Disclaimer: I don't own Dominique or Lysander- or anyone (or anything) else that you recognize for that matter.
A/N: This is a Christmas present to the lovely Persephone's flower, without whom this story probably would probably be rotting in the half-finished graveyard on my hard drive. Merry Christmas, I hope that you enjoy! Reviews are love. :D
Haunted
They're looking at me. I can feel their eyes on me and it makes me want to scream, makes me want to pull out my wand and hex them all until their eyes bled and they are hurting just as much as I am.
They could never be in as much pain as I am, though. It feels as though my heart has been torn out of my chest; you were holding it in your cold and pulseless hand without even knowing it.
I don't even bother to look up when Lorcan, Lucy, and Lily pull up chairs to the table that I was sitting at alone. I had made sure that no one would want to sit by me- I had strewn parchment all over the place and my bag was open and on the far corner. There were a few broken quills that I had found at the bottom of my book bag that I placed all around my work just to make myself look even more messy. There was no more room for anyone else, or it was supposed to look that way.
But of course these three wouldn't take a hint. They had been the ones that had refused to give up on me even when everyone else had, even myself. I braced myself for what I knew is coming and in the process I break yet another quill.
I didn't want to have this conversation again. I knew what they were going to say, how they were going to say it. I especially didn't want to have it here, in the library, where I couldn't shout at them like I had the last time. That's probably why they picked this place.
The last time I had made Lucy cry and Lorcan clench his jaw. And Lily- you hadn't even liked Lily, so I had no idea why she was here. You had told me that Lily had had a crush on me once upon a time. If that was why she was here- well, the idea just made me want to throw up. Besides, she was probably in love with Teddy Lupin again. Lily was the type of girl that liked boys that she thought were within her reach, especially if they weren't.
"Lysander," Lucy said, starting what was going to be another battle in a hopeless war, "You're going to have to talk about it sometime. It's been over six months. Please." There was a pleading note in her voice that at one point in time would have made me done whatever she wanted. But now- since I didn't have a heart anymore ever since you took it with you to the grave- it just made me angry.
"No," I growled, gritting my teeth. I could see the pity in their eyes and I knew how they saw me, poor Lysander Scamander, the boy who needed to get over his grief because it's been going on for way to long. I couldn't stand this.
"Dominique isn't coming back," Lorcan decides to add, and he's probably about to wish he hadn't. But I decided to restrain myself, and the wicked sharp edge that had suddenly appeared on my tongue when you left for forever prepares itself to be used.
"Dom," I finally manage say. "Her name is Dom." You had hated your whole name, you had said that it had made you sound like you had a stick shoved up your arse. Dominique Gabrielle Weasley, you'd laugh, do you think that mum used enough vowels?
"Was," Lily corrected. "Her name was Dom."
"Is," I stressed. "Her name is Dom." I shot Lily a very nasty glare and she jumps, just a bit. For some reason this gives me a sick sort of satisfaction. It takes a lot to scare a Gryffindor and I've just done it with nothing but a dirty look.
"Lysander, Domin- Dom, I mean, Dom's dead."
Didn't they think that I knew that? Didn't they think that I had realized that every time I drew a breath that you didn't? Instead you lay behind Shell Cottage, the place that you were born, under layers and layers of dirt and the hyacinths that you had loved so much.
I knew it. I knew it well. How dare these three think even for a second that I had forgotten.
"I know. I know she's dead." The last word sounded sour and wrong coming off of my tongue. Dead was a four letter word for a reason, I guess.
"Good. And we're glad that you do." I wonder for a moment if Lucy realizes how stupid she sounds right now. She was born to be a witch, not a grief counselor. "But you're not moving on. You have to, she'd-"
"Shut up!" The words came of their own accord, they bursted from some deep part inside of me, the part that wanted to deny this whole thing had ever happened. "Just shut the hell up! You don't know what she'd want, because she never talked about dying or anything, did she? Did she ever come up to you and say, 'Lucy, you know, when I die I hope that Lysander can get over me,' did she? Did she tell you that?"
Out of the corner of my eye I can see the librarian trying to raise up from her chair, probably to kick me out of here. The old crone can barely walk, but I knew that eventually I would have to leave.
This would probably be the only way that I could get away from the last three members of the Cheer Up Lysander club without them following me.
