Nine: Ending
Harry.
The entire day is busy with classes and crammed homework. You still can't believe you forgot to do your Transfiguration essay yesterday afternoon; you had to do it at lunch, and it was a pointless double-spaced mess. But you know, at least, that it won't bring your grades down too much. You've been doing extraordinary well in all your classes.
Dinner, as usual, is a cacophony of excited students. You have had no opportunity to speak with Draco and you hope you can catch up with him after eating, at least to ask him why he never appeared last night. It's not like him to arrange a meeting and completely forget about it, especially since he has an eidetic memory and can remember any appointment months before with no difficulty whatsoever.
Halfway through dinner you see him stand up from the Slytherin table. He mutters something to Pansy Parkinson and goes out the doors of the Great Hall. You watch him go and, without saying a word to Hermione or Ron, who are quite possibly too caught up in each other's saccharine gaze to notice anyway, you get up and follow his exit. He is nowhere in sight, but you have a clear idea of where he's going. You double your pace and hurry toward the Slytherin dungeons, and sure enough you see him walking down the dimly lit hall, the click of his heels echoing on the walls. You catch up to him. "Draco. We have to talk."
He stops short, keeps facing straight ahead. His shoulders rise up and down with every breath, as if he was doing all he could to avoid this confrontation. Slowly and unsurely, he turns to you.
"What about?" he whispers. He sounds breathless.
And that's how he leaves you as well, because the torchlight makes shadows play under his cheekbones and he looks ethereal. This is his place, the dungeons. Like in that room in the Astronomy Tower, being here makes him look beautiful even if he doesn't try. Or maybe he is beautiful now only because of what you're about to do. Because you aren't going to see his beauty again.
"About us," you answer, your defenses beginning to crumble. Last night you were certain about this, and more than ready. Why has your courage decided to walk out on you now? Why is it so difficult to disregard your feelings, when other things are far more important?
"All right," he answers quietly, and you almost get the idea that he knows what's coming. He nods and walks toward the Astronomy Tower, and you follow him, mentally rehearsing what to say. You've never felt so nervous around him before, not even back when he was a bastard with his father's sneer and his father's words. Some obscure part of your mind suggests that you wait until after his birthday to do this, but the more logical part retorts that this is the best birthday gift you could give him. The longer he stays with you, the more he will try to find out who did it -- and, sooner or later, he's bound to stumble upon the truth. After all, it's right under his nose.
You stop him before the two of you get there, fearing that the room in the Tower will bring you too many memories for anything to go the way it's supposed to. You pull him into an empty classroom and shut the door behind you. Its click into place sounds like the beginning of an end.
Draco, with his hands in his pockets, looks tired and lost. He lets his gaze rove around the room as if he doesn't know what to say if he looks at you. He's been worried: that much is obvious. Yes, he stood you up last night, but he must have had a good reason. You would forgive him a thousand times anyway.
"What did you want to talk about?" he finally asks. He trains his eyes on the top of a desk. So tired.
"Draco, I think it would be good... for both of us... if we took some time apart."
And then he looks at you, with the force of urgency, his gray eyes intense. He parts his lips to speak, but nothing comes out. You want to avert your eyes but you hold his gaze, trying to impart to him what words cannot express. You're in love with him, with all his imperfections, with the way he looks at you, with the way he cares about you and does his best to show it, with the way he has a subtle smile on his face when he's making potions, with his stringent table manners, with the annoying manner he rolls his eyes when he throws you a good-natured insult. But it's about time.
"I've been nothing but a burden to you the past few weeks. I'm not as strong as you think, Draco, and -- hell, we don't even... do the things we used to anymore. I don't want you to have that. I want you to be with someone who'll pay attention to you, who won't be scared to kiss you, and... someone who's not broken by the past. And I need time to fix myself, Draco."
As far as you can remember, you've never seen Draco Malfoy cry. But now that he does, you are struck by the discovery that he is beautiful even so: his cheeks are tinged crimson, and his tears make his pink-rimmed eyes sparkle. Two identical drops flow down his cheeks, leaving pure paths. He looks like a broken angel, and guilt stings your heart.
"It's all right," he says, almost to himself. "It's all right. I understand."
