The Notebook
Dracos' writing
The others writing
McGonagul's back was at the students as she waited for them to settle down, when she finally turned around her face was set with impatience and annoyance. Everyone was gathered in the dining hall, everyone was sitting where they normally did. In front of everyone was a notebook, it's stiff plain black cover looking up at the ceiling ominously. No one touched them, though, everyone looked at them from time to time.
Finally she spoke, "The headmaster has felt the growing tension building in the school. He , rightly feels, that it is from the ongoing war but he also has this notion that it could be helped if you, the students, were able to get to know one another better, outside of class boundaries and openly speak about the, feelings, you have concerning the war.
"In front of you is a notebook which after I have instructed you, and only after, will be yours. This notebook is connected to all the other notebooks at this moment and upon the connection of each person to a notebook the notebook in front of you shall connect to the single other notebook that has someone similar to yourselves. This person will, of course, be someone from a different dorm and will not be someone whom you are already friends with.
"This is the person you will be speaking with for the next week until Christmas at which time it will be reveled who you have been writing to in a meeting here, at the same time. This of course means that you cannot tell the person who you are or reveal information that would lead to that. What you will be writing will mostly be thoughts or feelings and if you choose you do not have to write at all. Nor do you have to meet the person you write to.
"It must also be noted that the spell upon the notebooks, as advanced as it is, can only recognize and erase such things as names and specific details in connection to yourself and so it is possible to find the person you are writing to before the given day. The Headmaster would like you to avoid this so that you may connect with the person as completely as you can while still on an detached level. However he cannot an will not stop you if you choose other wise. Another thing to note would be that the Headmaster has no knowledge of who the two people writing to each other will be and cannot find out. It will surly be a great surprise to us all…" Her voice dripped with sarcasm on the last comment. "Now if you will all placed your palms flats upon the notebook in front of you so that we can get this over with and go to bed. It does not matter which hand." She added as an after thought.
Slowly, one hand after another went upon a notebook and when the final hand was placed, after a considerable amount of threatening from McGonagul, the process was complete. Each student felt a strange tingling upon their hand as the spell took effect and once it was gone they were allowed to return to their dorms, each with a black notebook in hand.
"This is the most retarded thing the old man has done yet." Draco Malfoy said with a snarl as he threw his notebook onto his bed.
Goyle, Crabbe and Blaise agreed mindlessly as they always did whenever Draco suggested anything. When he was younger this always pleased him but now he was on the verge of adulthood, almost eighteen and it all seemed wrong. He readied for bed and pulled the curtain around his four-poster, secluding himself. He absently picked up the notebook in the middle of the spread; fully intending to throw it under the bed or stuff it in-between the mattresses but something stopped him.
He grabbed a pen and his and a wand from the bedside table figuring, what could it hurt? He just would make sure never to meet the person whoever they were. After a quick Lumious; he opened the cover to the first blank crisp page and put his pen to the page. He didn't think he simply wrote.
I need new friends, mine are broken. He wrote at first, feelingly silly but that sentence dug into his mind what he was really feeling and it all came to the surface.
I know that when I talk to them they hate me, I know that they only listen because of who I am, I know that they agree only because what I am but I don't want that. I want real friends. I want someone to tell all the little things to, the things I really feel. I want someone who cares and who feels the same way I do or if them don't then they'll fucking say so and not just slap on a plastic smile and agree to whatever I say!
After writing it he instantly regretted it. Someone might find out, his father claimed to have spies everywhere why wouldn't he have more in his school, in other dorms?
He thoughts were disrupted a reply slowly began to write itself out in a fluid, slightly messy manner.
I can tell that's been building up for a while. It's nice to make your acquaintance as well. As for your friends, just get new ones. According to the way the spell is supposed to work we should have a lot in common so perhaps I shall be your first, as you say, 'real friend'. And to be quite honest I sometimes feel the same way myself. I just feel so cut off from everyone that calls me friend, I can't tell them anything because I know that whatever I tell them will not be kept a secret.
