AN: Good stuff in this one…For those of you who care, this chapter marks 150 pages in Microsoft Word, meaning I have probably invested far too much of my life in this story.-Richard S.
Disclaimer: I do not own the poem Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allen Poe
Picking and Choosing (Tales of Hogwarts Romance) Chapter 33
"He requested that you just wait for him in front of the house, but I daresay you might want to stay in the car." The driver of the ministry vehicle suggested. Illy nodded in agreement, she had almost frozen to death when she opened the door, just seconds ago. There was a blizzard whirling around the car, threatening to overturn it with gale force winds at any moment. She stared out the window at the large fortress like building just outside, the grounds around it were decorated with large ice sculptures and topiaries that must have been kept alive through magic, as their leaves were not only a silvery blue, bust still clung tightly to the wood of the ornately sculpted branches. Illy smiled as she recognized the figure of Draco Malfoy fighting against the winds to get to the vehicle. She moved across the seat and pushed open the door so that he could take the spot in which she had just been sitting. He slammed the door, sealing the winds out with it.
"Dodger, can you try to hurry." He instructed the driver, before pushing a button that slid a partition across the gap between the front and back of the car.
"I didn't realize that ministry vehicles were your personal drivers." Illy said sarcastically.
"Don't be ridiculous. My father doesn't do the horrible things he does to be paid poorly." Draco said with a smile.
"Dumbledore said that your Dad was planning a lunch or something he wanted you at."
"He settled for morning tea. I was hoping to get away with less than that and pick you up at Hogwarts myself, but it didn't work out." He pulled off his large, fur lined jacket along with his green and silver scarf.
"And where are we going? Oh, here I brought this for you." She passed him a small hard back notebook before he could answer her question. He flipped it open for a second or two.
"Thanks." He said as he shut it and tied the leather strap it was bound with in a hurry. "We're heading to take you shopping."
"Draco you are so preposterously outlandish it's hard to believe."
"No, I'm just eccentrically. It comes with the money and insane family." He said, as he moved closer to her.
"You're going to keep me away from my boyfriend for another day just so you can please any little fancy of yours?"
"No, I'm going to keep you from your boyfriend because I believe he is a dangerously violent person who could very well commit homicide. And because I missed having you around to fight with everything I do."
"Well that makes me so much happier than my assumptions."
"Shut up and be ecstatic like you know you want to be." He said in a pushy voice as he put an arm around Illy's shoulder and pulled her towards him. She was quiet and stiff.
"You're freezing cold, now stop trying to make it seem like I'm coming on to you and get comfortable." Draco commanded. Illy sighed and gave in, tucking herself comfortable under his arm, close to his chest. "Have you been eating enough?"
"I just didn't get breakfast this morning."
"Did you eat at all yesterday?"
"Draco please, I'm really not in the mood to explain myself to anyone at the moment."
"Fine, just tell me about your dreams last night then." He half whispered.
"It was the same as the last one…only I couldn't control it…and it went on longer."
"Go on…"
"It was like my other dreams when I couldn't do anything but watch from someone else's body. Only, this time I wasn't shy or upset or scared, I was just perfectly alright with what had happened. And then…and this tells me that it had to have been you in the bed, not your father, because your father started calling you. I hid in the closet and he was yelling about how the mudblood was missing and things, cursing a lot and calling me a whore, and you just told him I must have been out for a run…so he gave up and left, but before he did he…he told you…look its in there just give it to me, I scratched it down on the way here, so just let me show you." She took the book and flipped it open to her most recent dream. She usually transcribed things better than she told them anyway. In fact, her transcriptions were usually almost perfect quotes of things said and seen.
"Illy, how could I have know, what do you mean you realized. Explain this to me." Draco pleaded, looking miserable as he held up the book as though it were a Rubik's cube. His voice interrupted her thoughts and she looked at him blankly for a moment, and then, as she focused on his eyes she could fill in all of his questions mentally, how could I have known…he would be loosing his home the next day. What did you realize when you looked down at yourself?
"I guess you knew he was going to loose the house because I told you…like in one of my visions. And what I realized when I saw my body was…Draco, it was you in that bed with that girl but…she couldn't have been me." It looked to him as though she was in pain as she spoke, she didn't want it to be true. She wanted to be the girl in bed with him, and it was upsetting for her to have to admit otherwise, even if she didn't realize it just yet.
