Harry was washing the dishes silently when Ginny entered the kitchen.
"I don't know why you insist on using the muggle way of cleaning." Ginny joked, picking up a bottle of dish-washing liquid.
Harry shrugged.
***
Because I like getting up to my elbows in suds and losing myself in the mindless task that is dishwashing. I like watching the rainbows in soap bubbles and the white foamy froth and thinking what life COULD have been like. No lies. No hiding.
...And then I watch the soap gurgle down the drain and I think of how my life really is, of how everything has turned out. All gone down the drain. Seven years falling deeper into darkness and with no way to get out. Maybe it really is too late...
***
Ginny picked up the newspaper, that black and white mess of scandal and slander. She sat down in a wicker chair by the window and started reading, flipping the pages with one hand. Her eyes didn't really see the tiny print...the affairs, the crimes, the ads for Madam Mirabella's Miracle Tangle-free Shampoo. Her mind was racing a million miles an hour.
***
Our marriage is falling apart. Seven glorious years later. Did I really think that this dream would last forever? We're dancing a tango where winner takes all and the loser's left to weep; either that or we're both going to crumble to dust. We're caught up in this terrible game, seeing who's going to break first. One of us is going to lose it. One of us is going to finally snap that last tiny thread between us.
***
Ginny realised the front page of the paper was missing. She scouted about and found it lying on the floor beside the table. As she picked up and turned it over a face from the past leered up at her, and the headline in bold print made her stomach churn (though she would never really figure out why).
INFAMOUS DEATH EATER DRACO TEMPEST MALFOY FOUND DEAD
"Ginny what are you reading?" Harry asked quietly, noticing the pale tone of his wife's face.
"Uh nothing..." Ginny tried to hide the newspaper. "Just a little article on a bit of trouble
at Diagon Alley."
"Oh. what kind of trouble?"
"Don't uh worry."
"You worry about me, love. What's made you so pale and sickly?" Ginny gulped and handed Harry the newspaper. Harry's eyes scanned the page and a sob rose in his throat. The paper fell from his shaking hands.
"No..no..it.."
"Harry-"
"No!" Harry turned and fled. He tore open the door and stumbled down the steps, not knowing where he was running.
Round a corner...
...down another empty street...
Tears fogged Harry's vision and ran down his cheeks in little rivulets until he finally fell to his knees in the middle of the road and wept like a child. Empty scraps of paper and litter swept by him in the midday breeze. Autumn leaves collected by his folded ankles.
And still he wept.
***
I have lost you forever. My eternity gone like that. Half my soul ripped so mercilessly away from me. I won't ever get to kiss your cherry-wine lips or rake my fingers through the flaxen silk of your hair again. Or lie entangled with you on the dew-damp sand of a secluded beach and watch the light of sunrise break the shadows of night.
Did you ever know how much I loved you and needed you? That it didn't matter how we were separated, be it land or sea or sky, you always held your place in the deepest corner of my heart, and that I kept your love locked away and untouchable?
But...but what of Justin's vision?? Were you alive only this morning? Was there still time to save you? Did you kill yourself because of ME?
***
Harry wandered lonely streets and lanes, his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes, bloodshot and brimming with miserable tears, stared at the ground. Left, right, left, right. Even walking seemed to have a terrible empty pointlessness to it. He stopped by the side of the road as he heard the sound of the radio drift out from one the houses in a neighbouring street.
"...body of Draco Malfoy, found last night in a house at Hazelwood."
Harry let out a cry and had to reach his hand out to a nearby tree to support him. As the news continued, he crumpled against the tree's rough bark, bringing his hands up to his ears. Harry didn't wish to hear the rest. After all...Hazelwood?? Hazelwood was only a six minute walk away from their house.
Had Draco been there all this time, watching him from a distance??
-----
afterdinnermints:
So what did happen to Draco?? who killed him...or is Harry right - has Draco committed suicide? What is going to happen to Harry's fairytale marriage?
Find out in Chapter 9 of The Velvet Darkness...coming soon.
Thankyou for the reviews! Once again, a special bunch of kisses to my regular reviewers. I luv u peeps! And all my other reviewers: u guys r so special - u truely are an inspiration to my writing, what keeps me going when my muse decides to have a hangover and be non-constructive, non-creative and a general pain in the booty! O_o
"I don't know why you insist on using the muggle way of cleaning." Ginny joked, picking up a bottle of dish-washing liquid.
