iFlash/i

Feedback: If you feel the need. Concrit is even welcome, just try to be nice about it please. I can be reached at Getasimp@aol.com, or through my lj: (www.livejournal.com/users/undecipherable)

Pairing: Draco/Hermione

Disclaimer: I don't own.

AN: This is only the second HP fic I've ever written by myself. Which isn't an excuse really, just an explanation. It's unbeta'd and only spell checked, but knowing myself was well as I do there are bound to be mistakes. If you'd like to point them out go ahead.

iFlash/i

It's not the first time they've had this conversation Won't be the last one either.  It's like this, after a few days she forgets it ever happened and he has to remind her.  Prod her memory in the right direction with the same story.  Same lines.  The same examples.  He's got it memorized.  Could say it in his sleep and sometimes he thinks he does.  It  had never went back to being the same after that one death.

~~~

She has trouble with the small things.  The easy things, and he burns in pain with the knowledge that once upon a time she had been the most beautiful creature ever.  With knowledge and power all with the flick of a small boned wrist.  Once upon a time he had thought he hated her.  Only to realize that one small word could change his entire world.  Sometimes he thinks he can still see the bruise on his cheek from where she slapped him into reality.

~~~

He had never thought that all the dark muttering of his childhood would come to be the truth.  He grew up surrounded by ice and expectations, secure in the fact that he would one day own the world.  He grew up hating her; what she stood for, what she fought for, and would lull himself to sleep at night with thoughts of her demise.  At his hands most preferably.  It wasn't until he was almost fully grown into his destiny that he realized the thoughts of his hands around her throat were thoughts of rough caresses.

~~~

She was surrounded on every side by tall, tall trees of other men and he hated that the most about her.  That he couldn't get past them.  That he couldn't reach her.  That her small boned wrist was so far away.  Growing up he never thought she could be the one thing to make his world seem so bleak.  But she was.  He would pretend she was just playing, but the fire in her eyes was never for him.

~~~

Growing up he was never denied anything he desired.  His parents bought his love and devotion through trinkets and toys.  He was spoiled on the material things to compensate for the lack of feeling his parents had.  Growing up he was alone in a manor full of things he couldn't touch, over run with people he couldn't see, and locked into a room full of things that he could break.  He was willful and stubborn.  The perfect child of perfect parents.  Well mannered in public, charming and gorgeous.  None could resist his charming turn of phrases.  Except her.

~~~

They grew, and he learned, and she moved even further away from his grasping hands.  He yearned for her.  He hated to see her sheltered in another's arms.  He hated that he couldn't get past that tall wall of other boys.  The only way she would notice him was when he charm turned to malice and he said things that he hated.  Said things he loved, just to see her eyes flash at him in some emotion.

~~~

He was in a war.  Fighting against her, and he hated it.  He mostly hated that when he won she would be a victim.  Lost before he could have her.  He shouldn't care for the other side, especially not her.

~~~

She was in his manor.  Locked away with those tall trees of protectors and he couldn't change her fate.  At least not now.  He wasn't as bad as she thought, but not as good as he hoped.  Locked inside expectations and planning.  He might not be many numerous things, but the one thing he knew was, was his father's son.

~~~

He sits on the bed and watches her sleep.  Her chest rising and falling in even patterns, her left arm out-flung and shiny with a mark he put on her.  A mark he gave her so she would be able to stay with him.  Even as she kicked, and screamed, and cried.  Even though he had to have four other men hold her down with her beautiful small boned wrist pointing up in the air for him to see and want.  A mark that makes her more beautiful to him, even though she's still the young girl with so much power that he remembers from so long ago.  He keeps her content in his house, no longer surrounded by tall, tall trees of other men.

~~~

They have children.  A boy with her eyes and his hair.  White blond hair that tries to fly away from it's perch on his head.  Sometimes he sees her in the eyes of his son.  That flashing fire of anger that got him through his school days.  He has to keep himself from craving that fire.  She looks at him now in adoration, the victim of a curse well worked.

~~~

She seems to glide around him.  Flowing with grace she never had in school.  Her head high, her smile bright, her eyes bouncing around looking for a place to rest.  She's not comfortable around his parents.  With their cold eyes, and brittle smiles.  She knows they hate her, but she can't remember why.  Her thoughts are all made up of him and their family.  She can't remember past yesterday.  Sometimes a curse is too well done.

~~~

There's one man that he could never get rid of, no matter how hard he tries.  She says his name in her sleep and it makes him so mad.  Anger that flows up in his throat and he has to fight to keep it in there.  A burning sensation that he's so familiar with.  He grew up with it.  Sometimes he thinks it's his closest friend.

~~~

She loves him.  Their children.  The first born boy that is him with her eyes, and the baby.  Her with his eyes.  So small and fragile Their little girl reminds him of what his school days were like.  His little girl will tell him how she sees it.  Fast and to the point.  He laughs when she does, and scoops her into his arms.  He thinks she tells him off just because she likes the fast movement of twirling in the air.

~~~

If he wasn't an only child he would have been disowned so many years ago.  Tossed out on the street with nothing.  Not even the clothes on his back.  But he is their only child and even though they hate the woman he married they can't deny that their children are powerful.  Not only that but also the smartest children in their year.  They made some wonderful children.  Which just proves his parents wrong when they said that half-breeds were barely one step above squibs.

~~~

His son is growing up and his wife is still the most beautiful creature he's ever seen even though she rarely remembers the past.  He fears that one day she'll wake up and he won't be able to remind her of who he is.  Of who she is.  The mark on her arm that binds her to him will repel her.  Every day she wakes up and her eyes are only for him.  The more she hears the story the less he has to tell it.

~~~

Their daughter is grown and married now.  As is their son.  Moving up the ladder into the innermost circle, both are more powerful than their peers His father says it's his blood shining through but he knows that it's really her.  This beautiful woman that he had hated so many years ago but worships now.  She's grown up and settled in and he could not live without her.  Even though he misses the fire in her eyes.  He thinks, sometimes, that he would have rather had her hate him forever just to see that flash of anger in them once more.  Then she curls into his embrace and murmurs his name, and he knows that his life wouldn't be worth anything without her.

~~~

She dies just days before he does.  His father is ecstatic, telling him that now he can find a proper wife, but he drowns him out.  His father doesn't realize that without her he is nothing.  He only waits to speak to his children before he makes his plans.  Life is cold, and colorless without her.  He curls into her pillow and cries.  He takes his potion and smells her on the sheets.  He made sure she had the proper place of honor in the  Malfoy tomb, and now he will follow behind her.  His son is old enough to move into the spot vacated by his death and his daughter knows how he feels.  He can't regret the choices he made, or the things he did to have her, but he can regret that he lost the flash of her eyes.