"I don't want to hurt you." You are unsure of what to say, because he's not putting up a fight. From the moment you decided on this, you knew he would try to convince you--
"You're not a burden to me. Not at all. I... Merlin. I love you, Harry. And you are strong. After all you've gone through, you're stronger than anyone I know. I'm only agreeing to this... this breakup... because I know something that you--" A hiccup interrupts his sentence. He lifts both hands and wipes his tears away, but his eyes are still glistening. "Harry, it was my father who raped you. He admitted it. He told me. He even told me he intercepted your letters, and he read them before he owled them back to me. He was the one who took you to the Room of Requirement and -- and--" He sobs uncontrollably, sliding down to the floor, an old man exhausted by life. He buries his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, Harry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
He breaks down.
Draco.
He sits down on the floor beside you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders. You bury your head in his chest. He is here for you, even when you're the one who's supposed to be comforting him. He has always been here. And how about you?
"I know, Draco."
Silence comes, and there is nothing comfortable about it. You wipe the tears from your eyes and look up at him, vision still blurry from crying, and his green eyes are dark with guilt and weariness.
Somebody once said that the truth shall set you free. He never realized he was only in a bigger cage.
"I -- why -- you knew?"
"I knew. I was never blindfolded in the first place."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want you to have to choose between me and your father."
No words come. For a moment you just sit there with him, your hiccups echoing in the dark classroom. You feel his eyes on you, worried and sad, and you know you have to be strong for him: he deserves that much.
"Harry," you sigh, and you embrace him as tightly as you can. This may well be the last hug that you share; you would like to remember it for the rest of your life. Harry's hand comes up to comb slowly through your hair. You breathe in his scent and try to memorize the way his taut back feels underneath your palms.
And you know you have to do this. Because Harry knows, because Lucius Malfoy is your father, he moves like you and talks like you (he is you): because Harry was raped by someone with gray eyes and silver blond hair and a pureblood accent. Because you don't want to keep hurting him like your father did. He needs to be without you. And that's what you're going to give him.
"Draco--"
"Yes, Harry, I know." You pull away hesitantly, and his hand lingers on your lower back, as if he too is unwilling to let go. But there is no other choice: you could stay together and both be miserable with memory and guilt, or you could break up and move on with your lives with nothing to remind you of the rotten past. One must choose the lesser evil.
"Promise me you'll try to forget about me. About us. See other people, don't wait for me, be happy, Draco."
You take a deep breath. You can't promise that. You can't.
"Promise me," he says vehemently.
You nod.
You know you're going to break it.
Harry stands. His eyes are shining with unshed tears.
"Goodbye, Draco."
You can't look at him as he leaves. You hear only the door creaking open, his shoes shuffling on the floor, the door clicking shut. He's gone.
"I choose you," you say to no one. "I choose you over my father. I choose you over anyone. I choose you, Harry."
The fresh tears are hot on your cheeks.
Harry.
A strident steady ringing crawls slowly into your ears. You keep your eyes shut, adjust your head on the pillow, and continue your slumber. A dream later you hear the ringing again, and that's when you realize it's the alarm clock. Sighing, you reach out and pound the clock's surface with your palm. It stops. You yawn. You go to sleep again.
Another dream later you open your eyes so suddenly that the meager light blinds you. You sit up, examining the state of your bed. The blankets form a hill at the center. The pillow is at the very right side, and you see that you only had to roll a few inches and you would have fallen to the floor. The curtains are translucent with light from outside. You pull them open and the sunlight enters almost harshly, warm on your skin. You swing your legs to the edge of the bed and place your feet flat on the floor. You stand, look around, and see that the rest of the boys are still asleep. Yawning, you enter the bathroom to perform your daily routine.
It feels like a normal day, considering.
At breakfast you sit, for the first time, with your back facing the Slytherin table. You concentrate on your food, slicing and chewing the bacon and eggs with as much grace as possible. Like him. You strain your tongue to taste every morsel of flavor. It's been too long since you last enjoyed eating, and today is as good a time to start as any. But the bacon is too salty and the eggs are undercooked, and soon enough you get sick of the sodium. You put down your utensils and grab your cup of coffee, and that, at least, is good. Sweet with a bitter undercurrent, not too creamy, just the way you like it. The warmth slides down to your stomach as you breathe in the delicious aroma.
Ron and Hermione look at you like it's the end of the world and you don't know it. They're seated at the opposite side, so they have the privilege of seeing you full-view. As far as you know, you're acting quite ordinarily. You don't see what they're so caught up about.
"Are you two sleeping with each other?" you say to fuel the conversation, and Ron chokes on his coffee. He promptly starts to cough. Hermione rubs his back with the palm of her hand, avoiding your gaze, horrified.
"I suppose the answer's yes." You smirk, and Ron's face becomes a strange shade of puce.
"Harry!" Hermione exclaims in a tone that reminds you of Mrs. Weasley.
