Fates in A Flat Major

    “Aren’t you happy for them?” murmured Ron, his voice low in the evening calm.

    Hermione hesitated. “Yes. Yes I am, Ron.” Even in the dark, he could see her cheeks flushing slightly red. “But-”

    “You’re jealous,” he whispered plainly.

    She frowned, blush subsiding. “I am. I hate to say it, but I am. Why could we have had ours? Why didn’t it happen for us? Why didn’t-”

    Ron rested a comforting arm on her flat stomach, and she relaxed against his lean frame. “I can’t answer that,” he said finally, softly, and he hated the way the words sounded in the gloomy air. More loss, more pain. “No one can. But I think, perhaps, we might have a future too.” He played idly with her left hand, feeling the slim bones between his strong fingers and stroking her knuckles with a single finger.

    She laughed slightly. “Ron, stop it - it tickles,” she giggled.

    He didn’t move.

    “Ron?”

    He gripped her hand a little too tightly around the wrist.

    “Ron - what?”

    He hesitated. Then-

    “Look at your ring.”

    She looked. The white diamond, as stark as white linens, glimmered in the moonlight, shot in three places with threadlike amethyst. A small gasp escaped her lips, entranced. “My God, Ron-”

    She started to turn, but her lips were met with a kiss, a sweltering, dissipated kiss, and the words never quite came.

                        ~

    Draco Malfoy gave a shuddering gasp, lean frame supported by the nearest wall. Instinctively, he went to brush a lock of platinum hair from his face. His fingers met with cranberry blood, and for a moment he seemed confused. Then his hand fell; his body was subjected to another brittle breath, and he collapsed onto the floor.

Two Days Later.

    The mahogany door on the far side of the room opened. It was a moment before Draco realized what had happened, and he forced his defeated head up.

    “Mr. Malfoy.” The voice was old, weathered, and painfully recognizable. Grey eyes locked on blue.

    Albus took a step forward and closed the door behind him with a snap. Draco blinked, and the room came into view.

    He was in a small room, windowless, stark at best. The walls were painted concrete blocks, white, and the floor was grey. Cement, harsh to his bare feet, razed his skin, rubbing the exposed flesh raw as he twisted on the ground.

    His head fell, routed, and Dumbledore took the moment to pounce.

    “Do you know why you are here, Mr. Malfoy?”

    Draco hesitated. He knew, but had forgotten. He shook his head, dirty locks falling into dull eyes.

    “You are here because of your recent assault on Miss Weasley.” Dumbledore paused. “Do you remember?”

    The memories poured back, scalding water on ice. He gave an involuntary shudder.

    “Do you remember?” repeated the old man, impatient, it seemed to Draco.

    “Yes,” he croaked.

    Silence. When he spoke, Dumbledore’s voice was harsh, overbearing, livid. “Good. Then perhaps you also remember the agony you put her through, the disgusting, sordid ways you exploited her, the twisted, unnerving-”

    “Yes,” mumbled Draco, barely audible, his head swaying in time to some unknown drumming in his temples. Another grimy, unwashed, unwashed blonde tress fell into his eye. This time, he didn’t brush it aside. “Yes, I remember,” he muttered to the floor.

    Dumbledore took another step forward, taken aback. “You remember.” He frowned slightly, deepening the laugh lines around his mouth.

    Draco nodded, breathing coming in short, shallow, bursts.

    Silence. Albus looked ready to turn, but something about the broken boy before him held his gaze. Draco hesitated. “How - how long am I staying here?” he asked, still not looking up.

    Dumbledore laughed slightly, a forced, bitter laugh. Then his face resumed it’s serious guise. He sighed. “Mr. Malfoy, do you not know where you are?”

    Draco tried and failed to look up. His upper body shook with the effort.

    “You are in a Ministry holding cell,” murmured Albus, feeling something close to pity for the boy.

    “Holding cell?” coughed Draco from the floor, weak, ruined.

    Dumbledore paused, hating the concern he felt. “Yes, Mr. Malfoy. A Ministry holding cell.” Silence, harsher, heavier than before. “The next place you will be transferred is Azkaban.”

                        ~

    Ron Weasley looked positively frightened, at best. Suddenly, the red velvet cloth that stretched before him and over a hill in the distance seemed like a walkway to Hell, spotted with white rose petals. He exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, and Seamus Finnigan, second row, snickered slightly.

    Harry came first, grinning from ear to ear, Ginny on his arm. Harry’s newest black dress robes billowed behind him, intermixing in the wind with the lilac silk of Ginny’s. As they took their places near Ron, Harry winked at his friend.