"Why do you say that?" He asked, taking both of her hands into his.
"Draco…I don't look like that. I'm pale, and…and…well I mean look at me." She gestured to her body. Draco snorted at her arrogantly.
"What you think that I'll let you live your whole life as a malnourished stick figure?"
"Draco…her breasts were the size of my head." She replied sarcastically.
"I doubt that, but even so, my hair was down my back, so who are you to decide what you'll look like in the future? You said last night that I was taller and more muscular, so I work out more in the future, and you get a great rack. Is that such a bad fate to resign yourself to?"
"Draco, stop trying to make it fit just because you want it to be me." She crossed her arms and moved several inched across the seat from him.
"In that case, stop trying to make yourself believe that we won't be together." He said as he effortlessly uncrossed her arms and pulled her to him. She was about to say something when the partition began to slide back. He pushed her off of him quickly, almost shoving her right into the door across the car.
"We're here." Dodger said with a smile before closing the partition again.
"Sorry…you know my dad." Draco said apologetically as he gathered Illy back into his arms. "Come on, let's go." She said coldly as she pushed open the car door. Draco stood and took her hand as she exited the vehicle. "I think I can do it myself."
"Just because I'm an asshole doesn't mean I'm not a gentleman." He said with a lewd smile. "Now, which shop shall it be first?" He gestured towards the busy street in front of them.
"Is this a muggle city?"
"Of course, you're school robes are fine, much better looking than your outfit today actually." He said as he looked down at her torn jeans and oversized hoodie.
"Yeah, well you said sexy, and Harry thinks I'm sexy in everything."
"Quit acting like you don't miss me." He said as he took her hand and led her into the first store.
"I don't miss you nearly as much as you seem to miss me, because I have yet to interfere with your relationships with other women or pseudo-kidnap you." She replied with a roll of her eyes as he started handing things to a store attendant.
"And that's why you're wearing my clothing." He said with a smirk. "Now, follow the nice lady to the dressing room and try this stuff on like a good little girl."
Illy's afternoon felt like a blur of one over priced outfit after the next, none of which she had paid for. She realized in their third little shop full of designer clothing and gowns, that this must be how a doll felt; to be dressed up in a thousand other people's clothing. Not just their clothing, but their very personalities; she was an ethereal tree worshipper one moment in ankle length, hand stitched, wrap around skirts, hand beaded string bikinis, flowing white linen pants, and barely there tanktops. Her skin looking deceivingly tan as she clipped in wooden earrings, slid on bangles, and tied hemp jewelry to match. In this guise she was a woman of beeches, reading tarot cards in the moonlight and braiding her hair in the morning sun. Next she was a glamorous citizen of wherever she pleased, dresses tight in all the right places, some of them with flowing bottoms to her knees, others with equally tight cutoffs just bellow her buttocks, but all of them with matching heels and bright splashing colors that went well with white gloves, cashmere sweaters, sun glasses, and even more preposterous a large white sunhat. She could have walked into any store in a large town and been mistaken for someone famous in those clothing. Then she was a woman from another time era, floating through a vintage store in shorts that came up too high on her stomach, but still made sure to cut off brusquely, heavily bodiced tops printed with polka dots and trimmed in lace, fifties flower print dresses with high waisted belts, buckling mary-jane shoes, thick heeled pumps with buttons, and a one piece white swimsuit. It was like something from a musically, all she needed was bright red lipstick and a song. Finally it seemed she had rejoined her correct bearings in time when she walked into the fourth shop with Draco,
"All we need now are clothing you can wear in this freezing cold weather and gowns." He smiled at her as she put out a hand, waiting for him to have her try on some ridiculous pair of jeans that surely cost a human soul. He looked at her blankly.
"Come on, I know its coming so just load me up and I'll be off to the dressing room with myself." She said in a tone that showed just too quickly how preposterous she had found their afternoon to be.
"What?" He still looked confused, as though he'd only just walked into the room and it was his twin handing over muggle money like it was just a few little beads and some string he'd found in his pocket.
"You've been walking into stores all day throwing clothes at me so that I can model them for you and you can run off to the cashier to buy them while I feebly protest."