"No," Lucy whispered, lowering her eyes to the table. "She didn't. But all the same I know that she wouldn't want you to be like you are now."
"Jesus! Just leave me alone for fuck's sake! That's all I want." All of a sudden the librarian is at my elbow. She was probably going to have a heart attack from all of the foul language coming from a student, a Ravenclaw no less. I turned my back on the people that were sitting at the table and looked at the old lady. "Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I'm already gone."
:-:
My heart was pounding, sending gallons of hot blood rushing through my veins. I didn't want to go anywhere and sit down, I didn't want to lie still. I wanted to keep moving, moving, moving until I couldn't stand it anymore. Until I passed out and my heart gave out and I was just as dead as you.
There was no way that I could do that of course, I knew that, but I still just kept moving, my feet working their way towards the Forbidden Forest. I had never been afraid of the Forbidden Forest, or of all of the animals that made their homes there. My father, having the profession that he did, made sure that I knew what all of the animals were, what their names were, how much they ate and what their tracks looked like.
The forest was also the only thing that reminded me of you that didn't hurt, the one thing that didn't plunge a dagger into my chest whenever I thought of you and how you were in it. The way the sunlight somehow managed to make their way through the branches reminded me of your long blonde hair, the sound of the leaves beneath my feet made me remember the time that you had been so determined to climb one of the ancient trees. You had almost gotten all the way to the top before you had fallen, breaking your arm in the process.
Everything, it seemed, was somehow tied to you.
And then just like that my heart started pounding again and my hands curled into fists. I became angry at the blink of an eye now. Before you died it took a lot to get me angry; you had to be very talented for my aggravation to be apparent. At the time, though, I had no idea that I could hold so much anger inside of me. Now rage was always beneath the surface, bubbling and dark, just waiting for the right moment to overflow.
I had no idea why I was so angry all the time, no idea who I was angry at. Maybe myself, for letting you die, maybe your family, for trying to make everything fine and for going on as though you weren't missing. Maybe the healers at St. Mungo's for letting you die, for not being able to fix you.
Maybe even you, for not being able to save yourself. For leaving me behind, even though we were everything to each other, even though you told me once that you wished that you could be with me forever.
Unable to control myself anymore I sent myself running and kicked the first tree that dared get in my way, roaring. When I was finished my muscles burned and there was an aching in my left foot, but I relished the feeling because it meant that I could feel something besides anger. Maybe the only thing that I would ever feel again was pain, but I didn't care, because it was almost like everything joyful in the world died with you.
I took two steps back and felt myself stepping on something. I lifted my foot and in the mud there was a gold glint, no doubt the result of the nifflers that Hagrid had brought for the fourth years to play with. On an impulse I bent down and grabbed it, pulling it out of the ground to see what it was.
Although it was muddy I could see that it was a ring with a dark, cracked stone that had some sort of symbol scratched into it. It was ugly, no doubt about that, but for some reason I put it in my pocket and decided to keep it.
:-:
It was over a month before I thought about the ring again- and the only reason that I remembered was because I happened to wear the coat that I had put it in. I had totally forgotten about it and the only reason that I had picked the jacket up was because I was trying to get away from Lucy and happened to pick up the first jacket that had come within my reach.
Shoving my hands in my pocket I made my way towards the forest again and I felt the cold metal against my skin. I pulled it out and realized how really truly ugly it was. Who the hell would wear such a thing? It probably got a crack in it because someone, the last owner of the ring perhaps, had thrown it against the wall, unable to stand looking at it.
I walked into the forest, knowing that that place was the last place that Lucy would look. She would rather die than step foot in a place that had mud on the ground and make her robes get messy. I laid down on the ground, not caring that I was probably going to get in trouble for my dirty cloak later, and started throwing the God awful ring up into the air. I did this a few times, trying to see how many times I could get it to turn over in the air, when, all of a sudden you appeared in front of me.
If I had been standing the shock would have made my knees give way. As it was, though, I scrambled up so that I was on my knees and you were still standing in front of me, a sad smile on your face.
But you were dead, there was no way that you could be standing in front of me, smiling at me, making me want to jump for joy. I must have been going crazy, my lonely mind wanting any type of connection with you. I was going to have to check myself into St. Mungo's during the summer vacation.