For a while Draco didn't know what to say because what the other person as saying sounded exactly like what he felt and he loved the other persons' sarcasm. It reminded him of his own. Then again they were supposed to be similar.
It's the same way with me exactly…What do you think of the war?
I hate it. I hate the people dieing. I hate the fighting the hate itself. I hate the sides and I hate the fuckers responsible for it all. I hate choosing a side but I don't have a choice, or do I? Am I just following those that lead me like a blind sheep?
He shivered unconsciously, it was like this other person was reading his deepest hidden thoughts, the ones he couldn't and dared not share with anyone else.
But then where would you go? If you don't choose a side where else is there?
The grey. The place where one stands waiting for the winner and chooses to turn away. The place where to move away from it all, change your name, change you identity and get a new life outside of what has been created for you. But I don't want to go alone it scares me, the thought of standing alone.
The grey sounds wonderful. It sounds perfect and everyone is afraid to be alone. That's why we put up with our false friends.
Then if I ever find a way to get there Can I take you with me?
Draco paused, I'll be waiting for you.
The conversation was growing weirder and weirder by the moment and stranger yet he didn't mind it at all. But they almost seemed to talk like lovers and this was the first they'd ever even spoke, and never met. It was the most outlandish thing Draco had ever done, most spontaneous. It scared him.
I need to go to bed.
Talk to you tomorrow?
But he didn't want to stop.
Yes.
He didn't sleep though. For several hours afterwards he lay in bed, staring at the top of his four-poster, his thoughts spinning out of control. The next morning after breakfast the first thing he did was retreat up to his room. He ordered the others away, knowing they would go because he told them to, he said he jut wanted to be alone, he lied. He wanted to speak with the other. He grabbed his pen.
Do you mind me asking if you're a boy or a girl? It's fucking annoying not knowing.
There was a long pause before the other person finally wrote back and Draco was afraid that he had waited too long before writing. That the other had given up on him and left but finally there was a reply.
It won't let me, it keeps erasing it. Perhaps if you asked me yes or no questions or I, you so that the damned thing couldn't figure it out.
Do you…like girls?Again there was a long pause.
No.
You're a girl then.
Again a pause, this time it lasted several minutes. Draco wondered if he had scared her off. He wondered if he wanted to even speak to a girl. Finally a reply.
No.
Draco dropped the pen, another shiver running down his back. He closed the notebook and then he left, grabbing a heavy cloak first, and went outside; taking the notebook with him. He considered throwing the notebook away or into the fire somewhere, or in the forest but he never did it. The air outside was cold, it bit at his nose and fingertips but the day was clear and the sun was shining. What seemed like half the school were also outside, a great many of them also holding their notebooks, writing in them as they walked or from benches or under trees. He wandered awhile, his distracted mind making it difficult to remain aloof and superior in appearance. Finally he found a secluded corner of the garden, now frozen and dead, and sat upon a broken down bench, hesitantly opening the notebook.
Are you still there? I'm sorry I shouldn't have said anything. We can just play that I am as you suggested if you like. I know this school is very much in the closet so to speak but I thought it wouldn't matter to tell you. I thought we were supposed to be alike but I guess I was wrong. It was stupid to even start this thing. I should have never
Draco bit his lip as he read, his other still writing in what was turning from shame and desperation to outright anger. His chest hurt for causing this, dare he consider, his new friend such pain. They would probably never meet. They couldn't, Draco didn't trust his father not to hurt anyone Draco would consider a real friend but for now…but then again wouldn't it just hurt him more to become his friend and then refuse to meet him? Or perhaps, could they just go, 'into the grey' as he had suggested? Draco barely allowed himself to even flirt with the thought before squashing it down, there was no where his father could not find.
He put his pen to the page and interrupted his friends angry rant.
I'm sorry I didn't reply, I had a lot to think about.
