Disclaimer: JKR owns all.
VIVAASA
by: carpetfibers
Day 99
"Play with me," the pigtailed girl orders.
"No," he answers, and yet he does not resist when she grabs his larger hand with her two little ones. He becomes the playground monster; the sandbox is the land of milk and honey. A picnic table marks his domain, all sulfur and brimstone, and all the children scream and laugh as he moves toward them. He assures himself he only acts as such because it is the job, and he had said he would do it.
"Monster Dray-go!" they shout at him, fleeing his approach and seeking sanctuary in plastic tubes dressed like fallen logs.
He feels the lightness of their youth, their innocence. He wonders at its absence in his childhood. He recalls only greediness and need; he does not remember this thing called play, and as he watches the children's parents arrive to tote their tots home, something twists and gives in his chest. He is smiling and his eyes burn, and he hates that she is the one to notice this about him.
"You're good with them," she tells him, pleasure plain in her voice. She tidies the small stack of notebooks and school books from the homework table. Her hand grasps the left behind pencils, an uneven column of reds and blues and yellows.
"They're just kids. I'm not so useless that I can't handle dealing with a couple of brats for a few hours a day." He gripes and snaps, and she smiles at him, unfazed.
"And yet, they really seem to like you." Her hair is braided this afternoon, the plaited strands cling to her sweater, and the temptation to touch forces an anger to his features.
"What do they know anyway? They're perfectly happy as long as I go about trying to catch them, playing their monster." The pigtailed girl waves at him from the slide, her gap-toothed grin wide and ridiculous. He hates her in that instant, hates the child for its unawareness and lack of discernment. What did that child know of him and his past? What did that child know of him to approach so unguarded? "It doesn't matter who it is- anyone would do."
The pigtailed girl leaves, her hand caught in her mother's tight clasp. She waves again, and he hates her for it. He hates, and yet, it is not a hatred that spoils in his chest. It is nothing ugly or evil; it is torment and it is guilt, but it is not hate. "None of these parents- or their children- would let me within a meter of them if they knew who I was, what I did," he says, loathing the self pitying tone that cakes his words.
She shakes her head, her brown eyes clear and uncluttered. "But they don't know. Can't you let that be enough? Sometimes ignorance is nice, don't you think?" She waits for his answer- an answer he will not give- and her lips close on the lid of a plastic water bottle. She drinks deeply, and he watches, wanting- and yet, not understanding.
"Thirsty?" She offers the water bottle to his mouth, and he takes it, drinking in turn. He realizes he hates her, too, in that same mix of non-hate and guilt. He hates the ease in which she speaks with him, eats with him- the ease with which she smiles at him. He hates that she does all this, and yet she hasn't the same guise of unawareness as the playground misfits do. She has known him for too long, and she knows him too well.
He drinks and thinks of her lips having touched that same hard press of plastic; he drinks and wills the thoughts away.
"I can try to find something else for you, if you really don't like it," she tells him, as they leave the park grounds. "I'm sure there's something else local that I can drum up."
Her hand brushes his bare arm briefly and purposely, he slows to encourage the accident to a second occurrence. He passes the bench he spent his first two days of Earth-bound humdrum attached to; he thinks of the small flat, the uncomfortable couch he calls a bed, and the closed door that leads to her room. He stops.
"Malfoy?" She pauses as well, her expression all patience and interest. He looks at her and knows: he does not hate her.
"It's fine- the job, it's fine."
End Day 99