. The smile of an angel, the smile of a child. It was pure, free, without all the inhibitions of its waking self, just a smile of being happy.

I have never seen him smile like that again, except once.

He was looking at the Granger girl. I understand his looking. They have become tentative friends since the War. I myself have been civil to her, and Potter has talked to me several times. He is very sympathetic. No, I did not mind the looking.

It was the smile that followed it that first disturbed me.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He is the perfect fiancé.

Always a smile. Never has he raised his voice, his hand, his wand toward me. Whenever it is, whatever time of the night, he is there. When Millicent quarreled with me and she called me a slut and a bitch, he was there for me to cry on. When the horrid Skeeter woman wrote an unflattering tabloid about our impending marriage, he comforted me and denounced the newspaper. When the wedding suppliers accidentally mixed our orders with someone else’s, he soothed my frazzled nerves.

Yet there it still is. His mask. Never has he ever come crying to me. Never has he ever asked me for anything. Never has he ever, ever shown any sign of weakness to me.

Granger, Weasley, and Potter came over the other day. We were being civil to one another, mainly for Granger and Draco’s sake.

It is odd how he so fervently promotes inter-House unity.

Or maybe not, depending on how you look at it.

More people came—Theodore, Blaise, Vince and Greg, Daphne, Millicent, the Weasleys, Chang, Brown, Patil, Lovegood, Boot, MacMillan, and other year-mates. The party separated.

I excused myself to fix my eyeliner.

It was then that I heard the voices, and curious, I went to look. It was in my bedroom. Granger and Draco were sitting together. Nothing improper was going on, and their clothes were in perfect order. I did not think for one moment that Draco had cheated on me with her. He is too much of a gentleman for that. No, they were only sitting together, so close that their hands were touching, and tears were running down both their cheeks.

Two souls, come together for comfort.

I should not begrudge him that.

Yet despite all that, I could not feel but a twinge of jealousy. I am his fiancé. I should be the one he comes to for comfort. Not her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was the perfect wedding. White, silver, a touch of green, everywhere. The guests were well-behaved; Draco had thoughtfully performed a sobriety charm on the wine and Firewhiskey. The décor was superb; Mrs. Narcissa had helped, and she has superb taste. My dress had cost more than a Firebolt in Galleons; it was a touching little affair in white and silver. It set off my dark hair perfectly.

The weather was wonderful—cool, but not chilly. No rain.

The list was perfect; a hundred guests exactly.

The refreshments were delicious; the cake dreadfully expensive.

The entertainment was adequate.

It should have been my perfect day. After all, it is the day every girl dreams of, isn’t it? When she steps up to the altar and exchanges vows with the man she loves?

Yet—and yet—

It was nothing, really. Just one glance.

Nothing more than that.

A shared look between two pairs of eyes, one silver, one chocolate.

Nothing more than that.

And yet, it was everything.

*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He is the perfect husband. In our twenty years of marriage, he has never forgotten an anniversary, a birthday, an—anything. He has never been late for dinner.

His work has not pulled him away from me.

How could it? He was never with me to begin with.

Contrary to belief, I am not stupid. I know very well why he married me. It was an arranged marriage.

I do not think that he hates me. Far from it, I am sure that in his cold Slytherin way, he loves me. He cares for me. He would not wish to see me dead. I even think that he would weep at my grave.

But his heart is not mine.

I have seen them. The glances, the touches, the shared pain and the anguish. Granger has married Weasley, as we all knew she would.

Oh, I do not think Draco is cheating on me. As I said before, he is too much of a gentleman for that. And Granger is too proper. Too moral.

So, for now, I am his only lover. I am the only one who has seen and shared his body.

Yet I know that Granger has him far more than I ever will.

But, in the end, I suppose it does not really matter. For he is Draco, and I love him.

I know that I love him. I know that all I want is his happiness. I have heard them. They are talking again. Always they are talking, as if by talking they could make up for all the would-have-beens should-have-beens-could-have-beens.

I know that they will come back with denied love.

I know that he will come back and smile at me.

I know that tonight in bed, he will be extra gentle to make it up to me.

I know that he will try to love me as best he can.

And I know this too.

I know that tomorrow, I will go out as if nothing is the matter.

I know that to the world, I will turn a shining face and a cheerful smile.

Because he is Draco, and he is happy, and that is all that matters.

THE END

Afraid of Heights

Disclaimer: Does anyone ever even read these things? Oh fine, sheesh, I don’t own Harry Potter. There. Satisfied?

A/N: I’m not exactly satisfied with this story, but it’ll have to do until I get a stroke of inspiration.

It had been a beautiful day, which was ironic really, because what happened afterwards was anything but beautiful or maybe it was and she was just missing the whole point and in retrospect she supposed it was beautiful only it took seven years to recognize it. Seven long years spent shaking and hating the day until she was finally finally over it.

Finally over it.

Finished.

Clean.

Done with it all.

But it had been such a beautiful day. The sky had been all blue, the kind of crisp blue that looks so pretty but you almost never see until the weather is too cold for you to enjoy it, a lovely blue she wished she could take and pull down here so she could hug it to herself until she absorbed some of that beauty from it.

The weather had been perfect, just the faintest hint of a breeze to tease the wisps of hair poking out from under her hat, to tug at them and whisper gentle fantasies about escaping to them until she realized that her ponytail was suddenly nonexistent.

The sun had been not too sunny and not too dark, with wisps of white cloud floating around it gently, not too slowly, not too fast, and in other words, perfect.

Hermione had thought it was perfect for reading.

The others had thought it perfect for flying.

So they all trooped out with their brooms in their hands, laughing and chatting animatedly with one another, Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Ginny—even Malfoy, who had had been forced to stay with them for the summer due to his unexpected rebellion against You-Know-Who.

Not that he was ever up to chatting animatedly with them, but at least he had what passed for a smile on his face and he was clutching his broom with anticipation.

And then, of course, she had been asked to play. Again. As usual.

“Her-mi-oh-nee! Come play with us!” that was Ron, soaring and swooping on his broom.

“Yeah Mione, you never fly.” That was Harry, who was performing a truly stupendous maneuver on his Firebolt, figure-eights and loop-de-loops while upside down.

Did it never occur to you that maybe I have a reason too?

“No, I think I’ll just sit down and read. It’s the new edition of Hogwarts, A History and you know how much I’ve been looking forward to reading it. It has a completely new section on the Founders. Why, did you know that Rowena Ravenclaw was actually born in—”

Her boys groaned as she knew they would and prepared to swoop off on their brooms, only this time something went wrong with her ploy.

“Actually, Granger, that’s not the new edition.”

She froze and turned around. Malfoy. The bloody ferret had to come interfering again.

“Yes, it is,” she insisted.

“How would you know, Malfoy?” asked Ginny rather belligerently.

“Because,” he said. “I’ve read all the editions, and that’s only the second one.”

Everyone, even Hermione, gaped at him.

“You’ve what?” the squawk came from Ron, who looked rather amusing with his jaw hanging open like that. “Bloody hell, I thought only Mione was crazy enough—sorry, Mione!—to do that!”

Malfoy ignored the outburst and continued gazing calmly at the flustered Gryffindor. “So tell me, Granger,” he said conversationally, “why are you so afraid of flying that you, the noble Gryffindor, has resorted to lying to get out of it?”

She stared at him. No. This was not happening. This could not be happening. It wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t. No no no no no no no no.

Mutely she shook her head, slowly at first, then more frantically, back and forth, her brown curls flying, a horrified denial, no no no no no, as he looked unconvinced.

“No.” She tried to sound nonchalant, firm, but her voice betrayed her and it came out as the faintest of hoarse whispers, strangled and twisted inside.

He stepped a little closer, and she backed up until she hit the tree, gasping, her eyes wide, and it was going dark and no no no no no no no no she was NOT going to faint and this wasn’t happening and she couldn’t she couldn’t she couldn’t’ she couldn’t.

“Mione?” Harry’s concerned voice sounded miles away, fuzzy, distorted, as though he were speaking outside some great bubble which grew from the desperate need inside her and blossomed around her until the only things in the world was her book, the tree, and Malfoy.

No no no no no no.

“What’s wrong, Granger?” he asked, and if she didn’t know better, she would have thought it was actually concerned, but she did and he wasn’t and this was too too scary and she wanted to run away and hide under her covers because she’d been a good little girl hadn’t she and why was this happening and no no no no no she was so so scared and no she’d been a good little girl and she’d done everything right so why was this happening please please it’s scary let me out and I want to go hide under the bed only I can’t and there is no bed to hide under and please!

“It’s all right, Granger,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Eyes wide and it’s all scary and dark and please don’t hurt me—

She heard some one screaming, screaming and screaming and screaming, a terrible sound that was barely human, a sort of hoarse cry of an animal that’s being wounded, and she wants it to stop, to all go away, and everything’s falling in on her again and stop the screaming! And the screaming screaming screaming—

Something breaks the screams, the hoarse terrible mantra, and she looks wildly around to find what it is and then she breaks up from the sea of cries to find she’s huddled on someone’s lap, and someone is holding her protectively like he’s never going to let go and saying, “Granger. Granger. Granger. Granger. Granger. Snap out of it!”

