Rewind
The glass bottle glints mockingly at him from where it is perched on the jade top of the billiards table. He swears viciously underneath his breath because it is the very last bottle he has, and now it is finished, and there's nothing else he could imbibe that could even hope to ease this damn thing inside of him. He growls at the thing, striding over to sprawl out on the couch that sits directly in front of the fire roaring mightily in the grate. He flings one long, pale arm across his eyes, shoeless feet stretched out in front of him. The amber liquid that has been his constant companion for the past year swirls deliciously inside of his head.
Damn Zabini for his lack of tact, for his inability to keep a secret, for being friends with Potter.
"Potter tells me that she's arriving back in the country tonight," a cool voice drawls from the office doorway, where a dark-haired man lounges with hands in pockets and shoulder against the jamb.
There is no reply aside from the steady scratch of a quill on parchment.
He shifts so that he can stare into the overly bright flames, face overheating with an exquisite combination of fire and alcohol. Heavy-lidded eyes are almost-but-not-quite shut, a flash of silver in a room grown dark with the shadows of twilight.
Damn her for her ambitions, for her spirit, for being who she is.
"I've always wanted to go abroad," she says, hair tumbling over one shoulder in a waterfall of reds and golds as she traces lines in the palm of his suddenly-freezing hand with her own slim fingers.
He never is able to find a reply.
The fire is dying down now, and there he remains on that couch that he's always hated but his mother had always loved, still wearing the day's suit, tie half-undone. His eyes are shut now, and his whole being feels as though it is shutting down limb by limb, heartbeat by heartbeat. Whether because of the bone-deep weariness of the day, or of the past year, he cannot tell. Or perhaps it's because of the ache that he's nursed for what seems like an age. Or maybe because of the strength of the alcohol that his father had been saving for special occasions and which he's gone through with a vengeance, because it's the only thing that helps him push his own thoughts even a centimetre outside of the boundaries of his mind.
He thinks it's a sweet but cruel hallucination when minutes or hours later she is there in front of him, stroking his face gently with those fingers whose touch he used to have memorized, the chocolate of her eyes gazing steadily at him in that damn way he remembers so well.
When the pout of her lips - he remembers that very well, too - touches his cheek, he cannot help himself.
"Damn me for being too damn noble," he half mumbles, half slurs. Sleep is coming swiftly, he can feel it. He would know, he's poured too much of himself into attempting to drink and sleep away this damn thing. And he welcomes it more than ever now, because if he's at the point of hallucinating about her then he's got no hope of being normal ever again.
"Damnit," he murmurs, without realizing it.
She just laughs.
This is a good hallucination, he thinks drowsily, in that split second before oblivion claims him.
When he wakes again it is to find that his head is being split wide open and that he is in his bed with the covers tucked in around him, while he is wearing nothing but his underwear.
On the pillow next to his head is a strand of hair that glints red-gold in the soft sunlight that streams in through the bay windows, and a slip of parchment upon which emerald ink spills out into two words.
I'm here.
He inhales sharply, and as he does he catches the scent of her favorite coffee, and the sound of footsteps padding lightly on the carpet of the hallway outside.
And then there she is, and he thinks to himself how glorious this thing they share might turn out to be after all.