Just thinking that I was crazy, though, didn't stop the hope from blooming in my chest like a flower in spring. I just couldn't believe that I was looking at you. "Dom?" I whispered, hoping to God that my voice wouldn't ruin the illusion and that you wouldn't go away as soon as I spoke to you.
"Lysander." Oh. Your voice. Your voice, the one that I had resigned myself to never hearing again, but here it was, clear as day. I couldn't have made that up myself, last month I had started to scare myself because I could hardly remember what your laugh had sounded like. You were here with me.
The tears that had been making their way down my cheeks, the ones that I had barely noticed before, blinded me, but I pushed them away roughly, not wanting anything to get in the way of my looking at you. I couldn't stand not looking at you for any longer than it took to blink.
I stood up, brushing myself off. "Oh God. Dom. Do you know how much that I've missed you?" I held my arms out and tried to hold you between them, but they touched nothing, grabbing at elusice air. Your shirt paled a bit where my hands were supposed to touch you, but other than that it was almost like I wasn't even near you at all.
The smile on your face grew even sadder, and you looked like you were trying to hold back tears, which was something that you were always total crap at back in life, the few times that you did cry. "You can't touch me. I'm dead."
"But you're here, right in front of me. I'm not going mad, am I?"
"The truly insane don't worry about whether or not they are insane," you said in a dignified voice, the type of voice that you would have used to imitate a teacher. You grinned at me, a real one even though it was still tinged with sadness, and I found myself unable not to grin back just like old times.
Except, not truly unlike old times. Because now I couldn't touch you and you couldn't touch me. I also had a nagging idea that you weren't truly with me, you were just beyond the veil, just over the last rainbow. We would never truly be together again.
The smile left your face quickly. "I'm not really with you, though," you said quickly, confirming my deepest fear. "I'm still in the land of the dead. But somehow you brought me here."
It was like the ring in my hand, the one that I had totally forgotten about, suddenly became heavier in the hand that I had caught it with. "It's because of this," I said in wonder, looking down at the ring that I had previously mocked in my own head. My thumb grazed the top of the cracked stone, feeling all of the imperfections there. "The ring somehow brought you here with me." Then I had a horrifying thought, one that made my heart stop for several beats and my whole body scream with agony. "Please don't leave me here alone again. Please." My voice cracked on the last syllable and I want to sob again, just like I had the first time that you had left me.
"I couldn't leave you, even if I wanted to, which I don't. I never wanted to leave you in the first place."
"But you did." The words left my mouth without my wanting them to. There were several accusations in my voice and I knew that you could hear them by the way that you winced.
"I'm sorry. I'm really honestly and truly sorry. I didn't mean to die." The tears started flowing down your face this time and I wanted to wipe them away and to hold you, the way that I always had whenever you cried, whether it be because of your family or a broken heart or a broken limb. But I couldn't do that, never again. "I wish I was still alive. I wish that I was there with you."
"I wish that too. It's been hell without you here, Dom. Really."
"Oh Lysander. Time must have passed. Hasn't anything gotten better?" You were trying to control your tears, but you couldn't. You had never been the type to hide your feelings and you never could do it, which always had infuriated you because you hated to show weakness.
"No. Nothing could have gotten better without you," I say, unable to believe what's coming out of my mouth. "But now that I've got you back I'm never going to let you go, I swear."
I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
:-:
I take to wearing the hideous ring because I realize, after a few heart wrenching experiments, that it truly is what keeps you tethered to my world. And doing so almost makes me feel like you're alive. You walk to class with me, you make fun of people, except unlike before now you get right up in their faces and say things because I am the only one that can see and hear you.
I always have to bite my lip, hard, to keep from laughing out loud with you. When we were alone, which was often because I had pushed everyone away so successfully, we'd talk. I told you how much I loved you, how much I had missed you, how happy I was that you were back.
"What's it like," I asked one day, "to die?"
You had to stop and think about that one. You started twirling you hair, one of your many habits, and seeing it almost made my heart hurt. I had missed every part of you- even the bad ones and the ones that I had almost let myself forget.
"There aren't even words," you had finally answered. "When your soul leaves your body you almost feel relief, but there's a tinge of sadness too. So many things happen and so many emotions bombard you, and you feel every one of them. All of the sensations last only a moment- but it seems like so much longer than that- and then... you're free. That's the only way that I can tell you."
"Well... what's the afterlife like?" I try to ask this question casually, as though I don't really care, but you've always been far too perceptive for your own good and you realize what I'm trying to do and why I'm asking.