“Merlin, Granger. What happened?”

And it all comes rushing back in now, and she doesn’t want it too, but it is it is it is.

She was six or was she seven she can’t remember she doesn’t want to remember she kept it all under lock and key for so long, shut it up in a little drawer and shoved it far far away—

And he was big with long yellow hair tied back, yellow like the yellow in her paint set that Rose in her class has, bright bright yellow and eyes that look almost red!—and –

She was alone, she was a bad little girl, she was bad bad bad bad bad she went without her mommy and daddy and now she’s alone in a little dark alley and she wants to go home so bad and go hide under her bed but she doesn’t know where it is—

And because she was so bad she needed to be punished, because mommy and daddy weren’t there to do it for her and if they weren’t there someone had to do it and he was there—

And now he’s ripping off her skirt and she’s screaming but no one’s listening and she wants her mommy because it HURTS so bad—

And now her shirt is off and she remembers it’s her favorite shirt with a rainbow and a unicorn on it and now she doesn’t want to see it ever again—

And he’s jerking her hands up behind her against the wall

He’s lifting her up

Higher and higher and higher and higher he’s so tall tall tall he’s a big man

Her feet can’t reach the ground

Nothing solid underneath, just air air air she can’t even see the ground

So high up

So very high

And he’s pinning her to the wall by her throat and it hurts to breathe

He’s pulling down his pants

MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! It hurts so so bad, it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts—

And now there’s blood all over the alley, it’s running down her legs warm bright red blood and it’s seeping down and trickling and oh mommy it hurt

Where were you

He lets go of her throat and she drops back to the earth with a THUD and it hurts so bad but she’s so happy now because she’s on the ground and she’s on the ground and it’s going to be okay now happy happy happy okay ground no heights anymore

And now he’s pushing her skirt back on her with clumsy fingers

Doing the button

Pulling the shirt on over her head

Bit of blood on the shirt

Right on the unicorn’s horn

So he smears it and tugs at it

And now there’s a hole and the unicorn isn’t a unicorn anymore but a bright red horse, red for blood, and it all makes sense now

And he’s shoving her, pushing her until she stumbles, out of the alley

Bright glinting white teeth next to her ear, fresh breath hissing

“If you tell anyone about this, there’ll be hell to pay,”

And then mommy’s running up to her saying how worried she was

Where were you mommy? I needed you—

And her mommy hugs her tight and she’s on the safe safe ground—

She snaps back to herself and they’re all there crowded around her, Harry and Ron and Fred and George and Ginny, all huddled around her, patting her back, soothing her, whispering comforting nothings in her ear, and her cheeks are stained with tears again and she’s being held by someone so warm and it feels so good and right.

It’s Malfoy, and his arms are so tight around her she thinks he’s never going to let go but that’s okay because she doesn’t think she wants him to let go.

“Oh Granger. Oh Granger,” he whispers over and over again, like it’s some kind of mantra that’s going to protect her against every bad thing, and she thinks she likes it.

Finally, finally, the shuddering stops and she can sit still in his lap without shaking and the tears have stopped coming.

“Granger?” the tone is unhappy, but firm.

“What?” she’s sniffling now, but she looks up anyway.

“You’re going to have to learn how to fly.”

“No!”

“Yes. You have to.” The tone is gentle, but firm.

She shakes her head furiously. Why is he doing this? She trusted him! No no no no no no she can’t.

But Harry is nodding too, and so is Ron, and so are the rest of them, and why are they turning on her she thought they were her friends and she can’t do this she can’t she can’t she can’t—

“Granger. If you don’t do this—look at me—” he cups her chin in his hand and won’t let her look away even though she struggles, “you’ll go through life always afraid. And you can’t let it beat you like that. You can’t.”

She shakes her head again, but she is weakening.

“Granger. Don’t you want to know what it’s like to fly? It’s the most wonderful feeling ever. You fly through the air, and it feels so, so incredible, like nothing can ever touch you again up there because it’s so pure ecstasy. It’s better than any book can describe it. Pure joy. Like you’re a little bird soaring above all the troubles on earth. And if you let that bastard kill your chance of experiencing, I guess you’re not as smart as everyone thinks you are after all.”

Clever of him. Very clever of him to play on her Gryffindor pride like that.

But he has, and she knows it.

She nods her head.

“All right.”

It takes time. Lots of time. The process is very slow. Excruciating, even. Each patient step can be undone by a moment’s carelessness. Some days she takes one step forward and two steps back. But then other days she takes three steps forward and everyone cheers.

Everyone encourages her.

She works on it, starting by mounting on a broom to performing a simple slow dive.

And then somedays she just wants to give up and bury her head in the covers.

But then Malfoy pokes his annoying ferret face in and drives her out through sheer exasperation, until she throws her hands up and mounts the frigging broom just to shut him up.

And he never lets it go—

Until one day she mounts her broom and realizes she isn’t scared of heights anymore. At all.

One Cold October Morning

A/N: Try mac’n’salsa! Hermione’s right, it’s really good!

Disclaimer: Na, I own nothing but the little grocery store.

She ran into him one cold October morning, when the sky was a crisp blue, the kind that makes your eyes ache if you stare at it too long, and the wind was a crisp breeze that danced around your face and tickled your nose with your own hair, and the trees were a crisp golden and purple that made you smile because they looked so pretty. It was a crisp sort of day.

She’d gone to a little grocery store down near the river past the intersection on Mulberry Street. It was one of those places where you step in and are immediately hit with a sense of déjà vu, because everyone has gone to a grocery store like this. It is as cozy as a grocery store can be and still be a grocery store instead of a shop. It was small, with only a few aisles, and kind of dark but well-lit. It had all the basics and the oddest accessories.

She came here because it was one of the few stores that carried curry, tofu, ginseng, and chicken all at the same time at reasonable prices, or at least that was what she told her mother. She knew perfectly well that she really came here because it was the only store that carried that perfect brand of salsa and macaroni and cheese that go perfectly together. Mac’n’salsa. It was daring, adventurous, and a little homey all mixed into a sort of god-like taste that she enjoyed.

But then, she couldn’t tell to her parents, or Harry, or Ron. What could she say? There’s that little something in the salsa and macaroni here that make it just right? Even in her head she sounded like a sappy commercial or, here she giggled, Professor Trelawney. That’s why I drive ten miles when there’s a perfectly good grocery store two minutes from my flat?

She had been reaching for a jar of salsa. There were only two on the shelf now, and so she’d been reaching for it quickly, before another avaricious shopper stole her rightful quarry from her. Halfway she’d been met with another hand, which had been quickly withdrawn. She’d retrieved the jar of salsa, and felt the usual flash of satisfaction, and carefully held it before looking up because the jars were so slippery here, looked up, and promptly dropped the jar of salsa anyway.

A pale hand shot out and caught the jar on its descent perfectly, with reflexes she had seen in only a few other select people her age. Harry was one. His wife Cho was another.

Seeker reflexes.

For some reason, it was the Seeker reflexes and the jar of salsa that clinched it for her. Not the platinum blond hair, which he had grown out long to his shoulders and tied back conservatively, not the milky white skin she remembered slapping in third year, not the impossibly gray eyes. The Seeker reflexes and the jar of salsa.

Which was ridiculous of course.

How could she walk up to Cho, nursing little Lily, and say, “I found Draco Malfoy in my favorite grocery store today and I know it was him and not just a Muggle look-alike because of Seeker reflexes and a jar of salsa,”?

It was preposterous.

But somehow, she was sure it was him.

His eyes were carefully guarded, as always, like a window that has been shuttered so tightly that not even a crack of life shines through.

Her mother had always said that eyes were a window to the souls. Ron had looked confused when she had said it, so she had categorized it—wasn’t she always categorizing everything?—as a Muggle saying. Then she had grown older, and realized that wizards were missing out on a lot even they didn’t have that saying. Harry’s eyes were green, and intense, and vivid, full of passion and life. They were—undiluted, she thought. Everything shone through with equal fervor, never muted. He just lived. Ron’s eyes were blue, warm, trusting, and friendly. Loyal. Simple. Uncomplicated. The one bulwark that would always be the same.

His eyes were gray. Not intense. Not passionate. Not warm, certainly, or trusting. Just—gray. And looking at them now, in Aisle Number 6, clutching a basket with tofu, ginseng, curry, chicken, and a box of that perfect macaroni, his hand holding out a jar of salsa in a moment of perfect stasis, where the world flowed around them, and time itself froze down, she knew that he had never just lived as Harry had. None of them, really, she thought, had that pure and undiluted joy in living that Harry had, but they could all—let themselves go, at times.

Not that she meant being adventurous. She was never adventurous. Or reckless. He was. Reckless, she meant. Passionate and intense, but always, even in the throes of anger or joy, carefully, carefully contained. Controlled. Hidden. Windows behind bars.

She stared at him until he said, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s rude to stare?”

