Author's note: I don't own any of the characters. I don't own the song that I listened to over and over while writing this. I don't own anything, ok?
This is the first chapter in a continued story. (My first not one-shot! Hurray!)
Reviews are motivation.
Song: "The World Spins Madly On" By The Weepies
Chapter 1: He was nothing if not numbers and memories
He turned twenty last Wednesday. She will be twenty-one in mid September. He wonders what day of the week it will be. He knows the date, but not the day. It seems the reverse of how it should be, but when he thinks about her, everything is upside down and inside out, so maybe this isn't such a surprise.
Life has been difficult, to say the least, but he doesn't want to think about that right now. At this moment, as the Thestral-drawn carriage takes him away from Azkaban, he does not want to think about the bad things. He's had lots and lots of time to think about the difficult things – sixty weeks of thinking, to be exact. Presently, all he wants to remember is the good things. Not, of course, that there have been a wide array of good things. His gains and assets in this world are mostly tactile, with very few lasting or rewarding friendships.
Even family is woefully inadequate, if he is going to be completely honest (which he fully plans to be this time around). His mother is sitting across from him and she looks as regal as a queen, but the way she presses her lips together indicates that she doesn't know what to say. Her hands are clasped in front of her, which means that she wants to know how he is; that she's been terribly worried. The dark circles that have been concealed by makeup and the hollowness of her cheeks shouts that she has not been able to sleep or eat properly, knowing that he has been suffering. The way her ankles are crossed and her feet knock gently against his in time with the swaying of the carriage tell him that she loves him very, very much and that she is so, so happy to have him with her again.
But he is nothing if not slightly vindictive, and he has been locked in the worst wizarding prison, not her, and so he is going to make her hold her breath for a little longer. Maybe she'll be able to empathize a little better then. Besides, he does not want to think about his mother right now. He has waited four hundred and twenty days to think about something that does not make a tiny snake of self-righteous anger curl tightly around his heart. He blames so much of what has happened on his parents that he is not sure that he will ever be able to tell his mother that he loves her (and mean it) again. The way his mother's eyes flick cautiously over his face makes him want to burn something down or tear something up.
He knows he is not much to look at right now, and so he wishes that she would not stare. Razors are not allowed in Azkaban, and so he has not shaved in 10080 hours (give or take a few. He's just doing basic calculations here, not advanced arithmancy). The food in jail is atrocious, and he has always been a picky eater, and so he is gaunt, skeletal. Although in most recent months he has eaten whatever has been put before him, not particularly caring what he was ingesting. He has heard stories of people released from Azkaban who cannot eat rich foods ever again. He hopes that he is not going to be stuck in culinary limbo forever. His cold gray eyes stare flatly, he knows. The outside of the carriage has been polished so well that he was able to catch his own reflection in it. He looked older than his barely-twenty years. Not quite wizened. More like a muggle mountain man like the one he had seen in a history book at some point; Far away and scruffy. Under the scruff there are scars that very few people have seen yet, but they add to his wildness. He knows this is how he honestly looks, but he wishes his mother wouldn't stare. It's rude. And a Malfoy is nothing if not polite.
He stares blankly out the window. It is not an effort to keep his face impassive. He has not had to make a face for anyone in more than a year, and so neutrality is second-nature now. He wonders how much of the old-him is dead for good. But he doesn't want to think about that. He wants to think about something alive and bright.
Her face does not rise to the top of his memory instantly. At first he is not sure if he can remember her at all, and he wonders vaguely if this should be a reason to panic, even though he doesn't feel like he should. Seconds tick by and he watches the gray ocean rush far below them before he remembers her. The first thing he conjures in his mind is her owl's nest of brow hair. You could probably lose quills in that mess. He thinks of the way her hair catches the sunlight as she whips her face around to answer someone who's talking to her. Probably Potter or one of the innumerable Weasels (he didn't know how many there actually were; they seemed to reproduce like rabbits). Then he remembered her mouth, turned downward in concentration in class, her small pink tongue forced between her lips. He remembered it as a wide smile, laughing at some joke he hadn't heard. Her front teeth were a little too big, but it was only noticeable if you knew what you were looking for and even then it was only endearing. He didn't linger too long on his memories of her nose, which came next. He had very little attachment to her nose; it just never seemed significant.
He tries to remember her eyes, as they should naturally appear next in his mind's eye, but for some reason, he couldn't remember those. He didn't even know what color they were. Something unhappy woke up inside of him.
He pressed his memory further. He remembered her hands, white-knuckled around her wand, scared and ferocious. When he thought of "Gryffindor Courage," the mystical beast he had never been able to capture himself, he thought of those hands- terrified of whatever they were pointing at- how even though they quaked, they never wavered in their resolve. He remembered her skinny legs in their uniform skirt, one sock rolled halfway down her leg, forgotten as she chased some idea that was supposedly more important than appropriate attire. He remembered her thin shoulders, squared against him in determined annoyance. Her neck, long and graceful, never adorned with any jewelry; perfect in its simplicity. There was not much to say about the parts that generally distinguished the finer sex from his own; she had been barely full-grown the last time he had seen her. What sort of woman had she turned into, he wondered. He was sure she was beautiful, whoever she was now.
But what color were her eyes?
Panic was an unfamiliar sensation in his limbs, but there it unmistakably was, like the first crack of the ice on a river in the spring. He had nothing if not a good memory, so why couldn't he remember her eyes?
He had to think of something else. Suddenly, he desperately needed to think of something good. No, not just good. Something he had done that was good.
Well, his options were fairly limited, weren't they?
