Easy Mistakes

SOUND (Part 3/5)

Before I realize it, (I must have fallen asleep) I hear the soft sound of rustling sheets. Draco is awake. I feel like sighing—half out of contentment and half out of disappointment—but I stop myself. I do not allow my eyes to open, hoping he will be persuaded to sleep a bit longer and lay back in my arms. I know that underneath his cold veneer he actually enjoys our time alone, especially in the morning. But he seems to be set against subtle persuasion this morning and I hear a sharp intake of breath as his bare feet hit the cold smoothness of the floor.

His feet shuffle and pad alternately on the floor. I hold back a smile, because I know one of his legs is asleep, and he is sure to be annoyed. Other than the sound of his feet, he is silent. I can remember many mornings at the beginning of our "relationship" where I would wake to find myself alone. Since then, I have trained my ears to hear the slightest movement, so that even though I may not say goodbye, I can at least recognize his departure. But today, I decide to actually watch him as he leaves in order to seal into memory what I have seen and felt through the night.

Grunting groggily, I push myself up to a sitting position, and rub my eyes. I don’t reach for my glasses because, as I watch the blurry figure moving languidly about the room, the sounds fit so much better to him this way. Draco doesn’t turn to greet me, but I can tell that he heard me wake.

" ‘Morning," I rumble out softly, but loud enough to be heard.

He simply turns to me as I finally reach for my glasses, craving clarity. As my vision clears I see he is contemplating what to say—he always stays stock-still when he is thinking—it’s about the only thing he hasn’t been able to wrestle control over. I wonder why he can’t ever just go with the simple reply, besides—cleverness is always lost on me in the mornings.

He turns away and continues searching for some article of clothing, no doubt, that has been lost amongst the disarray of Quidditch robes, dirty clothes and school books. I sigh—this time in resignation. He starts to mumble in irritation and is not as patiently digging and looking for one of his socks, as it appears that is the only article of clothing he seems to be missing. He mumbles a lot around me lately, and it has begun to worry me because along with the more frequent irritated mumbling, a familiar chill has returned to his voice.

As I sit here, letting my eyes follow Draco around the room, I remember only one time when his voice had been so distinctly different from all the other times he had spoken and has since spoken to me. I had been out on one of my long walks alone around the grounds on a day near the end of 6^th year when it was fairly hot and muggy out. The air was thick, and I looked out over the grounds from a high point near the castle—it was quiet and still—everything that was over 100 ft. away looked hazy, yet the gray-green of the trees of the Dark Forest stood out so distinctly that I felt I must have been dreaming.

For the past couple of weeks Malfoy, as I then called him, and I had been nearly flirting—and not with the usual I-wish-that-I-could-kill-you-but-there-are-witnesses edge to our voices. No, I was puzzled because, though we both still snarled and sneered, there was something very different in our voices and our eyes—or at least, I could see the difference in Malfoy’s eyes and hear it in his voice.

I must have been completely enraptured in this train of thought, for before I knew it I had wandered quite close to the lake’s edge when a crack of thunder brought me back to my senses.

It had gotten quite dark from the menacingly bruise-colored clouds that had covered the sky and blocked what little sun had been shining before, and it only looked to get worse. Though I regretted having to leave my unresolved thoughts about Malfoy, reason took over and I realized I should get back to the castle, or I was liable to be struck by the actuality of the likeness that graced my forehead.

Not incensed to run, but walk quickly, I started at a good pace back to the castle. But, as my luck as-of-late would have it, the clouds soon discovered my plan and began to dump rain down in incredible amounts. Within five quick steps, I was completely drenched. Luckily, I had foregone the robe earlier, because it was so hot, and now did not have to bother with it clinging to my legs and slowing my pace more than my Dudley-sized (that is to say elephant-sized) pants already did.

With the rain coming down in such torrents, the castle looked far away and shrouded in mystery—it looked like a dream at that moment, not to mention dry, warm, and full of light. Speaking of, a brilliant flash outlined the castle for the briefest of moments and was promptly followed by a crack of thunder so sharp that I thought I heard the Whomping Willow tremble.

I had given up on getting to the castle as quickly as I would have liked, and certainly given upon the thought of not getting soaked to the skin. At any rate, I had reached the castle and was starting up the steps when an oh-too-familiar drawl reached my ears, seemingly effortlessly over the roar of the torrential rain and cracking thunder.

"Out to see if that scar of yours works as a lightning repellent, Potter?"

I really hadn’t felt like seeing Malfoy right then. I was soaked: my clothes clinging to my skin, and my hair dripping water into my eyes and hanging over my glasses. So I did the only thing I could really do: I ignored him and kept climbing the steps hoping that I could put off a confrontation until some other time—perhaps one at which I was not as wet and tired.

But Malfoy was having none of it. He followed me as soon as he realized he would get no reply. Just as I reached for the door, I felt a firm hand grab my forearm and spin me around.

At that point, I couldn’t recall a time when Malfoy had ever touched me. His hand was surprisingly warm, but perhaps it only seemed so because I was chilled from the rain…I looked angrily down into his eyes. He let go his grip on my arm as I noticed he was standing down one step and this made me feel at a strange advantage. I increased my glare only to have it reciprocated in the most unlikely of ways: he looked away.