Draco waited several tense seconds before a reply was written. It shocked him how thrilled and relieved he was that the other would continue to write to him.
To think about whether to hate me, scorn me or tolerate me? he snapped back.
No, I
Draco set his teeth and fought the incision and need to run away for fought it with the need to tell and the need to tell someone something he had barely been able to admit to himself and thought he would never be able to tell anyone else.
No, I was shocked. I've never met someone the same as myself. I'm the same as you, I think. I've never told anyone that before. I never thought I would…
Do you mean that? Are you just mocking me of is that true, what you just wrote?
It's true.
Draco took a deep breath, it felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, a weight he had never even known existed.
I've never told anyone either. To be honest I thought telling you would scare you off, I didn't expect you to write back. Not that I didn't want you to but… I don't know why I did it. I guess I should have just said yes to the first question.
You wanted to tell someone who would never know who you were, you wanted to have someone know even if they would never know you. I know how you feel.
Draco hesitated for a moment then threw the hesitation out and told his so as well.
No more hesitating, no more fear for what may of may not be. I want to talk you, I feel closer to you than I ever have to anyone else and I've only known you for a day and al half, shared with you only a page worth of my thoughts and already you are closer to me than those that gave birth to me.
You don't intend to meet me do you? Just as I never intended to meet you.
Yes.
Then you're right, there's nothing to hesitate about. You're absolutely right.
That is where it all began. From that moment forward Draco spent every waking moment writing to the other. He told him all his secrets, his hopes and fears. They talked about nothings and everything's and in-betweens. On the few things they disagreed on they spent hours happily arguing about but never fought seriously. The hour before of the meeting came and Draco found himself stuck between what he should be and what he wanted.
He woke that morning wanting more than anything to meet the man he had been speaking to for the last week. The man that he knew better than he knew himself and probably vice versa. The man that, dare he even think it, he had come to love not just in the platonic way that friends love each other but Draco wanted it to be more. He wanted to meet him and see him, to hear his voice and touch his hand, kiss him. More than anything he just wanted to see him. To put a face and body to the figure that that invaded his dreams the past two nights.
It couldn't be though, could it? He couldn't endanger him this way could he? He couldn't even consider it. They could always keep writing each other. They could always get together when it was all over. Provided that Dumbledore won and he wasn't imprisoned forever because of what hi father had his do.
Then again why should he do anything his father said? Why did him listen to him and follow his word as law? For fear of him hurting those close to himself and for that fear he avoided having anyone close to himself to avoid that fear and then had no one to turn to but his father.
Would Dumbledore protect him, the other? Would he even consider protecting Draco as well? Would he believe him? Why should he? And his father would not be the only one out to get kill him.
Before even that would the man he had been talking to even like him? What if their attraction could never go beyond that of friends? What if he was ugly or was lying to Draco, everything he said? What if he knew if was Draco at the first and played him up to get his secrets from him? But How would he find out? It was impossible wasn't it?
Draco grabbed the notebook and pen and put it to paper then paused and pulled away then put it to paper once more. Slowly beginning to write, trying to gather his courage as he went.
Are you there?
Yes. I was just waiting for you.
I know we said we'd never meet but…
I was thinking about it too.
I want to but
It would be risking everything.
Yes.
Why do you want to meet? We can be just as good a friends without ever meeting.
Because, because…
Draco couldn't make himself write the words he couldn't do it. It was impossible that he felt the same way. He should be happy being friends, his shouldn't want anything more. He almost closed the notebook when he saw him starting to write something and slowly opened it back up.
I've fallen in love with you.
Draco felt his heart skip a beat, a breathing catch.
Or at least that's what I hope you were going to write because I feel the same and if you weren't I've just made an awful ass of myself.
Draco grinned happily, blushing slightly.
I have fallen in love with you.
I'm either dreaming or you've just made me the happiest man alive.
You can't be the happiest man alive that's me.
Now I have to meet you, I have to see you! Please?
