Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass

To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori. - Owen Wilson.

~*~

It was a boys' world from the beginning. The moment she walked in to the compartment the very first time, and saw two misfits, she knew she didn't belong. They had looked up at her as if she was an intruder, and she was but she didn't let that discern her. 'My stubborn little girl,' is what her mum used to call her.

She remembers telling the dirty boy about the smudge on his nose because she too wanted to be a part of this world, to tell them something they didn't know. Something that only an outsider can tell them, something only another person can do, like repairing broken spectacles.

She watched them fall out and then be friends again, throughout the years she became the pillar they all relied on but that's all she was: a pillar. She always knew that but it finally hit her when Ron noticed that yes, she too was a girl, someone worthy of him to take to the Yule Ball in their fourth year. It was out of spite she rejected him, and it hurt her because the more she pushed them away, the more she pushed them together, into their isolated world.

A spectator. That's what she was, an outsider there to observe.

It was their seventh year, a morbid year, devoid of the laughter and excitement that used to echo down the halls when Dumbledore was alive. The need for normality was almost nauseating but necessary and despite dark times and even darker moods, Headmistress McGonagall thought to arrange a Yule Ball. Dwindling was a pathetic word, but the only one that could be used to describe the numbers that returned to Hogwarts, after all it no longer could proved the safety many sought after Dumbledore's demise.

It was all for Harry of course, our saviour, the one we had to keep happy so he could happily march down to the battle field and happily finish off the Dark Lord. Happiness, a word so foreign that it left a bitter aftertaste on her tongue, but no, she had to be happy, someone needed to.

She looked beautiful, the mirror told her but she didn't feel beautiful as she climbed the stairs leading to the boys' dormitories, now only occupied by Ron, Harry and Neville. The door was locked.

"Oh honestly," she muttered and fished out her wand from the many folds of her dress. "Alohomora."

She didn't feel bad intruding, after all if they really wanted to keep someone out, Harry could have thought of stronger spells to put on the door. The room was shrouded in shadows, the only source of light escaped from the drawn curtains around the bed at the far end of the room.

The silence was absolute, only to be punctured by short gasps and muffled cries that sounded like waves crashing against her eardrums. She was rooted to the spot, her hand outstretched as if to somehow touch the world she would never be a part of. Her feet carried her and within moments she had snatched the curtains apart.

She didn't scream, didn't blink, just watched as Ron's naked back glistened with sweat and Harry moved in and out of him with sharp thrusts. She stumbled back due to the pain that blossomed across her chest. She could only bite down on her bottom lip, hard enough to make it bleed as Harry looked up with those glittering eyes of his, the colour of death. He watched her, unblinking, also biting down on his lip to keep out from crying, each thrust he drove into Ron was like driving a spear through her heart.

She wanted to scream, wanted her eyes to widen, for her hands to come and cover her mouth in shock but she just turned and walked out of the room, out of the world where she wasn't welcome or invited.

The two boys came down shortly afterwards and all three of them plastered smiles on their faces, just like old times and walked towards the Great Hall amongst jokes and laughter. The sounds of their forced laughs leaving ugly echoes to follow them behind, their distorted shadows mimicking the lie they were spinning around themselves.

The Great Hall was nowhere near as spectacular or grand as it had been three years ago, the air was subdued, tasting of an unknown fair, of anticipation of something forever suspended. The final breakdown of one Harry Potter.

They danced and drank together as if the fragile thread that was holding their imaginary world together hadn't just been snapped. She let Harry wound his arms around her waist and rested her head against his broad chest as they moved with the rhythm. She looked up into his eyes and saw them boring down into her own, she had never seen something so absolutely and immensely green and the words that followed, they couldn't have been stopped.

"You disgust me," she whispered.

Harry looked at her calmly, sadness in his eyes as he just shook his head sympathetically. That was enough for her, he was saying 'You will never understand' and she wouldn't because she wasn't privy to a boy's world.

Before she could come up with something, a commotion started. Time seemed to freeze, as one thought ran amongst the minds of fifty odd people: it was time. The Dark Lord was here. But what emerged from behind the entrance to the Great Hall wasn't a tall snake-like figure, but a battered boy with hair the colour of pale spun gold, now marred with crimson.

She was a pillar and she held on strong for Ron, left aside when Harry found someone else to his fancy. She sat in front of the fire in the abandoned Gryffindor Common Room listening to Ron going on about how much he hated that bastard Draco Malfoy and one glance on Harry's face showed how much he was smitten by that boy. She tried to follow him around inconspicuously as Harry started disappearing at odd hours, she got dark circles underneath her eyes from lack of sleep but she had a duty as a friend and that was to protect Harry.

She watched as Harry grabbed his Firebolt and Invisibility Cloak and made his way out of the Common Room. Harry walked with quick, sure strides towards the Quidditch Pitch. It was past midnight and she wondered how foolish this boy was going out unsupervised where he could be murdered and none would be the wiser. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Harry walk up to the other figure just around the Hufflepuff stand and embrace Draco Malfoy.

They held on to each other like that, words whispered that she couldn't hear and the wind refused to carry towards her. She carefully walked a bit closer, wrapping her robe around her more tightly to ward off the January chill.

"I couldn't kill him, you know," Draco Malfoy whispered.

"I know - "

"But I wanted to so much. To be the murderer, to be the man." His voice cracked at the last word.

"You are, but not a murderer."

"I can hurt you, I will hurt you," Malfoy declared with certainty. "You should go away, I don't want your pity, Potter or whatever this is that you're offering me."

