River - A Christmas Songfic

River

Copyright © 1970; Joni Mitchell

He had said some horrid things to her, he knew that. Of course, he couldn't remember what they all were. Damn Hagrid and his stash of firewhiskey, anyway. Malfoys didn't get drunk; that would mean far too much loss of control. Of course they drank socially, one couldn't avoid it, after all, but one certainly never drank more than one or two glasses of the best mayflower brandy, with perhaps a tiny glass of entdraft, if there were an occasion worth celebrating. But Malfoys didn't get drunk.

She had cried.

Though he had already forgotten much of the...encounter...he had cursedly remembered that with great clarity. He saw the tears welling up silently in her deep brown eyes, saw them overmaster her, saw them spill like diamonds down her freckled cheeks. He had seen, in the look in her eyes, that making her cry was less forgivable than a Malfoy being drunk. He had made her cry, and for that she hated him.

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

He thought of the small box residing in the pocket of his robes, and cursed viciously at himself. The vehemence of his wrath only made his head pulse more quickly, demanding he lie down and close his eyes in defeat.

But Malfoys didn't know the meaning of defeat.

Oh, but this one was learnig. The last of his line, the only Malfoy left alive this side of the English Channel, and he had already shattered a dozen Malfoy traditions, so why not aim for a few more? He had drunk himself stupid, made her cry, bungled the presentation of her Christmas gift, and stood, defeated, watching her flee, blue robes floating behind her, her red hair spilling down in ripples.

"Virginia!" he had called after her, breaking another Malfoy rule and making a fool of himself over a woman. She hadn't turned, hadn't given any indication she had heard him. She only ran faster.

He was sitting in the middle of his bed now, a bed strongly reminiscent of his childhood, with thick green curtains, looking as if it had come straight from the Slytherin dormitory. His cloak was still wet from the snow outside, and he hadn't bothered to remove it. His wet hair clung around his face and neck, feeling as though they should be steaming from the heat of his humiliation. He drew his knees up and leaned his forehead against them, wishing desperately for some way to turn back the clock. But no, Hermione's time-turner had been destroyed at the Battle of Bury St. Edmund's, and it had been the last of them, the only one Dumbledore had not destroyed when Voldemort's war began.

But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

"What have I done?" Draco whispered, his voice ragged and not sounding at all like his, even to his own ears. "She'll hate me until time ends." He groaned and let his knees drop, propping himself up on his hands and letting his head fall back. He stared up unblinkingly at his canopy, memorizing the patterns burnt into the velvet, noting a rent in the fabric through which he could see the humble ceiling above him. His eyes burned, and though he tried to tell himself it was from the alcohol, he knew otherwise. He squeezed them shut, willing himself not to break another Malfoy tradition, but the tears spilled out and slid down the outside edges of his face. For a moment he couldn't catch his breath, so all-consuming was his grief.

When he next drew in a breath, he made a sound like a sob and plunged his hand into his pocket. Coming up with the small silver box, he flipped it open with one hand, staring down at the silver and jade bracelet that nestled inside. When he felt the tears collecting in his eyes again, he growled out a savage oath and flung the box aside. He heard it hit the plaster wall with a soft clatter, then fall to the floor, ringing faintly. He did not take his eyes from the rip in the canopy.

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

*

How could he have done it? She gasped as another sob tore through her body, and wished hopelessly for her mother. She knew it was irrational; Molly Weasley could not help her with this problem, of all problems. Molly loved Harry Potter, loved him as much as--or more than, Ginny thought privately, sometimes--her own sons. And of course she had all the same prejudices as her husband and sons; she was just too self-possessed to ever exhibit them. Besides, Ginny couldn't believe that plump, homely, kind Molly Bratt had ever had any suitor besides Arthur Weasley--so it didn't matter anyway.

Oh, why had Ginny started that argument? And one she had started it, why hadn't she been brave enough to end it? Why had she pushed him? Why couldn't she ever learn to just let things be?

"Draco Malfoy, are you foxed?"

He blinked at her, but that quickly his cloudy grey eyes had become silvered steel mirrors, opaque and infuriating. "Miss Weasley," he said, nodding at her curtly. It had made her angry, that he could be so cool, especially after-- But no, she would not allow herself to think of that again!

"I asked you a question."

"Am I a fox? No, Miss Weasley. I am not on the list of registered Animagi." He blinked at her, one corner of his mouth curving ever-so-slightly. "Fortunately for me, I might add, since that list has fallen into the hands of my father's compatriots."

"I didn't ask if you were an Animagi!" she had snapped. "I asked if you were drunk!"

He stopped moving, drew himself up very carefully--the amount of care telling her he was, indeed, quite drunk. "And who are you," he murmured, his voice soft and cutting as a whip, "to ask me such questions? Especially when I can see that you have been drinking the last of the Archenland Wine?"

"Don't change the subject!" She had said it because she was dreadfully afraid he would ask her why she had been drinking. She didn't want to answer that. She really didn't want to--

"What's got you so worked up you have to drown it in Archenland Wine, Virginia?" he asked, and this time his voice was low and gentle. She shivered and dropped the half-empty bottle in the snow. She couldn't answer him, couldn't tell him that Harry's distance frightened her, that Harry's determination was consuming him, that Harry's lips didn't linger on hers as they once had...

