Summary: There was a boy. There was a girl. They loved, they lost, but they never stopped loving. They saw, they discovered. They cried. There was a tale. This is their tale.
Disclaimer: I'm not even going to try and make this interesting. I hardly own the characters. Just the plot and the way the characters are presented to you. Hopefully, one disclaimer will suffice for all three chapters.
A/N: It's so good to be back at last! Anyways, after the break I too, I tried to improve my writing, so hopefully that reflects in this little 3-shot. In case you didn't know, this fic is Draco/Hermione, and it will be done in three pieces, so it isn't over at the end of this first chapter.
When you're done, you should probably go leave a review so that the next chapters can be as good as possible and I can know whether or not my writing has improved. Then, you might even want to go check out a couple of my other stories!
Answers in the Intermissions
Part one: Awake
There was a boy.
A boy who lived in the dark shadows, hiding. Hiding from himself, from his life, from his destiny. Because what would he find if he went out into the world anyways? Death. Not that he feared death, not really. The boy didn't fear dying - didn't fear the never ending blackness that it would bring or the eternity of it all. No, what he feared most was pain. The pain of dying was what he feared most. Because he knew - somehow he knew, his destiny was wrong.
He was destined to kill. Murder.
It was what he was taught, ever since he was little and barely yet understanding why the spider he had tried to pick up with his bare hands wasn't moving anymore - wasn't skittering around his bedpost anymore. Why his little fingers were sticky with something wet. But it was all better when his mother reprimanded him for playing with those 'nasty bugs' and washed his hands and dried them with a fluffy white towel.
He'd gone off to play with a funny shrunken skull his father had brought home from work and forgotten the ordeal by bedtime.
He never asked what job his father did. It was silently understood that daddy's job wasn't to be discussed because there were people who didn't like it. They were bad people whose blood had dirty filth in it from all the bad they'd caused in the world. And they were why his father's job was so important. Besides, he always brought home new toys for him. They were gifts from those he worked with. The boy was just happy to have something new to add to his collection. He didn't ask where it came from.
And one day - one day he was going to be just like daddy.
But as he grew older, the boy learned. And somehow, the right and wrong he had been taught all his life didn't seem to quite make sense. How could he be superior to the girl who beat him in every subject no matter how hard he tried, yet completely equal to his 'friends' who often had trouble deciphering the difficult process of eating and breathing at the same time? It just didn't make sense.
He had seen the blood of the bad people once. Seen is spurt out of a newly murdered victim during a riot one day in his seventh year. Yet all he saw was blood cascading across the floor, not filth. It was red, a deep red, and there wasn't any mud in it. And it was exactly the same as his own. That was when the boy first questioned his destiny, the definition of right and wrong, and everything he'd ever known.
He had admired the stunning red against the white snow though. It was kind of pretty.
Soon the boy learned even more. More and more often, he saw new things from a new view and he wondered why he'd never seen them before. He never really did realize exactly when the blindfold of prejudice was slipped off his face, but he began to feel it.
But his past wouldn't leave him, just as the black mark on his left arm wouldn't go away, no matter how hard he scrubbed with soap and water and with his mother's loofah and with his own bare fingernails.
It just wouldn't go away.
So he hid.
Not physically of course, but within his own mind and away from his own consciousness, because if he physically hid, he'd be found and killed. Not that he was afraid of death. Just the pain. But hiding within ones head from ones mind is the most painful of all, because there is nowhere to hide. Just darkness and black that never really ended and didn't conceal you like you'd hoped.
He stayed there for awhile, hiding but not really hidden. In the most shadowy nooks and crannies in the place where dreams die and hope never was and forever can be bought if you have enough to buy it. There, lies were the truth and the truth was lies that you told yourself to feel better about it all.
Sometimes he read the fairy tales he used to love as a little boy. He was taken off to places where right and wrong was so easy to differentiate and every story ended happily. And he wished so badly for that to be real.
There was a girl.
The girl's life was perfectly laid out in front of her. Each perfectly placed piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was her life had been carefully thought over and selected. And each piece had been gotten through hard work and determination because they would all help secure her future.
But now the puzzle was finished. Yes, it was beautiful and shiny and attractive… but it was finished. There was no need for her to work on it anymore.
She had accomplished everything she'd always wanted. And she didn't know where to move on to. She could frame the puzzle and hang it on her wall for all to admire… but after a while it would eventually lose its appeal. That was when she realized that perhaps everything she had worked for her entire wasn't all it'd been cracked up to be.
So the girl waited for the moment of truth. She waited for a light to guide her in the direction and to tell her what her destiny was.
One day during a walk under the moon and stars, they met.
And over a cup of late night coffee, they talked.
He barely remembered her, but how could he have not noticed her before? She was an angel. His angel. Well, not really, but is there really a difference in the eyes on one fallen in the pit of love?
She showed him that he could choose his own path in life if only he worked for it and tried and believed in it. Her laughter and the way her eyes shined and the way she saw the world, inspired him. He admired the way she could see the beauty and worth in everything, and how romance novels could still make her teary eyed. And mostly, he loved how down to earth she was, loved how close she was to the real world.
