Disclaimer: My name is not J.K. Rowling and there for I own nothing of her original work. Also, the lyrics belong to Bon Jovi...they belong tohis song "Always".
In all the years that I've lived and I never thought I would do what we did that day. The guys thought it would be interesting to go look around some pubs in London. Why, I don't know. They wanted to though, so I went. We had decided to tell our parents we were going to hang out at some Pureblood hotel all night to celebrate Zambinis' birthday.
As I said before, I still can't believe that he wanted to go to a pub and drink all night for his sixteenth birthday. Then when he stopped at this certain pub called "Comings", I was even more surprised. "Comings" is a muggle pub.
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"What happens if our parents find out Blaze? Mr. Malfoy is bound to kill us all! Not to mention our own parents!" I slightly cringed at Parkison's mention of my father's name.
"Oh stop being such a child Pansy! Like he could," Blaze smirked.
"He could and he would," I said. "There's nothing else to it." Crabbe and Goyle just stared at me, obviously they had no idea what a cane to a newly burned Dark Mark felt like. Someone passed by us and walked into the pub, but when he opened the door we could hear someone singing. I looked in curiously, she sounded… intoxicating.
"Merlin, she sounds like trash! What is that she's singing!" Pansy complained.
"Let's go in," I walked in, ignoring the glare I got from Pansy.
The guys fallowed happily, heading straight toward the bar to order. I on the other hand, went to the stage to watch her.
She was short and thin, her straight brown pulled back in a messy bun. She wore jeans, runners and a black tank top with "Bittersweet" sprawled across it. She was holding some sort of small black thick rod that she sung into. Her eyes closed and her voice strong. Something bugged me about her. Something I've never felt before was making my stomach naught.
"Drakie? What are you staring at?" She knew and yet wanted me to lie to her. I had no patience to deal with her consistent jabbering at the moment. I was quite interested in something else. "Are you ignoring me to pay attention to… to…?" She glared at the stage and pointed furiously, "that!"
"Go drink something Pansy," was my only response. 'Pansy Parkison's a nice girl Draco…' I could hear mum's voice saying. 'Just marry her, boy. She has a good Pureblood name. She's a good Pureblood.' Father only care's about his stupid pride… if only he knew that Blaze was enjoying her company a lot more then the other boys she hide's in broom closets with…
I didn't notice her walk away from me and nor did I care. This girls' music was troubling me. It made me think; it made me think about home, about school, about people.
This Romeo is bleeding, but you can't see his blood
It's nothing but some feelings
That this old dog kicked up
It's been raining since you left me
Now I'm drowning in the flood
You see I've always been a fighter
But without you I give up
Now I can't sing a love song
Like the way it's meant to be
Well, I guess I'm not that good anymore
But baby, that's just me
Yeah I, will love you, baby
Always and I'll be there
Forever and a day, always
I'll be there, till the stars don't shine
Till the heavens burst and the words don't rhyme
I know when I die you'll be on my mind
and I'll love you, always
Now your pictures that you left behind
Are just memories of a different life
Some that made us laugh
Some that made us cry
One that made you have to say goodbye
What I'd give to run my fingers thru your hair
Touch your lips, to hold you near,
When you say your prayers, try to understand
I've made mistakes, I'm just a man
When he holds you close, when he pulls you near
When he says the words
You've been needing to hear, I'll wish I was him
'Cause these words are mine, to say to you
'Till the end of time
Yeah I, will love you, baby
Always and I'll be there
Forever and a day, always
If you told me to cry for you, I could
If you told me to die for you, I would
Take a look at my face
There's no price I won't pay
To say these words to you
Well, there ain't no luck in these loaded dice
But baby, if you give me just one more try
We can pack up our old dreams, and our old lives,
We'll find a place, where the sun still shines
Yeah I, will love you, baby
Always and I'll be there
Forever and a day, always
I'll be there, till the stars don't shine
Till the heavens burst and the words don't rhyme
I know when I die you'll be on my mind
and I'll love you, always
It killed me to listen. She was so… intense; as if she fully understood the wait of all her words. She looked about my age, so I couldn't exactly comprehend how she would understand. I'm only sixteen years old and yet I have felt much older for years.
Maybe my father made me this way, maybe he truly is Lucius "Lucifer" Malfoy. I man in black whose eyes are as hard as stone. Mother always said that I looked so much like him, that I'm exactly as he was when he was my age. That frightens me. To be as my father was… is. He is nothing far from the true devil; or at least his right hand man.
…………………………………………………
"You've been sitting here staring for a while Blondie," a girls voice stated. I looked up only to find her, her and her voice. She was smirking at me.
"You interest me," I responded flatly.
"Really!" Her eyes looked surprised, but she kept the smirk. "Well, I can say that I've never heard that one before." We kept quiet for a minute or two; it was the first time in my life I couldn't think of anything to say. "Are you just going to sit there staring at me? I thought you wanted to ask me something."
"If you really want to know, I was curious as to how you can sing like that?" I could hear my fathers voice 'Mudbloods are nothing. They are worthless and we, as Purebloods, must never let their filth touch us. Do you understand this boy?'
"Like what?" She titled her head curiously.