Harry looked away from him and up at the cloudy sky. She wondered if they both noticed that they were holding hands, or the way Harry's thumb stroked the back of Malfoy's hand, for comfort she supposed.

"I don't have any, Draco," Harry whispered. "Not pity. There's not much time."

"Do you think you're going to die?"

Harry nodded.

"Would you have killed me that night, if I...you know - "

Harry looked at him with eyes as dark as night and offered a slight smile.

"Probably."

Draco Malfoy looked away, she couldn't see the expression on his face but something shifted in the air. She took the admission for what it was and perhaps for the first time in her life she understood something about this boys' world. They needed each other and despite how hard and painful it was for them in this world, it was all truth and honesty.

Her eyes watered, for whom she wasn't sure, maybe the stark honesty in Harry's voice, or the hopelessness in Malfoy's or perhaps she was crying for herself because she could never understand. She hid there, transfixed as Harry leaned forward, their lips moulding together like pieces of a puzzle she'll never be able to solve.

"No - wait, what about...Weasley?"

"What?" Harry asked startled.

"Ginny, I meant."

"What about the whole world, Draco?" Harry looked at him.

Malfoy shook his head and they fell together. This was a sin, look away, look away, but she couldn't. Not when the kiss turned something desperate and painful to watch, not even when they were as intimate as any two boys can be. She watched them as if through glass, she couldn't reach out and touch them, their harsh breathing becoming a part of the ambience. The sound of skin moving against skin ricocheting around her and then suddenly all activity stopped, for one split second an expression of euphoria came over Harry's face before he collapsed on Malfoy's chest. Their bodies shaking with silent laughter, or sobs, she couldn't tell.

And her resolve was made. She couldn't let this continue, couldn't let Malfoy chip away at Harry until there was nothing left of him, he still had a job to do. She turned around and walked away hurriedly, a plan as always already forming in her mind, but not before the final words of the night were carried to her by the wind.

"I couldn't have killed you, or...him. I can't."

~*~

Moaning Myrtle always visited the Prefects' Bathroom on Tuesday nights because it was when Hufflepuff had their Quidditch practice and she would spy on their Chaser as he thoroughly cleaned himself.

She knew that, which is why she sent Malfoy a note asking him to meet her here. It was unsigned but she knew he would come; there was no doubt. She hid under Harry's invisibility cloak and waited, not for long though because he was here on time. Draco Malfoy entered hesitantly and came to stand in front of the sink, studying his reflection in the dirty mirror.

She watched as he touched his reflection, his expression unreadable. It was time, she thought. He turned around in surprise as she appeared from under the Invisibility Cloak but she didn't give him time to react any other way. She had already driven the knife through his stomach three times before his eyes widened and he realised what was happening.

He held on to the sink for support, leaving bloody marks as he slid down, clutching his middle. She stabbed him a couple more times, she had read up on it, did her research. She knew just where to hurt, what part would hurt him the most and how could she keep him alive for as long as possible.

He lay there on the ground and she sat down beside him. Both watching each other, eyes unblinking, knowing what was so close yet so far. Blood had pooled around him in copious amounts, she knew she would have a lot of cleaning to do but it was a small price to pay.

"Harry," she said.

And suddenly life flared in those grey depths, if only for a moment, at that name. His mouth opened to perhaps call out to Harry but more blood slipped past, his voice ending in just a gurgle.

"It will come," she said matter-of-factly. "It comes to all of us, eventually. Acceptance. This is for him, Malfoy, you understand that don't you?"

She remembered the summer before her fourth year when her mother had told her about boys, and also those boys. At that time she hadn't questioned it but she remembered thinking for two boys to fit like that, one of them must die and now she realised how true it was. Malfoy had to die; he and Harry couldn't fit like that, in their own world. This world wasn't finished with Harry yet; he still had a war to win.

Malfoy, in those brief moments he shared with Harry had familiarised him with happiness and Harry had started to forget. She couldn't allow that, not after all the sacrifices, Harry had to be shown that this world wasn't done with him yet and he had an obligation towards it, towards her.

She watched as Malfoy's breathing got ragged, his unblinking eyes started to lose their focus. It took him eighty-seven minutes to die, eighty-seven minutes for the blood flow to stop, for his eyes to turn the shade of death, unblinking now forever.

Cleaning up was done quickly, with the aid of magic of course. For a boy as thin as Malfoy, he certainly seemed to be carrying around a lot of dead weight. She had planned how she would introduce this to Harry. She looked at her watch. Perfect.

It was dinnertime. As she walked in she saw Harry glancing at the empty Slytherin table, not even occupied by the only Slytherin remaining at Hogwarts.

"What -?"

"It's Malfoy. He's outside, Harry." She bit her lip nervously, her brow covered with beads of sweat. "He's - "

But Harry was already out of the door, followed by McGonagall and the rest of the staff. They found him sitting on the floor, cradling the dead body of Draco Malfoy to his chest.

"How did this happen-?" McGonagall started to ask but Harry silence her by holding up a hand.

He got up and carried Malfoy outside, whispering Merlin only knows what to deaf ears. For once she found peace as she leaned against Ron; the world was finally as it was supposed to be with Ron's arms wrapped around her for support and death back in Harry's eyes.

It might take Harry more than eighty-seven hours to finally let go of the corpse or even more than eighty-seven years to let go of the ghost but for the moment she was content.

After all there was a war to be won, Hermione thought.

The End.