I can see how much he hates himself, and for reasons validated by who he had been…maybe even who he still was. I didn't get it…I didn't get him. After all the years of his self-preservation in order to protect his family…the family that wanted nothing to do with him, he had convinced himself that he deserved to die. In actuality, he was the most compassionate and brave person that I had ever met, despite the exterior face he put out towards the rest of the world. It made me happy, so very happy, that I was starting to break through the walls and that maybe, just maybe, from the inside, he was unconsciously helping me to break them down.
Watching him carefully move away from me, as if frightened that I might turn on him after our unprecedented confessions and our awkward and unprecedented little kiss, I knew that I couldn't let him just leave…not now. After everything that we had been through, I think that it might emotionally break both of us. We needed each other right then…more than either of us might ever know; especially after all of the deaths that our combined parents had caused. In the entirety, I just couldn't believe that my parents, my birth-parents that is, had hid their magic from me after all of these years, being dark wizards, and ganging up with his parents as well. Together they had gone on a suicide mission, loathing themselves after they had lost courage and summited to the Dark Lord. They had gone out, to a meeting for the remainder of the Death Eaters, initially a meeting to stop their dark violence as I had later learned, and used the Killing Curse on anybody in the vicinity, killing almost four hundred, basically all of the Death Eaters, and such, even those that had been willing to change, or those that had changed. After, using Muggle weapons I guess to prove that they had accepted the non-magical community as one of their own, they had committed suicide, leaving their children with the pain and wonder of why they would abandon them when they could have redeemed themselves by getting help. I assumed that it was a matter of pride. I realized then that I hated pride. It caused Hell around the world in all manner of ways.
I stepped towards the man that I had come to see myself as equal to, in pain, in our shared status of being outcasts and preferred loners in the world, and in the hesitant friendship that we had come to accept. I would change all of that now, with what I had decided to do. Honestly, this was bigger than anything we had faced in that past, this moment right now. With everything that had gone through, in our own lives which had slowly become joined as one, and then the past little while in which we had faced the world together, this moment would decide where we went in the future.
I knew in my heart and soul that he knew I had gone after him, but still he did not turn around. He stood there, white-blonde hair delicately touching his pale neck, his black suit looking almost stark and new without any creases or wrinkles. It was either barely made or ironed well. On second thought I realized that my Draco wouldn't even know what ironing was and so it must have been just recently bought to have been looking so…I don't know…well preserved I caught my track of thought before it got too off of its wanted path. I knew that I was rambling, keeping myself from doing this…but I wouldn't stop now…I couldn't.
His strong shoulders were still as if he were holding his breath, seeing what I might do. I stepped closer to him; close enough that I could smell his strange wood on wine scent…I loved that smell. I rested my arms on his back, realizing with mixed feelings just exactly how much he was taller than me. It would make it harder for me to do what I was forcing myself to pluck up courage for. If I reached on the tips of my toes then I could reach his neck, just another incentive to go ahead and give in to my heart. I leaned my forehead onto his back and took a deep breathe, before reaching up and placing my lips on his exposed skin above me, just below where his beautiful hair ended. I could feel the goose-bumps tingle through me, and see them appear on Draco where I had kissed him. I bowed my head, waiting for him to yell, to stalk away…to look at me confused…instead, he turned around and I was faced with his gorgeous molten silver eyes, looking on me with a sudden fire, just like before when he had been so determined to stop his parents from their self-intended deaths. He lowered his head, whispering words, to me or himself I didn't know, from the song that had played when we had danced at school at the Ball. I could hear some of them and it seemed he was trying to reassure himself that I thought that he was human, and forgiving him of his mistakes, so that he would try and forgive himself as well. I was proud of myself, as I listened to the words:
I'm not perfect, but I keep trying
'Cause that's what I said I would do from the start
I'm not alive if I'm lonely, so please don't leave
Was it something I said or just my personality?
Making every kind of silence, it takes a lot to realize,
it's worse to finish than to start all over and never let it lie
and as long as I can feel you holding on
I won't fall, even if you said I wrong
I was caught up in the trance of watching his pale pink lips move together, forming the words that I had fallen in love with, only because we had shared those moments together, describing what our lives had become with music and cleverly written stanzas and verses. I didn't notice as he stopped mumbling the words, I just kept staring up into his eyes that stared down at me. I knew what he must be seeing: my cinnamon hair, my chocolate eyes, all coming along with my maturity in age. The dark gold ruched dress clinging to me after all it had been through today, my dark burgundy heels matching the ribbons holding back my curled hair from my face, the applied makeup all but run off. I knew I must look a mess from the light rain and all of the excitement of the day, Draco staying in all of his perfected glory.
Subconsciously we moved closer towards each other, switching from looking to his flashing and inspired eyes to his soft lips that, as cliché and cheesy as it sounded, seemed to be calling to me. I noticed that Draco seemed to be having the same dilemma as I was, alternating looking at my eyes to my lips. Finally, as our bodies pulled closer as if drawn by force, and the streetlights above us flickered on and off, the drizzle mussing our hair, our lips met, for once the same color, as if we were one. Irony was found in that moment as literal sparks flew in every direction, most likely caused by some happy witch or wizard that happened across our moment, and Muggle fireworks sounded off in the distance. We stood there, held together as if we would never let go, and I could see our future, the dreamer girl that had belonged to the Golden Trio, so devoted to pleasing her Muggle parents, so engaged in trying to make everybody else happy, and the wisher boy that had turned upon himself in the process of discovering himself and if he believed in his parents beliefs or not, the forced ex-Death Eater who had betrayed so many in order to try and stay true to the person that his parents had wanted him to be. We were so different now, following our path of self-discovery and of breaking out of what everybody else wanted from us. And yet, we were joined still, with each other, ready to start our new lives, the way now that we wanted them to go, nobody else but us.
We started our kiss as two tied individuals wanting to be joined, and pulled reluctantly apart in the realization that our wish had come true.
"Perfection is an underestimate, you know," I whispered. "After all, who needs perfect when I've got you, right here with me?" Draco didn't need to respond. I could see the pride in me through our eyes, and that he was starting to heal again. I could see the love that we both felt in his eyes, his taking in mine by looking into my eyes and also his own. I reached up to kiss him again, caught up in the language that we had created just then, the language where we understood both everything, and nothing.
"I know that you think perfect doesn't exist, love," Draco spoke, "and I'm with you one hundred percent on that except for one reason that I stand adamant on: you are my perfection. And I don't need anything else." I just smiled against his lips, ready to continue our lives together, as a typical cheesy couple, good and bad, come together as a mutual force, neither light nor dark. And that was how we would stay, for eternity, and throughout and into our shared togetherness.