"As if there's no one to stand in you're way. How can you be so confident?" 'Confidence means nothing to me boy! I don't care if you have it, act it! You are a Malfoy and you will act as one, weather you like it or not.' My father never did love me…
Pansy was staring now; I was trying not to let up that I really wanted to know about her. I didn't need her interrupting.
She only stared at me, with a sad look in her eyes. She turned when she heard footsteps coming up behind her. "Here's your jacket Artemis, have a good night, okay?" I could only guess it was someone in her group.
"I'll try Ryan, see you in a couple." She gave him a look of thanks, smiling at him. This made my guts swarm. Why, I don't know.
"'Course." He nodded and walked off. She must have seen something, because when she looked at me she said "He's the drummer. He's been nothing but nice to me ever since I met him a couple of years back." I noticed her expression was stone; she wasn't about to let me in.
"Good man?"
"Of course." She shifted awkwardly. "I have to be going. My sister and brother will be needing me at home." She turned to leave; I had to think of something.
"Um… is it really safe for a young lady to be walking in the streets alone at this hour?" 'I sound like an idiot' I thought.
She turned. "And I should trust you, which of whom I've met in a pub? You who was staring at me intently earlier? You whose name I don't even know?" She titled her head and raised her left eyebrow curiously. Did she always tilt her head when she asked questions?
"Draco, my name is Draco." I looked around the pub, at my surroundings. My so called friends were at the bar drinking it up, among other drunks. The old seats were either splintering or had ripped fabric. The place looked old and over worked. As if millions of people had passed through the front door and miss used it for centuries. It smelled of fish… and possibly rotten peanuts. "I can surely understand why you wouldn't trust me." I looked around again. "Do you always work in this dump?"
"This dump keeps my sister, brother and I alive. My mother left us years back and my father's a junkie who spends all of his money on cheap drugs. Where else is a girl that lives in my neighborhood supposed to work?" She ended accusingly.
"I didn't mean it like that! I just meant you seem better then this place. You deserve a real audience that's actually mentally stable, you know, actually there when you sing." She only stared and for the first time I caught site of her eyes. Her eyes reminded me of autumn; a mix of browns with some orange around her pupils.
She turned and walked to the door, yelling over her shoulder "You coming or what?" I smiled and shrugged my jacket on, racing after her.
…………………………………………………
We stayed quiet for a while, admiring the moons glow on the long dirty streets. It was cold and dark outside. The buildings around us were small and run down; the doors pulled as tightly shut as they could possibly go. In almost all of these houses the lights were off. Only a couple of them had their doors ajar and lights on. I looked beside to find Artemis staring up into the sky. Her jacket was wrapped around her tightly and her hands in her pockets; I could tell she was staring at the moon.
"So you like the moon?" I asked.
"What? How did you—"
"You've been staring at it for a while now." I could almost feel myself smiling.
"Oh. Sorry." She laughed softly. "I've just always liked the moon for some reason. When I was younger, when my mom had just left us, Dad went into a real fit. He was sniffing like mad, every little milligram he could get his hands on, he'd sniff in seconds. It was terrible; especially when he started to take Mom's run out on us."
"By 'us' you mean your brother, sister and you?"
"Yeah. He'd start drinking too; throwing the bottles at us, telling us that he'd kill us for making Mom run away. He'd have a fit, you know, pulling his belt out and everything…" She got quiet and almost looked like she was shrinking inward.
"I know how it feels. My father hits me when I disobey him, when I do something 'bad'. He just has a temper." Why was she telling me this? Why was I telling her this? She looked at me, her eyes looked so sad, so hurt. And yet she was smiling.
"I would always distract him, tell John and Marcy to run; that I'd be right down. He would break bottles and try and stab me but I wouldn't let him. I couldn't; they needed me alive and healthy. So I would distract him and eventually ruin away. I'd grab them and we'd run.
"I love running under the moon, it always made me feel safe. We could see the thousands of allies we would run through. We could see when someone was coming; though it seemed the moon would always keep us safe. It would never look at us when someone came near, it would let us hide in the dark."
She was staring at the moon again, her skin looking pale, and her hair darker. She just stared up happily.
"They say that the moon is a Goddess. One of her name's Selene. Maybe she decided to help someone in need—"
"So a goddess is saving me…?" She looked calm, almost at peace as she said this. "I remember mother saying that she named me after a Greek Goddess. Her name's Artemis of course; the protector of children and the victorious warrior. Artemis; born in a safe heaven given by the god of the sea. She used to say that Dad was like the god of the seas…" She stuck her hands deep in her pockets and scrunching her neck to keep warm.
"So you like to run?" I asked.
"I run to save lives. I run to protect myself and my siblings." Her eyes were hard as stone now. She looked down so that I couldn't see her expression, something I've done often.
"You amaze me you know that," I was looking at her when her eyebrows shot up in curiosity.
"Why?" She half-demanded half-asked.
"I used to think I was the only one who had a hard time at home. Eventually I noticed that a lot of the people I knew when I was younger were feeling a lot of the same things. You, like them, do not have the same problems as I do though. Nonetheless, you understand parental pain. You love them and yet they never seem to love you back. The difference is that I always hide my pain, you grow from it. I just wish I could do that; just to be… myself."