The Curse of Charon

Chapter 3

I hated him. I always hated him. Maybe not from the moment I met him, but certainly from whenever I knew enough about him to know that he was trouble. He was cruel and nasty, he taunted the weak and the unfortunate mercilessly, he tried whenever possible to make my life a misery, he played foul at Quidditch. He even tried to kill me during the matches. He did absolutely everything he could have possibly done to make me abhor him. I used to carry my invisibility cloak around with me in case I happened to see him in the corridors. I used to spend my night thinking up ways to kill him and make it look like and accident. I used to do so many things that lovers never even dream of. So why is it that, after I sit and talk to him for a little while, I think I'm in love? I mean, I went out with Hermione for nearly a year, and never even thought about love. And I've only really known Draco for a few days. It's pure madness.

The rain is pouring down my window in little trickles, tiny rivers of useless water. Like all my useless flesh. When every inch of my body is burning for him, and every inch of my mind is telling me not to be so stupid.

I'm all right. I'm normal. I'm not having crazed fantasies, of course not. I tell myself just to ignore what happened. Nothing really happened. We just talked. Talking is nothing. I'll be fine. I don't need to see him tomorrow. I don't need to know he's alive just to get to sleep at night. Not me.

*

It was cold. Very cold. Freezing, in fact. Definitely cold enough to make Draco realise that he couldn't stay outside, despite the jumper and thick socks he had put on during a moment of sanity whilst dressing. The roots of the old tree felt like ice, not the gentle warm wood they should have been, and he could see his breath floating out in front of him, feet ahead of his mouth. There were little pieces of what looked like hail, glinting in the grass where the dew had frozen solid, and small, frost icicles had begun to form on the boughs over his head. They sparkled softly, innocently, like quartz or crystal, saying 'touch me,' waiting to laugh at anyone who tried.

Much as he wanted to stay forever, to slowly freeze to death and hopefully, in return for his life, be granted the reward of being part of this scene forever, for the view he saw before him to be frozen along with his corpse. But he couldn't die this way. He had seen his own death so many times, sometimes playing over and over again in his head for hours at a time, sometimes just a random, gruesome flash of it.

Sometimes it haunted him, sometimes it seemed like the easiest way out. It was just the finality of it all. He hadn't been brought up to believe in an afterlife, and he didn't want to think that there was just nothing after all the trouble. That when you died you were just...phut. But then again, sometimes, when the pain was just too much, that nothingness seemed like a distant relief. On those nights, he would really punish himself, crying his eyes out as he took his father's letter-opener to his wrists, wishing he had the guts to go deeper.

He went back inside, through a door that very few people knew about, and climbed up the cold stone stairs back up to the castle. Before he even realised what he was doing, he began going in a direction he had only ever gone a few times before; to the Gryffindor common room. Something deep within him knew that there, and only there, could he find the comfort and safety that, at his simplest emotional level, he craved.

He had only been inside the common room twice in his six years at Hogwarts, both times to play pranks on the Gryffindors. The last time had been back in his third year, helping Flint with an elaborate trick, and he had no idea of the password.

He saw Neville Longbottom outside, and despite his hate of threats, he held the shorter boy up to the wall by his neck and promised to rob him of his nose if he didn't open the portrait hole. Neville, being rather fond of his nose, opened the hole.

Neville scuttled off towards his room, and Draco was left alone in the room, or so he thought. He leant heavily on the mantelpiece and stared into the blazing fire that burnt below him. It made his head spin, and he had to grab at the piece of wood above the fireplace to stop himself from swaying.

"Are you alright?" asked a soft, female voice from a dark corner of the room. Draco jumped, having thought he was alone.

"I-I'm fine," he stuttered. "I didn't realise anyone else was here."

"It's ok, you're not hurting me. I wasn't going to say anything, but you don't look too well. Can I help you?" Draco squinted at the figure in the soft chair in the corner of the room. Sensing how he felt, she rose and took a few steps towards him. The firelight flickered and played against her shiny red hair, and a shadow fell across half of her face.

"You're Ginny Weasley," Draco said, looking surprised. When did she get so good-looking? he thought. She had matured a lot in the last few years, and looked a lot older than when he had last taken any notice of her. For some strange reason he wanted to hold her in his arms and kiss her.

"Please don't be offended by this," he said, and stepped towards her. He swept her hair back over her shoulders, cupped her face in his hands and drew her up to his lips. She smelt sweet and feminine, and after they had kissed he buried himself in her hair, breathing her in.

"I'm so sorry," he said afterwards. "That was so inappropriate, so entirely wrong of me."