"You don't like them?"
"I didn't say that. I love them…" And then she realized that she was no doll in fact. She had been every one of those women with gusto, as though she was what really reigned over their simple lives, no matter how many years ago they lived.
"We'll take them back if you don't like them…I only tried to pick things up I though you'd like." He said, seeming broken hearted, as though he'd just cut her a diamond and she turned her nose up to it with disgust.
"No Draco I love them…I didn't mean to…they're perfect." She said resolutely as she took his hands in her face, beaming a smiled down at him.
"I guess I'm being a bit like my Mother, aren't I? Shoving everything I want to at you and expecting you to like it as much as I do." She could see now that he had been worried this would happen. A part of him was half expecting himself to become the tyrannical obsessor that we was with other people.
"Draco, I've never met your mother, I wouldn't know. But you're doing fine; I'm just grouchy because I'm hungry." She explained as she pulled him into a hug. He stood limp for a fraction of a second, before wrapping both arms around her waist. When she released him he was smiling again.
"Let get lunch first then. We can come back." She thought about fighting with him, but it would be pointless, and she honestly would have rather enjoyed a sandwich before facing up to more boutique monsters.
He led her to a café across the street where she ordered a tuna salad sandwich, white tea, and a bit of the lemon cake in the display. Draco opted for tomato soup and a second fork for the cake. The waitress blushed and fidgeted uncomfortably as she took their order, and at first Illy couldn't understand why, but when she looked back at Draco it was too clear, his gaze was something private. His eyes were fixed on her, a subject for his passions at the moment, all the fire of fighting with the world diverted suddenly to staring at her with a gaze that even she wanted to blush at. He was making love to her in that stare, not having sex, not ravaging her body, just making love to every bit of her eyes, her nose, the hair in her face, her lips, her cheeks, even her chin was being caressed by love at the moment.
"What on earth are you think about when you look at me like that?" She asked, feeling as though she stood in nothing but a negligee in front of the whole café.
"I'm making love to you, to your eyes and your nose and the hair in your face," He said as he pushed it aside. She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat as he continued, "and your lips-"
"And my cheeks and even my chin is being made love to at the moment isn't it?" She asked in a dazed whisper.
"You read my mind." He said, meaning to be seductive, but only serving to make her want to distance herself from all the people on earth even more.
"Actually yes I did. Though I believe your exact words were that my chin was being 'caressed by love at the moment'. Mine description was a bit less chintzy romance novel."
"Y-yeah…that shit still freaks me out." He said, breaking the mood around them and making the whole café turn back to its prospective tables, now that the handsome blond boy was done making love to the pretty raven haired girls face.
"Sorry…I didn't mean to, I swear. I think I pick things up better if they're stronger emotions, sort of like I see it in your face so I'm expecting it." She played with her thumbs until the food came. No one spoke while they picked at their food, silently wishing the other would say something.
"Sorry about that mess back their in the shop, guess I get overly apologetic some times."
"It's ok. Besides, I think that I just got a glimpse at how that mother of yours is going to act. It was like you were certain that you'd be forcing clothing onto my body or something." Draco chuckled nervously.
"That girl wasn't the only person in the house my Father played head games with…He sort of breaks you down to a point where you feel like you've committed murder if you have to apologize." He said with a sigh as he pushed Illy's little book across the table. She picked it up and tucked it into her purse.
"Draco, those weren't head games, they were sexual abuse, not to mention terrible beatings." She wanted to crush the heated sound in her voice. Draco hadn't done anything, he had just misspoken, but it seemed like a crime somehow, and the harsh tone was still clear, though stifled. No one should ever undermine what had happened in those dreams.
"They were head games too. He always played them. The way he left the door cracked sometimes, he wanted her to try and escape. The way he told her about her being his ticket out of Azkaban, those were head games, he wanted her to realize how vital she was to his existence, but how little she meant as a person…" His voice was pained.
"You really did go see her didn't you?" She asked, her heart thumping loudly in anticipation as she did so. This would be proof that she wasn't just a psychopath with fucked up dreams, these things really happened to a human being.