I want to but I can't, I just can't. I don't want you to get hurt.
Draco felt like he was going to cry. It was only when the tears hit the page that he realized that he was crying and wiped his eyes angrily. He hadn't cried since his father had beaten it out of him when he was four.
Are you crying? Why are you crying?
How did you know?
Tear shaped spots suddenly appeared on my page and blurred all the ink where it hit.
It could be just water you know. I should go now. It's probably best if we don't talk anymore.
Wait! Please don't go, please don't leave me! I beg of you. I know you don't want me to get hurt I've heard it from you so many times and yet I've never cared. I would rather die than never meet you. You're the first person I've ever considered a true friend, the first I've ever truly loved. You know me better than I know myself as I know you. I hesitate to use the word but I think we're soul mates. I need you more than life itself….are you there? Please answer me!
I don't want to lose you ever and if that means never meeting you than so be it.
What point is there in a life without you? Must I threaten to kill myself to meet you?
Don't say that!
Draco couldn't think, he felt like he was dreaming. He knew exactly what the other was saying he felt the same but he just could he just give it all up for what may very well end up one of youths foolish whimsies? He could, for him, he could. What was there without him?
I will be at the meeting. I will wait for you.
I will be there! I will be there. I love you. I love you so much and no matter who you are I shall always feel that way and I shall never let you go. Nor will I let death take me until I am old and grey and only then if you are by my side, if not I shall spend my life looking for you.
Draco smiled weakly, wiping his eyes of their tears. In the deepest depths of his heart a tiny seed of hope took root.
He dressed carefully in the fifteen minutes before the meeting was about to begin. Unlike normally did he did not were the starched suits his father insisted upon or the school uniform but instead a simple pair of slacks slightly wrinkled, and a dark blue turtleneck that brought out the blue of his eyes. He took the gel out of his hair and pulled on a pair of comfortable tennis shoes which he had gone for great pains in the past to hide from his father.
He looked at himself in the mirror critically. At least he didn't look like the arrogant prick he normally did. He wasn't sure if anyone could ever like him. He was too thin, too short and lithe, too pale. With his hair down he looked fragile, that's why his father always had him gel it up. The pants were too big and just barely hung off his hipbones but they where his favorite, his comfortable, I-don't-give-a-damn pants and right then he need that.
Finally he picked up the notebook and made his way down to the dining hall, ignoring the strange and bewildered looks he got from those he passed. His housemates he ignored completely. The hall was crowded when he arrived, everyone was talking excitedly with one another. Draco slowly would his way through the crowd, ignoring every attempts at conversation that came at him. The confused and bewildered looks continued as he winded his way through, most didn't even recognoze him. If they had they wouldn't have talked to him or tried. He continued forwards until he came to the back wall. He leaned back against it anxiously scanning the crowd, wondering anxiously who it would be. Wondering how it would all turn out.
Dumbledore, McGonagull and Snape entered the room, going up to where the teachers table was normally. They waited for the room to settle; McGonagull impatient, Snape irritated and Dumbledore happy as usual. Finally the room gained silence and Dumbledore spoke.
"Now is the time to meet the one you have been speaking with for the past week! It's wonderfully exciting isn't it?"
The room responded enthusiastically.
"Now then after we perform the final spell one of the notebooks, either yours or the owner of the other notebook, will be drawn to the other. You will feel the pull and from there you just follow it or wait. Ok? Well then let's get this started!"
The three teachers said something in unison their wands moving in identical patterns and when they finished the room began to move. Some stayed where they were, as Draco did. Others moved, their notebooks in front of them as they were pulled to their prospective friends. Draco waited fearfully, puling at the edge of his sleeve until the threads began to come loose. The crowds began to drift away from him and several feet separated him from the next person, everyone seemed to be finding their partners but where was his?
Did he change his mind and not come? Or did something happen to him? Or was it really all a lie?