His voice was faintly amused; it was still the smooth, sleek, silvery drawl, but it had changed somehow. The aristocratic, perfect, well-bred accent was still there, along with the faintest hint that you were just too funny, but there was something missing, and something new.

Perhaps it was the faintest hint of jaded cyniscm that made it so different, the knowledge that the world was not fair, and it never would be, and after all he didn’t give a damn, because no matter what, Draco Malfoy was better than you and always would be, and what did you want to make of that? The hint that the pride and arrogance of self-assured Pureblooded-ness was gone, replaced by a sort of desperate clinging to pride, the fact that Draco Malfoy was better than you because he had to be, as a sort of last bulwark over everything else that had changed and was changing.

“Draco? Draco Malfoy?”

Upon retrospect, she found that it wasn’t the most articulate, or coherent, or even reasonable response to his earlier comment about her manners. It was, in fact, totally random, something she had rarely, if ever, been in her life. She was too logical to be random, unlike Ron, who at totally weird moments would say, “I think beef jerky tastes better than teriyaki children,” or something equally odd and food-related.

“The one and only,” he said, but his voice was, if possible, even more reserved now. Wary. And she was sure that he didn’t recognize her.

Because at first, he had thought she was a Muggle.

Why else would the sudden wariness pop up?

And then after that, she thought it wrong that he had to be automatically nervous around his own kind. Not bad. He had been a Death Eater after all. Just wrong. Not in the order of the universe. Out of place. Different. Strange.

And then she wondered why he hadn’t noticed her. She hadn’t changed that much—or had she? She hadn’t turned into any raving beauty, no Witch Weekly for her. Unlike Parvati Patil, who, much to the amazement of others, had suddenly turned gorgeous and was now a full-time model for the latest dress robes.

She’d changed slightly, she supposed. Her hair was still long and rather bushy, if not the wild jungle it had been, but it was black now, the result of a Potions experiment gone radically wrong. At first Harry and Ron had laughed—Hermione Granger get anything wrong? But then, it had been a Masters level Potions. And then they got worried when she told them she couldn’t get it off.

Oh, she was sure that somewhere in the world of rich Wizarding families, there were mediwizards who could undo this kind of damage. But she had no reason to go shelling out big bucks—or Galleons—to change her hair color. Besides, she rather liked it this way. Ever the frugal bookworm.

Her eyes had gone darker too. But then, they all had, after the War. And her picture was still on the front of the Daily Prophet, along with Harry and Ron, almost everyday, especially since now she was known for inventing spells and charms in her own right, not just as the friend of the Chosen One.

She should be—and was—easily recognizable to just about any Wizard.

Except for him.

He looked at her and she could sense, somehow, that she was an enigma to him that he was trying to figure out, a difficult Arithmancy problem he was trying to unravel. And then he got it.

She saw recognition widen his eyes, saw everything falling in place, saw him matching her high wide cheekbones, saucy nose, slightly triangular face and bushy hair click, and saw his gaze fall on the few paperbacks in her basket, and saw his eyes wander to the slight outline of a wooden stick in her jeans pocket. And because she was watching him so carefully, she saw his face pale.

It wasn’t much, something she would have missed if she hadn’t been looking for it, just a little white where there had been white before, only now it was slightly chalky as opposed to milky. And his eyes turned iron-steel with fear.

If she had missed that, there was no way she could have missed the next sign. Carefully, as though approaching a dangerous beast, he approached the third shelf on Aisle Number Six, almost sidling forward to gently, precisely place the salsa jar back where it had come from to keep company with the other salsa jar, then backed away, one foot at a time, like a man retreating from an angry lion, until he had reached the back of the aisle.

Then he fled.

Didn’t Disapparate, as she had half expected him to do. He didn’t full-out run. Malfoys didn’t run. Instead he walked rapidly, until he was almost trotting, almost running, but not quite. Stalking, his long legs covering great huge strides that ate away at the ground.

Dream-like, she reached out and picked up the jar of salsa and placed it in her basket. There. Her grocery list was complete.

Then she snapped back to the present and went chasing after him, her basket sliding helter-skelter on her arm, the objects inside flying past each other on crash course on obstacle avoiding that sooner or later, one of them was bound to fail and end up smashed.

“Wait!” she called. She saw him look back, saw his eyes widen until she saw the whites of his eyes, saw him look almost like a hunted rabbit, saw him walk even faster, until if he was anyone else but a Malfoy, he would have been running.

She caught up with him because an old lady with a grocery cart and three bags of apples was slowly hobbling in front of him. By the time he could run again, she had pounced on him and cornered him, his back to the wall, his pale pointed face paler than ever, his aristocratic features filled with ill-concealed fright.

“Why are you scared?” she demanded. “I just wanted to talk to you!” her exasperation died suddenly as she saw the chin rise in the air in a gesture of defiance which belied his air of resignation, his gray eyes saying, ‘go ahead, do it, I can’t stop you.’

“I said, why are you scared?” her voice was sharper than she had intended it to be, and against his will he cringed ever so slightly, pushing back into the wall as though he wanted to merge into it.

“Tell me!”

There was no answer.

She should have just walked away then, walked away with her jar of salsa and her macaroni, and gone home to her flat next door to Harry and Cho’s, and invited them over for dinner as they munched on mac’n’salsa and watched reruns of The Bachelor.

But she had to know.

Because it was wrong.

Draco Malfoy didn’t cringe. Draco Malfoy didn’t frequent Muggle stores. Draco Malfoy wasn’t scared. Draco Malfoy was better than you.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, and she missed the way his eyes squeezed shut at those words for a moment before opening them to dare her to do her best.

“Legilimens!”

She saw the frantic squirming, saw his mouth automatically form the words to drive her out, saw him reach for his magic, his Occlumency—saw him come up with nothing.

And a barrage of memories swept through her.

Draco, apprehended. Draco, standing in front of the Ministry during his trial, a sea of unfriendly faces jeering at him, glaring at him from every side. Draco, taken away to Azkaban for holding purposes. Draco, huddled in a corner of the cell with tears—tears!—running down his face as the Dementors reminded him of the people he had killed. Draco, watching as the guards took his wand. Draco, watching as the Minister himself snapped it in two. Watching as his wand of polished maple cracked, watching as the dragon heartstring remained firm, watching as hope dawned, watching as the impossible hope faded as the faithful heartstring snapped in two. Draco, letting the guards take him away without a struggle. Draco, going resignedly and empty.

The memories switched, came faster now.

Draco, cornered by two wizards—Neville Longbottom and Justin Finch-Fletchley. Draco, backed into the wall like she was doing to him, sneer pasted over his fear. Draco, afraid, Draco, hurt, Draco, hexed so badly he could barely stand, Draco unable to break the curse, Draco, lying immobile and petrified, aching for days in a back alley until they finally wore off, Draco, cornered yet again, this time by Hannah Abbott and Lavendar Brown, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, jinxed and spelled until he almost died, Draco, trying to fight back, Draco, being called up for brawling and disturbing peace to the Ministry, Draco being heavily fined and warned by the Minister, Draco, stung by the injustice, Draco, going short for a while because of the fine, Draco, clinging desperately to the fact that Draco Malfoy is better than you because it was all he had left.

She broke off, panting, watching as he whimpered slightly from the pain, from the invasion, from his total lack of privacy, as he curled up into himself away from her, into the wall, helpless. Defenceless. Weak.

Draco Malfoy wasn’t weak.

She dropped the jar of salsa. The label tore slightly, right between the ingredients and the nutrients, the green sticky bit clinging to his robe, the jar hitting and glancing off his shoulder and rolling to the floor unbroken. The jar was heavy. It must have hurt.

It was strange. For one brief instant, all she could think was, ‘Good, guess I’m gonna have mac’n’salsa after all.’

It was totally and utterly selfish.

But she felt it.

And then her gaze snapped back to the half boy, half man who was part-curled, part-crouched, part-standing in front of her, not even cradling the injured shoulder, just—waiting. Waiting for the next blow, she realized with a sort of sickened feeling.

It was nothing, really, nothing compared to the hundreds of people she had seen tortured during the War. She had seen their bodies twitch and thrash about on cold stone floors and dirt earth, and cave ground. She had seen their arms wildly flailing like a sort of grotesque windmill, seen their back arching until she thought their spine would break, seen their heels drum the ground uselessly from the searing, aching pain, seen their head loll to the side with red, red blood trickling out from the right corner of their mouth in a horrible parody of face paint. Felt it herself.

And yet, it was everything.

Because you see, the War was over.

And then she grew angry. The War was over, damnit! Over! She’d fought and she’d suffered and she’d even killed, she’d seen her friends die and enemies die and wept for both, she’d starved and she’d worked, and sweet Circe, this was not what she had worked for!

She knelt down and offered him a hand. He stared at it incredulously for a moment. She put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched, and she winced at that incredibly instinctive move. She bent over ever more, and he recoiled, back-pedaling now without a hint of Malfoy dignity or pride, because he was stripped of all that now—he only wanted to live.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, and knew that he wouldn’t believe her.

She spread her arms wide. “See? No wand? It’s in my back pocket. I can’t reach it like this, can I?”