I could have been floored! Malfoy looked away! What was it I had seen in his eyes before I had a chance to really see it? I couldn’t and can’t recall, but what I do recall now is the voice. The voice that had come from Malfoy, of all people! It was low, though clear—there was a lack of tension and condescension that was usually present whenever he spoke to me, or any one for that matter. His voice gave no sign what so ever that he was talking to me: his born rival.

I hadn’t even bothered to listen to what he was saying—the intent in his voice was solid and pleading all at once. I couldn’t believe my ears, and my face was no doubt showing signs of shock, because when he finally looked up to meet my eyes, his face changed from one of intense focus of thought, to one of confusion—as if he hadn’t realized he was talking out loud.

For a few precious, precious moments, we stared at each other—each exploring and examining the other’s expression. He was absolutely beautiful then. His eyes reflecting light from the castle behind me, flickering gold and gray. Blonde hair shining and plastered to his head, parted in the middle by the rain and the long ends dripping silver on the high porcelain-pink cheekbones they touched. And his lips, gods—his lips, were bluish from the now-cold wind, but oh! What a cruel trick of nature that one droplet of rain would linger just above the center of his top, aristocratic lip!

He had begun to speak again, and as he did, my transfixed gaze watched as the lone droplet slid down the center of his lip as if summoned in a trance by the low, seducing vibration of Draco’s words—whatever they may have been.

At some point it must have dawned on Draco that I hadn’t heard a single word he’d said and he was immediately back to good old Malfoy. He rolled his shoulders back into his normal, proud posture and seized the opportunity to get a choice, defiant insult in before he brusquely pushed past me and into the warm, dry haven of Hogwarts.

I stood there, still staring at the spot he had stood—freezing and wet until—

"Harry!" A cold, hard voice snaps my attention back to the present-day Draco.

"Yeah?" I say as alertly as I can.

"Don’t say ‘yeah’, say ‘yes’," a not-so-patient tone informs me.

"Yes?" I correct myself.

"Where is my other sock? I have searched through half the rubbish in this sty and I cannot find it anywhere!" A burst of frustration. Is that anger I hear, too? Or merely condescension?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the peeking out of white partly covered by the sheet on the bed. Reaching to grab it, I take a chance.

"It’s here, but I dare say you’ll have to convince me to give it back to you," I say teasingly.

He shakes his head once; a few strands of silver falling in front of his eyes, which had turned darker in a flash. A short derisive snort escapes him as his lips turn into a half sneer, half smile. Turning my head away from his narrowed gaze, I study nothing in particular in the near distance—at least I know I didn’t make a huge mistake, but I knew this was his way of him telling me that I have no power over him. I wish he’d just say or do something not intended to hurt me.

Don’t get me wrong, Draco is not all hard, cold edges and silence. There are times when hearing his voice is like pressing your hand on pavement warmed by the sun, warm but with grit—comforting in a way. And then sometimes scalding hot when he feels he’s being put under a microscope. Words attack my ears like wind, shrieking painfully through windows on a stormy night, when he is in a fit of rage.

Other times, when he speaks to me in his calm states, it’s like watching leaves swirl, spin and follow a passing car with the sun filtered, gold, red, brown through fall trees. I feel like those leaves—having no choice but to follow in a slow motion (emotion?) chase; helpless when faced with sound beauties.

I have to admit, most times, I don’t listen to the words he speaks to me, and am glad—I’m sure they are not what I want to hear, or understand for that matter. If I just listen to the tone of his voice, I can be sure of his emotions, like the sureness of feeling the pressure of the air all around you change on your skin.

He is such a mix of sound in motion. I may start to babble, but bare with me. I am attempting to sort out the barrage of tones and shades of Draco into boxes, so I know where to look when they are no longer aimed in my direction.

His voice has matured, and now I often find myself being wrapped in ribbons of dark, rich velvet, as he directs all that is right and wrong with him, me, and life in general at me. It’s much in the same way that the sun can warm your body while the rest of you shivers from the brisk wind. Or the way passing into a warm room from the cold air can make bodies shiver. The feeling of being swept along in a current of contradictions.

Sometimes after he has finished speaking to me and has left, his words and the sounds that were left out before attack me, pushing me in different directions. Though I feel as though I am sitting still, I notice how my body is rocking itself gently, back and forth, back and forth, barely noticeable, but when I shift my gaze with my thoughts, my body starts to rock more violently, forward, back, forward, back until I start to feel sick and wish I could just fall away to the side.

But those are the worst days—the days when we can’t agree on anything, and I’ve given up and he has successfully pushed me away for the time being. No—most days, his voice is as empty as a bare room, with a late fall light shadowing it—his words falling on softly smooth wood floors all around him.

And on the best days (those days when I know I could never leave him, or let him leave me), he speaks in my ear, breath warm and low. He speaks in soft shadows of evening, blurred and soothing, the transfer in to night filled with harsh lines and cold tones.