The Secret Tree

(a sequel to 'Alone and Forsaken')

by hey citrus

The last shreds of the day's fierce heat curled around Draco's body, pasting his shirt to his back as he scuffed his way down the gentle slope towards the tree.

It clung with outstretched, semi-exposed roots to the bank of a narrow, knee-deep river. Long ago, before his birth, it had been split – whether by lightning, rot, disease or insects, he didn't know – down one side, so that a thick bough now curled out from the trunk over the river, parallel to the water, supported by ancillary branches resting like stilts on the riverbed. It remained stubbornly and defiantly alive.

*

He lay facedown on the bough, eyes squeezed shut, taking some comfort from the press of the rough bark on his cheek. His arms circled the gnarled wood; his legs stretched out behind him. In this awkward embrace he lay, as he had lain as a child, here in the far grounds of his parents' estate.

Silent tears stole from his screwed-up eyes, soaking into the dry bark. He imagined the tears nourishing the tree; imagined his sorrow sprouting; giving birth to a beautiful new flower or fruit. He imagined animals eating the fruit and being blessed by magical gifts.

*

The sun was low and orange when he opened his eyes. Beneath him, the river flowed on, carrying dead leaves; twigs; petals. The water was clear and unmuddied; he could see every rock, boulder and piece of natural debris on the bed between the bough's supporting branches.

Weeks ago, he had watched a school of tiny fish battling against the current. Senselessly, stubbornly fighting to hold their ground, their destiny to swim ceaselessly in this one patch of river. He wondered where they were now. Swept away downstream, rock-battered, dead? Or blissful in that fabled, still pool promised by nature?

*

He thought of Harry; how he had always dreamed of bringing him here, to this tree. His secret place. The place he would run to when his father's harsh words tore through him like a falcon's claws.

He imagined Harry shinning gracefully up the tree, scruffy hair flecked with twiggy fragments. He imagined him crawling along the fallen bough; grinning, joyful. Soil and leaf juice on his clothes. Gleefully grubby, revelling in this connection with the natural world.

Harry would unwrap Draco's arms from the hard branch, wrap them around his soft waist. They would meld together like tree sap.

*

These thoughts were bitter to him now. He could taste them like pollution, like a chemical spill. Poisoned by his last memory of Harry.

The river's constant, pressured flow; its carriage of debris, began to nauseate him. He noticed rotting branches; moss; slime; fungus; decay. He noticed tiny insect specks scurrying about in the bark. Cobwebs strung like bunting between branches.

He sat up, straddling the bough. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with rotting air, then let out a great bellow, beating his fists down hard, grazing and tearing his knuckles, bark shards entering him from the bloodied branch.

*

Now he and the tree were one, he thought. They shared the same cells. He stroked the bough, stroked his knuckles. Cried; rocked; quieted.

He lay back, finally. Supine; legs dangling either side. Above him was pure blue, shot through with the greenest summer leaves.

He thought of his childhood, seeking fairies, wood nymphs and sprites; in a time before he and Harry had ever met. He thought of the boy he was, and the man he became, and the man he could still become.

He imagined flickering wings over the water, and felt the first rusty stirrings of joy.