Foliage
Rasielle
-
Flowers and flower petals litter the floor, covering every inch of it. There are daisies, so yellow, and there are roses, so very red. Above her, green garlands of mint are hung in widely spanning arches; and though it is not Christmas, there is mistletoe.
She walks down the aisle, slowly, and does not move her gaze from his face.
-
He does not listen to her as she stresses the importance of their eventual marriage. He is pouring wine for himself, and he takes to swilling it around in its goblet while she speaks.
"Draco," she says sharply, waving her hand around. The bracelet he had given her – fastened and jingling so freely about her wrist – makes a little silver sound as the charms clang together. "You aren't answering my question. Have you been listening?"
He looks up. Something oddly malicious makes his eyes glint. He smiles, and it is twisted. "Of course," and his voice is smoother than it should've been. "The wine is an interesting color; that's all."
She cranes her thin white neck and peers into his cup; her forehead furrows when she cannot find a difference. With a twitch of her perfectly shaped eyebrows, she mentally puts it aside. "Well, anyway, you and I both know that the Dark Lord relies heavily on this match… to have the Carrows and Malfoy lines united! It is a wonder it has not been done before…"
He nods and goes back to his wine; truthfully, he knows that it has. Been done before, that is.
But then, inbreeding never bothered the Purebloods.
-
He can see her flame-colored head if he stays in this one spot, finely hidden by a particular suit of armor. If he crouches a little, she will never see…
She, along with a few friends he doesn't know, stop before the portrait of that fat, clad-in-pink woman. There is a bouquet of white carnations sitting on the ground, atop a black box with a white note attached. The girls stare and all but the redhead burst into excited squeals and giggles.
Instead, she steps forward, bends down, and takes the gift package into her arms. She reads the note and he can see jerk in surprise.
The only word on the note is her name, in small, curling letters.
The girls crowd around her and a few take the carnation bouquet from her; they inspect it closely, as though they might identify the giver. One has the audacity to let out a yelp and bounce around as though she were hit with a jinx for giddiness.
"It's from Harry, I bet it is! Come here, the flowers smell like him! Oh, Ginny, you're so lucky; is your brother trying to set you up?"
All of the other teenage girls give out brief screams, and again Ginny is the only one who does not indulge. She seizes the carnations back from them and does not answer their questions.
From behind the suit of armor, the secret admirer is seething.
-
"Draco, is it?" the woman purrs, tilting her head and shaking her black hair off her shoulders. They've just been introduced, and all he knew of her so far was her name. Apparently, that was all she knew of him, too.
"Basilia." He nods slowly. She is tremendously beautiful, with red lips, black hair, and black eyes. She is buxom.
Still, he cannot help but look upon her with a little resentment.
"Oh, do cheer up," she says suddenly, and her smile is polished and trained. Not strained, but trained, certainly. "I'm sure we'll come to like each other eventually. This arrangement is important to my father, so unless you want to be miserable, you'll play along."
She puts it so casually, as though it is something of little importance. With her light tone of voice, it is like she is almost laughing at the idea.
He could come to like her, he guesses; she is a Pureblood and nothing but. They would do well together, and perhaps she would help him forget.
-
They are together in an empty, deserted classroom. The girl is holding a silver bracelet, turning it in her hands. For a moment, it seems as though she is entranced by the pretty piece of jewelry, but the moment passes swiftly. She raises her eyes to his face, and she looks torn between pity and anger.
"I don't know what you're playing at, giving me – this," but as her eyes catch the light that dances off the trinket, she is tempted to accept it after all – it looked fine and valuable on its velvet cushion in its black box, but as she held it out like this…
There's a piteously earnest look on his face, and she imagines him as a little bratty boy again, looking especially sad when denied a highly anticipated treat. "You know you like it," he says a little recklessly, and the look she pities him for disappears. Now he looks arrogant, angry. "So you can keep it; I'm not taking it back. I already spent a ridiculous amount of gold for that, even if it doesn't look that expensive…"
"At least they're not diamonds," she mutters, more to herself than to him, but he catches it anyway. His cheeks get hot. This was a mistake, and he should've known it; it was such a stupid impulse, to give her a gift just because there had been a day when she looked very pretty.
