Remember When?

Part III

Tinsadisaster

Summary: Remember when you loved me? DMHG

Words from thee greatest bleeding heart of all time: I just updated The Love Connection and decided it unfair that I didn't update this fanfiction so here I am, slaving away in front of the computer screen, for the enjoyment of you, the person half way around the world or down my street. I never mentioned before how much writing these fanfictions and getting reviews back means so much to me – knowing your work is being appreciated and noted gives an author such a burst of happiness, it's unbelievable. So thank you, to all that read my stories and comment on them, because when I open my email and find your words of encouragement, I step down from my pillar of laziness and actually put my silly mind to work. Thank you. Enough of my ranting because here comes the third installment of "Remember When?"

Disclaimer: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, JKR.

Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?

- E. A. Poe

My dreams are a wish-wash of bright color, droning voices, screams, faces, blood and stinging pain. And those are just the good ones, the better ones.

I don't experience nightmares, like most people do. I experience motion pictures, with full-on hues, echoing noise, background orchestra music, and clipped glimpses of her face, her touch, her smell, her essence and her screams. Sometimes I find us two, drifting in the waters of a deep, black ocean and no matter how hard I force my weather-beaten body to swim towards her, she always seems to be drifting farther and farther away, until she is no longer visible, until she is just a dot in the horizon. Then, I see the shark fins surround me and I wait for the terrible pain of sharp teeth tearing me apart. I wait and I wait and I wait but the pain never comes because it is then when I wake up, panting hard, tears flowing down my cheeks, my heartbeat drumming away, and my senses on high. I am saved from the pain in my dreams, which must be a reward of some sorts but what have I ever done to deserve a reward such as that? Immunity from pain is a reward given to gods, which I know I am not.

These visions are not the ordinary post-traumatic syndrome caused by traumatic experiences such as, oh, the second Dark War, in which all my friends and family died and I came out alive because I went away into hiding with my godfather, ran away from him too, to find refuge with the Good Guys. These visions, these hallucinations, these nightmares are my reminder that I am still alive, still hurting and still humanely flawed. I don't need self-mutilation to tell me that I'm still living in this godforsaken world because one glance from a mother and young child shopping in Diagon Alley is enough to kick me in the guts. One threatened-looking glare, a motion to move the unsuspecting child closer, a hurrying of steps, an un-planned step into the candy store; this is enough to tell me I'm still alive, still the bad guy disguised in sheep's skin, still the DeathEater's boy, still the one-who-may-not-be-forgiven.

Usually I don't care what others think of me, a talent that I learned from my younger years, but the War put me in such a weak condition that my talents went into dystrophy and I was no longer the untouchable, ultra bastard Draco Malfoy. Now I was the only Malfoy, the last of his terrible, corrupt race, the one you could mock and taunt without fear of death coming your way, the one who had no backbone but would survive to his last dying day. I was the last chance for the Malfoy clan, the last one who could do good, be great and very cliché, be loved. Now everybody could think what they wanted of me because they knew I would do nothing about it, would just stare and take it all in. They wish to break me, in revenge for the ways I destroyed them when I was young, but all they can do is try and try and try and stupidly don't realize that I already am broken, destroyed, shattered. They don't realize I'm already damaged goods.

Damaged goods.

She hated the way I used to say that. She'd say that I was not, that I was perfectly manufactured, perfectly working goods. Then I'd teasingly ask her in a sultry voice, "Baby, what kind of goods are we talking about here?" And she'd giggle and I'd run after her and things were good for a while because she'd distract me from destroying myself with undeserving, pitiful, self-mutilating thoughts.

But now she's not around to stop me so I can destroy myself all I want. And somehow I appeal to women, as the broken war man, the one with the "Please Fix Me" tattooed on his forehead, the one with war wounds that they thought they could mend but once they mended those, realized there were gashes so deep that none of their loving and their spells would be enough to save me.

Those words trigger several memories in my mind – those two words – save me. They bring me to the times in which Hermione and I severely fought, verbally, physically, spiritually.

"You aren't the only one with problems, Draco Malfoy," she screamed at me.

"You don't understand, you stupid little bint. You couldn't. Your life is so perfect, so fabulous, so moral that you couldn't possibly understand the things I am going through right now!" I replied.

Then she'd slap, punch, and claw her way at me, though not hurting me that much. She'd attack me till she was tired and zapped out of energy. She'd fall to her knees and whimper, saying, "If only you would open up to me, then I could save you..."

And in my anger, I say, "I'm not a thing to be saved, Granger. I'm not a wounded little bunny in the forest, not an owl with a broken wing, not your two clumsy, trouble-ridden friends. I didn't ask to be saved, don't want to be saved and don't need to be saved. Especially by you."

And then I'd storm off, leaving her ruined on her knees, hearing her sobs from the other side of the door, which I slammed purposefully. And every time I would debate to myself, whether I should go back in the room and apologize or ignore her and find my friends.

Our fights were a variation of what I just described. It always ended with me running away, unable to comfort her at her time of need. But fights are temporary and resolutions are inevitable. I'd sulk around for a few days, realizing how boring and uneventful my life was without her around, and then finally I'd just put my pride in my back pocket and go to her, asking for redemption. And she'd always let me back into her life, which I know now is impossible because I no longer am her life, no longer the center of it, no longer an important part.