You stop twirling your hair and stare at me. "You have to experience that for yourself." Then you narrowed your eyes at me, as if daring me to ask you more. You knew exactly why I was asking, and why. "And don't go off trying to find out before your time, either. I'm not worth it."
"But of course you are!" I cry, outraged. I want to tell you exactly how life was with you gone, how my heart felt like it was completely ripped out of my chest and it was beaten to a bloody pulp by life, what it was like to finally feel whole again now that you were back. But words were always more Lorcan's forte than my and I knew that if I tried to describe to you what it was like then it would just end up sounding stupid and wrong. I managed to calm myself down enough to joke. "Do you think that I'd wear this ugly thing for just anyone?"
The smile on your face was just a little too forced.
:-:
My brother came up to me in the common room, where I was sitting alone, if you didn't count, well, you. No one seemed to, though, considering the fact that I was the only person that could see or speak to you. Lorcan couldn't see you at any rate, and I was just fine with that. I was selfish enough to want you only for myself.
He looked at me awkwardly, even though my brother was the one that is usually so good with words. His essays are always commented on by teachers and he planned to one day write for the Daily Prophet. "You seem happier now," he finally decided to say after sitting next to me and you awkwardly for a while.
You were behind him, making faces while he spoke, just like you did to him in life. He had always gotten annoyed with us when you did that, but he could never stay mad at you; no one could for very long.
"Really? Well I am." If there ever was an understatement, there was one in that sentence.
"That's good." Once again my brilliant brother looked awkward and he glanced behind my shoulder. You, too, where looking behind me so I had to follow your gazes. What I saw was Lucy Weasley ducking her head behind a thick book that happened to be turned upside down. I had a strong feeling that she wasn't exactly reading runes.
Obviously, Lucy had sent my brother over here. Obviously, this wasn't a solo mission. For a moment I was happy that Lily had decided to be a normal Weasley and had gone to be a Gryffindor like the rest of her cousins.
"That's really good," he repeated. "Because, Lysander, man, you should have seen yourself. You were a huge mess. It was like... I don't even know." Once again I was struck by how hard this was for Lorcan, you would almost have thought that it was me speaking instead of my twin brother. "It was awful, watching you like that. I know that Dom was your girlfriend and everything, but still..."
"Dom was more than just my girlfriend. We were best friends since we were four years old. I love her." I noticed the slip up- I had not meant to get into the present tense- but thankfully my brother doesn't, or if he does, he's hiding it well. "You wouldn't even begin to know what losing someone like that is like. You have no idea what I was going through."
This time my mess up has garnered my brother's attention. "Was? What do you mean? Aren't you still?" This was, quite obviously, the reporter in him. I had just backed myself into a corner, and I knew it, and so did he.
It's not like I could have told Lorcan that of course I wasn't grieving anymore because the girl that I loved, the girl that had spawned this whole conversation, was behind us listening to every word.
"Yeah, of course I am. Things have just gotten... better." This statement definitely wasn't a lie.
Lorcan looked relieved and I knew that his mission, his assignment, was almost over. "That's a ugly ring," he said, stating the obvious as he looked at my hand. "Where'd you get it?"
Without even thinking about it I put my hand underneath the table to keep it from sight. "Oh, it was just something of Grandpa's that I found last summer. He said that I could keep it."
Lorcan raised an eyebrow, but he didn't seem to realize that I was lying. "Well," he finally decided to say, "Grandpa Lovegood always did have strange taste. I've got to go see Lucy." My brother stood up, ready to report his findings. "See ya."
As soon as he got away from the table Lorcan went straight to Lucy, which was nothing unusual. You watched him go with the most anguished of expressions on your face. And then you looked at me and tried not to cry.
For once in my life I had no idea what you were thinking.
:-:
You started getting paler and paler the more that time went on. I asked you what was happening to you, why you kept getting more transparent, but you said that you didn't know. I had a feeling that you did, though, you just didn't want to tell me.
Then one day you told the truth. There was a pained expression on your face and I was worried sick about you; you were dead, you shouldn't have felt any pain. "What's wrong?" I asked you, because you were sitting on my bed looking down at your hands. We were alone in the dormitory because the rest of the boys in my year had gone off to Hogsmeade and then to the Great Hall for a feast, not that I would have gone in the first place unless you were alive with me.