In truth, he's so frightened and embarrassed that he is tempted to snatch back the bracelet and run out into the hallway, out and away from her.
But the pensive look vanishes off of her face quicker than it had come; there's a sharp light in her eye, and she frowns at him suspiciously. "What, are these cursed or something? I don't want them… if you think this is some sort of funny joke – I'm not like that Parkinson, ready to fall to your feet just because you're rich. I don't need any gifts from you."
There is a silence, and then a very shocked pause.
"And I despise you!" She said it hastily; she had almost forgotten. "Why am I here anyway? Did you bewitch me? Is this a trick? Malfoy, if you do anything like this ever again, I swear I'm going to kick your ass."
He's about to laugh when she shoves the bracelet back into his hand; she's not hesitating. With her face as red as her hair, she stalks over to the door and swings it open. She leaves, and as the door is slowly coming shut, he can see she's very close to breaking into a run.
He decides to stay in the darkness for a while; the atmosphere is good for thinking.
That was fourth year.
-
Basilia clings onto his arm the way a starfish does on a rock. She has one pale arm – slender and festooned with jewelry – wrapped around his, and they are a formidable couple as they swan through the streets of Diagon Alley. She wears a small but unbearably haughty smile, accompanied with an elegantly lifted chin; he has a more serious demeanor, his gray eyes slightly narrowed as he wordlessly criticizes the passerby.
In front of a women's dress store, the two stop. It is adorned with two pillars that stand beside the entrance, all gold and ebony. A sign sits above the top of the doorway: Septime, Witch's Occasional Wear.
Underneath it, there is a smaller sign: Specializes in Bridal Fashion.
Basilia is leaning in towards the clear glass display case, reading the price tag for an ivory tiara. 4750 Galleons. The price is absurd enough to light up her eyes.
"Let's go in here, Draco," she says blithely, letting her arm slip out of his; delicately, she holds onto his fingers with her hand. She tugs. "This is the first decent store I've seen all day. We might even find decent wizard robes for you to wear, if there are a few wedding things for men."
Her laugh is melodic as she sees his sulking look. No matter how she tugs, he refuses to move any closer.
With a slow, sultry smile, she pulls him behind a pillar and plants a deliberately prolonged kiss onto his lips, complete with a skillfully tracing tongue. Then she pulls away and laughs again; when she jerks him toward the store this time, he follows.
-
Dammit, she thinks, wearing a scowl. He's at it again.
There is another gift for her at the portrait today, and silently she wonders how he charmed it so that only she would see; that was smart and also paranoid, and unconsciously she knew that he'd do such a thing.
She picks up the single rose and twirls it in a scrutinizing manner. This is hardly the way to accept such a gift. She wonders if he is watching.
She looks up for a moment and then looks around, as though expecting him to show up right around the corner, looking crankily shame-faced but sincere. He isn't there.
Vaguely, she is disappointed – and she wonders why. Maybe she just wants another chance to yell at him again.
Unbeknownst to her, he wasn't this time. Watching for her, that is.
This is fifth year.
-
"Basilia, what is wrong with you?" he roars, stomping towards her as though he wished so heavily to rip her to shreds. Or at least wring her skinny little throat with his hands. "How can you – you bring her up – you always bring her up – "
She does not cower or flinch as he makes his way toward her, but her voice quavers. There is fury there, and a sadness that had a long time to grow into something worse. "I always bring her up? Oh, Draco, my darling, you are befuddled – perhaps you just like to say that I bring her up because you can't stand to know that you want to!"
