Moira

Chapter 2:

Interlude

She saw a shadow, running with her across the jagged, glinting mass like a swift-winged bird of a past, fond memory but its movements were strangely human. For a moment, she was frightened because she felt that it was not meant to be there, intertwined with her own haggard shadow. She wanted to run from it; indeed she strived to, but it kept up with easily, chained to her. So she used its company to block out the unpleasantness around her. Once she tripped, getting lost, and it waited patiently, weaving in between the smeared stones. Maybe it was her guardian; she certainly wanted to think so.

She followed it.

It paved her path, and she followed it most diligently till she stopped at the collapsed opening of what remained of the Underground. What remained...was a jaw-like opening that looked very likely to feed off young children. She gulped...would she find the remains of those lost? She hesitated. But...the swift, dark river slithered into the opening fearlessly, and she didn't want to be alone.

Skeletal frames were overturned, lying in mass heaps. Horrible...leaking oil, smoke, and small fires lurked about everywhere. She covered her mouth helplessly. Why on earth had she decided to run here? She remembered as the opening was transformed into teeth by the fading lights from the explosions...out there. For a moment, it sounded like she was in a small rainstorm, a pleasant rainstorm, as small bits of tile and dust pattered around her. The groaning outside...of the explosions sounded...like a monster from the darkest recesses of the closet (it had finally come out to grab everyone), and she was glad she was somewhere where she could just curl up and maybe go to another place in her mind. She was quite good at that as the house mothers had told her multiple times. Listening to her footsteps echoing in the solemn mourning, she imagined she was in the morning meetings...one had to be very quiet. More pitter-patter of weak drops of little tiles...she would pretend it was a rainstorm and like all rainstorms, it will pass.

It will pass. Everything bad will pass...because time will see to it.

She had a headache now, maybe from the smell; she journeyed deeper in the cavernous throat, not trusting the lights...for they were sparking. She didn't like the sound of actual water hitting the stones because it was too...sad sounding. So she picked a spot in a corner where no water sobbed and no lights flickered in defiance.

She had time to study her new friend, glossy now...what?

She wiped her glasses, trying not to scratch the frames on her rough uniform, and squinted. Wasn't it older looking, un-loved looking, before? She traced a finger along the spine that was much firmer. The pages were crisp and quite lovely, begging to be written on. It was sad that she didn't have a pen, she was sure of that.

She laid her head on the cool stone in wonder. What strange thoughts were rising to the surface? What strange...

She sank gratefully into a brief slumber, and she awoke to find him.

~~~

Draco Malfoy literally felt the time slipping away, a thief in the night stealing his heartbeat. What a mess...how had it...happened this way?

He imagined, through his pounding headache and blurring vision, that girl...where had she gone? That dirty, Muggle filth...she had caused this! How he did not know, but it was because of her that his nerves were burning and his last breaths might be approaching on swift-wings and with scythes. So he limped onward into the gloom, listening for two things: the footsteps of a very small person and that voice from within.

Eyes were watching him, waiting for him to fail and waiting to devour him...his back burned.

Someone was watching him, and soon it would simply be immaterial.

He held his head, wiping away some of the grim coat of disaster. Where would a Muggle go...hell, where would anyone flee to avoid getting killed?

Somewhere...underground...yes, he remembered vaguely an attack they held against a mass group of Muggles. He had seen some slipping through an entrance that led underground. Of course, he had finished them off, cutting them down.

But...it was worth a try, his last gamble was worth a try.

~~~

She spotted him because of the light...a small cinder drowning in darkness. She smelled smoke, the light-fleeting rough kind full of age, and wondered who would be smoking at a time like this? Then she knew what else was there to do.

She saw the small flame...then saw the boy with the flame and almost screamed. She hadn't really expected anyone to be there. In her mind, she saw the light...it was all she could focus on. Maybe it was her imagination.

He wasn't too far away. She had a feeling...he was involved with her somehow, that she knew him from somewhere like an old acquaintance. He was completely...near yet miles, worlds away. She couldn't glimpse him at all. He was dressed in shadows. It was strange, and she didn't like it, how the darkness clung to him like spider webs.

She held the small book closer to her.

The world rumbled and more tiles fell in awe, and she whimpered.

"Come closer...you are not safe there where the ceiling half destroyed."

Totally apathy...yet more...she sensed more underneath it, a raw, sparking undercurrent, and she didn't want to come closer.

"I'm fine, thanks," she whispered.

She wished he would move or something. He didn't seem...alive; he seemed like an Idea, merely a concoction of her imagination and a restless spirit from the other side. His voice was deep, vast, and full of reflections. She didn't mind it too much.

"When...did you get here?" she muttered in curiosity.

"Just now."

He was laughing at her, she felt it. Even though he had not chuckled at all, she felt it, and she grew angry. Then the sky roared from outside, and she jumped up. She didn't even know why or how...she just was closer to him. She could see he was very serious looking by his posture but still casual. Mockingly so...casual when a war was going on...

