I'm curled on the bed, now, wanting to close my eyes to shut out the world but afraid to because then it will be dark. I'm pathetic. I hate it. Oh, how they would laugh, to see me now, curled on this cold bed, with its billowing grey drapes and its cold mattress. They would laugh as I shiver, making no move to warm myself. There is no reason to be warm, not here. This room is dead. I hate it. I hate it. But I won't try to change it. I won't try to breathe life into this dead, silent place. It must stay unchanged. New life replaces old, but the old cannot be allowed to fade away. Not here.
It is not dark, here. That is part of why I come. It is never dark. Even when the rest of the house is cast in the darkest gloom, here it is only grey, a pale, unreal world. Even in the darkest part of the night there is light, from the stars and the thin moon, shining in through and magnified by the many windows, reflecting off the large mirror. It should be dark like a tomb, or white like bones, to preserve the memories that lie in this place. It would be fitting. But there is only grey. Grey, like in my memories.
Grey eyes, wide and framed by long lashes, stared back at me. They were set in a pale face, it's small waxen features blurring with the face's pale hair at any distance. There was another face beside mine in the mirror. It was thinner, larger, older. It was smiling at me. Its owner smiled at my reflection, and so their reflection smiled at me.
It was the sort of face that I dreamed of having when I was older. Delicate, beautiful, but full of life, like one of the fairies in my bedtime story books. It was golden, freckles covering the thin nose and spreading across the high cheeks. Dazzling green eyes sparkled. I always wanted eyes like that. They were like a cat's eyes. I knew. They were the same eyes as the cat had, the one that curled on the grey bed a short way behind me. I loved that cat almost as much as I loved my cousin. They filled my days with light, whether it was out in the garden or here in the tower room, where I'd sleep curled against her whenever I could sneak away from the nursery.
"You'll be a great wizard someday, Draco," my cousin said. "A great wizard. You'll be able to do all sorts of things. You'll save the world some day, Draco. I know it. And all the little boys will say, 'I want to be like Draco'."
I shook my head, with all the seriousness of my two years. "No. Gonna say, wanna be like Dee." My cousin laughed and hugged me. Then she lifted me from my place on the dresser and grabbed my arms spinning my around and around in the game she called 'airplane'. Daddy said there was no such thing as an airplane, but Dee said there was. And Dee was my cousin. Daddy knew a lot, but Dee knew even more. Perhaps it was well that I always remembered that.
Yes, I've remembered it. Even now, I remember it. She knew so much, thought so much, lived so much and loved so much. Perhaps that was why I always loved her more than I did my father. She was so much more there, more real. I go to the mirror and stare into it, trying to remember her face as it was that day. It's difficult. That was her face, her real face, but she very rarely wore it. I'd sit on this dresser while she stared into this mirror, screwing up her face in a way I always thought was so funny. And I would try to imitate her, but when she did it her face changed. Mine never did.
Every day, without fail, she changed it before dinner. Her skin became pale, like mine. Her hair, black, like no one else's in the house. It grew out so it was as long as my mother's, instead of short and puffy, like mine. Gone were the freckles I had tried to count, when she first taught me my numbers. Now she was quiet and severe, like the silent lady in the portrait on the dresser. I didn't understand why she changed, then. I do now. But now, oh now I know what torture it must have been for her, to come to this house year after year. To face my father, when I don't doubt she knew everything that he was, which was everything she hated and feared, and had pledged to rid the world of.
She was brave, I know it. I wish I could be as brave. She never faced my father after my second birthday. I remember how mother cried, when she wrote to say that she would no longer be coming to stay the summers with us. I was heartbroken too, and wailed my poor young heart out. I wish I could do that now, instead of sitting here, quiet and constrained. I want to break things, throw things, destroy something. But I won't do that. Not in this room. Every part of it is too precious to me. Especially those few things she left behind, when she came that last time, when I was five.
Summer was the happiest time for me. Though I missed my Daddy, away traveling as he was every summer for the first two weeks of August, I wasn't unduly worried. Those were the two weeks my cousin came to visit me, and every year they were the happiest weeks of my young life. Dee never came when Daddy was home, but that was okay. Having Dee more than made up for not having Daddy.
