XXI
Dinner came and went and Iris' hair was back in all its dark, luscious glory.
Draco and Iris lay on Iris' bed, her emerald green and silver silk sheets caressing their half-naked bodies.
Draco smirked, "if you ever say you're bored again, I will kill you."
Iris laughed, "oh please, you loved kissing Dumbledore."
"Shut up. I do not want to be reminded of it."
They lay contentedly, until Iris asked, "are we insane?"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Do we really think that we can live like this?"
"In our undergarments?"
Iris laughed brashly, "I'm serious. Do you truly believe we can pull off this little coup just so we can have amazing sex every day and exchange witty repartee?"
"I hope so," he looked deeply into her eyes, "I'd be happy if we could just remain in this bed, for the rest of our lives."
"I didn't realise you were such an optimist," she said her eyes darkening.
"Is that so much to ask? To be young and beautiful forever? That's all I want."
"What about money and blood?"
"I'd give it up," he said in a near whisper.
Iris laughed mordantly, "life never turns out the way you want it to."
"You're such a pessimist."
"Don't you realise that we're kidding ourselves Dray? People will never allow us to live like this forever. One day when you're thirty you will wake and find yourself married to someone as mediocre as Granger. You'll have a child you don't feel affection for. Then you'll remember that once you were an optimist and you'll realise that I wasn't a pessimist, I was a realist."
Draco realised she was prophesising the truth but manically tried to deny it, "one day when you're thirty you'll wake up in my bed. Voldemort will be dead; we will hang his severed member in our love nest. Granger will be my concubine. You'll realise that I wasn't an optimist, but a Malfoy, who knew that life would bless him."
"One day when you're eighty you'll wake up and realise that even Malfoys are mortal. One can own half the world in life, but in death we all occupy the same small plot of dirt," Iris said, her voice soft and breathy. He held her close to him and felt a drop of water hit his shoulder. He looked into her eyes; lament blurred her shocking violet-navy orbs, and he saw vulnerability for the first time. "I hate life." Draco nodded and he too wanted to cry because there wasn't anything he could say to console her, because she was right.
She sniffed softly and he laughed, she had never sounded so human. He said, "you know, I wish that we were stupid like Granger. Then the biggest thing we would have to worry about is love."
Iris laughed sadly, "it's ironic that enlightenment is so torturous. How do people live everyday? How does Dumbledore live? He's so decrepit he could drop dead any second."
"Maybe that's why his eyes are always twinkling, they're full of tears."
"Maybe," Iris murmured. "You know why I think he can bear to live?"
"Why?"
"I think it's because he has nothing to live for. He's not afraid of dying because he has nothing to lose. Maybe when we're old and hideous, we won't care about dying either."
Draco smiled, "you know everything."
"And yet it doesn't change anything. Do you know why I love sex Dray?"
"Because you're a nymphomaniac?" he smirked.
Iris laughed, "no, nymphomaniacs don't enjoy sex, they just crave it. I love because it proves that God is not that cruel, to allow us something so pleasurable."
Draco stared into her eyes and forgot that he was staring into eyes and instead felt as though he were staring into a vast expanse of violet-navy sky and said, "I think it just makes it all the more tragi-comedic. He gives us ecstasy so that in the end we'll have something to miss."
"Screw him," Iris said and they were caught in an amorous kiss that they tried to push all their fears and hopes and dreams into. That night was the last time they had sex. It was so tantalising and astonishingly pleasurable that when they were both old, decrepit, and on their deathbeds, their memory of that night would be the only thing that would make them regret having to leave this world.