L'Espoir
She comes through the front door, all smiles and laughs. Her bag swings from the crook of her elbow and lands gracefully on the hall table along with the clatter of her keys, the perfect partner to the rhythmic drumbeat of her footsteps across the wooden floor. She slips her shoes from her feet, the steady clicking reduced to a gentle sweep, and peeks her head around the kitchen door. She points her wand at the hob and everything sparks into life. The pans begin to boil merrily on the stove, the steam whipping up into a swirl of cloud around the ceiling, and she nods, pushing herself away in another twist of purple robes. Her tight-clad feet slide over the polished wood towards the bathroom. She spins as though she is a ballet dancer and lets her grin tease her lips as she gazes in the mirror.
Her hand reaches up to slip the clip out of the back of her hair. The blonde waves fall down around her shoulders and shine in the bright winter sun like the glimmer of fairy lights. She stares at her reflection, her lips darker than usual with the cruel aid of the make-up that she pastes on in the hope of being seen as someone other than that pre-empted by her name. Her glow falters a little as she casts her look down to the chipped lilac nails of the fingers that grip the basin below her and with a flick of her wand the water starts to chug into the harsh white bath. She turns her back on it, running her hands slowly over her crudely tanned complexion.
It is New Year's Eve.
It is New Year's Eve and he is not there.
He is not with her, in their dingy flat in the squalor of Muggle London. He is at home, in the majestic manor house that his traitorous family do not deserve. He is not laughing and joking and drinking himself into an adorable tipsy stupor but will be sat primly with his parents, sipping at German elf-made mature mead and pretending that he cares that a Muggleborn is in charge of the Department of Magical Games these days.
She sighs and throws another spell at the water. It gurgles and then heaves a sigh and the comforting splash of the water changing temperature restarts. She casts a hopeless glance at it and the groan that emits from her slightly parted lips draws itself from the back of her throat and her eyes sting a little. Stomping her foot like a petulant child, she spins and stares at the water bubbling at her side, a hand stretching to her hair. Her palm digs into her cheek, her fingers elongate and scratch down through her hair as she squeezes her eyes shut to stop herself from giving in. They flutter open and she shuts the taps off angrily before pulling her hair into a messy ponytail at the back of her head. He isn't worth thinking about.
Her make-up slides off her face and she stares at her freshened face in the looking glass. She does not remember what she looks like without the tired bags under her eyes. They define her now, in their deep purple glory. They catch the eye when she isn't pasted in cosmetics from head to toe. She cannot look any longer and looks away.
The bath is warm and the steam clouds her vision for a minute. She squints and pretends she can see him, sat at her side, running a hand through the water gently, occasionally catching her flesh. Her breath hitches and she looks down to see not her lover's cautious hand but a spider, drowned, dead and disgusting, sticking tightly against her ribcage. She screams and with tentative fingers picks it up and throws it on the floor. As though she has been rolled in dirt, she scrubs at herself until she can no longer feel the spider's legs wrapping around her torso nor the imagined touch of his hand on her. She does not realise she is crying until she gasps for breath and finds her lips stained with the salty flavour of the ocean. The back of her palm rubs across her mouth to rid the taste that she can only associate with him from her.
As she steps out onto the cold floor, a towel wrapped messily around her slight frame, she gasps. Her feet carry her once again in a series of dainty pirouettes to the kitchen. She checks the pans and, satisfied, makes her final leap to the bedroom.
She stares at the bed. She has not slept in it since he left. She has changed the sheets but the mark of his body in the mattress is still there and she can still smell his aftershave as she gets closer, forever stained onto the headboard. Her clothes, laid out ready, slip over her skin loosely and she sighs angrily at her flat figure. Her mother had once joked, with a wry and hurtful smile, that her youngest daughter looked 'like she'd been trampled by a herd of centaurs'. Drunk though her mother may have been, it had still hurt and now she stares at herself blankly, hoping that her body would curve like her sister's, or that her figure was broader like her brother's.