Suddenly Draco saw someone he did recognize but only after a moments study. Potter, surrounded up by a gaggle of females, he could understand why they flocked to him.
He wasn't wearing those huge round thick framed thing he normally did. Instead he wore smaller oval glasses with a simple silver frame. Without the thick nasty things you could actually see his features without being distracted by the glasses and damn was he attractive. And rather than the baggy things he normally wore that made him seem small and thin; he wore a green sweater that clung tightly to his chest, toned from years of quiditch, and a well worn pair of jeans that clung to the most beautiful ass and thighs Draco had ever seen. The mess that he called hair actually seemed to make him look more attractive if that was possible, extenuating his features. Especially since Draco had never even considered Potter to be attractive in any way.
After a few moments Potter appeared to say something to the girls to get them to go away. All of them left looking hurt. Then he turned towards Draco.
Draco wanted to sink into the wall this was not what he wanted right now, anything but a confrontation with Potter right now. What if HE came and saw Draco fighting with him? What would he think? Nothing good surely.
Potter looked from the notebook he was holding in his own hands and then back up at Draco. Draco just wished that he would go away but instead he walked over to him. Draco set his teeth, he wouldn't fight with him. he wouldn't. The future was too uncertain for that and anyway Draco couldn't have said anything unkind to someone that attractive, he never could he always got tongue tied. If Potter found that out then he would have the worst kind of weapon against him.
But Potter didn't say anything instead he studied Draco. His face confused while Draco looked away hoping desperately that he would come now. Then he moved even closed and Draco was about to snap at him when he grabbed his face, gently with his two hands, turning Draco's head to look at him. Draco couldn't fight those hands they were two gentle and he knew them, even though they had never touch him before and when he looked into his eyes, those fathomless green eyes he saw someone he knew, better than even himself.
"It's you." He whispered.
Draco couldn't move, what did this mean? What did this mean?
He looked just as confused, letting go of Draco's face and tugging at his hair as he had wrote that he always did when he wasn't sure or himself, or distracted. That seed of hope began to die but Draco didn't want it to, he desperately didn't want it to.
"Did you mean it?" Draco asked softly, his voice soft and broken, his hope giving one last push.
"Of course I meant it, I, I poured my soul out to you." he looked on the verge of bolting, he looked so broken, so betrayed.
"I meant it too, I didn't know it was you, anymore than you knew it was me…I meant every last word of it…you said you would love me forever that nothing would ever separate us. Were you lying?" He felt the tears well again, suddenly everything in the past between them didn't matter to him, just that last week.
"But this is, and you're, how can it be? Everything before…"
"Everything before was a lie! Everything before was a bad dream that I thought I was going to wake up from! What happened to the grey? Was that all a lie too?" He couldn't stop the tears so he turned his head away, wiped his eyes. Around them people were watching, the teachers were pushing there way through the crowd thinking a fight was starting. Draco couldn't have cared less.
Then, those gentle hand were back, they tilted his head back up, they wiped the tears from his eyes. Draco looked up into eyes and saw concern and worry and the man he had fallen in love with.
"I've made you cry again. I vowed never to make you cry again. I was going to protect you forever and here I've gone and made you cry again." He said it so sweetly and gently that Draco felt as if he fell in love all over again.
Then he took a deep breath, a small smile creeping onto his face, "You're right as always, Mal- no, Draco. Yes, Draco. The past was just the past the grey is real and we'll go together."
Draco hope burst into bloom and filled his heart, "I think I've fallen in love with you all over again…Harry."
He smiled, letting go of his hair, his eyes glittering beautifully, "As have I and I shall keep you forever and ever."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
And Draco threw his arms around him, kissing him passionately, Harry's arms encircling his waist, lifting him off the ground just as the teachers broke through the crowd and stood in shocked amazement.
TBC?/The End?
Now that's a good question.
(a/n) I realize that there is a book & movie called The Notebook but it was just the perfect title so I borrowed it. I hope you enjoyed the fluff!