He cannot respond, for she is clawing strangely at her wrists. First, he thinks – fleetingly and in a panicked way – that she is trying to scratch herself to death, scratch herself where the veins were most significant. He is ready to snatch at her arms before he sees that she is actually struggling to take something off; it is one of her bracelets, the one at the head of her procession of bangles. It is silver, and it is simple, and he can see that she hates it.
Basilia manages to unclasp it, in all her madness. She tries further to break it but her efforts are futile; in a wild rage, she flings it at him and shoves him aside.
He is too surprised to stop her; he has never seen her this despairing. She no longer looks like a pureblooded goddess; actually, she looks very human. There is something humane in the quarrelling woe and wrath of her expression – it is something he wished he could've seen before.
She rants on, clearly not finished. "And see, see? She has you worked up, my dear intended, worked up in a way that I could only dream of causing! That Muggle-loving twit has you eating yourself with hatred through the inside out, and what do I do? I can sleep with another man, and you wouldn't blink! And don't you dare deny it!"
She shook a finger in his face for emphasis; this is uncharacteristic. He does not love her enough to take her into his arms and soothe her. They never expressed affection; most of the time, it was only lust. Instead, he smirks and puts his hands into his pockets. "Well, do you, Basilia? Should I be worried?"
He takes a moment to relish her wounded expression; she deserves it for calling her a Muggle-loving twit. And again, he does not love her enough for mercy.
-
"So. Potter." It has been a long time since they had spoken privately, and earlier he had been fearing he'd forget how to speak to her. It's almost odd, he thinks, how two years could pass and everything would become so different.
"Yes. Potter." She shakes her fiery hair off her shoulders and meets his gaze, unwavering. Obviously, she is proud of her love interest, proud of her heroic Harry, and she would not hide it the way she hides his flowers.
The thought makes Draco sad and sick.
"I think we've all seen it coming for years," he tries to say it suavely, but it comes out gentle. What the hell? He was never gentle. Not even for her, for this short, pale, freckled girl whose coloring could not live up to the savage brightness of her hair –
"Have you?" she asks with a tauntingly soft lilt, lifting her eyebrows. She crosses her arms and studies his face the way a lion tamer would study her learning beast's reaction to her whip.
"It was so grotesquely obvious, Weasley, of course I've seen it. You two snogging in the halls between classes. I'd watch out if I were you, especially for that Romilda Vane. I hear her Bat-Bogey Hex is better than yours." And as her lion, he is snapping back, deviously inching forward and putting forth a semblance of his old condescension, something she's hated for a very long time.
"Still the same, always the same," she whispers, both fascinated and disgusted. "Maybe," she punctuates her words with a neat jab in the chest. He's close enough to make her dizzy, now. "Maybe if you would change – maybe you'd have a chance – I didn't always pine after Harry, you know – maybe if you'd stop being a total git – "
"Maybe if I still bought you flowers?" he whispers back in an even softer voice. Some contempt leaks into it, hardening her face. Her jaw clenches.
She didn't need his flowers. This wasn't about those damn flowers. Wouldn't that register?
"I'm leaving. Don't you ever corner me like this again." And she's turning away from him, rushing toward the door; after a breadth of a second, she is poised, ready to grab the doorknob, but his arm comes slicing through the air and clutching at her forearm, white with fury and numb with it.
"Muggle-lover," he hisses at her, because he can think of nothing else to say.
"Blue-blooded prude," she snaps back.
"You think you can turn away from me like that?"
"I hate you, so of course I would jinx you to Hell if I could! Now let me go!"
"You hate me?" his tone, impossible though it seemed, seemed to drop even more in volume.
"The way I hate your father, Malfoy."
"Then at least I have nothing to lose."
She's trying to decipher this inappropriately timed declaration, but before she can blink, he's pulling her forward and jamming his lips upon hers.
And this is seventh.
-
She blinks back tears, tears that were not necessarily mingling with ill-contained joy. The aisle seems endless, she thinks in trepidation, and this is taking too long – and he's all the way at the end of it. I don't even know what he'll say.