"Nothing!"

She tried hard to help me
You know, she put me at ease
And she loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

"It's Potter. Isn't it." He hadn't even dignified her by putting a question mark in his voice. "That stupid great prat. He's hurt you."

She raised her chin. "It's none of your business, Malfoy!"

"None of my business." His voice was flat. His silver-steel eyes flashed, even in the darkness of the winter night. He took a stride towards her, and she meant to quail, she meant to turn her back on him. But instead of shaking her, as she'd feared he would, he seized her arms in an unbreakable grip. He'd stared into her eyes, into her soul, and for a single instant she'd held her breath, afraid to breathe or even think. She'd stared at her reflection in his mirrored eyes, seeing her fear and loss, seeing her yearning.

Then he'd kissed her.

I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

Her knees had nearly buckled, but his grip on her arms hadn't lessened, and after a moment she abandoned herself wholly to the kiss. When she relaxed into it, Draco pulled her closer, wrapped first one, then the other, arm about her, pulling her very close to him. She'd felt the insatiable heat in his lips, felt the tension in his body, felt the need inside him, and recognized the need as a reflection of her own.

So what if this was Draco, and not Harry? So what if Harry would be devastated if he knew? So what if her mind knew this was wrong? Her heart and her body didn't care. She fought a mad desire to giggle; Draco had once compared her to the Lady of Shalott, but perhaps that was not quite right. Oh, he'd been correct about one thing--he was Launcelot, there could be no mistake of that. But instead of the Lilymaid, Ginny was Guenevere, Guenevere to Draco's Launcelot and Harry's Arthur.

And she didn't care.

Draco wanted her. Draco held her more tightly than Harry did. Draco's mouth tore at hers with passion that Harry had forgotten, or lost, or--most likely--channeled into his long quest for vengeance.

No, it wasn't vengeance Harry wanted. It was justice.

"I--I can't!" she gasped, pulling out of Draco's arms.

*

Oh, I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

"Can't?" Draco's breathing had been ragged, but his voice, thank God, had been sharp, angry, cruel. "Good lord, Weasley, do you honestly think Potter has so much self-control?" He pulled her back to him, pressed his lips against hers, but the heat had gone, and he silently cursed her for a repressed little fool. He let go of her and she stepped back hastily.

"What do you mean?" Her voice was so small that he was instantly sorry. That only made him more savage as he said, "What the bloody hell do you think I mean, Weasley? Did you honestly think he had saved himself for you? Didn't you know anything about that little tart Chang?"

It wasn't true, of course; that was the damnable part of it, that it wasn't true, and he'd known it wasn't true even as he said it, even as he watched her go still, watched the light in her eyes flicker. "Fine!" he'd sneered, knowing as he spoke that he would regret it, already regretting it. "Whatever you say, Weasley. It isn't as if it mattered to me. You're just a nice piece of work, and I thought it was a shame to waste you on something like Potter the Prat. But it's no skin off my back. I mean, for God's sake, a Weasley!"

Those had been the damning words. He'd watched the flickering light in her eyes die entirely, extinguished by the tears that welled silently up in them, then spilled over. He watched the diamond tracework those tears left behind, watched the snowflakes settle on her cheeks and hair like whispered kisses, kisses that he wanted to place there. He saw her brown eyes go very cold, see her jaw clench. He watched her take another step back from him, making fists, heaving in another breath to hold back tears.

He saw her struggle valiantly to pull herself together, and he saw her lose. "You're right, of course," she said, her voice shaking crazily. "I--" She stopped speaking, and the next instant she fled, her robes streaming behind her, her hair spilling like blood down her back...

Draco fell backwards, cracking his head against the headboard of the bed. She hated him, and it was his fault. And it was for the best, really. After all, Virginia was Harry's, everyone in Godric's Hollow knew that. She had loved him since childhood, and he'd grown up to realize what that love was worth. Harry and Virginia--no, Draco thought vehemently, Ginny; Harry might have Ginny but he would never have Virginia--Harry and Ginny had become an icon to the Phoenicians, a symbol of the happiness that could still be attained, somehow; a symbol of the abiding love that Voldemort and his legions could not destroy.

No, only Draco Malfoy could destroy that.

He sighed, exhausted by his anger and his grief and his tears. He wondered briefly why he had bothered to come in from the cold; perhaps if he had remained lying in the snow, in the middle of the nearly abandoned village--for who would be out, on Christmas Eve?--perhaps if had done that, hypothermia and alcohol would have done their work, and he wouldn't have to live with the mortification of what he had done.

But no, that would be too easy. And Draco had known, since he had killed his father to save Ron's life, that nothing in life could ever be easy for him again. In that single act he had done more monstrous good than anything else he had ever done in his life--and doing so, he had destroyed a part of himself.

Christmas at Malfoy Manor had been a brittle, beautiful thing. Christmas trees that were decorated perfectly, with real icicles and snow that never melted, and candles that always stayed lit, and expensive, heartless gifts underneath. Christmas in Godric's Hollow was cold, drafty, and threadbare, but it was beautiful, with a glow of love and cooperation, laughter and singing.

Or it had been, until Draco had tried, on Christmas Eve, to tell Ginny that he loved her.

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river I could skate away on