A/N: Oh gosh, how I love Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson. They really are gorgeous together. This one's more angst-y than anything, and I tried to keep most of the fluff out of it. Take the characterization as you well, it isn't my best.
Disclaimer: All JK's
Title: Don't Tell
'It's still gonna snow, and it's still gonna rain,
the winds gonna blow on a cold, winter day.
And I promise you now, you won't ever be lonely.'
- *Andy Griggs 'You Won't Ever Be Lonely'*
By: Liebling
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It's hard to imagine them as children.
Just four and five, rolling in the mud and the grass and smelling of lemon candies and warm bread. Wearing tiny shoes with big hearts that loved freely and simply. Children with parents who loved them and cared for them, and clothed them, sheltered them, fed them. Parents who would kill for their children. Parents who would die for their children. Parents who would have no qualms about fighting for their children. Don't tell.
But that was ages ago.
But that was worlds ago, and moons ago, and stars away, and that was just forever away. And now crystal tears litter grounds that are stepped on, and ties are left untied, hearts left without closure. Betrayal is in the air, happiness is in uncharted caves and parents are so very...not there.
But she has one person. And he has one person.
And they remind each other of times left past. Times of singing and dancing, chanting: "God Save the Queen!" And skipping, tattling, smiling. Times when she would talk to him with her eyes and he'd respond with his.
'Don't tell,' the ruby eyes would say to the diamond ones. 'Don't tell that we went into forest...'
'I won't,' the crystals responded, 'never ever.'
'Even when we are old, like maybe nineteen?'
'Even when we are in rockers.'
Don't tell.
It's lots of work reminding each other of happy times now because a war is upon the backs of the young and some of the old. The war is waging and she's awfully scared, although she'll tell no one and absolutely everyone just because of how those eyes pierce through paintings.
It's odd. But not so odd that he doesn't understand her.
He always understands her, and he thinks that it's the most difficult job in all of the world.
...she'd agree.
Sometimes they sit upon the brick steps, right outside of Hogwarts and it feels like they're parties away, it feels like they're steps away from the moon and paces away from home.
It's like being in a whole different world.
She'll whisper to him, even though everyone else has gone inside, long before, and her breath smells of firewhiskey with slight hot cocoa mixed in. "When Daddy tells Mummy he loves her his voice goes all slight and quiet, like it's a secret that he mustn't let anyone else know of." Don't tell.
"It is a secret, genius," he retorts caustically, "when you love someone...it's a secret."
"Why?" She says as she bites on her manicured nails. "Why is it like that? When I am in love I shall want to shout it from mountaintops and tell it to all that come in my path. I shall even tell it to you, Draco Henry Malfoy. For when you have a good thing...you must share it."
He smiles at her tone of voice, wishful. As though wanting ever so much to be in love and feel loved and protected and wanted. She's always said vague words about wanting to be a Mother and then dropping it with a wave of a hand and: "But whatever, I mean...it's impossible, I'll never be in love with anyone enough to make a baby out of it!" He laughed. Don't tell.
"When you have a good thing," he says his voice oddly eerie, "you never ever want to share it."
She drops the subject.
Somedays it rains and somedays it snows, somedays the sun comes out and lasts only for minutes and sometimes the world churns and they never notice it.
Somedays she cries and he must hold her and be strong for her and him both and sometimes he wants to cry and she knows this and must be strong as well. Somedays it's hard being strong so they resort to half drunken vodka bottles (Don't Tell) and they dress-up in overly fancy cloaks and go out on the bricks to do, well absolutely nothing of course.
But it's always something. Don't tell.
So during these times of loudness and rambunctious, at times quiet behavior truths come out. Whole truths. They look up at the rainy sky and sort of roll over on their backs and tug on the hoods of their cloaks.
And he speaks.
And she listens half-heartedly.
"When we were young," he says reminiscing, "do you remember when we'd go off into the forest?"
"...yes."
The rain pelts down upon them and he wipes a strand of white-cake hair out of his eyes.
"And it was a secret?" He asks, once more a grim smile playing across his cracked lips.
She smiles at the remembrance and the grand old secret. Don't tell.
"Well of course it was a secret, genius," she says curtly, "there were dangerous things in the forest behind your Manor. Daddy used to always say if you weren't good enough they'd come out and eat you whole. I only believed it when I wasn't with you," her voice sounds choked and she coughs underneath a small pale hand.
"It was nice though," he says dryly, "it was nice because...it was with you."
"We were seven."
"I loved you then."
"We were children."
"You were lovely with your hair up in pearl clips."
"We were best friends."
"It was a secret," he says finally. "Don't tell."
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La Fin