You looked up at me for the first time all day. Tears were streaming down your face and your face was srunched up like you were in pain. "Lysander," your tears were thickening your voice and all of a sudden I knew what you were going to say and my heart, the one that I had just gotten back, gained twenty millions heavy boulders and sunk all the way to my toes. "You're hurting me," you whispered.
"How?" I asked, getting to me knees in front of you and looking up into your face. I wished that I could have held your hand but I knew that that was impossible. "What can I do that could make it better?" Before all this, before you died, I had always been able to make you feel better. But now I had a suspicious feeling that I was the one hurting you and there was nothing that I could do about it.
You smiled at me through your tears, trying to soften the blow of your next words, even though nothing could do that. It would be like protecting a city from a dropped atomic bomb, impossible. "You have to let me go," you said, unthinkingly reaching out a hand to touch my face, but then you remembered the thin veil that separated us and you stopped yourself. "You have to go live a long and happy life without me. I can't stay here with you, it's unnatural."
Then I almost started crying, but I roughly pushed away my tears before they started because I refused to do so again. It just wan't fair that I always had to be the one to lose you over and over and over again. "But I need your help," you told me, pleading for me to listen to you, to be sensible. But being sensible had nothing to do with grief; there was no way that I would be able to be rational about this and I knew that.
I looked down at the ring, the one that had caused my wildest dreams to come true, and now it had become my worst enemy. The choice was entirely up to me; I could let you go or I could keep you, both things were going to drive one of us insane.
"Please," you breathed. "Please. You don't understand what it's like for me here. I feel like I'm trapped and there's no way out. Like I'm suffocating, but I can't breathe."
"Stop!" I roared. "Just stop. Do you really want to go away that badly? Do you want to leave me again?"
"No, I don't want to leave you!" you exclaimed, reaching out to touch my cheek without thinking. It passed straight through my skin, the ghostly vapor turning even more transparent. If things went on this way would even I not be able to see you? Would I turn you into nothingness, so that even when I would die I wouldn't have you to be with me?
"I don't want to leave you, but I can't stay here. You're ripping me in two, Xander, and I can't stand it. I really can't. It hurts being here."
That's when everything clicked for me and I knew that she was right. My selfishness was hurting her and hurting myself. She couldn't stay with me, the natural world forbid it. I was messing with the laws of nature and the consequences might have been severe on both of us. Magic is not forgiving.
"Do you promise to wait for me wherever it is that you go when I let you go back?" I asked you, and more tears made their way down your face again, I could see that much. You made a strangled sound that was either a laugh or a sob.
"Of course. I promise. I'd wait for you through anything."
This was the hardest thing that I ever had to do in my life, as well as the most selfless. I hated myself for allowing you to leave me, but I would hate myself more if I continued leading us both down this path of destruction.
"Then tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. I promise." The words almost got chocked in my throat and I couldn't believe that I had just uttered that phrase. "But first will you just lie down with me?" I wanted to pretend, just for one night, that I could hold you again.
You laid down in my bed and I slid behind you and fell asleep almost instantly, pretending that I could feel your warm body and breathing next to me.
:-:
The next day I woke up at four in the morning and everyone in the Ravenclaw tower was asleep. I saw you looking up at me, your pale eyes pleading. You thought that I was going to go back on my promise, but I couldn't do that to you, not even for myself.
Quietly I snuck out of the common room, you by my side, and made my way to the Forbidden Forest, which was the place where this all began and the place that I thought would be the most appropriate. Through the thin gaps in the trees I could see the sky lightening ever so slightly, the stars saying their final goodbyes.
Just like I would be saying mine.
"I love you," I said and you looked up at me with wonder in your eyes. At least this time I would get to say good-bye properly. I hadn't told you that I loved you enough in life, and now I would probably never be able to tell you again. Not for years and years again.
"I love you too. Always and forever," you tacked on the last part, trying to joke weakly, but you wouldn't do it. You couldn't joke about this and neither could I. No words, no jokes, could make this better.
With shaking hands I took off the ring and when it was still within my grasp I saw you still. Then I threw it, hard, into the forest so that I couldn't see where it was going and be tempted to go and find it again.
"Good-bye," you whispered before disappearing completely, the word surrounding me like a warm caress before leaving me like you did.
And then I was alone again.