"Yeah I did. He's going to find the coat that I gave her some time in your dreams…I don't know what he does to her, but it's worse than what he did to me; he told me it was her fault the whole time he hit me...the whole time he forced his own memories of what he had done in the past in to my head. He said that her mixed blood was to blame. But he couldn't stop there…he was too busy playing with our heads to realized what he was doing to his own kid…" His words seemed to be jumping off the cliff he was wishing for as he spoke. Illy moved her chair along the table, closer to him. She laced her fingers through his and spoke softly,
"What did he do to you?"
"He made me…" She could she the start of a tear forming in his eyes. "He made he practice on her. Usually it was animals, if I messed up a spell, if the torture wasn't right, if they didn't squeal enough and he thought that I was being merciful…I had to kill them." The tears loosed from their fortresses behind his steely eyes. "He made me practice on a living person. A little girl…she was nothing but skin and bones. He barely fed her, she was sore everywhere already…" He was now moaning out the words like a murder confession. "He told me that if I made mistakes, if anything wasn't perfect, that I would have to kill her…I was ten years old Illy…ten. She was the only friend I had in that place with a heart. He beat her and raped her and she sat there scared shitless for the first few times I came to see her, but after a while she spoke. She talked to me, we laughed. Damnit she hadn't laughed in years and you could tell. She shrieked the first time she heard her own laugh, told me someone was coming. And there I was, standing in front of her like some goon, staring at her naked bruised little body. I couldn't look at her face when I did it." His tears were soaking through her shirt. She was afraid that the notebook would come up over lunch; he had been sneaking peaks at it whenever she retreated into a changing room. But this was so much more than she had thought… "I was perfect that night. Not a flaw in form. She screamed so loud that my mother actually got out of bed and came to the cellar door. He made her leave, said to go back to bed. When he first brought her, she had screamed a little. If he was there while I was playing near the door I could hear it. Two stories underground surrounded by stone, behind two thick wooden doors, I heard her; only for a week or so. But this was like nothing I'd ever heard. I hadn't just tortured a little girl while my father laughed…I had broken her heart. She never stopped screaming that loud when I had to practice on her; every time the whole house was full of her screams." Illy's great whelping tears were silent as they slid down her cheeks. She had to be quiet while this boy of alabaster and gold spoke about things that he had never told anyone before. She was letting him bleed there in her arms, his body shaking while moans of agony and self hatred rang out. "When it was over, when my father had gone to bed that night, I snuck back down the stairs. I brought her more food than she could eat. I brought the fur from the lounge, potions from the medicine cabinet, even a bit of rum to nock her out so that she could get some sleep and heal. She was still writhing in pain when I got there. I was so terrified to open that door, to see her hate me…she didn't hate me though Killy, she just got up and threw herself on me. She sobbed on me, hugging me as tight as she could. I fell in love as a ten year old kid that night with some little girl who couldn't remember her name, who got molested by my father on a weekly basis. I couldn't help myself. I kissed her. That was the last thing she needed right? What girl who endures all of that needs someone to kiss her? But she kissed me back, and she balled herself up next to me, and cried for another thirty minutes." His voice was hoarse from trying not to scream. Illy's shirt was soaked, full of salty tears and pain. She stroked his hair and whispered out "shhhs," and "It'll be okay" into his hair as he let himself shake with grief for several minutes. He cleared his throat to continue, she almost wanted to stop him, to tell him it was too much. After all, she had been this girl so many nights. She knew exactly what if felt like when his father forced himself on her, she knew just how the split of bones felt in her leg, across her ribs. But this was his cleansing, so she pushed the tears back from his eyes with her fingers and whipped the snot from his nose with her already soaked shirt. "I thought for a second, while she was laying there next to me that it was done. I thought that in a week we could run away together, that everything could be alright then…he made me go back two days later. He said that he was proud of how well I'd done and that my inability to master the dark arts was clearly based on my needing a human on which to practice. It went on for years…until I went to Hogwarts. Sometimes just after he had finished having me almost kill my best friend he would make me go upstairs…I could hear the sounds of him fucking her before I made it up the steps." His words were bitter now, horribly, righteously, angry. "It didn't matter to her, every time I would come back when he was asleep. We would eat dinner together, sometimes I would read to her, sometimes we just talked or cried. Most of the time she just held me for an hour or two before I could even get her to eat…She told me one day when I was reading her Annabelle Lee to her that she loved me…I went to the store that week with my