One little white flower

One little white flower

In the course of her fifth year at Hogwarts, Cleo Malfoy, Draco's slow-witted but lovely sister, had been subjected to a singularly odious assault. Although not properly a rape - the young man had started by taking advantage of her sweet and easy nature to get a sort of consent - it quickly developed into the worst experience of her life so far, as he took delight, over several hours of a whole night, in humiliating her and telling her how stupid and useless she was. Not only had Cleo never been treated so cruelly, she never had imagined that such cruelty - and such pleasure in cruelty - could exist; for her own parents, monsters in so many other regards, had never shown her that part of their faces.

Cleo never got to hear how the young man (his name was Carson MacKenzie) had been punished; her father told her that he had been punished, and that she would not meet him in Hogwarts again. That was enough for her, and, in her usual fashion, she did not wonder beyond this; thinking, to her, was always a strain. Besides, she followed the ordinary human inclination to avoid really unpleasant subjects. The assault had all but ruined her life. She did not want to remember.

For the last week of her holiday, this was made easier by Draco's friend, Blaise Zabini, who had been invited to stay at the Manor - Cleo was a bit puzzled by this - not by Draco, but by her parents. She found Blaise exciting and handsome, and he was never impatient or bored with her. Had she been paying any attention, she would have noticed that he was more often around her than he was with Draco or with Father and Mother; but while Cleo refused to think about it, she was still suffering the emotional overhang of her assault - she was still listless, depressed, and self-despising.

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March had gone by, and April had come; but Spring still hesitated to appear. Grey or drizzly days alternated with days of meagre and cold sunshine, while all the while an insistent East wind - the worst of all winds, in England - kept blowing. Narcissa and her gardeners were in despair, worried that Malfoy Manor's handsome flowerbeds would suffer from late frosts; and Lucius heard his farm managers gravely on the effects of the weather on the coming crops. But Blaise had decided that it was bad for Cleo to sit indoors, moping; and, taking that responsibility for her which seemed in effect to have shifted to him in the last few weeks, he decided that they would have a long ride and a picnic as soon as the sun put in an appearance, however feeble. Cleo did not object; time was passing, and soon she would be back in Hogwarts - she wanted to enjoy the grounds while she could.

So, on the Friday before the start of term, the two teen-agers set out to take advantage of some rather watery sunshine, borrowing a couple of the family horses. Cleo, as a daughter of the house, rode as much as she walked, but Blaise had not ridden for a few years and was glad to get back into the habit. Blaise wore the dress of a seventeenth-century huntsman, with a large loose hat, thigh-high leather boots, and an outfit somewhat like a Musketeer's, only drab-coloured. He had chosen it partly for fun, partly to match Cleo, who was looking predictably magnificent in a long, flowing bright red cloak that set off her tall figure and blonde hair, and, under that, thigh-high black riding boots, black denim trousers, and a loose white shirt. The one thing the girl had inherited from her clever and cruel mother, thought Blaise (who, as an Italian, was a good judge), was this astonishing gift of style: she was, quite unselfconsciously, incapable of wearing anything, however bizarre, that did not end up looking both good and head-turningly stylish. A strange talent for a girl who was deeply modest and, if not shy, at least deprived of any wish to impress.

They cantered easily through the large Malfoy grounds and into the adjoining woods, chatting all the while. Blaise did most of the talking, but Cleo said enough to allow him to make an appreciation of her; he had never had the opportunity to speak with her for so long uninterrupted. Well, there were moments! Every now and then, Cleo said something really amazingly silly and Blaise had to struggle to hold back a giggle. But mostly, he was conscious of a girl who was kindly and well-meaning, naturally affectionate, direct and uncomplicated as a child, and - the most interesting thing - not irresponsible. Once, twice, three times, he found her looking at things in terms of how they would affect others, or what had to be done for them. Whether or not he had given any thought to the matter, he had had certain expectations of a daughter of the Malfoy family - he had not expected her to worry about others, and he had expected her to be rather spoilt. Blaise himself was the eldest son of a great house, and in his own world to be a Zabini was pretty much as big as being a Malfoy; this conversation was a learning experience for him. He realized that he felt his heart going out to her - that he loved her more - every time she showed concern, uncomplicated and unmingled, with the welfare and feelings of others; or that she asserted a naïve and undoubted sense of justice. To realize that he loved such things in her was to realize that they mattered to him; and this, to Blaise Zabini - a young man who had calmly planned and executed a murder before he was old enough to vote - was a major revelation.

For love her, he certainly did. He had known that from the momen she had turned to him after an unwarranted insult from an enemy of her brother's; and that had been on the first day of their acquaintance. He had already had some girlfriends, and some considerable sexual experience; but this was different.

The truth is that Cleo Malfoy appealed to parts of him that he did not often look at, indeed that he felt a certain shame about admitting. When Narcissa Malfoy had asked him whether he was a knight errant who would avenge the wrong of any damsel in distress, he had smiled and said no; but that was a concession to the cynicism and selfishness he sensed in the woman, who would not have respected him any better if he had admitted to chivalrous feelings. He had said what he knew would please her. But, in fact, Blaise had much of the knights of old about him. He had the easy recourse to violence; the disregard of laws and rules, indeed the assumption that he lived in a world where laws and rules were at best a façade and at worst a sham; the belief in the value of his own noble birth, and of the duties that went with it; but also the extraordinary physical courage, the habit of thinking that tyrants and giants and dragons are there to be overcome rather than to be dreaded, and, above all, the natural instinct to protect and defend the weak. Not one sob story went by him without some help; he always gave to beggars and strangers in distress, and every time he had been caught in a brawl at home or at school (which was often) it had been in defence of some defenceless or innocent person.