"Hope is pointless," her mother once barked. "It is miracles that you must search for."
And she had searched, high and low, from north to south and east to west but they did not exist. The only thing that had ever come close was him and now he had gone like the rest of them.
It is New Year's Eve and she will once again be without a partner to kiss at the twelfth chime of Big Ben.
It is New Year's Eve and she is alone.
A hiss from the kitchen breaks her train of thought and she hurries across the apartment to find the source of the commotion. The water is boiling over and she groans madly, grabbing the pan and slamming the stove off. She flinches as the water continues to spew over the edge of the pot and spills over her exposed feet but she can do nothing but stand there and wait for it to finish its natural course. Once the sting disappears, she pushes the pan onto the worktop and stares at the ruined meal.
She grabs a fork from the drawer and stabs angrily at what she can salvage. Her tongue gasps at the heat but she forces it down, her stomach's selfish snarl satisfied to a quiet rumble. She sets the dishes off to work and glances to her watch. She doesn't want to go but it is tradition. She grabs a brush and tugs it through her hair, letting it fall how it wants. Her shoes slip onto her feet with ease and she grabs her bag and coat before leaving the still apartment with only a fraction of the energy she had started the evening with and the faint pop from outside as she Apparates away rings through the keyhole, a lonely echo.
The frost is bitter on the bank of the Thames. Her mother had always insisted they visit the Muggle New Year display in London, though it was always less than satisfactory. The December air hangs on the precipice of the rabid January cold and she pulls her coat a little tighter around herself. With a gentle sigh, she pushes herself through the crowd. She travels slowly. She is early and wants a little more peace and quiet before the questions begin again. She is sick of saying that she does not know the whys and wheres and hows of the whole situation. She does not want to explain because it is too difficult. The story has been told a million times and she has gone past caring about any mistakes and errors that the retelling may have brought.
Her feet carry her to their usual spot. It is gone eleven now though it feels later. She stops at the back of the crowd and casts a glance through the mob for the sea of cornflower ringlets that will give away her family's position. There is no such sign and she rubs her bare hands up and down her arms to warm herself a little. The bells chime quarter past the hour. Nothing. She tips forward onto her toes and looks over the heads for something, anything, but there is no-one. Her head swings from left to right and she turns but there is not even a flash of the pale white blonde hair of her mother, nor the dripping honey curls of her sister.
Tempted to leave, she feels eyes on her before she can move away. She knows it is not her parents for they are not ones for keeping their presence hushed, and whilst it could be her brother, she knows by the way the gaze is burning her back that it does not belong to a relative.
Her instinct is to turn but she stands dead still, rocking on the spot to expel her excess energy. She cannot really comprehend it. She has never brought him here. How did he know where to find her? His footsteps are magnified above the ruckus of the rabble in front of them. They are silent as he reaches her side. His arm brushes hers but does not beg for some form of forgiveness. He merely waits until she obediently turns her head up to confirm that it is him.
"Your mother told me where you'd be tonight." His tone is restrained. It sounds like it almost pains him to be there and she glances away.
"She made you come?"
"I asked," he responds with no moment of hesitation after her question. She moves her head towards him a little, though not enough to be able to meet his strained gaze. "I…owe you an apology."
"I know."
He glances to the top of her head, not much lower than his own, and nods gently. The attitude was expected before he arrived but he had not anticipated that it would sting so much.
"I didn't expect it to last more than a few days."
"You thought I'd come running after you?" she snaps, stepping away so she can look at him properly. She is ever conscious that she is wearing no make-up and that the bags must be glowing under her eyes like beacons in the centre of the sea but she, for the minute, cannot concentrate wholly on that, not when it is taking all of her self-restraint to keep her cool.
"I…" he stalls, "I thought you'd…"
"Don't answer it if you're going to dig yourself into a hole that you can't climb out of," she answers with a tired glare. She turns back to the crowd as the bells chime for half past.