She wasn't feeling well; she had noticed it when she had moved. She felt weighed down...her head felt full.

He was watching her sink to the ground, and she tasted the air full of things she didn't know.

The sound of water was driving her mad.

"Are you alone? Where is your family?" she asked in attempt to drown out the pounding, bitter dance that wore her down and made her sink.

A sharp pause that gave birth to something dark...he didn't answer.

"I'm alone," she whispered, not to him but to herself.

She wanted to hear herself talk, and she needed him to hear her. Strange...but he was a captive audience.

"My mother died when I was young. I can't remember her, just know her picture. Well, I used to...but it's been along time. My dad died two year ago when the war first broke out. He went to fight. I was left with the house mothers at St. Augustine's, and I wasn't sad. I just didn't want to be there, I didn't think I belonged there, and it wasn't fair. So...I just imagined I was elsewhere, you know. My favorite book that my dad used to read to me was the Jungle Book. Do you know that story? He read a little bit every night, and I would wait for him even when he wasn't there anymore to finish the story. The house mothers wouldn't read to us. So...I made up my own adventures to finish it. I was told it was a very bad habit, I was always told that. But, still, I was never alone. Now though...how can I be somewhere else now?"

The faceless figure had grown tense, and she knew she had burdened him with her talk. Feeling guilty, she decided to ask him something about himself one more time.

"So...what's your name? Mine's-!'

"I do not want to know your name, girl."

That hurt her feelings a little bit and her smile fell. But he must be in a bad mood; he might not feel well either.

"That's alright. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to..."

The child gazed off in the darkness, searching for a more favorable conversational piece.

"Isn't this a pretty book? I wonder who owns it? "

She held it grandiosely up to show him because it filled the cup of silence well.

"How...did you come by that?" His voice had changed hues. He was angry now, resentful, and she was taken back. Tears started to form in her eyes as she wondered what she had done wrong now.

"I-I just found it..." she said pitifully. Then something occurred to her. "Oh! That man who was so mean must have dropped it." She was proud that she had remembered because what had happened seemed like ages ago, sprung from a past life.

"What did he look like?"

She was so pleased to have obtained speech from him that she struggled frantically to dig past the mounds of anxiety and fatigue that clouded her brain.

"Well...he was really blond, kind of...and skinny. He was very...I don't know, I could tell he was snobby, and he was wearing a cloak and wasn't dirty with smoke and dirt. And he was so mean to me! I ran into him accidentally, and I don't know if he wasn't crazy because he pointed a stick at me and his eyes got all weird but then a bomb exploded. Then I woke up and this book was right-THERE!"

While she was talking, an explosion sounded closer than ever, and she yelped and moved even closer. Heart pounded and torn between forced wakefulness and a dragging sleep, she clasped the book back against her chest. She watched in awe as the figure didn't even flinch. But! Due to the explosion that sent glorious light to pierce even where they were, she had seen him. He was young, well older than her, but still not an adult. He had very dark hair, the type she had always wanted in her general plan to dye her own dirty blonde hair...and he looked kind of bothered or sad...no, depressed. She couldn't blame him.

"Are you scared of death, girl?" he mused offhandedly in front of him, balancing his cigarette between his limber fingers. His face was curiously blank.

"I-I've never...thought about it. But I suppose so, yes, I am," she whispered, looking nervously in the direction of the latest disorder.

"Smart..." he extinguished the small cinder by smashing in to the cold stone, and she wished he hadn't.

"Do you think we'll be okay?" She couldn't raise her voice because it was shrouded.

He paused in the shadows. She was curious. She reached out her hand just so and touched something silken. It felt like a long cloth, like a...cloak. It was a little torn but definitely a warm cloak. She supposed that such cloaks must be in fashion, and grateful to be distracted, she pulled on it to feel the material that danced around her hands, warming them. He tugged it out of her grasp roughly, and she felt like she had done something wrong yet again.

"If I were you, I'd worry about only myself," he said darkly.

"Oh..." She looked at her hands in disappointment. "Well, I still think...it's best if you think of others. We are in this together, right? We can help each other."

He burnt her with his gaze, and she shrank back a bit from him, feeling quite drained. His face was so...she thought he looked tired and very serious with his eyes so intense and hair so dark. She thought at one point he might have looked kinder.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was fading, and she figured it must have been the smoke. "But I'm scared, and you're older, and I just thought..."

She looked away and was quite alarmed when he grabbed her chin. After turning her head, he quickly removed his hand like he didn't want to touch her for too long. He seemed to want to tell...to reveal something, a secret. Yes, it looked like a secret, she just knew. But in the end he said nothing.

"Sleep, girl. And when you wake up, we'll find a safer place to go."

She beamed and tried to hug him because she was so happy that he was going to help her. It was so strange because she felt like she had embraced a shadow with false warmth, a empty dream of something that wasn't quite...there. But he had to be there, and she was just very tired. He stiffened then pushed her off but not as roughly.

She smiled as she embraced the welcomed nap and journeyed to battle tigers and run with the wolves.