August first, Daddy left for France. He kissed Mommy on the cheek, ruffled my hair, and left, talking seriously to the two men that had come to travel with him. They didn't say anything to me. I didn't mind. I didn't like them anyway. Besides, Dee would be here soon.
Mommy always told me not to say anything to Daddy about Dee coming to visit. I might have anyway, young as I was, but Dee made her visits our special secret, and that I could never tell.
Dee appeared in the entrance hall an hour after Daddy left. It seemed an eternity to me, sitting in one of the chairs staring at the clock hands moving, oh so slowly. She appeared with the slightest pop. I recognized the smell of her right away. It always was strongest when she appeared. It was like the caramel corn that she snuck me down to the kitchen to make. She made it the old way, by hand, and it always tasted sweeter than when Madam Pierce conjured a batch to shut my whining mouth.
Normally she came straight to me, with a hug, a kiss and a tickle, but today Mommy was waiting. She gasped in horror when Dee arrived, like when I had put a rubber spider in one of her shoes. "Nymphadora, you shouldn't be doing that. What if the ministry finds out? Or what if you splinched yourself?"
Dee smiled, demure and quiet in Mommy's presence. She looked like she always did when other people were around, with her long black hair and pale skin. "It's alright, Auntie. Professor Dumbledore tested me, and said that I might do it."
"He did not," Mommy sounded quite upset.
"No. He didn't." Dee smiled charmingly, like she did when she was talking to Madam Pierce, after she'd just hidden a whole handful of spiders in her shoes. "He said that there was no way he could stop me, and he just hoped I didn't come to some nasty end."
"Darling, whatever am I going to do with you?"
"Please, Auntie, don't fret." She turned to me, and the light was there. Sometimes it seemed she was the only live thing in the enormous house. "I brought you a Christmas present, Drake."
I grinned, clapping my hands. I loved it when she brought me presents, but even more when she called me Drake. She almost never did, in front of Mommy. No one else called me that. I wouldn't have let them if they tried. "What?" I asked eagerly. At Christmas, the real Christmas, I demanded my presents as soon as I woke. They were always good presents, and there were lots of them, but the ones from Dee were special.
"Christmas?" Mommy asked. "Nymphadora, dear, are you feeling alright? Christmas isn't for four months yet."
Dee smiled over her shoulder at Mommy. She had so many different smiles, even then I knew them all. Or thought I did, anyway. This was the one she sent Mommy often, when she didn't want Mommy asking questions. "I'm fine, Auntie. But since Draco's birthday is in January, I always give him a Christmas present in the summer. Otherwise he gets all his gifts at once, not spread out through the year like the rest of us." Now, I don't care either way. But then, oh then how it mattered. All the other boys got presents all the time, at Easter and at Christmas and at their birthdays. I got all of mine within a month of each other. Except Dee's Christmas presents. Those came in August, and the days she gave them to me were infinitely more precious than any Christmas. She changed Christmas for me, just to make it special.
"What?" I asked again, leaning forward in my chair eagerly.
Dee smiled, her teasing smile, like when she'd taken my toys and hidden them so I'd have to find them. "It's in my trunk. Let's go up to my room so I can unpack."
I was out of my chair in an instant, grabbing her hand and dragging her towards the staircase. She ran behind me, laughing, her trunk following in her wake. Up the stairs, along the galley with its disapproving portraits, then to the portrait of the Admiral. We stopped in front of it so I could catch my breath. Between the excitement and the run, I was quite winded. Dee, for once, took pity on me and didn't tickle me until I was gasping and crying for mercy.
"Miss Nymphadora," the Admiral said, with a slight duck of his head. "A pleasure to see you back with us again."
"A pleasure to be here, Admiral, as always." Dee's smile was wry. They say you can't learn to appreciate irony and sarcasm until you're at least seven or so. At five, I already had a better grasp of it than Daddy's friend Mister Goyle.