    Ron studied the horizon of the hill beyond and frowned. Where was she? A bead of sweat fell onto the collar of his robes.

    And then, there she was, laughing silently, and he felt a grin tearing at his lips. She was perfect, he thought, so perfect. White silk, sheer and fluttering, loosely encased her trim figure, waving behind her in the summer breeze. Ron smiled. The low neck of her robes was lined in amethysts, and the hem of her dress sported the same tiny purple gems.

    She took her place beside him as her father sat down, eyes overbright. The wind blew a piece of coffee hair out of the bun.

    Later, Ron would not remember much more. He did remember the kiss, the first married kiss, and hearing Harry’s laughter even over the clapping of the crowd.

    And the reception. That stood out in his mind more than anything else.

    The dancing, the wine, and smile Hermione had implanted on her face for the rest of the night. Harry and Ginny, each with a twin propped on their hip, dancing awkwardly beside Ron and Hermione until Molly took the babies.

    He remembered asking Harry when the wedding was.

    “What?”

    “When are you marrying my sister?”

    Harry had laughed. “If you think I’m announcing tonight, you’re dead wrong.”

    “Why?”

    “There’s no way I’m ruining this for you,” he had replied with a soft smile, and then he had kissed Ginny.

    Ron remembered kissing his best friend, sensing Harry and Ginny beside them, remembered tangling his hands in Hermione’s fancy hair, much to her mock disdain.

    He remembered uproarious laughter from his brothers and Harry when both he and Hermione ended up with cake smeared across their faces. Remembered bidding everyone goodbye, remembered watching a rather timid Neville spin a grinning, distant Luna across the floor.

    Ron remembered Bill dancing with Fleur, their laughter jumbling into a mix of silver and brass, and the smirk on both their faces as they sneaked behind a bookshelf in the monstrous reception hall. Fred dancing with Angelina, George with Katie, and Oliver Wood laughing at the fates of his best beaters.

    Really, though, he remembered Hermione.

                        ~

    Draco Malfoy traced the scar on his stomach. The pearly path was a familiar one to him; the thick stripe began just below his navel, still slightly swollen, and made a graceful white arc, up and to the left, tapering as it went. It ended with a small pearl drop a few inches below his breastbone.

    He winced, remembering the evening he had gotten the scar. Without pulling his soiled shirt down, he reached across his stomach. Hands shaking from hunger and weakness, he picked the crusty old bread from the floor. Without speculating, he nibbled the brown end without really tasting it.

    Ravenously, he scraped the crumbs off of the filthy concrete floor. Ate them one by one, feeling the calories enter his bloodstream. He stretched, a hopeless effort, and leaned against the stone wall.

    He was so thin, now. The conditions were eating away at his muscles, he knew, degrading the strength and collapsing the capillaries to his brain. His pale skin burned with cold against the floor. It was Hell.

    In an exhausted ritual, he pushed his shirt down. Tentatively, his hand found it’s way down his pants, the too-big, once black but now grey, prison-issued pants. Instantly he felt his body relax against the rock wall, giving in to his own pleasure. He moaned slightly against his own palm, feeling the pulse. His eyes flickered shut.

    He groaned again at the orgasm, the final perfection, and felt the stickiness of gratification ooze into his pants. Days, weeks, months - for he had truly lost count of time - ago he would have squirmed from the crude dampness it left behind, but now he simply eased against the wall, cool sweat shining on his brow. Now, he did not care.

    Banging. He heard the sound echo throughout the prison, and he moved, jerkily, to the iron bars. Another prisoner, I suppose.

    Another prisoner, indeed. The man appeared only seconds later, dragged by two dementors and flanked by four more. Prisoners all down the row were hanging out of their cells, curious yet bored, and the man stared at them all with terror in his eyes.

    Draco could only see his hair from here. The silver hair shone dully in the grey light, and he blinked in unrealized shock. A dementor from a nearby cell opened the iron door of the cell across from Draco.

    Realization scalded Draco’s mind. His father. Incarcerated, escaped, here again. The dementors were back.

    They were thirty yards away, at best. Draco made up his mind. Face set, he stripped his shirt off. Tied to sleeves together, looped around a bar in the window.

    With a last glance at the impending man, he slid his head through the loop.

    Most prisoners retreat quietly to the furthest corner of their cell when they are first detained. Lucius merely screamed. It was the last thing his son ever heard.

    Far away, in a huge, almost-empty ballroom, Ron Weasley kissed Hermione Granger. Weasley, that is, he reminded himself with a grin. Harry Potter slid his arm around Ginny, smiling, and they left the two alone.