His lips soundlessly formed something, and she knew what it was. You don’t need wands to hurt people Muggleborns like Justin had preferred to use their fists.

“I’m a girl. I can’t hurt you. You’re stronger than I am.”

He shook his head, and whispered, “The Ministry.”

She knew they wouldn’t punish her for hitting him, or let him defend himself.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Please. Just—take my hand.”

She looked at him.

She was a nice lady. Nice and she didn’t hurt him like the other ones did. She had a jar of that salsa so she couldn’t be all bad. She was nice. Nice nice nice nice nice. Nice was good was good was nice. He couldn’t think when there was the M-word around. No! He’d promised he would stay together and be a good boy and not use it. But then they’d hurt him. But she was nice.

She’s Hermione Granger! His old self yelled at him. She’s Harry Bloody Potter’s friend! She’ll kill you!

His new side, the one that came up sometimes after the girls and boys hexed him, whined, but I like her! She’s a pretty lady! She’s nice! Nice is good. Nice doesn’t hurt. They weren’t nice.

He looked at her. Her hand felt good on his shoulder. It was odd, somehow, having someone touch him, even if it made his thoughts go child again, and made him incoherent. He was willing to put up with that if she’d put her hand on his shoulder again.

He took her hand.

She ran into him one cold October morning, when the sky was a crisp blue, the kind that makes your eyes ache if you stare at it too long, and the wind was a crisp breeze that danced around your face and tickled your nose with your own hair, and the trees were a crisp golden and purple that made you smile because they looked so pretty. It was a crisp sort of day.

He smiled at her and she smiled back. They took two jars of salsa because one wasn’t enough. They went out of Aisle Six and to the counter, where he laboriously counted out five pounds in Muggle money—he still wasn’t used to that!—and handed it to the nice lady at the counter. The door was opened for them, and that little bell that hangs on the handle tinkled with a sort of ting-ling to it, and they walked out to face the blue blue sky. Together.

Ridiculous!--Or Is It Ridikulus?

Ridiculous!—Or Is It Ridikulus?

Disclaimer: Does anyone ever read these at all anyway? Honestly.

A/N: This one I think is okay. By the way, this is not DH compatible.

“Settle down, people,” called Remus Lupin, the current DADA teacher for Hogwarts, who had not—yet—succumbed to the supposed jinx on the position. Then again, Voldemort was dead, so maybe that was it. This class was combined Gryffindors and Slytherins seventh years. The war had had a peculiar effect on inter-House rivalry. On the one hand, it was difficult to hate someone you had worked with, stayed alive with, and risked your life with for the past year. On the other, some Houses, especially Slytherins, had lost many family members at the hands of the Order, many of whom were from Gryffindor. So you had Slytherins who secretly mingled with Gryffindors and Slytherins who hated Gryffindors with all their guts. It was like sneaking out after curfew—you weren’t proud of it, you never talked about it, you despised people who did it, but you did it yourself when no one was looking.

The line between the two Houses, now, were much blurrier, much less defined, but it was still there, as present as any of the students—invincible. Remus sighed and hoped that one day it would disappear. For now he would be content with his—his! He was still grateful that he had been welcomed back after the exposal of his condition— class settling down so he could do a review on the boggart.

“Now, I’m going to assume you all know what a boggart is and how to get rid of it.” The class was silent. Fighting boggarts seemed such a trivial thing after the War, and no one liked to admit it, but—

“Sir?” Predictably, it was Neville Longbottom who raised his hand to ask the question that many of them longed to ask but did not dare. He had done this all his life, after all. “I forgot the spell.”

A collective breath of relief passed through the crowd like a gust of wind as they all let out the breaths no one admitted to have been holding. “A good question, Mr. Longbottom. Anyone?” Remus scanned the crowd for the one hand he knew would pop up.

Sure enough, Hermione Granger’s now scarred hand hit the air and she called out, “Ridikulus!”

“Very good, Miss Granger. Five points to Gryffindor. Now, I am going to call on certain of you to step up and defeat the boggart. Please do not be shy, and refrain from laughing at other students’ fears, unless you would like to be laughed at in turn. Patil, Parvati!”

Parvati walked up, her once long black braid shorn to a bob, and faced a hooded and masked Death Eater, pointing his wand at her. Harry briefly remembered a third-year whose greatest fear had been to appear in public without makeup, and smiled to see the girl say, “Ridikulus!” in a clear, firm voice. Seamus Finnigan faced dementors, Daphne Greengrass a shattered broomstick, Ron—as expected—gigantic spiders. Harry laughed along with everyone else in relief that one thing at least had not changed. “Miss Granger, if you will?” the class fell silent as Hermione’s eyes widened and she walked up the aisle suddenly cleared for her.

“Oooh, whaddya think it’ll be, Drakie?” whined Daphne Greengrass, clutching the aforementioned ‘Drakie’s’ sleeve and simpering. Draco Malfoy grimaced in poorly-concealed disgust at the slut. Pansy hadn’t been so bad. Pansy had been a friend as well as an infatuated girl, Pansy had been under the influence of a love potion, Pansy had grown up with him, and Pansy, even with a besotted simper on her face, had been pretty. Pansy now stood and gave him a sympathetic glance, but he noticed her glancing towards the Boy-Who-Should-Have-Died-But-Managed-To-Mess-That-Up-Like-Everything-Else-He-Did. He would never like Potter, and would always argue with him, but much to his dismay, over the course of the War they had become tentative friends, and Pansy, to his horror, had become Harry’s secret girlfriend. Blaise Zabini had been no different. Draco hadn’t known him well before the War, but had seen enough of him to hope that he would be different from—but no. Blaise was as goofy as any other besotted man, and he was now grinning stupidly at the Weaselette, aka Ginny Weasley, who was, besides the twins, the most passable member of the Weasley family now that Bill and Charlie Weasley were dead.

Draco glared at Blaise and Pansy, silently demanding them to do something. Pansy only giggled, and Blaise only rolled his eyes and mouthed, “Poor Drakie—poo.”

“Fuck,” he muttered. Remus—Draco swore, that man had uncanny hearing—gave Draco the famed ‘look’ that had spread throughout the Order with the rumor that it made you feel like a first year at Hogwarts again. It did. Draco grimaced apologetically at Daphne, and he could have sworn that he saw the slightest hint of a grin on the professor’s face as he turned back to Hermione, who was now shaking slightly as she approached the wardrobe. Merlin, Her—Granger was really falling to pieces over this. Who would have thought? Briefly he wondered what her boggart was.

Not that he cared—he most certainly did not care, about her or her boggart. The only slight feelings he had for her were that of a war comrade—fighting on missions together tended to bring you together, if no other reason than that your life was in your partner’s hands. And if he found her slightly attractive—well, anyone would find her slightly attractive after being stuck all that day with that cow—he groaned. Speak of the devil.

“Hmmm?” Daphne tugged at his sleeve again.

“He doesn’t know, Greengrass,” said Blaise exasperatedly. Finally he was taking his eyes off Ginny to do do something!

“Shut the fuck up, Zabini,” said Daphne coldly, affronted at his impertinence in butting in a conversation with her and her sweet Drakie-poo.

This time it was Daphne at the end of Remus’s ‘look.’ Draco was never more grateful to the werewolf.

“No really, Dra—” she began.

“Daphne?”

“Yes?” she asked, delighted at being noticed and being called by her first name.

“Shut the fuck up.” This time he did not receive ‘the look,’ but rather a look of pure gratitude from the harried werewolf.

“I can’t do this,” Hermione whimpered as her hand trembled over the handle. She cast a quick look at Remus, who was smiling at her encouragingly, and opened it. She couldn’t resist a gasp as the object of her fears tumbled before her, but she hadn’t gotten through the War for nothing.

“You can do this, Hermione,” she muttered, and cried, “Ridikulus!” before anyone could see what the object was. At least, most people. Students stirred and muttered as they caught a glimpse of white and silver and green, which quickly dissipated into a puff of smoke. Only five students saw what had been Hermione’s boggart—Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and Draco Malfoy.

“Hermione,” Harry called. “Meet us at the deserted classroom after lunch. We need to talk. You’d better come too,” he added to the three Slytherins when they glared at him.

Lunch was strained and awkward, and to Draco it seemed to stretch on for an eternity. It didn’t help that Blaise and Pansy were casting him curious—or was it something else?— glances and Daphne was trying her level best to make him retch up the little he’d managed to eat. Finally, finally, he cleared his plate and escaped the slut, with Blaise and Pansy hurrying right alongside him. They reached the classroom and hurried into it, locking the door behind them.

“Well?” Harry demanded after a long, heavy silence. “Are you going to talk about it?”

“I’m sorry, Harry, Ginny, I really am. I—I just—I mean, it’s—like, oh, I don’t know, I just—look, can I talk to Malfoy alone? Please? I’m really sorry, but—please? Blaise? Pansy? You too?” Hermione’s eyes were fixed firmly on the floor, as if nothing before had ever been of such interest to her. Reluctantly, the aforementioned four trailed out.