"But it felt so damn good," she said quietly, looking up into his eyes. They were cold once again. While they had kissed, it felt like a part of him had opened up to her, and now it was sealed off again, lost forever in the ever-moving realms of time and space.

"It did," he replied, looking not at her but at the floor about three feet behind her. He had kissed her, perforated her heart, and now he could only look through her, piercing it entirely.

"So is that it?" she asked, in a voice that didn't belong to her. "Is this where we end?"

"Yes it is," he said flatly, and wandered towards the boys' dormitories.

*

The strangest thing happened. He came in here, in my common room, and he knew my name. We hardly talked but he kissed me, and it was everything I imagined it would be. It was fantastic, it was elevating, and it sent me into a thousand ecstasies. But it was crushing as well. It was pointless, and I still don't know why he did it. It was like one of my sad, lonely dreams, and a dream is all it was. He wasn't himself. He wasn't who he normally is. For a start, who he really is despises all my family and me. The Draco that kissed me seemed so confused, so out of touch with his mind and so uncomfortable in his own skin and body. I don't think there was a point to it; it was just a blip where our lives collided. It only served to further illustrate something I can never have. God damn him.

Worst of all, I keep thinking, shall I end it all now? Cause myself no more pain?

*

"Where are the Zabinis, Lucius?" asked the Dark Lord of one of his most loyal servants. Lucius scanned the room, trying to spot the couple. This was not the first time they hadn't attended a Death Eater meeting in the last few weeks.

"Perhaps they are with their new master," a tall man muttered.

"Speak up, Ralston. Share with us what you have to say," Lord Voldemort shouted, above the slight buzz of gossip that arose from the Death Eaters.

"The Zabinis are unfaithful, my lord. They have been sneaking around for weeks now, and have turned their backs on us; we who helped them bcome what they are today. They have been seen in the company of Dumbledore. I saw them with my own eyes!" Ralston spat on the floor after he said Dumbledore's name. Many Death Eaters gasped.

"Fine eyes they are too," Bellatrix Lestrange muttered, and her husband jabbed her with his elbow.

"I had suspected as much," Voldemort said quietly. "I'll make sure they pay."

*

I can remember it like it was yesterday. Now I can put a name to the face I have wondered about for so many years. The meeting of the Order had to be temporarily postponed, because Roger Zabini fell off his chair. At least, I didn't know he was Roger Zabini, or that the pretty redhead next to him was his wife Rose, or that the baby on her lap was their daughter Blaise. And they probably didn't know they were sitting across the table from a werewolf. All I knew was that they were new recruits, who had volunteered to fill the huge, gaping spaces left by Gideon and Fabian Prewett. People that they didn't know they had no chance of living up to.

Dumbledore seemed to be the only one aware of who they really were, at least at that time. And it was he who adjourned the meeting when Roger fell off his chair. Of course, he didn't just fall off his chair. He fell off his chair because his left arm burst into flames. Dumbledore pulled put his wand and performed an extinguishing spell. I can still remember the stench of charred flesh, the pus-filled welts that bubbled on under the surface of his skin. How he still screamed in pain after he had passed out. The look on Dumbledore's face as he worked out what Zabini had sacrificed to join the Order of the Phoenix.

After a couple of days in St Mungo's his skin was healed, but it didn't do him any good. Voldemort had sent him a message, one he couldn't ignore, one that burnt his skin away. Voldemort made him a promise. A promise he, or at least one of his cronies, fulfilled soon enough.

The kiss of death was upon Zabini's lips.

*

Blaise hadn't been feeling well for quite a while. A few weeks, maybe more. It was nothing she could define or describe, just a general feeling of weakness and lethargy. There was nothing she could do about it. She had tried countless ointments, unguents, pep-up charms. Even some of the Muggle pills she had found lying around the school, belonging to one of the Muggle-born children. Some of them still argued that Muggle remedies worked just as well and insisted on bringi them to school. Blaise had taken a few, even though she had no idea what they were, even though she knew not to take anything that hadn't been prescribed for her. At least the old Blaise knew that. Now she was a different Blaise, and one that would do anything to feel better.

Absolutely anything. Even end it all, if she had to. If nothing else could help her, if nothing could make her feel normal again, maybe death was the best option. Maybe it was the only way out.

Before she tried anything that drastic, though, she would see Madam Pomfrey. She decided to give it a week, see if it got any better, and then go to the hospital wing.

*

Harry was alone in his dormitory, sitting on the windowsill and gazing out onto the forest, when he heard a knock. Neville had locked himself in the bathroom with a book full of calming spells and a worried expression on his usually pleasant face. Ron was out walking with Hermione, and a little help from the invisibility cloak. Harry wished they would just hurry up and announce the fact that they were an item. It was rather obvious to everyone who knew them. Dean and Seamus were nowhere to be found. Harry wished he could think they were with their girlfriends, but he knew it was more likely that they were with each other.