To a person like him, someone like Cleo was meat and drink and air to breathe. Her gentle and defenceless nature called to his strong right arm; but at the same time, her natural belief in goodness and justice made him feel as though he had broken into some new and warmer region. To be with her was to breathe clean air. Blaise had long been conscious of loving this girl; now, every time she spoke, he felt that he was in his element - that all his life had been only a prelude to her.

And so he did not like what he saw in her. She was like an underfed lamp, shining at only half its natural wattage. The blight of Carson MacKenzie was still settled upon her; she sat listlessly in her saddle, following Blaise without taking any interest in where they were going; she spoke timidly and nervously, unwilling to expose herself, frightened of being stupid in public, of exposing herself and being rejected, of being ridiculed. Oh, this has got to stop, Blaise thought to himself.

"May I ask you a question, Princess?"

"Of course," she giggled, "Your Majesty."

"Tell me, what do you want to do when you leave Hogwarts?"

Her eyes fell. "Well, I guess I'll get married... I don't really want to get a job, I want to have a home and children. That is," she added sadly, "if I can find anyone who'll put up with me."

He had hoped she would give him an opening like that. "And why should anyone not want to put up with you?"

"Because I'm stupid, Blaise. I can never do anything right, and people despise me."

"And all this time I thought I was a people."

"Oh, you're just kind. Besides, you're Draco's friend. But you wouldn't want to spend the rest of your life with a woman who cannot do a thing without making a fool of herself."

"Oh, would I not?"

This hint was so broad that, even in her self-despising mood, Cleo caught it. She looked at the young man with some wonder in her eyes.

"Listen to me, Cleo. There is nothing wrong with you except that you are a bit slow. You can get to understand anything you want, if you make the effort. I have been with you for a while now, and I know."

"Yes," said she wearily, "and I am still three feet from the starting line while everyone else has finished the race."

"And the tortoise beat the hare, my dear. All right: let us assume you are slow. Let us assume that it takes you half the time again to understand things. What does that matter outside school? What matters is that..."

"I don't understand things, Blaise! Even in twice the time! Only if Hermy or Draco have been helping, and they help all the time!"

"And your point is...?"

Blaise was groping, almost at random, for something to say that would make her feel better about herself, less inclined to run herself down. He looked around himself, he looked for something to say... he saw the grass and the flowers.

"Look here, Cleo. Look at this little daisy," and he pointed at a tiny white flower. "Think how much it has taken for it to grow in this place. Land, seed, time - it had to rain at the right time, the ground had to have the right amount of nutrients... and the sun up there, Cleo, the great golden sun. Look at it up there: it hangs and burns, and has hung and burned for millions of years, and all so that one little daisy can grow."

Blaise had now played himself in - as actors say - and knew where he was going. "We all depend on others, my dear. We are all at the end of a long chain of love and gratitude and debt that can never be repaid. Don't let it bother you that Hermione or Draco or I take trouble with you; it is simply the way that we are, the way that life is. We always live for each other, even if we don't know it."

If you had asked Blaise to repeat what he said half an hour afterwards, he probably would not have been able. Some moments of illumination come only once; and they come when the love of one's life is there by one's side, wide-eyed and unconscious of what she is.

As for Cleo, every word hit her where she lived - in her affection for her family, in her warm friendly nature, even in her love for flowers. She felt as if she was blossoming inside, as if the frost caused by Carson MacKenzie were finally cracking, and the green grass and flowers were pushing up from the ground of her soul again. And just to match that, the high, thin clouds that had been screening the sun drifted away, and suddenly its light and heat were there, strong and bold. She realized it because the little daisy before her seemed to grow whiter and bolder, each detail more sharp, more lovely; and then the warmth came. She had tears in her eyes; but, for a second, Blaise, still absorbed in his daisy, did not notice. He pointed at it and said:

"And have you noticed another thing about it?"

"N-no, what do you mean?" answered the girl, looking at him through her long lashes, trying not to show her tears.

"It is beautiful. It is good, it is as white as the sun, and it is beautiful."

He smiled at her as he said that, and suddenly saw the wetness in her eyes. One hand reached to her cheek, the other made as if to pick the flower; and her hand reached out and stopped his.

"No, no, don't pick it! Poor little flower, let it live in the sun." And then, with a smile: "I know you want to give me something lovely, Blaise... Just as long as I know, I'll be grateful anyway."

Had she thought for a week, she could not have said anything that could have touched him more - in the depths of his soul, in his care for everything small and weak and defenceless, in his love of anything that was beautiful. Now he, too, was struggling to hold back the tears in his eyes; and he reached out to her, and they embraced, without asking, without words. All around them the sky was blue, the grass green, and the trees seemed to extend to the horizon; a few birds sang, and no other noise. And after a few minutes, they had their first, soft, timid little kiss in the warm light of early spring.