mother. I stole her a necklace. I wouldn't let my father's dirty money pay for something that I was going to give to her. When I gave it to her she kissed me…it was the first time that she had kissed me. That night I couldn't sleep. I was down to the basement the next day when my father went out, and I was there at least once a day every day from then on. She was the only thing that kept me tied to that house. It seemed like every time I pealed her skin back, or sliced her open, or blistered her back until it boiled over in ruptured skin and blood she only held me tighter. She would kiss my skin over and over again wherever her head happened to fall. For two years I was only alive when I was in the room with her, I learned as many healing spells as I did ones to cause damage with. After a while I couldn't make it in the door without her toppling me over and covering my face and hands with little impish kisses. I knew that it was wrong, that I was taking advantage of a little girl in desperate need of some kind of love, but how could I say no? I was smitten Killy. When she pushed her little hands through my hair and jumped to meet me at the door, with her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, she was an unchanging glimpse of something good. She never grew, not one bit, my father started to make her vomit every time he came, I could hear her retching for hours when I leaned my head against the door to the basement. He put it in potions that he made her drink, he knew I was feeding her, but he preferred playing with both of our heads. She must have been ten or eleven near the end, but she looked like she was six years old. Short and skinny, while I got taller, I looked like a school kid but, I felt like a filthy old man when I walked down the steps and opened the door to find her standing a foot beneath me, with a face so young that I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her today. While I just kept growing…then one day she tried to get out. She made it up the stairs…she found me. But he was too close behind her, he drug her back down the hall by her hair, all the way down the stairs by her hair, throwing her up against walls every chance he got. The bones in her leg had been fucked up so badly that it literally split in half, you could see them poking out through the skin. I didn't know what to do…I called Dumbledore. He sent Snape…he won't talk to me about her. He won't tell me who she was or where she went. I think it's because she died. My love got taken away by my father, and my inability to save her, and even my people I thought I could trust. And now she's gone…my first love…my first kiss…and the little girl that I'm still terrified of to this day. Damnit Killy that Boggart was right on the first try, she haunts me." His eyes were dry now. He was just murmuring on her shoulder; his voice raw from the tears that dried like salt grains on his skin.
"Draco…can I tell you the truth, without you fighting me?" She asked in a half whisper.
"Go ahead." He said bitterly.
"You were wrong to feel like you'd taken advantage of her. I know, I've been her before. I've woken up thinking I would have the same sores I had watched her be given…she loved you. You were just what she needed." He smiled a little.
"I used to look at her like that…and she would ask me what I was thinking when I made that face…I would tell her the same thing, 'I'm making love to your eyes…and your nose…'" He let out a fresh whelping sob before he could finish the sentence. "I'm stabbing her in the back right now. I'd be breaking her heart all over if she were here, listening to me tell you the same things, knowing that I felt the same way…" He slumped back into her shoulder. She pulled him closer with both arms.
"What did you call her?" Illy whispered into his hair.
"Beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, perfect, everything…Names identify a person, they give you a way of describing another being…so I described her. I called her princess one night…that's what made her laugh that first time." He was drying his eyes again now. "I'm done crying. I'm going to go clean up in the bathroom. We can actually eat lunch then." He said through a red eyed grin. Illy nodded and watched him leave.
He was gone for a few minutes and she tried her best not to think. It was useless though, in one moment she was making herself promises that she would never starve herself again, just because Draco had already nursed one starving child. The next second she was telling herself that she needed to get away from him, he was projecting his love for that girl onto her just because she had dreamt about her. She was angry at Snape for not explaining where she went to him. She wanted to kill Lucious Malfoy more than she wanted to keep breathing. She wanted to kill him for everything he had done and everything he would do to Draco and the women he loved. Suddenly a thought occurred to her that she almost kicked herself for not realizing earlier, what if both of the girls in her dreams were the same person. The girl could just be a muggle, she could have no magic in her at all, maybe Draco would find her and she would end up in his bed one sunny morning. Maybe Snape was afraid that Lucious would try to kill her if word got out as to where she was…and now she knew…she had to stay away from Draco, she had to keep telling him no, even if it felt perfect. Because somewhere out there, was a girl whom he still loved, whom he still needed. And somehow he was going to find her, and she couldn't be there to stand in his way if the time came.