"Come in," he called. "It's not locked." There was a click and a swish as the door opened, and a few footsteps.

"I had to come," said a voice that was instantly recognisable and a little hoarser than normal. "Strange things have been going on in my head. It hurts every time I think about you, and it hurts every time I don't."

"And I feel like I've never felt before," said Harry, finishing Draco's sentence for him.

"Yes!" Draco said, with a passion in his voice that Harry had never heard before. "You feel that too?"

"Every hour of every day," Harry replied wearily, hanging his head and sighing into his chest. He leant his head against the window, his hair making tiny patterns in the condensation. The rain still poured down the cold glass panes, making the world outside seem a very deep shade of blue.

"It's not good. It's not at all good. It's doing things to me, weird things that I can't control. Like it used to be sometimes, when I was with Blaise. That girl did things to me, and now you're doing them too. Every feeling I have, every sensation is suddenly magnified. I can hardly describe it. The light that those eyes of yours, those awful eyes that I imagine myself drowning in, reflect back into mine tears my head apart with searing pain." Draco sat down on the edge of Harry's bed and flopped backwards onto it, hands over his face.

"I keep telling myself this is insane," said Harry, both to Draco and himself. "That I'm a fool, I hardly know what to feel about you. We've only spoken to each other like human beings twice, and I'm calling it love."

"Love?" Draco asked incredulously. "I may not know what love is, but it certainly isn't this."

"Don't be such a fool!" Harry spat. "What else could it be? What else could make every nerve in me tingle at the very thought of you? Of you, especially."

Draco lifted himself off the bed, and slowly walked towards Harry, whose face was turned towards the windowpane. He tilted Harry's chin towards himself.

"What else could make me want to do this?" he asked softly, and pressed his lips against Harry's. Harry did not pull away, and they kissed for a long, long time, feeling the gentle pulses of each other's lips and the soft sensation as their mouths brushed around each other, until Draco backed off.

"I can't keep doing this," he said angrily, and slapped his left hand with his right. "I can't keep going around kissing people!"

"Who else have you kissed?" Harry asked, more curious than angry.

"Oh, he asks!" Draco said, in a very strange tone that sounded almost like he was arguing with himself. "Oh who else have you been kissing lately? Who else's lips have you shared? No one much, only Ginny Weasley! Only Ginny bloody Weasley!"

"Some people like being kissed," Harry said thoughtfully, thinking of how he had seen Ginny looking at Draco, pining in her eyes, dribbling slightly on the toast in front of her at breakfast. Then he returned to his senses. "Go back to your own room and straighten your head out. I'll still be here if you need me later on. I'll always be here. I'm on your side." He went over to Draco and kissed him on the lips, holding onto the lapels of his shirt gently, but didn't linger. Draco left the room, walking with a slight limp and muttering something to himself. Harry felt a pang of sympathy for him. Who knew what all this confusion was doing to him inside? Who knew how it was tearing him apart?

There was another click, another swish, and the bathroom door opened. Neville's round, amiable face was pale, and he was shaking slightly inside his navy and white striped dressing gown, with what looked like anger.

"You bitch. How dare you go around kissing people like - people like him?"

"I'm sorry, Neville, but I can't help how I feel. I didn't know you found it so offensive." This didn't help to placate Neville.

"You know how I feel about Malfoy. You know he's made my life a misery for the last six years. I thought that perhaps you valued our friendship a bit more than some fling with Malfoy, you pair of fucking faggots, you poofters, sick bastards. And you of all people. I had guessed he was, effeminate little shite, but you? Why, Harry? Why?"

The angry boy picked up a glass of water from inside the bathroom and threw it at Harry. Time seemed to slow right down as it somersaulted through the air, centrifugal force keeping the contents inside. Luckily it missed Harry, but instead hit a sconce hanging on the all the wall, extinguished the candle it held, the only source of light other than the moon, and broke into thousands of shards, each one gleaming in the silver moonlight. One or two pieces flew off and hit Harry in the cheek, and lines of blood trickled down his face. The water drenched his hair. Neville was still shaking, and he was breathing heavily, watching the blood drip on the floor, too surprised by his own actions and words to move.

Ron walked in, was silent for a moment and then swore loudly when he saw what had happened.

"Holy shit! What happened here?" he asked, gob smacked, looking at the blood and the glass and trying to piece together what had happened. Harry said nothing, and neither did Neville, although a tear rolled slowly down his face.

"Why am I always the one who gets the raw deal?" he asked.

No one answered.