“Um—Malfoy?” her voice was timid, and Draco instinctively wanted to do something to allay that.

“Call me Draco,” was the first thing that popped in his head.

‘I—what?” her head jerked up.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said, feeling vaguely defensive. Years of emotional neglect from his parents had made him wary of opening up to anyone.

“No, I mean, I’d love too!” she said. “Call me Hermione!” and her face was cheerful again, so he’d gotten what he’d wanted.

“Um—about that boggart. I know it was really stupid, and I didn’t mean it, and it was some fluke I know, and I know you can’t do anything about it, and it was all my fault, and I’m really really sorry, and I hope we can just forget about it and move on you know and maybe—”

“Hermione?” the sound of his voice was abrupt, cutting her off. “You talk too much.”

“Really sorry—what?” she said again.

“Shut up,” he said roughly.

“Make me!” flared up the proud Gryffindor. She was, after all, headstrong.

“All right,” he muttered before stepping closer and crashing his lips to hers. After a startled moment, her lips responded, and they spent the rest of their time getting to know each other quite a bit better. From where they crouched against the wall, Harry, Pansy, Blaise, and Ginny exchanged triumphant glances as they high-fived each other exultantly, grinning like madmen—or women. Their bet had paid off.

In the DADA classroom, cleaning up, Professor Remus Lupin wondered why Harry, Pansy, Blaise, and Ginny had suddenly expressed such wild interest in boggarts. Surely they had covered enough of them in third year?

Meanwhile, pacing in the Potions classroom while brewing a calming potion for himself, was Professor Severus Snape, with a great deal of mental trauma going on in his mind. This was what he got for snooping around the DADA classroom. From now on, he decided, he was never going near there again, even if it was the job he had wanted for all his life. It was making him hallucinate. It was to be expected of a man who had had to spy for the Order and deal with a bunch of dunderheads as well. He—he had been seeing things. After all, it was ridiculous! Totally out of the question!

He resolutely pushed out of his mind the little tidbits that made sense—Draco’s face lighting up everytime that know-it-all Granger managed to win another few points from Gryffindor, his stalking her everywhere, his picking up her books and quills for her before conveniently discovering who she was and backing off in horrified astonishment that managed to hold a bit of pleasure—no. He was imagining things. After all, there was no way on earth that he had just seen Hermione Granger bending over the dead body of Draco Malfoy.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Little Severus, aged five years and three months next Tuesday, ran panting to his father. “There’s a scary monster in the closet!”

Behind him, albeit slower, came Narcissa, aged eight years and six months, with a superbly disdainful expression on her face. “Honestly, Severus,” she said in a combination of her mother’s bossiness and her father’s sarcastic drawl, “it’s just a boggart. Nothing to be scared of. Really, you’re such a sissy.”

“I thought you were the ‘Cissy’ in the family,” teased Draco with a grin. She tossed her long platinum blonde hair with a nonchalant, haughty expression, but he could see the smile lurking on her classically beautiful features.

“But really, Dad,” Narcissa, with all the maturity and dignity entitled to a eight year old, had given up saying Daddy, “he’s so scared of a boggart. I mean really, how pathetic can you get?” despite the arrogant façade so like her father’s at Hogwarts, there was an undercurrent of fear in her voice.

Draco smiled rather goofily as he looked at the two of them. Narcissa was a feminine version of her father with blond hair and grey eyes, but she had her mother’s bossiness and intelligence as well as his sarcastic drawl that so irritated her mother. Severus on the other hand was much more like Hermione in looks, with dark brown, almost black, hair, and brown-black eyes, but almost as intelligent, if not quite so bossy.

A loud rattle came from the aforementioned closet, causing both children to jump. Narcissa looked guiltily at her father, ashamed of her fear, while Severus whimpered and buried his head further in his father’s chest.

“It’s all right, Sev,” said Draco kindly. “A boggart can be scary, I must admit, but it’s nothing to be frightened of. Come here, Cissy,” he said, beckoning to the girl, who came a little slowly. She took after him and was not entirely comfortable with physical affection, but sat on his lap nevertheless.

“Now, you don’t have to be frightened of a boggart. Remember, all you have to do is laugh. And do you want me to tell you a secret?” he asked conspiratorially.

Severus looked up at his father and nodded, wide-eyed. Narcissa followed suit, though she tried hard to appear uninterested.

“A boggart is the reason your mother and I got together.”

“Really?” asked Narcissa, dropping all pretenses of haughtiness. Severus was too awed and overcome by this information to speak, and instead sat mulling over this fascinating tidbit of information. Any fact about their parents’ lives at Hogwarts, usually so closely guarded, was earth-shaking.

“How did a boggart make you get together?” he asked when he was done thinking. “Aren’t boggarts supposed to turn into monsters?”

“No, no, Sev,” said Narcissa in a perfect imitation of her mother. “Boggarts turn into what you fear most, not monsters.”

“But some people are scared of monsters, aren’t they?” he fired back. “So they would turn into monsters.”

“Honestly, Sev, that’s called nit-picking. You made it sound like they did that all the time, for everybody. But really, Dad, how did a boggart make you get together?”

He smiled at her snubbing and curiosity. “Well, you see,” he started. “It was a cold day in the Great Hall with students from all four Houses gathered together for a lesson…”

“and when she said that, I realized it had been her I had loved all along. The End.” He looked down to find both his children sleeping soundly on his lap. He smiled at them lovingly. He had come a long way from the frightened little boy who had lashed out at everyone to hide the fear within him, or even insecure boy who had survived the War but was frightened of pursuing the girl he loved.

“Draco?” he looked up at his wife, still beautiful, even after eight years of marriage. “You told them our story, huh?”

He nodded, smiling.

“Er—not all of it, right?” she said, sounding slightly uneasy.

“Don’t worry, Mione, I cut out the kissing part. And the part when you told me how you fell in love with me.”

Their children might be a little young to discover that their mother had first had ‘feelings’ for their dad when she had seen him with his shirt off during one of their missions, while he was taking a dip in the stream.

“You cut out the kissing part, huh?” she asked. “Are you sure you didn’t just forget it?”

“Who, me?” he protested, grinning inwardly, knowing where this was headed.

“Yes, you, Draco Malfoy.”

“Well, now that you mention it…” he trailed off.

“Would you like me to refresh your memory?” she asked suggestively.

“Why not?”

Hours later, their little house elves, Mimsy and Whimsy, who were, on Hermione’s insistence, paid, tiptoed in to find their master and mistress asleep on the study table, their clothes rumpled and askew.

“Really, Mimsy,” squeaked Whimsy as he began picking up the scattered quills and paper. “Why can’t they just do it in the bedroom like normal people?”

You Came

He lay there, huddled in his cell, bruised and bleeding, but not broken. Not yet.

Above him he could hear the tread, tread of people walking. After awhile he had grown to memorize the steps of his torturers. Weasley had a thud, thud—swish thud, because of his slightly crooked ankle, courtesy of Aunt Bella.

Potter—who, to his credit, never came down here—had an even tread, tread.

Shacklebolt had an impressive thud which echoed round the cell when he came down to visit, and his visits always left deep marks on the sides of his ribs, thanks to his imposing kicks.

Lupin—who rarely came down here either, had a soft pad, pad which the prisoner welcomed, because it meant that there would be no torture for awhile, just blessed relief.

Weasley Dragon Keeper, Weasley Goblin Lover, and Weasley Clone One and Two all had hard steps, and he could feel it when they were coming, and he was always the worst off later.

Never a Crucio—the one thing for which he was grateful. They seemed to prefer to use Muggle ways, the Muggle-lovers that they were, kicking and beating at him, yelling, mocking, whipping; sometimes they jinxed him—small, comparably harmless jinxes that hurt when left on for so long. Once Weasley had used a Sectumsempra, and afterwards Lupin and Potter had come down to heal his wounds. They never used that spell again, and for that also he was grateful.

Or had been.

No longer.

Now it was just day after day. He liked it when Weasley came. Weasley was unimaginative. A few kicks, yelling, a few punches maybe, possibly a crack or two with the whip—no hexes. No inventive curses that lingered for days after he was gone. Yes, he liked it when Weasley came.

It didn’t matter anymore.

She wasn’t coming.

She had promised she would.

“I’ll come for you,” she had promised. She always kept her promises.

And so he had clung to that tiny ray of hope, the slight golden beam that had melted his icy mask in the first place, day after day knowing that she would come, that she would rescue him, the only one who knew of his role as a double agent now that Minerva McGonagall was dead.

Only she didn’t.

And now, three months later, he knew that it was hopeless. He had long since stopped believing in hope. Obviously, she hadn’t cared enough. Hadn’t believed him, hadn’t trusted him—hadn’t loved him. So nothing mattered anymore, only that he go as quickly and painlessly as possible. She herself hadn’t come down yet—probably to show just how unimportant he was in her scheme of things. He wished she would. She had proved her point a million times over—just, he wanted to see her beautiful face again.

Just once.

Just to show him that he was a teeny tiny bit important in her world.

That he even figured at all.

But she didn’t.

And he didn’t.