I stand at the window now, staring out at the dark rain that has just begun to splatter the windows. I can hear every drop as it strikes the glass, like an infinitely complex percussion piece, with a thousand rhythms all worked expertly together. My breath fogs the glass, which clears slowly before fogging again at my next breath. I'm calmer now, though not so much that I will face the world beyond her door. Even now, I think sadly, this is not my room. She has not stood here in ten years, but it is still hers. It will never be mine. Strange, that I don't want it. Once I wanted everything.
I wanted to be the greatest wizard in the world, to have all the money and power there was. I wanted to be a great quidditch player, and people would line up for miles just to catch sight of me. Most of all, though, I wanted to be like Dee. More than anything I wanted to fly lightly around the pitch, turning easy loops. I wanted to spend hours talking with Anton, our ghost librarian, who was nearly silent except when Dee was there. Then he spoke with eloquence about strange, fantastic things which I could hardly understand. Dee always understood. I wanted that. Most of all, I wanted to have my own room like this, with all its secrets and treasures. I'm sure, even now, that she did not show me a fraction of the secrets hidden in the Skye room.
Perhaps she thought she would have a chance later, when I was older. It may have been that she thought she would come back. But I don't think so. I cling to my memories of her, because I know she isn't coming back. She'll never come back, not so long as my father lives. I should have known it then, when she left. I would have begged her not to go. But I believed, in my stupid childish hope, that she would come back anyway, the next time Daddy went away. She never did.
I trace my hand along the iron window frame, as she used to when the rain kept us inside, away from the gardens of the Manor. I never spent so much time outside as I did with her. Now I hardly ever go out, except to play quidditch. I cannot even do that without thinking of her, it seems.
"Absolutely not." Mommy was so over protective. She never let me do anything. Never mind that Greg and Vinnie already had their own brooms. They couldn't go a pace about the ground, but they could fly. "It's much too dangerous."
Dee was at her most charming, which to me said she was frustrated beyond reason. "It's not, Auntie. It's very safe, really."
"Daddy said I could," I added, petulantly. That, I think, more than anything else decided her. How ignorant I was then of the power my Daddy wielded, over Mommy and everyone else.
She clasped Dee's hand, though. "Keep him safe, Nymphadora. I couldn't bear it if anything happened to my Draco."
"Of course, Auntie. He'll only be flying a child's broom, anyway. He's fallen from higher standing on a chair." Mommy nodded miserably, still reluctant to allow me the freedom to fly.
Dee, I quickly learned, had no intention of confining me to a child's broom. "Bosh," she said, when I mentioned that Mommy wouldn't like me riding an adult broom. "It's been stupid to keep you off a broom so far. I'll not having you ride one of those stupid little things like a little boy."
I swelled with pride because, whatever Mommy might think, Dee knew I wasn't a little boy anymore. So when she handed me a Nimbus six-thirty, I thought it was exactly my due to be given one of the finest racing brooms on the market. It wasn't until several years later that I learned she'd actually chosen one of the slowest brooms in the shed, for it was only a common, store-bought model, rather than one of the pricier custom jobs that filled the racks.
When Greg came over a week later, I proudly, and with no small amount of smugness, showed him that I could fly ten feet above the ground. Dee had convinced me not to go any higher. Not by forbidding it, as Daddy would have done, but by telling me it was better to practice closer to the ground, because you could refine your technique without crosswinds and, besides, the ground was not nearly so forgiving as open air. And I, in my naivety, believed that these were the real reasons.
In retrospect, it's so easy to see why she was different around me than around my parents. She'd come at first because her mother made her, and later because she liked my mother. The last few years, I know she only came for me. She knew, even though I did not, that my father was a Deatheater. I have her to thank that, whatever else might be said of me, I am not that.
She taught me on a real broom because she thought I should learn to fly, really fly. But she kept me close to the ground because she didn't want my mother to find out. She showed me her special magic, making faces at me. But she looked plain and ordinary around mother, because she didn't want anyone at all to find out.
I touch my hand to the latch, consider going out onto the balcony despite the rain. But the water would be bad for the curtains, spelled though they are, and I don't want anything to disturb the room. I settle for resting my hand on the handle, the weight of my hand depressing it slightly. There is a sound behind me, but I do not turn. It may be, after all this time, the house elf, come to light a fire in the grate. It might be, but I doubt it. I'm sure the creature is dead.