"I was just asking."
"No, Harry, we haven't," Ron clarifies, still red as a tomato.
"We're worried about you," Hermione admits.
"You're always worried about me," you retort, and you wonder if Draco is worried too.
You sniff at your coffee until it makes you stop thinking.
Dinner is more crowded than breakfast and lunch because everyone's hungry and the food is always good. When you arrive at the table, there's no place to sit on at the side facing the windows, so you have to sit facing the other tables. Luckily the Hufflepuffs are fussing over something at the center of their table, conveniently blocking the way, and it's easy to force yourself to keep your eyes on the serving plates. There are rolls, potatoes, roast chicken, gravy, corn and carrots, and some saucy broccoli for the vegetarians. You take a leg of roast chicken and slowly consume it using a fork and knife.
"Harry, what are you doing?" Ron says, waving his chicken leg in the air. "That's not the way you eat chicken."
Hermione rolls her eyes. "Apparently Harry's not as barbaric as you, Ron. Congratulations, Harry." She smiles.
"Merlin, you're acting very strange lately." Ron resumes eating.
"Ron, fancy a game of chess after dinner?"
He raises an eyebrow, his busy jaws momentarily ceasing. He's surprised, of course. You haven't played chess with him in weeks. And then, with a somewhat prodding undertone, "No rendezvous with Malfoy tonight?"
Inside, you wince. You should have expected him to come up sooner or later, but you'd thought it might likely be later, and you'd hoped you would never have to tell them, and they'd never have to ask. Fate, however, always has other plans. You paste an impassive expression on your face and say, with quite a level voice, "We broke up."
"Why--"
Hermione takes the time to glare at Ron before interrupting, "I'm sure it's for the better, Harry. We'll help you get over him, don't worry."
"Um. Thanks?" ...but no thanks.
"Hearts may break, but eventually they heal. You'll see."
You nod. Yes, we'll see.
Draco.
It would be good for both of us if we took some time apart, he said. But it hurts more than you could imagine when he arrives at breakfast and sits with his back to you for the first time ever. What makes it more painful is that you want to help him, to do something for him to forget, but you know that every effort will only make the problem worse. You're the heir of the problem, after all.
You eat haphazardly, hating your father. The food isn't commendable, but you need to chew something to keep your mind off things and your fists off your innocent housemates. You're angry. But they don't even know it.
Of course, a minute later Pansy notices your rather newfound voracity, and tells you to slow down, you might choke or something. "Yes, mother," you reply, and she rolls her eyes, annoyed. Sometimes you insult her with all the bitterness you can muster and she always just rolls her eyes as if you made a joke, even though you were dead serious. You will never fully understand her.
Ten minutes into Transfiguration, your eyes wander out the window, your mind purged of all thought. It's a strange kind of daydreaming you sometimes do; your mind drifts away into nothingness, and you look at your surroundings and take in no information whatsoever. It's like sleep in the midst of wakefulness. In this light-headed non-reverie you hear vaguely the sound of McGonagall calling your name. You look at the sky, a plain, empty blue, as blue and empty as your thoughts. You hear McGonagall again, saying "Draco Malfoy" more insistently. As if in a dream, you turn to her and smile. She rewards you with a frown. Then she asks you a question. You can barely hear it.
"Pardon me?" you say, and when she repeats it you realize that it calls for an answer that you need your conscious mind for. You shake off the emptiness in your head and, coherent and most definitely awake, "Um. I'm not sure..."
"Surely you can accomplish it, Mr. Malfoy, given your consistent performance? Please, turn your quill into a ballpoint pen so the class can continue."
You perform the transfiguration, and the resulting pen looks more expensive than your quill.
"That's very good, Malfoy. But please, pay attention." She turns back to the class. "As you can see, the spell allows us to turn the tip of the quill into a rolling metal ball..."
You sigh, hoping they have chicken teriyaki for lunch. You love that.
You could march over to the Gryffindor common room, go up the tower, and kiss him till he can't live without it.
You could intercept him on his way to Quidditch practice, take him to the Astronomy Tower, and win him over with your charm.
You could sit in the stands and watch him until he begs for you to go away: it makes him nervous.
You could walk to the library and ask Granger if he's talked about you, if he wants to get back together at all.
Instead you skip dinner and spend the rest of the night in front of the common room fire, thinking about life and death and trivial things. You're not quite sure how to move on. But you know you want Harry to, and the only way he can do that is if you're not there with him.
It's the beginning of a lonely, lonely life.
TBC.
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