Thinking of Memories

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or anything, but I definitely own this piece of writing! J.K Rowling owns all the characters and stuff.

A/N I'm happy coz I wrote a depressing fanfic! (That remark is for ali, who is scared of this pairing!). This is just something I did when I was in a weird mood. I felt like doing something depressing (then again, everything I do seems to be depressing these days) and I thought I might as well use my fave pairing - D/G! So, happy reading! (and please, no flames! I'm terrible with criticism, although constructive is welcome). So, here we go!
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This was doomed from the start.

Doomed to be one more failed romance with two star-crossed lovers and their ruined lives.

Except that the romance didn't fail. Not really, not in the way failure actually means. It was just cut short by something we couldn't control.

We.

There is no 'we' anymore. It's just me now, on my own, with nobody to keep me warm at night, and nobody to hold me when the storm rages outside. Nobody to be my star-crossed lover anymore.

Of course, if he could hear the way I'm going on about everything, he'd raise his eyebrows in that famous way of his, wrap his arms around me, and silence me in the best way he knew how.

Those were the days I loved the best. The days when we were innocent (well, as innocent as we could be), and joyous in what little knowledge we had of the future. The days that were filled with secret meetings in secret places, without the watchful eyes of the rest of the school on us, and loving each other the best way we could.

Those were the days that made me smile.

I think on them sometimes, wondering what would happen if he was still here, wondering if everything would still be the same, and if the way he loved me would still be as gentle.

But the world is not made up of 'ifs' and there is no use in wondering, no use in trying to make the memories real. I can't have a castle in the sky where I play out my perfect life like a private movie, while I carry on living in the real world as a shell, hardly even constant substance. I can't do that.

But then sometimes I think it's the memories that keep me going. They're such funny things, memories. They seem most clear when I don't want to think about him, shoving themselves under my eyelids when I close my eyes, like photographs stored in my head. And then, when all I want to do is cling onto them like a life jacket, they seem to float away, becoming more fuzzy and distorted by the second. I can't bear the thought of losing my memories. Memories of the man I loved, the man I still love. Memories of Draco Malfoy.

Memories of midnight meetings and late nights and secret letters, and proposals and weddings and children, and a million other things that scream Draco Malfoy at me like a howler.

I look at the pictures on the wall of my room and it's my life staring straight back at me, thanks to Colin and his bloody camera mostly. I see a few of me as a baby, then growing to a toddler, and then there are all these different ones of me at various ages. Then I see an eleven year old girl standing at platform 9 ¾ in her 'new' uniform, the cuffs of the old grey jumper already fraying badly. She's posing like there's no tomorrow. Looking closer something catches my eye, a flash of silver in the background. And then I see it, something I've never noticed before. A young Draco Malfoy looking directly at the camera, his eyes narrowed slightly, his mouth open a little, almost confused, and it's as if he's looking past the girl and the proud father with the camera, right out of the picture, at me.

I smile slightly.

"You really know how to surprise a girl, don't you?" I whisper to myself, and a single tear falls down my cheek.

I miss him so much.

And I realise then that even though I've lost him, and he's never coming back, the pain's not that sharp anymore, and now all I have left is a dull ache in my heart.

I hated him, and then I loved him, and for a while I hated him again.

I hated him for him leaving just when I needed him most.

But maybe I'm moving on, in my own way, and when the time is right I'll leave all this behind, all this pain and anguish he put on me, and I can just love him again, the way I used to before.

Not yet though.

And as I sit here, I think to myself about all the good times, and all the bad times, and for a moment it's like a day has never gone past, like none of the past year or so has ever happened, and I can feel his arms around my waist and his mouth by my ear, whispering to me.

But then the moment fades and I'm left alone in my room with my pictures and the empty air.