Rating: T
Era: Post war, with flashbacks every now and then
Characters: Draco, Harry, Draco/Harry
Genre: Angst, Drama, Romance, (Implied) slash
The Sins of Memory
Chapter 01: Remembering
Was it love? The feeling of wanting to die beside him was clearly exaggerated. He had been with him only a year. Was it simply hysteria? He had this mad feeling of wanting him forever. Could it be both? Love after all is but a moment of suspended hysteria – an obsession of sort.
Was it love or hysteria? He had no idea. Draco felt distressed of the idea of not knowing. Yet he is at a plane going to London to go back to the man that confounded him. We can never know what we want, he assured himself. We only have one life to live and we deal with things as they come. We only have one life and we decide on it when it comes. We cannot know which decision is better because we have no basis for comparison. One life. One moment at a time.
He looked at the plane window. He can see the lights from the tall buildings ofLondon. They are now landing. Draco never felt this unsure his whole life. He was aware of his inaptitude for love yet felt the self-deluding need to stimulate it. Here he is, riding a muggle transportation to see Harry again. His Harry. Harry introduced him to the wonders of muggle transportation. They may be slower and crowded, sometimes inefficient and prone to go kaput, but that's exactly what he needed now. He wished that somehow something would go wrong and that they wouldn't land on London just yet. He was stalling, or rather wishing for a haul. There are perks too to muggle transportation. They force you to sit down in quiet and think. That's exactly what he is doing right now – thinking.
He arrived in London, a bag dangling from his shoulder. He had an address book under his arm. He seemed worried and lost. He is lost. There he was in his own country, but he was in a foreign city to find for the man he loved truly. The man he pushed away back then, the man he couldn't admit to love. There he was, standing, afraid. He had feared that if he sees him again he might offer him his life.
How had he come to the decision when for nearly a fortnight that he wavered so much to the point that he couldn't even call him to ask how he is. Draco was surprised. He had acted against his principles as a Malfoy. Three years earlier he had abandoned his partner. From what he understood he felt like he is never meant to love, or live with anyone side by side. He is the eternal bachelor – good looking, well-off, educated and charming. He can have any one he want at any given time. He tried to design his life in such a way that no one can stay in his life permanently.
Until one morning when he woke up with his classmate he fornicated with the night before. He was holding his hand firmly as he slept; he wanted to jump out of bed. Never has he felt a grip so tight in his life. And while his classmate breathed the deep breath of sleep and held his hand, he found comfort. Draco did not realize at that time that beauty is dangerous. The beautiful are not meant to be trifled with. One beautiful night can give birth to love. One night with Harry, borne out of a mistake, laden with teenage hormones and youthful curiosity gave birth to love.
He fell in love, so soon and so unceremoniously. The very thought of it exhausted him. Love at first sight – he was repulsed of the idea of loving someone deeply without knowing deeper. He had never felt such love in his life. He was used to habitual love. Love borne from the basis of familiarity and kinship.
From that time on they both looked forward to sleeping together. Draco was even so sure that the act of lovemaking is only a prelude to act of sleeping together. More than the copious rendezvous he and Harry endeavor, he desired the act of sleeping together - skin on skin, warm flesh intimately bound by the desire of togetherness. It was bliss. Peaceful and wonderful. But even this cannot keep them together.
Draco went from being in love to being afraid. Afraid that the man would get closer to him; afraid of the intimacy their lovemaking stipulated. He grew cowardly of the thought of being bound by a monogamous love. That is not him. He is Draco Malfoy, the eternal bachelor.
One night, while his lover was in slumber, Draco fled and decided never to return.
He left the one he loved the most.