I had honestly expected my night to be completely normal, just like ever other night I had had there in London for the past two months.
The date was August twenty-ninth, three days prior to when my seventh year at Hogwarts would take place. The previous year had ended not so well, what with the Death Eaters breaking into Hogwarts and Professor Dumbledore dying. I knew there was a war coming up. Everyone knew. Everyone could have felt it, if they had stopped paying attention to the damned minister, they could have, of course.
But, I remember distinctly that night, that warm, cloudless August twenty-ninth night, I had been wandless. But, then again, it was Muggle London. Why would I have needed the piece of wood on a completely full and busy street at seven forty-two in the evening? I could not, for the life of me, remember why it had been crowded with muggles, but it had been. But, I felt safe... For a while.
At seven thirty, I had wandered out of my favorite muggle cafe, and started for the King's Cross station, just because it was what I had always done every night the week prior to September first since my first year. I do not know why, but it was sort of like a ritual in my family. The wizarding side, at least. My father's side, that is.
I'm a half-blood, so only one of my parents is a wizard. Dad was a pureblood, though, from a very long line of purebloods. So, once my father married my muggle mother, he was blown off of the family tree and erased from his inheritance He was sixteen when he wedded my mother, who was fifteen. He had planned to wait, though he and my mother had joked that I had other plans. I was conceived out of wedlock, but born into it. My father was a Slytherin, and I had still questioned why to that very day.
At seven forty, I remember I had just arrived at King's Cross station. I had slipped past all the workers, bidding any one who saw me a good night, passing through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Upon arriving on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, I remembered that I was, once again, twenty minutes early, exactly. I was supposed to be meeting someone there. A very special someone. So, all I had done was sit down on the stone ground and wait patiently for him to come.
Seven forty-one came by with an odd noise. It had been deathly quiet and still, so hearing a clanking noise had not been impossible nor improbable. It was as if someone dropped a can or something made of metal. Quickly following that noise was a hushed curse word, not like a hex, but the other kind of curse. At first I thought it had to be the someone I was to meet that night, then slowly realized he would not have been so sneaky.
Slowly, but surely, I turned my head to face where the noise had originated from. It was dark on the platform, but I could still make out a figure hiding in the darker shadows. My eyes widened and I turned my head back around quickly. Hoping against hope that the figure was not some one bad, not a Death Eater, and had not seen me stare.
Sadly, my hoping proved in vain.
I had screamed when I was suddenly pushed down to a laying position. I was on my back and the figure who had made the noise was right on top of me. Everything was happening so quickly for me, and I could hardly tell what was going on. My eyes had registered that the man above me, clad in a black robe and hood, had a skull mask on and a wand pointed directly at my head point blank. Oh, dear Merlin.
A Death Eater.
Tears were streaming down the sides of my head and into my dark brunette hair as I saw the tip of the man's wand glow a menacing, evil green.
He was going to kill me in the matter of seconds. Not even seconds...
My mind had faded from the man above me and my predicament, allowing me to escape for just a moment. It let me look back on the one who I was to meet here, but never would tonight...
It all started last year. Some mean Hufflepuff girls had just kicked me out of my dormitory that I shared with them. They had been making fun of me since I first got sorted here with them in our first year. They had made fun of my hair, how it was a dull shade of brown. They made fun of my clothing, how it was so out of date and made me look fat. They made fun of my eyes, how they were an odd shade of blue grey that no one would ever love. They made fun of my love life, how there was none. I was alone in the abandoned girls' bathroom, well, not completely. I did have my friend there. My only friend, even if she was dead. Moaning Myrtle was the only one who gave me a chance. I had no friends there at Hogwarts, nor outside Hogwarts. I understood her pain, and she understood mine. We were the best of friends, if only we had been born in the same time and she had been alive. We were each other's saving grace. She had confided in me all of her secrets of when she had been alive and even ones from afterwards, as well. In return, I confided in her with a few of my own secrets. Not that I had many, really I just confided in her the few crushes I had had over the years. Not many, and no boyfriends ever coming out of any of them. She had much better things to tell me. Like, for instance, one of her secrets was how she was madly in love with a boy named Harry Potter. I confessed that I knew him and had been paired up with him in a Herbology lesson way back in third year, but also told her that I had never been friends with him. But, she was happy to tell me secrets. Especially those that were not her own. She told me how a boy, that very year, keeps coming into her bathroom and confessing things to her. How even one time, Harry Potter got involved and nearly killed the poor boy. Said there was blood everywhere, looked like a blood bath in her very own bathroom. She never quite went into detail on that one, but it was not needed. For the day I had ran to her crying about how I had no where to sleep or store my belongings, a boy ran in, in a terrible state. His blond hair was askew, his green robes where unkempt, his face a sickly pale white and gaunt, and his eyes... His silver eyes is what struck me the most. They were surrounded by puffy and blotchy redness. Tear stains were over his