Dee was going away for the last time. I didn't know it, but I'm sure she did. She seemed more subdued than ever, that last day, for all she smiled and laughed with me just the same as always. We were having our tea up in her room, sitting on the floor. Her house elf, Jenky, hovered around, refilling tea cups and cutting cakes and generally looking after everything.
Downstairs, with my parents, he would have been sent away. House elves weren't supposed to be seen, in the general way of things. Not doing their chores, anyway. Young as I was, I knew that.
But Jenky was Dee's elf, and she treated him differently. She spoke civilly to him, even kindly, and was rewarded with looks of utter adoration and admiration. I never ate cake so fresh as that Jenky brought us, nor saw a room so carefully looked after as Dee's.
I think, now, that perhaps house elves are not as enslaved as we wizards would like to think. Oh, they will complete their tasks properly, without giving any cause for complaint, I will grant you that. But never have I heard of a house elf take such pains as Jenky did for Dee. Any house elf will clean a room, or make food if you instruct it to. None but Jenky would dream of bringing flowers for the room without specific instructions to do so, nor spend such time arranging them. None but he would leave out biscuits when they knew the master or mistress was planning on spending a quiet evening alone.
And no house elf would dream of disappearing when their master left. Jenky was not set free, I know, because I saw him once or twice after Dee left for the last time, just before he disappeared to wherever in the Manor that the house elves stayed. I doubt he would have liked to be set free, anyway. No, he stayed on, and spawned other house elves, most of them far more normal than he. Except Dobby, but no one ever mentions him. Especially not the other house elves. I know. I asked, once. Never again.
I turn, slowly, allowing the house elf time to escape if he wishes to, if indeed it is him, though I strongly doubt it. To my utter amazement, he is there. He is dusting, completely oblivious to my presence. He works slowly, as much because of his care as his age.
Even I, with my limited knowledge of house elves, can see that he is an ancient creature. His skin is more grey than green, heavily wrinkled and dry, so that it seems as though he were wrapped in a sort of old parchment. His eyes, big as saucers, are cloudy with the years, and do not seem to focus. But perhaps that is only his introverted nature, rather than failing eyesight.
I watch as he works, working his way carefully along the desk. There is very little left on it. A quill, a small bottle of ink, a stand for an owl to perch on. And an tiny framed photograph of Dee. A muggle photograph, still no matter how long I look at it. The room, thanks to Jenky's careful ministrations, seems locked in time, at a moment only moments after Dee left for the last time. Except that it lacks the remains of her presence, which always lingered, a smell of broom oil and parchment and the tang of pine sap.
Finished, Jenky turns towards the bed, but stops. He is looking at me, very still. He squints, obviously trying to see me better. He scratches his head with the feather duster. Such a comical motion, but I cannot laugh. Does he know what it's like, I wonder suddenly, missing her? Does he feel the emptiness as I do? I dismiss the question. I know the answer, though I try to tell myself he cannot, because he is not human. But he does. Ten years, and still he returns to carefully dust those few things she left, careful not to disturb even the fingerprints she left on the quill. No doubt spending hours staring at the picture, willing it to move as I do, that I might catch even a glimpse of her smile.
Jenky bows, a slow, rickety bow that, though silent, seems to contain innumerable creaks and groans as old joints slowly move against each other, protesting as they do. His smile, when he straightens, is serene, very like the one I so hate to see on Dumbledore's face. It is a calm smile, a please smile, a smile that says all is as it should be with the world, and that it's wearer is content. I am not content, not pleased. Something inside me rages, wanting to strike the frail creature for so intruding on my grief. But I cannot, because Dee loved him.
The creature blinks its foggy eyes at me, not quite focused. Its voice,
when it speaks, creaks like one of the rotting doors back at Hogwarts.
"She will come back, Master Drake." He says it with such certainty, such
conviction, that for a moment I dare to allow myself to hope. But then
he is gone, and I am alone again, except for the grey and terrible memory
of my cousin.