Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, nor the world in which this short-story takes place. I make no money out of this. Please don't sue me.
a/n: This is a little short-story I did a while ago. Last year, I believe. It's one of the short-stories that I'm rather proud of, actually.
Please R&R, thank you, so I know what you think of it, will you?
In the Shade of Actuality
oOo
We run. The winter's soft kiss on his pale face, the flushed whisper of the fearful sprint to safety. A remembrance that brings back everything in the moment of a heartbeat. A clearing in the deep darkness of the Forbidden Forest at night makes our goal and we both drop tiredly down on the cold, frosty ground in each other's arms. The warmth of his body against mine, pressed together to maintain the chill away from our exhausted forms, makes the faintest smile brush over my face. Oh it has been too long. Too long since I smiled in true joy. Too long.
The moon is our midnight sun, and the chill is the hate that rains heavily over our psychical strength. The yet not fallen snow is our forgiveness and prays. I wonder if I'll ever see snow again, with its purity and lazy mood when it falls to the earth in no hurry. I wonder if it'll ever be him and me again out on the lawn, playing around in the snow. Laughing and happy. How did it get this far?
His warm breathes brush past my cheek and I embrace him close, clinging onto the part of my world that is solid to me. I rest my chin on his shoulder and take a deep breath of cold air. My fingers twist into his black robes and I fight back whatever burning feeling threatened behind my eyelids.
Time passes; we stay close. To us, time does not exist. We both know, that by dawn we must return. Return to actuality.
"Harry."
His voice is a mere whisper of windswept sorrow, buried deep down in our hearts. But I do not have the need to hear his voice to know what he says through those pale lips, I know him all too well by now not to.
"Draco" I whisper in response, and we finally part enough to watch each other's winter kissed faces. His stormy grey eyes observe me in silence and a hand comes up to my cheek. The fingertips are cold and the touch is shaky, but it's still him, and that's all that matters. I turn my green eyes to the star sprinkled sky above. Tomorrow it's New Years Eve, and we have no interest to attend at any of the parties around.
oOo
A call through the night brings everyone to attention. Candlelight's illuminating the corridors and two figures hurry through them in helpless desperation to find the lost pair. The girl halts before a stone gargoyle and she whispers a password, the tall boy doesn't stop even to say goodbye. Guilt builds up its solid rocks inside them both and they realise they have acted terribly wrong. But, so have the whole school and the wizarding world.
Soon enough, students and teachers, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors and Slytherins, all search every corner of the castle in order to find the missing. And look, little world, how for once, Slytherin and Gryffindor unite in the search for the two of them.
Some shouts out the Latin name for dragon, and some shouts for a famous name among wizards. And some both.
Isn't it ironical, how people accept things when it's already too late?
oOo
So it was, that I found out that he loves me. He whispers it to me like the murmur of an angel, and I can't stop the smile to creep onto my face like tide does on an empty shore. Foreign hope penetrates my heart, as unfamiliar like the sun on a pitch-dark night. I almost don't recognise it anymore. Hope is a feeling I do not allow myself to have, but I can't stop hoping that perhaps everything will work out.
I'm caught in the hocks of an impossible dream, and I can no longer hide. I can fly with the wings of love holding me in the air. And when I get that emotion, so very deep down in the core of my soul and heart, I can't resist it anymore. Warmth is washing over me and I can't feel the chill even though he carefully takes of my robe from my shoulders, and I can do nothing but to kiss him back with the deepest of emotion at my heels. Bye and bye to reality, I'm leaving to my own private world of wonder.
oOo
Neither as the night goes forth, the chill nor the hatred from the reality is bothering me anymore. My fingertips on his torso and my lips on his. Is this where I belong? In his arms, eternally his?
Our breaths come out in misty clouds in the darkness and we don't need our eyes to see each other anymore.
The togetherness of two people becoming one. The proximity of love endures the night and cold. The kiss of him taking me to heaven.
oOo
Winter's kisses are no longer the only thing tinting our cheeks as we lie together and watch the sky, entwined in infinite bliss. Where are my stars? The stars that so beautifully alight the sky. It's dark and the moon has closed its eyes to give us privacy. But now, when the exhaustion is tangible, it peeks around a cloud at us.
I doubt it's long to dawn. It's not pitch-dark any longer. And then, as I watch the sky with him in my arms, a lone snowflake fall down to us. We both watch it in wonder, and then it melts on his right arm.
And when we look up again, it is snowing.
Oh yes. Snow. It's been a winter with no snow so far, and look now what falls down on our uncovered bodies. The snowflakes are cold on our bare skin and we both realise its probably below zero. And yet we feel nought. Or perhaps we simply don't care. The snow melts on our skin and we do no attempt to put on any clothes, any at all. I could wait in the infinity, and never care. Because I have all that I want, except acceptation from the world for my actuality. And I already know I'll never get it, and thus; I've stopped waiting.
oOo
They didn't find us until on the late afternoon. Still together, like it was meant. I guess we never recognized the chilling carving into our bodies; perhaps we have already lived in the cold of hatred too long to mind. But when the dawn came that very morning, we where still there, in the clearing, and we where together.
Dry those tears, Hermione. It was meant that way.
Leave that sorrow, Ron. It's already too late.
Forgive me, Professor Dumbledore. But I cannot take it anymore.
And yes, little world. I no longer stand in the shade of your actuality; I stand in mine.
The snow kept on falling when dawn looked above the treetops, and it found us huddled together. Winter did no longer kiss our cheeks, so pale. It was a Gryffindor and a Slytherin who found us, first horrified, and then guilty. With tears in their eyes. But the world never accepted our love, and thus; I don't accept the world. I love him, and he's with me now, no matter what, and that, more than anything, brings me back life. Even though, I've already lost life.
At dawn, I no longer stand in the shade of their actuality; I stand in mine.
At dawn, the snowflakes no longer melt on our cold arms.
At dawn, I'm with him.
oOo
End.