face, though I could tell there was more yet to come. But the silver in his eyes revealed that he was broken on the inside. That something was wrong in the boy's life. When he had finally seen that he was not alone, he swiftly turned around and pointed his wand directly at me. "Who are you?" His voice cracked, but there was still authority and anger in his tone. I did not answer him at first. My mind clicked. I recognized him. His name was Draco Malfoy, a Slytherin of my age and year. But, he had surely changed throughout the year, and not for the better. "I said, who are you?!" He was louder this time, angrier and his voice did not crack. He took a step closer to me, his wand still aimed at me. I put my hands in the air by my head to show that I was defenseless. My wand was in my small bag of things besides the wall. "My name is Colin Hyperion." I replied quietly, scared almost. He took more steps towards me until he was right above my tiny figure that was huddled on the floor. He still attempted to look evil. I could now tell that there was indeed something wrong with poor Draco. No matter what anyone said about him, I had a feeling that there was a little good inside everyone. Even if it was tiny. "Why are you here?" He quieted his voice a bit to a mere normal talking volume. His wand still poised, though. I sighed and looked away to the wet floor I was sitting on, wrapping my arms around my legs to pull them against my body. "It's nothing." I lied. And he called me out on it. "I don't believe you, Hyperion." I cringed visibly at the sound of my last name being used. I did not like it, but I was far too used to hearing it and being only called by it. Instead of answering him with a rightful answer, I turned the question around on him. "What about you? Why are you here?" I asked in a quiet whisper. He paled even further, which I started to worry about. He was so pale to begin with when he walked in here that he could make a ghost jealous, now he was even worse. He turned his head away and put his wand down. Sinking down to the floor in front of me, he looked completely and utterly defeated. He was about to give up on life. Just like me. But instead of hearing an answer from him, Myrtle decided to whisper, quite loudly for a whisper, "That's the boy I've been telling you about! The boy who comes here and who almost died!" Draco had no power in him to even glare at the teenage girl ghost. "I heard about that." I mumbled. Looking up at Draco, I saw him staring at the floor, tears welling up in his eyes. "I'm so sorry. I know the feeling of not being wanted around so much that someone wants to kill you." He heard me, I know he did. For he looked up at me, tears now openly flowing down his face like a gaping waterfall. I was not lying, either. The Hufflepuff girls can be cruel when they want to be, and fourth year had been a tough year to go through. Draco was silent as he cried, so was I. My tears started to pour down my cheeks like rain in a storm. For minutes we just sat there, allowing the other to cry without noise or conversation. Myrtle had left us to ourselves, becoming quite bored to two teenagers crying about being When our tears were done, we remained quiet for a few minutes longer, but Draco ended it, surprisingly. "So, you know this feeling? This feeling of wanting to die just to escape from reality and the world crushing you?" I half smiled, sadly. I knew that feeling all too well. My parents had died right before my fourth year at Hogwarts during the World Cup game. The Carrows had been the ones to kill them. They were the only ones I had, so now I had nothing but the awaiting tortures of others to look forward to. "I was kicked out of my dorm." I whispered in response. He looked at me confusingly, and I just kept my sad smile. "I have no friends other than Myrtle. Everyone in my dorm and house hate me. I don't understand why." He nodded, not saying anything, but I could tell he wanted me to elaborate a little more. "Hufflepuffs are really Slytherins clad in yellow and black with a badger. They should have been bees. Cute on the outside, but they sting and hurt." was my explanation. Draco looked at me in the eyes. "Hufflepuff?" I sighed. Great, now he would not stay because of my house. Might as well just see how he reacts to my blood. "I'm a half-blood as well. Sorry if you don't like it." I looked away from him and to my knees that were still pressed against my body. I wondered why no one would be my friend. But, to my astonishment, Draco did not leave. In fact, he got up just to come sit by me and wrap his arms around me. He was a pureblood Slytherin, wasn't he supposed to hate me now? I did hear him sigh. "I don't think I want to believe in blood status anymore. I mean, look where it's gotten me." I could hear Draco's heart beat so faintly in his chest. He was so weak and frail. I wanted to ask what had happened to him this entire year, but he answered my unspoken question before I had the chance to open my mouth. "I was told to kill Dumbledore." My eyes widened in shock and I looked up at him from the position I was in. The look in his eyes were distant and he was staring at the stalls in front of us. "I'm also supposed to get Death Eaters into the castle. But I don't think I can do it." He looked like he wanted to commit suicide now. "I'm running out of time, but my family's at stake." My gaze softened. All for family. That's all he wanted. His family's safety. Their protection. I placed my hand on his hallow cheek. I didn't need any more explanation. No more motives. Family was enough to get anyone with a heart to say what I said next. "I'll help." Draco looked at me incredulously. He was stunned for a moment. Unable to speak. But then his brain became active again, and what he did next was shockingly surprising. He was just full of them tonight. He kissed me on the lips softly. I was frozen in his arms just then. My eyes frozen shut. My heart skipped a beat, sending warmth through my frozen body. It was as if time had frozen us together and just stood still. Like it was allowing two near-death teenagers be frozen in this one moment. Because that's what we were then. Frozen.