He had not had a particularly philanthropic or generous life so far, but the few moments where he had done right by a fellow human being without the promise of reciprocation he cherished like jewels. All of them involved her, so he selected his favorite.
She was fifteen. He was fourteen. It was nearing Christmas and the Great Hall was snowing gently. It was the Yule Ball and there were hundreds of candles floating above them. He was dancing with Pansy when he first spotted her, although he did not recognize her immediately. She was wearing a pink dress. Or was it purple? He wasn't paying articular attention to the dress, focusing instead on the young woman beneath it.
The first thing that caught his attention was her hair, which was prettily swept away from her face and neck. Then he noticed the brightness of her smile. He hadn't seen her eyes then, since she was not looking in his direction at all. He loved the graceful slope of her neck and the way he could see the promise of curves under the dress. She was, he assumed, one of the girls from Beauxbatons. Introducing himself to her would allow him the opportunity to practice his French (he was nothing if not a skilled Francophone) and hopefully securing himself a place in her heart (and perhaps bedroom, if he could be so presumptuous).
His hopeful arrogance had been thwarted when he turned his attention to her partner. Krum. Champion of Durmstrang and Quidditch, bearing the IQ of a small but good natured lizard and the physique of Atilla the Hun. More or less the polar opposite of him. He deflated, instantaneously giving up all hope of a possible tete a tete with his nameless French beauty.
Thus, he spent the remainder of the evening among his fellow Slytherins, having a decent time but still unable to tear his gaze from the pretty girl in pink/purple. At some point in the evening, he tore himself away from his date (which was a mean feat in and of itself) in order to fetch them both drinks. Holding two butterbeers, he was on his way back to their table when he spied his mystery girl in a heated conversation with none other that Potty and the Weasel. She looked greatly displeased and when the three separated, she was obviously the worse for the wear.
It was not a sense of chivalry that compelled him to follow her out into the beautiful and bespelled gardens, merely a sense of curiosity and the Slytherin nose for opportunity. She had slumped against the second-to-top step in tragic beauty, her face hidden behind graceful fingers. As he neared her, he noticed her thin shoulder were shaking with silent sobs. She was crying. Did the Gryffindolts do this to her? He quietly cleared his throat above her, determined to set the record straight that not all Hogwarts students were so uncouth. She looked up at him, hope glowing in her tear-filled eyes.
Oh.
He finally recognized her. Beneath the makeup and the dress and the glamor was the mudblood know-it-all who had plagued his existence like a buck-toothed, bushy-headed mosquito forever in his ear. This, however, was not the foremost thought in his mind. The thought that almost caused him to turn his lip in the usual sneer was that Granger was in love with the Weaselbee. Everybody knew it, except, apparently, the red-headed baboon himself.
"Oh." Said Granger hopelessly. She sniffled unattractively, her eyes narrowing as she prepared for a fight, "Come to have a good laugh, Malfoy?" She asked bitterly.
Again, the impulse to sneer was strong, but he checked it; He was nothing if not a great appreciator of feminine beauty. Instead, he held one of the butterbeers out to her. Cautiously, as though worried it would leap up and bite her, she took it. Her eyes still followed him suspiciously as he sat beside her on the step. He took a swig of his own drink before speaking.
"Look, Granger, if you tell anyone about this, I'll deny it, but you're the prettiest girl here and Weasley's a fool not to see it."
She blinked, startled and at a loss for words for what was quite probably the first time ever. After a few sense seconds, she sniffed again and looked at him sideways, daring him to take it back now.
"Really?" She asked tentatively.
"Beyond a shadow of a doubt." He affirmed, smiling genuinely at her. She smiled back and for the first time, he realized that Granger was not unattractive for a commoner and a mudblood. He mentally checked himself. Those were dangerous thoughts. "Now," He sighed, rising to his feet and fixing his robes, "I have a ball to enjoy and I suggest you do the same."
As he walked toward the ballroom and the ever-awaiting Pansy, he heard a very soft "Thank you."
His heart soared, and he passed the rest of the evening in a blur of happiness and warmth. He even almost enjoyed Pansy's company (after she had forgiven him for taking so long with the butterbeers). He glimpsed Granger once on the dance floor, but had not been able to catch her eye. Perhaps it was for the best, though, since it allowed him a free glimpse of her smile and th satisfaction of knowing that he had put it there.
He was jarred from his reverie physically when the Thestrals landed, the carriage bumping violently against the cobblestones outside of The Manor.
"We're home," Announced his mother imperiously. She clasped and reclapsed her hands, which meant that she wasn't sure she had said the right thing and she wanted approval.
He smiled thinly at her around the beard and scars. The motion was alien to his face, but he forced it anyway. For her sake. His mother smiled back, tentatively at first, and then more fully. It was a smile that she did not show the outside world; it was something she guarded and only took out for those closest to her. She brushed her hands over his softly. It was the first human contact that he'd had in a year and two months and the motion caused electricity to run up his spine and his face to snap up in attention.
"I've missed you, Draco." She volunteered quietly.
"And I've missed you, Mother." He replied as the servant opened the door. He looked into the young squibb's eyes as he descended the carriage steps. They were a muddy brown and anxious.
Something clicked into place in his head. Big brown eyes suspicious of his every move, shooting daggers at him across a room, looking thankfully into his own colorless ones. The ice around his heart thawed a little more and he took his first steps on his native soil (cobblestones) as a free wizard.
Draco was home and with no time to spare. Tomorrow he was going to meet his parole officer and wanted to be clean shaved, decently dressed, and at least decently fed before then.