So now, he supposed, nothing mattered anymore. Not whether he had been good or bad, not whether this was fair, or unfair, not whether he was dead or alive. Maybe, just maybe, that last one mattered a little bit.

The thoughts drifted through his head in a scattered, incoherent sort of mumbling breeze as he felt Weasley kicking him. If he had had strength enough, he would have laughed because the fool was so stupid. Couldn’t he see that it didn’t matter? It didn’t hurt anymore—nothing hurt anymore, just her.

And maybe it did matter if he died, because he would so have liked to see her face again one more time. He had always been melodramatic.

And he had heard about how your life flashes before your eyes before you die, and then he thought maybe he was going to die, because everything was going black, but he couldn’t be dying because there was only one thing running through his head, before his eyes, and that was her face, and surely he had a life besides her?

Or maybe he didn’t, and he was dying after all?

And now he was floating far above his body, just hovering in a golden spiral of light and looking down. He had heard about this before, read about it, but had never appreciated just how beautiful it was, how intensely good it was to feel this way, this unattached, disinterested feeling that was running through his veins.

He saw Weasley falling still, his kicks slowing.

He heard steps, light, delicate steps that were oddly laden down with some heavy things—books, his mind dared to hope—coming along the corridor.

He saw Weasley looking panicked and some vague inner corner of his heart that could still feel rejoiced at this discomfit to his enemy.

He saw the cell door swing open.

And he saw her.

The shock of it weighed him down, pushed him down, plummeted him down back to earth and slammed him into his body, and he didn’t even protest at the sudden return of pain because she was there, she was finally there, and she had finally cared enough to come see him.

“Draco?”

Just one word, but it was so beautiful coming from her lips.

He tried to smile up at her, he really did, because he didn’t like her looking so sad, but she did, and it wasn’t right, something so beautiful shouldn’t look so sad, and he thought if he smiled it might help her. But then his lips were split in so many places, and when he tried to smile the blood flowed red from then, and she broke down worse than ever, and it was his fault, of course it was his fault, everyone got hurt because of him, that was why he was down here.

“Oh God Draco,” she breathed, and he had never liked that Muggle expression, but just now, coming from her lips, out of her concern for him, it had never sounded so wonderful.

“Hermione?” and it was, and she was here, and he was happy. “You came,” he said, and the fact filled him with an indescribable happiness.

“Draco, I’m sorry, I would have come here sooner, but I was sick, and then I forgot all about you, and then I couldn’t find you, and I’m so sorry Dray, I really am, I forgot all about you, please, I’m so sorry…”

He smiled up at her. Couldn’t she see that none of it mattered? She was here, and that was all that mattered. He mattered to her. She loved him.

And everything centered

Around that one fact

“You came.”

The L-Word

A/N: This is sort of set in fifth year. And Ron likes Luna because I say so.

Disclaimer: He-ello? Unless I’m finally going mad, this is fanfiction . net and not random house publishers.

The L-Word

He thought he didn’t need her. She thought she didn’t need him. Two opposites in life who shared a single credo.

He couldn’t see what was so great about the L-word. He didn’t understand. Pansy said she would die if Blaise didn’t **** her. Which was ridiculous, of course. People died because of wounds, and illnesses, and the Avada Kedavra. They didn’t die of ****. Hell, he had been living for seventeen years now, and he hadn’t L’ed anyone, and no one had L’ed him back. He was still alive. Didn’t that prove something?

She didn’t understand Ron, or Harry either. She hated the way Ron stared so mushily at Luna, or how Harry went gaga over Cho Chang. It was sickening, and she couldn’t stand it. Ron’s declarations of his undying love for the dreamy Ravenclaw only made her sicker, and when even sensible—well, most of the time—Harry said that if Cho died he would too, she fled to her sanctuary, the Library. You didn’t need someone to die. Yes, she would be very upset if Harry died, or if Ron was suddenly killed, but she wouldn’t die. You didn’t need any one person to live. She didn’t need any one person to live. She had made sure of that.

It was the one thing that scared him, really. The L-word. It frightened him because he had never felt it. Because it was new. Because he had seen enough to know that if you L-ed someone, you gave that person more power over you than he had ever let anyone have over him. He had seen what his father did to his mother, and how she had hid the tears and endured the pain, all because of the L-word. So no, he wasn’t planning on L’ing anyone soon. It was just plain stupid to let anyone make or break your heart.

It scared her too, because it was the one thing she couldn’t find about in books, not really. You didn’t know how to be a good kisser by reading smut. You couldn’t touch it, you couldn’t see it, you couldn’t research it. She couldn’t learn about it except first-hand. She had never liked first-hand learning. You never knew anything about it beforehand. And she didn’t need to know about it if she didn’t know enough about it first. Because she always knew everything. She had made sure of that.

You didn’t need love to live. He had said if before, he was living proof of that. But Pansy just looked at him sympathetically and said that he wasn’t really living, that he had no idea what he was missing. Ha, as though she knew what she was talking about it. It wasn’t necessary. You could live a perfectly good life without love. He didn’t need it, platonic or otherwise. His father had taught him that long ago. Love makes you weak, and the weak die. Love was for fools like Gryffindors who needed friends and lovers. He didn’t need either of them. He took followers.

She tried not to think about Luna’s dreamy advice that she should learn to love. Ha. That was idiotic. The girl was crazy, everyone knew that. She didn’t need anyone to love. She had her books. Her books were better than any boyfriend. She had seen Cho sobbing because Harry had accidentally hurt her. Sure, he had apologized later, but what of it? The pain had been suffered. She had seen Ginny crying because Harry didn’t love her. Why would she let anyone hurt her that way? Her books wouldn’t cheat on her, would never leave her for another. They never hurt her, or insulted her, or did any harm to her. They did nothing but help her, and were always there for her if she took care of them. She had had enough of being hurt during their fourth year. After the stupid escapade when she had realized that Ron didn’t love her after all, she had known she was better off sticking with her books.

It still hurt like yesterday, everytime he heard the L-word; the sting still fresh and new. He had thought she had loved him, had been honestly sure. After all, she was his mother. How could she not love him? If she had brushed him off a bit, been a little distant, well, that was only to be expected. They were of different generations. He couldn’t expect her to be interested in the same things as he was. Then he had come to Hogwarts and seen how the students there interacted with their parents, and he had come home vaguely uneasy. But he had passed it off, since his mother had never been very demonstrative. And then there had been second year, when his mother had never bothered to tell him about Father’s diary, though he had asked her. Third year, when he had been attacked by the Hippogriff and she had never asked about his health, not a word, though she knew he had leukemia, she knew any loss of blood could be fatal for him. And then fourth year, when she scoffed at him for letting Potter beat him. He had told her then, mustered up all his courage and said the L-word. The first and last time in his life. She had looked away, and his unspoken question had been answered. After that, he knew he was better off with Crabbe and Goyle.

They were so different—Gryffindor, Slytherin; Muggle-born, Pureblood; warm, cold; fire, ice; Harry Potter’s best friend, Harry Potter’s worst enemy; teacher’s pet, standard loner; even, girl, boy. And yet they were so similar. Both were afraid without exactly acknowledging how, or why, or even what. Both were like newborn fillies, shying from the faintest touch, longing for the forbidden fruit and daring not to touch it. Both hid behind masks of their own making—the one behind books and happiness and knowledge, the other behind sneers and insults and cold disdain. And underneath it all, beneath the masks and the facades, at the end of the day, there was nothing left but pure vulnerability. And because of it they were scared. Two scared little children—the insecure Muggle-born that first day who had to know everything and the little spoiled brat who was turned down by Harry Potter.

Loosen up ‘Mione…you need to get a life…insufferable know-it-all…teacher’s pet…learn how to love…let yourself go… the words ringing in her head as she tried desperately to climb to the surface as the black waters engulfed her—

Selfish spoiled git…arrogant prick…think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks…twitchy little ferret…disgrace to the Malfoy name…echoing as he tries to forget the look on his mother’s face when she looked away, when his father beat him, as he sinks underneath the weight of all the memories

And he sinks

She’s kicking

Lashing out at the darkness

But there’s no light to help her here

No books

No teachers

Just dark

And he fights

They struggle

No followers, no ice cold mask, no Snape to hide behind

No Malfoy pride to take refuge in

Just himself.

Her and himself

Together, naked in their mind’s eye

Masks

Gone.

Two children, lost and alone, hiding from the one thing they know they need. One girl, sobbing in the girl’s bathroom while Moaning Myrtle whooshes away. One boy, coming to the refuge that would be desecrated for him in 6^th year but he doesn’t know that yet, does he?

Names are gone now. So is blood, learning, pride, loftiness, reputation—all is stripped away and they come, just a boy and girl needing one thing they find in each other.

A boy, close to the point of tears himself, bursting in on a girl who sits crying.

Tears escaping the dam he spent so many years to make.

Huddling together in their longing for comfort, their raw need drawing them to each other as the tears mingle and flow down their cheeks.

One girl.

One boy.