A woman she passes pulls out her handkerchief and blows like a rude-sounding whale. And the bride is too distracted to even swivel round and glare.
He looks so blank –A few of the petals of her bouquet – orange daisies – come drifting down.
He should be smiling, or smirking at least –She shifts the bunch slightly, but the orange petals still come down like winter rain.
He doesn't care –A flower head breaks off and is crushed under her white, silken slippers. Irritable, the bride snaps out of her rather silent lamentation and tsks under her breath.
Those stupid flowers were his idea. But she pauses.
Oh, she thinks with a horrible twist of her stomach. Something with burning razor-pincers is wrenching at her heart; she can positively feel it. Orange. Of course.
This time, the tears fall, hidden mercifully by the sheer gauze of her veil. There are inconsistencies in her bridal march to the altar, but without a blink, he graciously takes her hand. The tears continue to fall, unnoticed. And the priest is speaking in Latin, the unintelligible slur of his elder's voice seemingly giving her mind a chance to wander.
She's ruined it all, that vile little schoolgirl, she knows with the utmost of scorn. And this day is supposed to be the happiest of my life! Oh, Merlin, if any of our children are born with red hair, I will Avada them and laugh in Draco's face –
Her children, redheads. Redheads! It's so unlikely that she laughs, laughs out like a madwoman, drawing every eye of every wedding attendee. The priest alone is unperturbed, but Draco's grip on her hand tightens immensely, and he is turning to her, fierce-eyed.
She only hiccups and stops squirming, grinning madly at the priest as he finishes with the awful droning. She has gone insane for the moment, and frighteningly enough, she does not mind it.
-
"Ginny," he begins, stroking her flaming tresses with a careless hand. She sits in his lap, and in turn, Crookshanks sits in hers. Both the cat and the girl yawning lazily, she picks delicately at his thick fur.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Hermione came up to me yesterday afternoon and told me something very strange." He pulls playfully at a red curl before it disappears; her head has rolled up and she is gazing up at him.
Ginny's brow furrows; she wonders what that could possibly have to do with her.
"What did she say?"
"She said she found a bunch of dead carnations under your bed while she was looking for the Numerology book she lent you. You know as well as I do," he adds, frowning and looking down into her face. "that that's a little weird, Gin."
"Dead carnations." Her voice is curiously empty for a moment, but patting Crookshanks, her tone quickly becomes brisk. "Mum sent them. For Ron. When he got sick – poisoned, remember?"
"So why were they under your bed?" he demands incredulously.
"He didn't like them, the bloody git," she lies easily. "So I kept them."
"Under your bed."
"Under my bed," she repeated firmly.
"Mmm," and he does not pursue the subject. For a minute, there is a disturbed silence and a strenuously maintained balance of emotion, but suddenly Ginny bursts out, in an unnaturally high-pitched voice:
"Buy me carnations, Harry."
He jerks alive and stares down at her, merely startled. "What?"
She knows what Draco would think: Potter was too stupid to be suspicious.
And she will take advantage of this. In her sweetest voice, she cooed, "Buy me carnations. I like the orange ones."
"Oh," he articulated in a clumsily bland voice. In moments like these, he doesn't seem like a hero. In moments like these, he's barely what she's looking for. "Sure, Gin. Orange carnations. I'll see if I can find them."
"Thank you, Harry." Her answer is polite enough, but she is frantic inside. Is she thinking about Malfoy? Was that where her question came from?
No, she decides adamantly, faithfully. Her hand is like a claw now, and Crookshanks shrieks as her nails dig into his fur. This is not about him. It's about me, not that arse of a Slytherin…
And Harry Potter, of course. Harry Potter, and the lovely bunch of orange carnations he will buy me. And not anything left near the portrait hole by some low, despicable coward.
But she fingers her bare wrists and unconsciously wonders if she should ask Harry for a silver charm bracelet as well. Just to preserve her sanity, she mentally reasons out, and for the meantime her mind is thoroughly convinced.
- fin.