A/N: This is in response to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) Forum, Charms: Levitation Charms: Write about someone who feels as if the weight of the world has been lifted off their shoulders. This takes place in the same AU as my one-shot A Time to Love and Walls – see if that makes any sense to you. But you do not have to have read them to understand what's going on.
Disclaimer: None of my work belongs to me, it is solely the property of the one and only J.K. Rowling and any other company which has the copyright of Harry Potter, including Warner Bros. Nothing here belongs to me; all the characters are J.K. Rowling's originally, though any new character not part of the Harry Potter series belongs to me.
Title: Weightless
Author: hpjkrowling4ever
Weightless
Draco slid down the pristine walls of the bathroom, his head bowed and his breathing erratic. His hand was clutching a piece of expensive white parchment as if it was his only tether to the earth. After a long while, Draco's shoulders started shaking violently and desperate sobs made their way past his lips.
Suddenly, Draco felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. Just as he was about to whirl around and shove his wand up the person's nose and curse them six ways from Sunday, a long-fingered, smooth hand reached around his face and covered his eyes, surrounding him in a powerful physical darkness which joined the darkness the parchment in his hand had brought.
"Shh," a soft, female voice whispered. "It would be better for both of us if you didn't look."
In his desperation, Draco nodded; so anxious was he for any human touch that wouldn't hurt him, or that didn't hold some measure of hatred and contempt for his life.
"Talk to me," the voice whispered, and he felt the girl sit behind him and cross her legs. She muttered a few words and a silk blindfold wrapped itself around Draco's eyes. Then, the girl's hands went back to his shoulders and started drawing a pattern on his back.
"It's too much –" Draco whispered into the darkness covering his eyes. Somehow, being unable to see who was behind him made it all better, made it easier for him to talk.
"What's too much?" she asked into the silence that had fallen. Draco focused on the pattern she was drawing, and found himself mesmerised by the feather light movements of her fingers. After a moment, he realised that she was drawing a flower and he wondered why.
"Why are you drawing a flower?" he asked her instead, unwilling to speak any further. He wasn't a Slytherin for nothing, and he wanted to know something about the girl sitting so calmly behind the so-called most evil person in Slytherin.
"Because flowers are beautiful," She answered. "Flowers are a symbol of growth and renewal of life. If I take away your sight, all you can rely on is my hands, and that's made you calm down, see? Loss of sight isn't always a bad thing, as I've learnt from experience." The girl chuckled, as if remembering something, and somehow the bright, happy sound warmed parts of Draco's heart he thought had been lost to an icy wasteland years ago. "Now, what's too much?"
"I can't tell you," Draco said faintly, moved somehow by her words. "I don't know if I can trust you."
"Once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin," the girl replied lightly, a smile in her voice. "I'm not the person who'll take advantage of someone who's helpless – or in such a mess as you are."
"So a sentimental Gryffindor then," Draco replied, feeling uncomfortable now. Showing weakness, Merlin, his father would kill him. Draco shivered and clutched the parchment tightly in his hand again. His eyes darted about behind the blindfold, and it occurred to him in a blinding flash of clarity that if this girl was a Gryffindor then she had excellent motivation to spread his weakness around the school. Draco had never been kind to Gryffindors, after all.
"A sentimental Gryffindor is right," The girl said, shifting behind him. "I don't tell secrets, you know. I have more secrets up my sleeve than probably any other person in the school."
"Excepting Harry Potter," Draco mumbled inarticulately.
"Well, Harry's one of a kind," The girl chuckled again, speaking with fond exasperation. Draco could almost guess who she was, but he liked the darkness that the blindfold provided him, so he stayed silent. "Now, will you tell me what's wrong or will I have to pry it out of you?"
"My father," Draco whispered, taking a reckless leap of faith. "My father wants me to do something terrible. Something that will change everything."
"And do you have to obey your father?" the girl asked. Her fingers had started drawing flowers on his back again, and somehow the fact that he knew that those flowers were a symbol of growth and renewal made him feel stronger.
"I do." Draco unclenched his hand and spread out the parchment on the ground in front of him. The girl didn't move, and the fact that she had respected his privacy made him feel better somehow. "It's a pureblood thing."
"I guessed that it was," The girl said, which told Draco that she was either a half-blood or a muggleborn. "Explain it to me, then."
"He controls my inheritance. I get nothing if he disowns me, and losing my family's ancestry is such a horrific thought that I might just obey my father. Those ancestors built the Malfoy Family for their descendants, and it's stupid to disobey my father and scrap all of their hard work away. We're never totally in control of the Malfoy fortune and assets. We only look after our name for the next generation." Draco focused on the hands on his back again when he felt himself slipping into panic. "And letting the Malfoy Family down is probably the worst thing that I can think of." Draco picked up the parchment again and clenched it tightly in his hand.
"I understand the importance of family, though I'm no pureblood," the girl replied. Her hands crept around his waist until she was slowly prying the parchment from his fingers. She slid the parchment into his pocket and moved to sit in front of him. She started drawing on the palms of his hands, and Draco sighed, closing his eyes behind his blindfold. "I have a sister, did you know that?" She chuckled. "My sister's blind, and relies totally on the people around her. She's got a guide dog now; he's called Pericles. He's great and she loves him to absolute bits."
"A guide dog?" Draco asked, confused.
"They're dogs trained to be the eyes of their blind person," the girl explained. "They recognise hazards, and are specially trained to guide a blind person around. My sister and I are extremely close, and it was devastating when she lost her sight." Draco tilted his head to the side, silently asking for the girl to go on. Somehow, Draco knew that he was the only person in the school to know this, and it sobered him. No one had ever trusted him before. "And what I realised is that we're all so prejudiced. It's the people who can see who are blind to the world around them. My sister won't judge anyone by what they look like, only by what they sound like. It's beautiful." She gave a wry chuckle. "What I think I'm trying to say is that family is important, but doing something that means you're going to have to go against what you believe, or what makes you comfortable, is never the right thing."
"I can't go against my father," Draco said in a hushed voice, as if the very words he was uttering were a sin.
"Of course you can, and I think that your father would probably be more proud of you if you decided to stand up for yourself and do something which benefitted you in the long run."
"You don't know my father," Draco warned.
"No, I don't, and nor do I presume to," The girl answered in an even voice. "But, like those flowers I've drawn on you say, don't grow under someone else's shadow. You've got to grow in your own environment. For Merlin's sake, your father's going to die before you if all goes to plan naturally, and then what will growing under his shadow have done to you? Whatever that parchment says, think twice before you write back."
Then the girl unwrapped the blindfold from his eyes, and just as he was getting used to the light again, she left, leaving behind a musty smell of books and parchment. Draco put his hand inside his pocket and felt the parchment.
Somehow, the darkness that had surrounded him, and the flowers she had drawn on his back, made Draco feel lighter, as if someone had pulled the plant growing over him away, and allowed the seed that was his flower to finally grow into the light.
Draco wished that he could say thank you to the girl, but the words were stuck in his throat. As he stood up, he took his hand away from the parchment and walked out of the bathroom, leaving his uncertainty behind him.
A/N: That didn't quite end the way I wanted it to, but I'm a bit all over the place at the moment, so do excuse the horrific ending. I hope that somehow there was a transition during the story. Do get back to me if not, or give me any suggestions. I'm suffering from serious writer's block.