It could never be. They were too different, too apart. Too impossible for it to ever work out. Tomorrow they would go back to hating each other, and insulting each other, and ignoring each other. Tomorrow he would go back to being the son of a Death Eater and she would go back to being the friend of the Boy-Who-Lived.

But today

Now

There was no one and nothing but themselves

And their need for

Love.

Sorry Doesn't Cut It

Title: Sorry Doesn’t Cut It
Category: Romance/Angst, D/Hr
Author: Narcissa Malfoy

Disclaimer: Let me check…currently the titles are not Draco Malfoy and the Half-Blood Prince, so nope, I guess I don’t own Harry Potter.

She had to tell him. It had been four months now. Four months since she came into his life and turned it upside down, and three months since he had somehow wrecked hers. She looked over at him, sleeping there so peacefully with his beautiful hair all spread out all over her shoulders, looking like an angel with serenity shining all over his face. She knew—she knew how much it cost him to fall asleep in front of someone else, the measure of trust it was to let down his guard, without his wand, in front of her. She knew how much she meant to him, and what it would do to him when she told him the truth. But she had to tell him…she had to. She couldn’t keep on just acting like there was nothing wrong, nothing—she had never been a good liar. Already there were little discrepancies popping up everywhere, little things that should have made him suspicious only he loved her, he trusted her, and now she was going to shatter it all again and the ice wall would come back up, and he would be lost. She was going to lose him, damn it, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was trapped. Not tell him and live a lie of love, tell him and lose him forever. How clever of her, the brightest witch of her year. She had found a path so deep in hell there was no way she could ever get out.

“Draco?”

“Hmmm?” they had been lying in bed together, their clothes still on but cuddled in each other’s arms.

“Do you trust me?”

It was a simple question, so innocuous, but so deadly too. She knew how much it meant—he knew how much it meant.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I—it’s been an ice mask for so long, you know? All ice, covering it—myself, and it’s been there so long I don’t know whether it’s the ice or myself anymore. And I can’t get rid of it either—it’s part of me for good now. If you try to pull it away I’ll just come with it.”

“But maybe you don’t have to pull it away, Draco. Maybe all you have to do…is melt it.”

And now she was going to shatter it all.

“Draco?” her voice was hesitant, but at its sound he looked up instantly, traces of sleep still obscuring his bright silver eyes, but unable to cloud the love for her in his eyes. Looking at those eyes, the only window into his mask of a face, her will trembled, her resolve almost gave out. How could she—how could she hurt him so much? But she had to.

“I—I have something to tell you.” Her voice faltered as she said it, cracking like a child’s.

“Yes?”

At the sound of his voice, she had promised herself—she had sworn she wouldn’t cry, but—

“Please, promise me, you have to promise me, don’t hate me for this Draco, please, don’t—don’t let it destroy you, you have to know,” a torrent of words, dammed up for so long, came pouring out, and he just sat there and let her cry into his strong shoulder—the shoulder that been there for so long, no matter what—the shoulder that would soon no longer be there.

“I’m a spy for the Order.” There. It was out. She couldn’t look at his face. “I was ordered to try to get closer to you—to become friends with you.” To seduce you, they both heard hanging in the air.

“And you did.” It was a statement, so painfully obvious. She blushed as she recalled their fevered love-making, the snogging in dark corners.

“Why?” his voice was calm, controlled. It was not the reaction she had been expecting. She knew how volatile he could become, she had feared curses, hexes—even the Killing Curse. But perhaps, inside, she had known, and she had feared this. This was the icy Draco, the mask he put up to the world to avoid getting hurt, the barrier from behind now she too was blocked out. And she knew the wounds she had given him, because she had been there behind the mask—and now there was wound upon wound, injury upon injury. More damage to his trust.

“I—” her voice, traitor that it was, traitor that it always had been, gave out, and she could say no more.

He sighed, a heavy sigh that sounded like the whole weight of the world was upon his shoulders, and she cringed. “Was it ever for real?” he asked. “The kissing? The—relationship? Or was it all just a set-up? Did you ever feel—anything for me?”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She knew how much it had cost him to lower his pride like this; he was always the one shying from a relationship, always the one shunning commitment, and now he had practically said that he loved her. Please, she begged mentally, please don’t do this to me.

“It wasn’t, huh?” his voice was soft, pained, but hard and cold as ice. “I guess ice always shatters before it melts, huh?”

“Draco, don’t…”

“Don’t what? Don’t get mad because my whole life for the past four months, my only love has been a lie?” his voice finally rose slightly as he said it, but still that vicious monotone that was killing her.

“I’m sorry…” even as she said it she knew how inadequate they were. What do you say to a man whose trust you taken away for good?

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Granger,” he said, and the sound of his voice as he said her last name was snarling, a wounded animal turning upon who has cornered it. He laughed, a hard, bitter sound that made chills go up and down her spine. “You ruin my life,” my trust, said unspoken words, “and you think you can just say sorry like it’s no big deal, and that’s it? You can just move on, I can just move on like nothing’s happened because you said sorry?” his tone was incredulous.

“I don’t know what else to say,” she murmured, hating to do this, but knowing she had to.

“You don’t know what to say? How about, Malfoy, I hate you? Malfoy, I hope you drop dead? Malfoy, you never mattered to me so you can go hang yourself for all I care?”

“No, Draco, I never meant to—it wasn’t like that, I—”

“That’s Malfoy to you,” he snarled viciously.

“You don’t understand,” she said desperately.

“What’s there to understand? You came here to seduce me, to get me to tell you all about me so you can run and tell Potty and the Weasel, and they can tell the whole world. You did your job. It never meant anything to you. End of story.”

She winced; it sounded so—so harsh, so brutal, so unfeeling. But then she had never thought of what it would entail when she had accepted this job. And what could she say? It was true, all of it—or at least it had been.

“No, please, Dr—Malfoy, it wasn’t like that. It was going to be—but, I couldn’t do that. It—it did mean something to me. I—I never meant to fall in love with you!” there. It was out. The words hung in the air.

He just looked at her. Anger was gone—spent in that little exchange of words. It had been an instinctive reaction, really, as he had always done. Anger to cover up the hurt, iciness to cover up wounds. But he could keep it up—couldn’t maintain the façade. She had hurt him too deeply.

He stood up.

“Where are you going?” she asked frantically, afraid that if he went out like this he would kill himself or something equally drastic.

“Out,” he said, waving his wand as he did so. All his belongings zoomed toward him, and then neatly packed themselves into his suitcase. He picked it up, waved his wand again, and fit the magically shrunk suitcase into his pocket.

“Out where?” her voice grew hysterical.

“Hell if I know,” he said, the last tiny flash of anger mingling with his sadness, a desperate hell-if-I-care attitude now. A don’t-care-if-I-live-or-die attitude.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, the only thing she could think of to say, anything to keep him from—what? From hurting himself more than she already had.

Again those eyes flashed before turning that horrible black, devoid of all emotion, devoid of all light. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Hermione.” It wasn’t anger now, just a terrible resignation, a knowledge that he was never meant to find happiness. A terrible bleak sadness.

She watched numbly as he left, shutting the door carefully behind him.

Sorry doesn’t cut it.

Author’s Note: A drabble I thought up—terribly cliché, I know, but still, most plots are. If this ever gets posted, then, hooray. If it doesn’t, it stays on my folder being sad. You hate the thought of a sad story, don’t you? Now there’s a way you can cheer it up. It loves it when you push that little button called Go down there and type something nice, you know? Anything but flames. Constructive critiscm the best! Pretty please with a Draco Malfoy on top?

Smiling

Disclaimer: Yes, I own Harry Potter! Yippee yippee!...not. The day I own Harry Potter is the day you see Lord Voldemort dressing up like a pink bunny rabbit and all the titles are suddenly changed to Draco Malfoy and…

Smiling

By Narcissa37226Malfoy

“Potter.” It was strangled, almost, choked, as if the speaker was fighting with herself to be civil. Harry whipped around from the broom he was inspecting with his wand half out of his robes; old habits died hard. His wand clattered to the ground, along with his jaw, when he saw Narcissa Malfoy standing there before him with an almost human look on her face. The ice queen demeanor was gone, vanished as though fire had come and burned it away, only patches melting in the heat to remind anyone that there had once been a proud and beautiful being here. This woman was ragged, desperate, circles under her eyes and only her Malfoy pride keeping her together and on her feet, it seemed.

“Excuse me?” he asked uncertainly. He and a Malfoy just didn’t click, but ever since Draco Malfoy had turned to the Light side in their 7th year, he and Narcissa had refrained from outright insulting each other, though the unspoken truce did not protect him from snide comments.

“Potter, you need to help me.” Now he blinked; he was the last person he could think of from whom Narcissa Malfoy would beg help.

“What?” he said bemusedly, sounding as though he had just been Confunded.

“I know we don’t like each other, but, please, for my son’s sake. You need to help me. Please. For—for Gr—her sake. Please, you have to come. Weasley wouldn’t. You and your wife—please.”