She liked watching the sky. Especially the moon at night and the stars twinkling overhead, because they reminded her of how big the world was and how small she was. How insignificant her life was in the big picture, so it was okay to have fun once in a while and forget your duties. Besides, she thought that the sun got too much attention anyways.
The boy wondered how there could be a world so carefree like hers outside his orderly, solemn one. But he began to live a life like that too.
And he made a choice.
He chose to join her and her people.
Because he was so sick of killing people. So sick of seeing 'mudblood' that wasn't dirty and wasn't contaminated and wasn't any different from other blood.
She looked up to him for his quiet wisdom and the way he could somehow make her smile through her worst. And he taught her to be patient and to appreciate and wait for the right path to take, because one day, that freedom of choice could so easily be snatched away.
She saw the pain in his eyes everyday and held his hand through it all because she had hope. And she loved it when she saw that her persistence was accomplishing something and he got a little bit better everyday. And with the patience he taught her, she made it through the good and the bad days because she knew healing took time. She showed him a brand new world where you can trust your own allies and friends because there were things called 'love' and 'trust' and 'faith' that existed.
He wondered why they didn't exist in his world.
Slowly, she pulled him through the ever shrinking entrance of his cave and showed him that the world outside of it wasn't so bad after all.
Together, they hid from his old life; from his past.
The boy was happy, because for once, he knew he'd done the right thing. And as they walked off into the sunset hand in hand, he smiled, because it finally felt like he had his happy ending. After all the things that he had been through, he was so ready for his happy ending.
But life's not like that. Even when you seem to have found an opening in the dank cell you've been locked in, you realize that it is merely a crack – just enough to let some sunlight through. When they see that you've found it, they quickly patch it up again. It's their job, after all.
One day when the morning mist still lingered in dew drops on the stiff leaves of the multi-coloured autumn trees, he watched her from his window. She was walking. She looked so peaceful, so carefree - alone.
Whenever they were together there seemed to be a weight on her shoulders and worried spark in her eyes. And however well she hid it, he knew it was the weight of his troubles that he'd passed on to her.
How could he do that to her? He'd ruined her. He let the guilt seep into the very deepest centre of him, because what right did he have to share his troubles with her?
He felt himself being torn out of his fairy tale, but knew it was all an illusion. It always had been.
Because out there, there were people who didn't want him to have a happy ending. People who would do anything in their power to make him feel the pain that he so feared. And she was his weakness. If something happened to her, he could never forgive himself. Would never forgive himself. And those people knew that. Which was why it was dangerous for her to have this connection, this allegiance to him. It was dangerous for her to know him.
It tore up inside to realize this because it just wasn't fair. Tore into him like a thousand daggers slowly driving down to the core of his soul. And it hurt just as much.
Pain.
How come people in the land of fairy tales could live happily ever after yet the fairy of tales seemed to have skipped right by him? It just wasn't fair.
How could he know if his decision was right or wrong? What was right and what was wrong? No one can ever tell you because deep inside, they don't really know either.
But then again, this was war wasn't it? And wars were like that. No right and wrong. Just conflicts. They magnify all the prejudices and the conflicts of the past and the present and bring them out to mean so much more than they actually do.
Wars divide people.
Divides them with such clear, precise lines that are so unrealistic because in the real world, when does everyone have the exact same side?
They wear their masks, for when you've chosen a side for so long, do you ever stop and wonder why anymore?
It's merely become a face, a notion to hide behind.
And soon, after so long of doing destructing the opposite side, what difference does it make to do it to your own? Those masked creatures turn on each other for the sole purpose of self preservation.
Yet when that happens, the walls crumble from within and crush their own inhabitants. And they blink in the light and wonder why they built those walls in the first place. They can't seem to remember because all they knew was the feeling of blindly plunging forth for a cause that was not their own, but one made for them already.
All is fair in love and war. As if.
So in the end, it really just comes down to who survived and who didn't.
The boy knew that the girl had to survive, because there were people who needed her to. Including him. But she was needed by the world more than he needed her right now. So he was sacrificing her for the good of herself and the world. And it was the right thing to do. Even if it brought him pain, the thing he hated most.
He told her that. He told her that he was pushing her away because he couldn't bear losing her.
She was sorry that it had to be like this, this way. She was sorry but she understood. She didn't cry because she knew that tears did nothing for the pain in one's heart.
He turned and walked away. Left her standing there all alone, the wind biting at both of them and making their eyes water. Of course, it was only the wind.
He heard her feeble plead for him to wait, but he didn't look back. He had to get away before it became too much to take. He heard the plea echo, and he heard the silence, but he didn't look back because he knew it'd hurt too much. He knew that if he did, he wouldn't be able to resist running back into her arms.
Where it was safe, and there were no such things as doubts and second thoughts.
A/N: So… two more chapters to go, which means that this is not over yet.
What do you think? Did this make you think at all? Now go, review and I'll be really happy today.
Flame me if desired. Hey, while you're at it, torch me with the Olympics flame and spear me with a spork.
Next update will be soon. I've gotten the whole thing written already and saved in my computer.
Dead spiders anyone?