From that moment on, Draco and I had both practically lived up in the Room of Requirement that he had shown me that same day. I had helped him with the Vanishing Cabinet that he had done so well in cleaning up. I still attended classes, bringing up the work for Draco that he had missed and bringing up food as well. We had secretly become a couple, a forbidden one to Draco's family lineage, that no one in Hogwarts knew about except Moaning Myrtle. We had shared secrets with each other that we dared not confide to any one else.
Then that horrid night came in which Draco's plan came to life, Death Eaters ransacked Hogwarts grounds, and Dumbledore died. He had done it. Draco had succeeded, but he had to leave before being caught.
I had not seen him since that day, but tonight would be the first time since. He was the one I was to meet here. We contacted via one owl, from him. He had said that he had been watching me from afar, his post as a Death Eater was nearby the cafe that I went to, and that he wanted to meet up before the school year began back up.
But that never happened. I never met up with Draco. He never saw me alive again. We were never allowed to be together again. Never shared another kissed. Never were frozen together again. Never.
Seven forty-two hit.
Along with the killing curse.
Now, here I am. Hovering above Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, for the past twenty years. Nineteen years had passed since the death of Voldemort. I had only seen Draco three times since then. First, when he saw my dead body, cold on the stone. Second, when he decided to redo his seventh year at Hogwarts. And third, when he was leaving Hogwarts for good.
Nineteen years. I have been worrying if he was still alive. He never came back to the platform at all, though why would he? But, surely if he was dead there would have been something in the Daily Prophet, even if that was a load of nonsense.
Nineteen years, it has been since I last saw the boy with blond hair and silver eyes.
Until today.
But he was not alone. He had a younger boy with him, and he, himself, looked older. His hairline had receded slightly and there was little stubble on his chin. There was also a dark haired lady by the boy's side, but Draco seemed to have distanced himself from her.
It must be his family.
I sadly smiled at him, although he could not see me. His son looked just like him down to every single detail. If only I hadn't have died, I wonder...
"Now, Son," Draco interrupted my line of thinking. His voice had hardly changed. It was only a bit deeper than nineteen years ago. I listened to what he said to his son. "No matter the house you are sorted into, you will always be my son. You are my everything." The wife had gone away somewhere, but I did not care.
"Dad, what if they don't like me?" came the boy's response. He sounded just like his father.
I saw Draco smile, and I smiled, too. "There will be at least one person who you find who will want to be your friend." I saw him glance over to the wall under where I was floating. His son looked at it to, and confusion filled his eyes.
"Dad-"
Draco interrupted him. "That was the love of my life. You're named after her."
The boy came over and read the inscription on the wall.
"Colin Aiofe Hyperion. Died at age sixteen by Death Eaters. August 31, 1981 to August 29, 1997."
Draco came up behind the boy and put his arm on the boy's shoulder. "She was my everything. She saved me, and I saved her." He touched the inscription with his unoccupied hand, running his fingers along the letters. "She gave me the chance to be your father, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy."
I cried.
He remembered one of my secrets after all these years. With that act of kindess and love, I knew we would be truly frozen in time together. Why?
He remembered I wanted to name my son Scorpius.