Harry stared at her. That Ron had said no was not surprising; his hatred of Draco Malfoy—any Malfoy— ran far deeper in his veins than in Harry’s. But what could be wrong with Draco? He had seemed to recover from the War and its aftermath quite well, better than himself, even, as he had locked himself up in a room for a year. Ginny had been worried out of her mind. Vaguely he remembered that Draco, too, had locked himself up in a room for a few weeks as well, but had come out long before Harry.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“He’s always—always smiling,” said Narcissa.

Now Harry gaped. “Uh—isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” he asked, trying to be polite.

“No, you don’t know my son. He doesn’t smile—he never smiles! Never laughs, never overly polite—oh, of course he doesn’t throw things, but he says please and thank you and goes out of his way to be pleasant and accommodating, he apologized for bumping into someone the other day, and always—always, he smiles, that horrid jokey smile plastered on his face, over the hurt I know is there. He never cried, you know. Never. He never cries now, never breaks down, never gets upset, always smiles. This is not my son! You need to help him. Please. He’s never gotten over her death.”

“Let me get Ginny.” Harry turned and Disapparated to the Burrow immediately. He was not particularly fond of Draco—they were not and never would be best buddies. But they had worked together and fought together and lived together, and they had a certain bond that only men who have been in fear of death together can have. They were on first name basis now, though just barely, but he had not seen Draco since he had come out of seclusion. And now he was worried. Because much as he hated to admit it, Narcissa Malfoy was right. Draco was just not that kind of person. He was sarcastic, and witty, and sometimes went too far because there was the perfect comeback that he had just had to say, and his stupid Malfoy pride kept him from apologizing. He had exquisite manners when he cared to use them, and rarely let down his guard so far as to relax his face, and never—never!—smiled.

Something was wrong.

“Harry! Wha—”

“Ginny, wait. I need to talk to you.” Rapidly he filled her in on what Narcissa’s diatribe on Draco.

“But that’s awful!” she said, then made a face. “That sounds so cliché, doesn’t it. The pretty compassionate little girl, whose heart breaks for every bugger on the streets, and clutches her heart and says, ‘Oh, that’s awful!’” the last words she said a high-pitched, annoyingly sappy voice.

Harry grinned—even when he was worried sick, Ginny could always make him feel better. “Just like you, huh? Come on, we’ll be Flooing direct to Malfoy Manor.” Working as an Auror made your reflexes quick in daily aspects of life, not just fighting, and it was a surprisingly short time later when Harry and Ginny popped out of the fireplace in Malfoy Manor, slightly ashy but none the worse for the wear.

“Potter, Wea—Potter,” said Narcissa, sounding slightly awkward as she realized her slip-up but refusing to let it fluster her. Already her cold demeanor was returning, her grief and fear allayed by their arrival. “He’ll be just down. Draco!” she called. “You have visitors!” The last words were spoken in a falsely cheerful tone.

“Coming, Mother,” he called, making his way down the stairs. Harry looked up to see his old—what was it exactly? Friend? Maybe not quite friend. What was the word you used for someone who you didn’t joke around with, hang out with, go to the movies with, but who you trusted with your life?—something. There he was—the same trademark platinum Malfoy hair, the milky skin, classically handsome features, but something about him had changed—something so drastic, so intense that even mere acquaintances could have seen that he had changed.

“Harry. Ginny.” The words were flat, forced, distorted, as though they had started almost distastefully then been pushed through a screen of cheerfulness. He quickly recovered, though, and a huge smile lit up his face. “How nice to see you again!” the tone, the expression, none of it was like his old friend—yes, Harry realized, friend, or it couldn’t hurt so much to see him like this—and he almost winced before he caught himself.

“You too, Draco.” The two men shook hands, and Ginny and Draco, to Harry’s complete surprise, exchanged a platonic hug. Not that he was jealous—he trusted Ginny—but Draco had never been a hugging sort of person. Neither had he, until Ginny. Was it possible that Draco’s wife had changed him too? But he didn’t think it was something that could be wiped away with a wave of the hand. Draco was not outwardly affectionate.

“How about you three go out to the veranda? I’ll be just out,” said Narcissa, breaking the silence with the same cheerful voice she used around Draco. Harry realized that he had been staring off into space and blushed, hastily agreeing.

A house-elf brought pumpkin juice and refreshments, and the three friends chatted amiably for a while. Too amiably. Once when Draco laughed out loud at Harry’s joke about the Healer and Mimbletonia, Harry winced. He tried to cover it up almost immediately, but he knew that both people sitting at the table saw. And he knew that Draco acted as though he had not seen it and that Ginny agreed with him. He stood up, claiming a headache, and strolled inside the house. This was not Draco. This was so not Draco. Where was the old acerbic man he knew? The one who smirked at the drop of a hat, the one who insulted him at every possible moment and then laughed (slightly, not jovially as this Draco was doing) so he knew it was all okay? He missed that Draco. He missed those insults. He would rather have been called “Boy-Wonder,” “Scarhead,” or “Boy-Who-Should-Have-Died-But-Managed-To-Flub-That-Up-Like-Everything-Else-So-That-I’m-Now-Stuck-With-Him,” than have this unfailingly polite zombie.

His feet had taken him to an unfamiliar part of the Manor. He looked up, intending to turn back, but then caught his breath sharply and stared. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he turned, it was her. Pictures of her papered the wall, portraits of her were framed and hanging. Her smiling, her laughing, her talking to her friends, her kissing Draco, her—here his heart gave a painful squeeze—laughing, her cheeks rosy, her ever-untamable hair messy, having a snowball fight with him and Ron and Draco. He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring. Muggle photographs and wizard photographs, Muggle portraits and wizard portraits, though he noticed that those were empty, so many of them, all coming at them, an avalanche, pouring toward him, overwhelming him—he broke away sharply and struggled to breathe.

“Harry?” shit. Not now. Go away. You do not need to find me like this. Shit shitshit. Go away.

“Harry? Why didn’t you—” she made a strangled sort of sob at the sight of the room. He chanced a peek at her; her skin was so ashen-white, her freckles were standing out starkly, like trees on a snow-covered field.

Behind her he heard footsteps and closed his eyes, mentally bracing himself for the explosion he was sure would come. But there was nothing. He opened his eyes and saw Draco smiling sadly at him. And now he knew the million things that had changed, all of them intensifying in this room. The imperceptible slump in his backbone where before that been erect pride. The slight bags under his eyes, almost unnoticeable. The absence of the swagger and trademark Malfoy smirk. The dullness of his eyes, no longer intense silver, or determined steel-grey, or angry iron-grey, but a dull black-grey, the kind of opaque color that is flat and sucks in all of the light and never gives any back.

“Draco, why—what, I mean, the point of all this—she wouldn’t want you to dwell on it like this, she—” his voice trailed off, unable to look the other man in the eye and continue to deliver all the meaningless platitudes that had been just as empty to him as well.

And now he knew. Draco hadn’t abandoned his mask which had served him so well for so many years. He had just replaced it. Ice had no longer worked—she’d melted it all away, so he’d replaced with a cover of sunbeams, a sheet of light so intensely happy, so cheerful, so normal, that it hurt to look through it.

“Draco…” his voice cracked like a girl’s, but he didn’t care anymore. How could he have been suffering so long, so much, and nobody have noticed until now except his mother? She would have been so disappointed…

“It’s all right,” he said brusquely, sounding for a moment almost like the old Draco, the one who couldn’t stand being comforted. “It’s just—I need to look at her face every once in a while, you know? To remember the color of her eyes. Do you know, they’re exactly the shade of Honeydukes chocolate? And they used to have golden sparkles in them.” His voice was dull, and Harry felt a wrenching pain in his gut, like she was dying all over again.

“Come on, Harry. It’s time to go. Remus will be expecting us,” Ginny said in an oddly gentle voice, the fire in her voice oddly tame.

Harry looked back one last time to watch Draco sitting down, his head in his hands, a picture of her in his lap. And then Harry knew. Knew that Draco never had gotten over her, that he couldn’t survive without her, that he was barely clinging to her memory by the tips of his fingers just to keep on living. She had been an angel in his life, bringing forgiveness and redemption for what he had done, and now she was gone, leaving only a memory behind. It had hit Harry hard, but it had hit Draco far harder. Harry had Ron, Ginny, the rest of the Order—Draco had nothing. Nothing except a mother who turned to Firewhiskey to drown her troubles. He was just trying to survive…

As Harry Disapparated with Ginny, he could have sworn he heard a hoarse voice whisper, “Goddamnit, I loved you Hermione…” He looked back just in time to catch it, the crowning irony of it all…he was smiling.

“They tore out your heart,

I miss you…you were smiling…”

“ Imagine me without you

I’d be lost and so confused

I wouldn’t last a day, I’d be afraid

Without you there to see me through

When you caught me I was falling

Your love lifted me back on my feet

It was like you heard me calling

And you rushed to set me free…”

Author’s Note: Thanks for reading. Just popped in my head after reading two fanfics, and wouldn’t let me rest until I typed it out. First lyrics from “Haunted” by Kelly Clarkson and the second from “Imagine Me Without You” by Jaci Velasquez. Now then, there’s that little purple button down there, it’s calling you…it’s haunting you...doesn’t it look appealing?