"I'm sorry I ruined your shirt." Draco apologized as he sat down at the table again.
"You've bought me plenty of new ones." She said with a smile. He nodded and started his soup. His eyes weren't puffy anymore, and his face was back to a pallid, calm white. She had to stop staring at him. This wasn't a game of who could hold out for the other person the longest anymore. She needed to make herself realize that this was a one sided war against herself; she needed to stay with Harry or someone…anyone but him.
"Eat something, please Illy." He said as he pulled her plate from across the table to her. She nodded and finished the sandwich before he was halfway through his soup.
"Holly shit…" He looked dazed down at the plate that had once had her food. "Did you eat that all in one bite or something?"
"I'll eat Draco… For you I'll eat. I won't remind you of her anymore." She promised him. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. He was glad she was eating, no one should starve themselves, but he wanted her to remind him of her. It was important that someone remind him of how they used to tease each other childishly, just to vent. He needed to tend someone, to take care of them, to have them cry when he left. He needed her back and Illy was the closest thing he'd come across. Part of him was hoping, when he read through the dreams, that Illy was her. He knew it was a horrible thing to hope for, but there were too many coincidences.
"So…won't it make you sick if you eat that much at once?" He asked as she took a bite of they cake they had ordered.
"Nah, I think I'll be alright. I ate twenty-three puddings the other night and that made me sick, but this is just a sandwich, I'll be fine."
"Why did you eat that much pudding?"
"Ron said he could out eat me. So of course we settled it with quidditch first, but Harry caught the snitch when were at nine to four in my favor, so he won. But we decided to settle it the old fashioned way in the end. And I ate more than Ron, Fred, George, Lupin, Harry, and Hermione." She said with a triumphant smile.
"There's something wrong with your head."
Killious and Draco finished shopping by four thirty. She was sure that she now had more clothing than she could wear in a year, which only served to make Draco insist that it was vital to her survival at his home over the summer for the entire ride home.
"Killy, you'll change four times a day I swear."
"Draco, I could clothe all the girls in our school for a good week and a half with this much clothing."
"Besides, we'll just make it bigger as you grow, so you can keep it around."
"Do you mean to tell me you have no more shopping trips planned for the rest of the summer?"
"Well…you never did get gowns…so there's those, and I didn't really do much shopping for me, so if we happen to get some things for you while I'm out then it won't really be planned for you."
"Were you denied dolls as a child?"
"Yes, yes I was."
"Should I just go get a few wigs next time then?"
"No...I was thinking next time we'll splurge on lingerie."
"You will not be buying my underwear." She said firmly.
"I don't understand why you're being so fussy about all of this, I just bought you a new wardrobe, and it's not even all that extensive. I mean I have closets full of clothing."
"I'm not a Malfoy, I don't have a gene that makes me compulsively spend money."
"It's actually the Black. My dad hates to shop, Mum buys it all."
"About your Dad…I'm not sure I can deal with that over the sum-" Draco pushed a finger to her lips to keep her from speaking.
"If he so much as lays one finger on you, I'll have him in prison."
"Just don't leave me alone in that house." She said as she moved closer to him in the car. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, just as he had done on the ride over.
"You can even sleep in my bed." He said with a smirk. The car stopped outside the Hogwarts grounds, free of blizzard, thought still lightly dusted in snow. Draco handed Illy her new coat, it was just a puffy as his, only it was white and lined with tan fur, where his was black on grey. He started to open the door, but she stopped his hand.
"Give me a goodbye kiss." She whispered. If she was going to be able to make it through several years of school and the coming summer with him, staying out of the way for the day that girl showed up, she had to know that she had really said goodbye to the idea of him being more than her best friend.
"You have a boyfriend." He reminded her.
"You don't care anyway." She replied. Before he could come up with something else to say she had pressed her lips delicately to his. He closed his eyes and put his hands around her waist, just inside her coat. Her fingertips slid from his jaw up to his hair, and then she let him go.
"Goodbye Draco." She said before opening the door for herself and getting out of the car.
"Bye." He whispered as she left.