"Please –"
"Draco," she warns, glancing up at him again but not meeting his eye for fear of what she might do. His mouth is downturned and he slouches in a position that makes her heart flip a little as she remembers the last time she saw him so dejected. "Just shut up." She lifts her gaze again to meet his and they seem to stare for forever, until her glacial hand is ensconced in his gloved grasp. A smile twitches on his lips but her stony stare prevents it from growing into a fully fledged grin.
The fireworks start above them and he steps forward so that she is shrouded in his arms. She tilts her head up to watch him looking down at her.
"You look ill," he notes, a hand tipping her chin back so he can see her properly. His fingers dust across the purple marks below her soft green eyes. She shakes her head and tries to move her head away. "Stop. Astoria."
"I'm fine."
He groans and shakes his head, loosening her grip on her. His free arm loosens around her body but she does not move away. Quarter to. The chimes sound louder than before in their silence. He sighs and rubs his hands across his face gently.
"I know it isn't going to go back to normal straight away –"
"You can say that again."
"- but please," he continues, moving his head to keep holding her gaze as she twirls and moves against him. "I was scared, that was all."
"You're a coward, Malfoy," she spits, writhing against the grip that he now has on her small wrists.
"I know. I've been told a million times," he growls contemptuously but begrudgingly. She stops struggling and sighs, letting her hands drop down to her sides and his hold loosens against her. "Astoria?"
"Draco?"
"I love you."
The peel of the bells from Big Ben booms down the banks of the dirty river. The sky is clouded over but the threat of rain holds still for a minute as the familiar song of the quarter bells haunts the city, silent but for the hushed murmur of excitement that flows down the crowd. She stares at him, his pointed features sharpened in the strict fake lighting surrounding the bank, and smiles.
He has never said it before, not to her, not to anyone. She can tell because his tongue sticks out and licks his lips worriedly once he's done it and his eyes don't quite know where to focus. She feels that her ear is burning where his gaze is currently lying and shivers. She lets herself rest against him as the bongs of the Great Bell shake them.
Each one pounds through their bodies as though they were stood in the belfry. They shudder together as his arms wrap tightly around her. She nestles against his chest and clings to him as the fourth bell tolls through the city. She pulls against him to glance straight up at him. Six. The murmur around them grows louder and louder ready for the finale.
"I love you too."
Seven.
The explosion above their heads is deafening and their gazes snap up to stare at the final shower of colour in the polluted air above them. She does not notice that he is resting his chin on the crown of her head until the sickening sensation of Apparition overcomes her and she finds her feet slamming against the hard floor of the hallway. They stand outside the front door for a moment, a disfigured yet beautiful statue, out of place in such a decrepit old building. The marble front has chipped away and now they are bared to the world in all their imperfect but fitting glory.
The door clicks open and he releases his arms from her. She does not step far away, still within the circle of his personal space that once glowed bright around his slim figure but has now merged into her own. She tugs her hands into his and glances down as she teases her fingers around his. They flex and fuse together in a new mould of simplicity and complete understanding, and he brings one clasped pair up to tilt her head towards him. Staring at her eyes again, the purple bags that haunt her pale face seem to dissolve before him as his eyes close with hers and their lips meet for the first time in so long.
As they draw apart, their gaze holds tight and seals something between them. They walk inside the flat, where every breath they take is etched before them in a cloud of air. There is a rush and she feels weak at the knees as his hands release hers and he slips her tight into his embrace. They say nothing. Words coated in spite and confusion would only spoil it. Words will be saved until later because it is New Year's Day.
It is New Year's Day and she got her kiss at the twelfth chime of Big Ben.
It is New Year's Day and she is not alone.
It is New Year's Day and though it is not perfect, not yet, he is back and there is hope, and that is all she needs.
A/N: I know it's a little early for a New Year's story but oh well!
If I'm perfectly honest, I'm not sure what I think of this. I'm not one for happy endings and the like so any CC is very welcome. I also never write Draco, so any thoughts on that are welcome too ^_^