Harry shrugged.
***
Because I like getting up to my elbows in suds and losing myself in the mindless task that is dishwashing. I like watching the rainbows in soap bubbles and the white foamy froth and thinking what life COULD have been like. No lies. No hiding.
...And then I watch the soap gurgle down the drain and I think of how my life really is, of how everything has turned out. All gone down the drain. Seven years falling deeper into darkness and with no way to get out. Maybe it really is too late...
***
Ginny picked up the newspaper, that black and white mess of scandal and slander. She sat down in a wicker chair by the window and started reading, flipping the pages with one hand. Her eyes didn't really see the tiny print...the affairs, the crimes, the ads for Madam Mirabella's Miracle Tangle-free Shampoo. Her mind was racing a million miles an hour.
***
Our marriage is falling apart. Seven glorious years later. Did I really think that this dream would last forever? We're dancing a tango where winner takes all and the loser's left to weep; either that or we're both going to crumble to dust. We're caught up in this terrible game, seeing who's going to break first. One of us is going to lose it. One of us is going to finally snap that last tiny thread between us.
***
Ginny realised the front page of the paper was missing. She scouted about and found it lying on the floor beside the table. As she picked up and turned it over a face from the past leered up at her, and the headline in bold print made her stomach churn (though she would never really figure out why).
INFAMOUS DEATH EATER DRACO TEMPEST MALFOY FOUND DEAD
"Ginny what are you reading?" Harry asked quietly, noticing the pale tone of his wife's face.
"Uh nothing..." Ginny tried to hide the newspaper. "Just a little article on a bit of trouble
at Diagon Alley."
"Oh. what kind of trouble?"
"Don't uh worry."
"You worry about me, love. What's made you so pale and sickly?" Ginny gulped and handed Harry the newspaper. Harry's eyes scanned the page and a sob rose in his throat. The paper fell from his shaking hands.
"No..no..it.."
"Harry-"
"No!" Harry turned and fled. He tore open the door and stumbled down the steps, not knowing where he was running.
Round a corner...
...down another empty street...
Tears fogged Harry's vision and ran down his cheeks in little rivulets until he finally fell to his knees in the middle of the road and wept like a child. Empty scraps of paper and litter swept by him in the midday breeze. Autumn leaves collected by his folded ankles.
And still he wept.
***
I have lost you forever. My eternity gone like that. Half my soul ripped so mercilessly away from me. I won't ever get to kiss your cherry-wine lips or rake my fingers through the flaxen silk of your hair again. Or lie entangled with you on the dew-damp sand of a secluded beach and watch the light of sunrise break the shadows of night.
Did you ever know how much I loved you and needed you? That it didn't matter how we were separated, be it land or sea or sky, you always held your place in the deepest corner of my heart, and that I kept your love locked away and untouchable?
But...but what of Justin's vision?? Were you alive only this morning? Was there still time to save you? Did you kill yourself because of ME?
***
Harry wandered lonely streets and lanes, his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes, bloodshot and brimming with miserable tears, stared at the ground. Left, right, left, right. Even walking seemed to have a terrible empty pointlessness to it. He stopped by the side of the road as he heard the sound of the radio drift out from one the houses in a neighbouring street.
"...body of Draco Malfoy, found last night in a house at Hazelwood."
Harry let out a cry and had to reach his hand out to a nearby tree to support him. As the news continued, he crumpled against the tree's rough bark, bringing his hands up to his ears. Harry didn't wish to hear the rest. After all...Hazelwood?? Hazelwood was only a six minute walk away from their house.
Had Draco been there all this time, watching him from a distance??
-----
afterdinnermints:
So what did happen to Draco?? who killed him...or is Harry right - has Draco committed suicide? What is going to happen to Harry's fairytale marriage?
Find out in Chapter 9 of The Velvet Darkness...coming soon.
Thankyou for the reviews! Once again, a special bunch of kisses to my regular reviewers. I luv u peeps! And all my other reviewers: u guys r so special - u truely are an inspiration to my writing, what keeps me going when my muse decides to have a hangover and be non-constructive, non-creative and a general pain in the booty! O_o