000

I woke up to another sunny day and one second of hearing the chirpy birds, seeing the blinding sunlight, the feel of loneliness stalking nearby was enough for me to wish I really hadn't woken up, that I had died in my sleep.

After walking around a bit, I become conscious of all the bottles of alcohol in my apartment, knowing that I was hung over again after a long night of Firewhiskey and wizard pornography on the magicked TV. I drink a bit of hang-over-remedy, which tastes absolutely like shit, and wash up. I get dressed and head out, knowing that there would be no food in the cupboards and that I could always apparate to Potter's house and eat my heart out there.

Big mistake.

I popped into the Potter residence and needed only a second to regret my decision because I could hear voices other than Potter's laughing and chattering in the kitchen. It was her voice, her light laughter, her small talk.

They were back from the honeymoon.

"Oi, Malfoy, is that you?" Potter says out loud, just as I am about to disapparate but I am stopped when the three of them walk into the living room.

I am caught, a deer trapped in the headlights.

000

Breakfast is over but I'm feeling a bit sick in the stomach. While I was eating my heart out, as I said before, I notice from the corner of my eye, the way they touch each other, hold each other, send secret messages through their eyes, and tease each other. They were absolutely disgusting together and I wanted to vomit up whatever was churning in my stomach, which was an appealing thought in the situation that I was in.

"Now, Draco, tell me what you've been up to lately. Any witches that you've dated and dropped? Any marriage proposals? Job promotions? Anything? Give me all the dirt, you wanker," she says, in a light-hearted kind of way.

Well, while you were off humping the Weasel, I was in my apartment, wanking to witch-on-witch movies, thinking of if you cloned yourself and had sex with your clone, drinking a shitload amount of alcohol, which is sure to give me liver cancer very soon, and basically living in melancholy because I'm lonely and you're not.

"Nothing really. I've got bills that haven't been paid yet…" I say. Poof, I tell myself. Weak response.

"Oh – okay."

Absolutely bored. You are absolutely bored. You want nothing to do with me because I'm a boring piece of crap. Absolutely bored. I can see it in your eyes. You're absolutely bored with me.

"Err… Do you want to do something this afternoon? Maybe go buy a dragon illegally or something?" I say, hoping to redeem myself, hoping to make myself seem interesting and un-boring.

You laugh, because of my humor or either that you think I'm an absolute fool.

"No, sorry, I can't. Ron and I are planning to buy some furniture for our apartment. And he probably won't remember since you know Quidditch is on his brain like every single living second…"

And suddenly, I can't hear you anymore because I've decided to shut off my hearing skills. You and Ron are buying furniture, which is a symbolic event in a relationship because it signifies commitment and forever, which is something I don't wish for you two. I smile and laugh and say "Yeah," hoping it'll fill in all the gaps in your one-sided conversation.

Then I excuse myself and apparate home, where I rush to the bathroom and finally heave all the alcohol, eggs, bacon, orange juice, water, and disgusting Ron-Hermione information into the toilet bowl. Ah, peace everlasting.

000

Feeling a bit more social, I walk around in the local park, attracting strange-looking birds and desperate, married women, while still in a semi-hung-over stage.

While weaving myself out of a conversation with one of those desperate, married women, I turn away quickly and run into a beautiful jogger.

"Sorry," I say sheepishly.

The jogger, with the thickest eyelashes and strangest blue-grey eyes, which are quite like mine, smiled and said it was all okay.

It was all okay.

I'm triggered into another one of those philosophical, catatonic states I'm usually in when I looked into myself, in a manner called introspection in psychological terms. The beautiful jogger says it is all okay but I take that comment in deeper, connecting it with my life.

It was okay that I was a lonely, desperate bastard jerk wanker.

It was okay that I was sad and jealous of Hermione's marriage.

It was okay that I ran into this beautiful jogger and felt she was semi-attractive.

It was okay that I was already thinking of sleeping with her.

It was all okay.

And just as I was ripped into the trance suddenly, I was throw back out suddenly. I see that the woman is a bit shocked and I apologize for my auto-pilot stage and ask her out to dinner, brazenly.

And what happened next, the exchange of information, the names, the time, the everything, was a blur and it was only when the jogger ran away did I realize I just waded into a possible relationship, that was not with Hermione at all, without fear.

Perhaps it was just a rebound-thing, an act used to fight my jealousy for Hermione and Ron's lovey-doveyness. Perhaps it was just a natural thing, seeing as I'm not a terribly ugly wizard at all and she was a beauty all in her own. Beauty plus beauty equals possibility, perhaps. Perhaps it was all a dream, a good dream, in which my subconscious was finally fighting back against the melancholy and sorrow that was invading ever inch of my life.

And perhaps I was finally getting over the fact that I still loved Hermione but she did not love me back and that she loved Ron and Ron loved her. Or perhaps I was just being an analytical little bastard again, tricking my heart and mind that I was perfectly okay when I was still a broken, destroyed, ruined, broken-hearted little bastard jerk wanker.

Love is such a foolish little evading thing, I realize out loud. The posh, married, desperate women sitting nearby made tut-tut sounds and I run away before their hands found their way to my pants' back pocket, where my pride was hiding.

Do I still want you to remember that you loved me?

I don't know anymore.

Then again, I'm still in a hung-over state and not thinking in my right mind.

Nevertheless, …

Do I?