Beautiful

He loves her so much that it burns him. He does not know how he survives without her. With every sunrise he wants to die; every new day means another eternity spent sleepwalking through his empty existence. Sometimes he dreams of her, so vividly that he can taste her, the strange mixture of sugar and sorrow he remembers so well. Sometimes he sees a flash of color in the corner of his eye and his heart pounds fast and loud in his chest and then he turns his head and knows it is not her, and the disappointment that follows nearly kills him every time. He whispers her name into the heavy dark of night, half-expecting to hear her voice answering him. But she is never there. She will never be there.

He thinks she told him once that she loved him, but he cannot be sure. Theirs was never an affair of roses and midnight walks in the moonlight and sweet romance. It was one of sex and blood and lust. He never looked into her eyes and told her that he loved her. Sometimes when they kissed she would murmur words into his neck, but they were half-formed words, incomprehensible, ones he could not understand. Perhaps he is mistaken. Perhaps she never did say she loved him, after all. How could she hurt him if she had loved him? It is easier, almost, to pretend she had never loved him. If he can believe that then he can accept the pain.

Pain. It gnaws at him, eating away at his heart. Sometimes he touches a blade to his skin, skin so pale it is almost translucent, and sometimes he presses it down and drags it across his wrists, making little spider-web patterns of blood. He always stops though; he is always able to put down the blade and walk away. He knows some who cannot bring themselves to tear away, some who press a little deeper, a little harder, each time. He is not like that. He is not crazy. He is a Malfoy. Besides, it is not himself who he wants to hurt. It is her. He loves her, yes, but he hates her, hates her so much that he is nearly blinded with it. There is something in him that wants to hold her, to cradle her in his arms, but there is also something in him that wants to break her, to make her scream in ecstasy and in pain.

She never would cry out, he remembers with a sort of bitterness. Sometimes when they made love a half-whimper would escape from her trembling lips, but she would never cry out. He always wondered why she would not. It bothered him, something so small but somehow so important to him. He would scratch her, leaving long bloody furrows in her arms and shoulders, or bite her, hard, but she would never make noise. Afterwards as she lay in his arms, her breathing soft and regular, the blood dried dark on white skin, he would feel guilty for hurting her. But always the next time he would do it again, trying to evoke some reaction from her. In his strange confused logic, if she cried out he would win some unspoken challenge.

He tries to push the memories away, but it is so hard; it is always hard to push away thoughts of things you want the most. He thinks too often of the night that she killed him, the night she shattered his soul into a thousand pieces and walked away without a backward glance. That night she had been cold and distant when they made love, and afterwards she had pushed him away and gotten up, feet padding softly on the floor as she walked to the window. She had stood there for a long time, her face cast in shadows, and he could not tell what she was thinking. She looked so small and fragile in the moonlight, so pale, with skin like milk poured onto a slender frame.

Then she had turned to him, and there was an odd look in her eyes, one he could not fathom. "Harry has asked me to marry him," she had said in a strangely formal voice, as if she were talking to a stranger. When she said this, a great chasm had opened in his heart, and he plunged into it, falling further and further away from the light. Blindly he got to his feet and staggered towards her, tears coursing down his face, but there had been no sympathy in her expression. When he put his hands on her bare shoulders she had flinched away from his touch, bending to gather up her clothing, as if she had to escape from this room, and soon.

He knows that she never promised it would last, their secret love, their meetings in the middle of the night when no one would see them, but he could not help but think it would. He had always thought, with a vague sort of certainty, that she would bear his children, Malfoy children, that they would grow old together, that she would leave Potter forever and they would let their love be known to the world at last. It was a foolish idea, he knows that now. Of course Harry Potter would take her from him. Harry has taken everything from him; why should he let Draco keep this one last thing, this desperate all-consuming love?

He wakes one morning with these memories weighing heavily on his mind, and he reaches a decision; a decision he had made long ago but is only now realizing consciously. In his mind he knows that he cannot go on any longer without snapping completely. And he is a Malfoy. Malfoys do not waste away, chained to hospital beds, raving madly. He is in control of his life, and he will be in control of his death.

He takes a Muggle bus there. It is a filthy bus, the seats coated with a layer of dirt, the windows so coated in grime that it is hard to see through them, but he is past the point of caring. The driver has some trouble finding it, but at last Draco looks out the dirty window and sees it. When he reaches the front of the bus, he tosses a gold coin at the man, who stares at it for a moment as if doubting its authenticity, and then pulls the bus away in a hurry, leaving Draco standing there in the dust.

The house is still a little ways away, but he slips on his invisibility cloak just for safety. There are hordes of men, women, and children scattered across the yard, most marked as Weasleys by scarlet hair. It is some sort of family gathering; perhaps a birthday or an anniversary or such. He walks among them, careful not to bump into anyone, and goes into the house.

She is sitting in a chair in the middle of the living room, staring at something in the distance no one can see. It is strange, how everyone moves around her, taking extra care not to disturb her. She is as beautiful as she was when he last saw her, two years ago, but that does not surprise him. There is a sadness that hangs around her, and he wonders briefly--but no, there is no time to waste.

He kneels beside her, invisible, and presses his lips against her ear. She starts, turning her eyes to where he sits. Although he knows she cannot see him, he still feels her gaze piercing through him. She knows it is him.

"I'll come," she whispers, barely moving her mouth. "Go and wait for me."

He gets up and leaves, silently, but he can feel her eyes following the empty patch of air where he is, as he goes out the back door and across the yard, into the woods.

He does not have long to wait. After a few moments, she comes out of the house. She knows exactly where he is, and she strides towards his hiding place, her hair blowing around her sad face in a playful breeze.

She steps up beside him, and he lets the invisibility cloak fall to the ground in a silvery heap of shimmering cloth. From the house drift snatches of sound; a song, a slow song, playing from the radio. No words are spoken between them, but both understand. She puts her hands on his shoulders and he puts his on her waist and they sway, back and forth, to a nearly inaudible beat. He looks at her face, memorizing every detail of it, and she looks back at him, an expression of expectancy in her eyes. Finally he leans forward and kisses her, full on the mouth. She breaks away, staring at him. This is not what she is waiting for.

He wraps his fingers around the hilt of the knife strapped to his belt. She looks down at it, and back at him. He draws it out and gazes at it for a second, and then meets her eyes. "I have to," he says, as if he is defending himself. She nods.

"I know," she says softly. Hesitantly, she reaches up and brushes a strand of hair out of his face, resting her hand on his cheek. His eyes blur with tears, tears of rage and of sorrow.

"I wish-" he begins, but she covers his mouth with her small hand.

"It is too late," she says, smiling, but there is no amusement in that smile.

"I loved you," he whispers, his silver eyes staring deeply into her brown ones.

"Of course you did," she murmurs back. "If you hadn't then I wouldn't have been able to hurt you."

"Why did you do it?" he asks. She shrugs.

"Who can say?" she replies. "I can't." There is a silence, and at last she speaks again. "Do what you have come to do."

"Yes," he says. "Yes, it is time."

****

Somewhere in the middle of the woods, a girl with red-gold hair like the sun lies in the arms of a boy with silver-blonde hair like the moon. They are probably twenty or so, but they look far younger, like small sleeping children, faces filled with trust and innocence. Beneath them there the ground is wet with dark blood, and the sunlight glints off of a silver dagger. The air is still and there is no noise but silence. They are beautiful.