Threadbare

Fourteen: History

Draco.

Lucius remains silent, trying to stare you to death. But you don't flinch under his gaze.

You inhale, and your breath catches in your throat. There is a clenching sensation in your chest: the kind that usually warns you that tears are coming. You concentrate on his robe clasp, trying not to blink. When he speaks, though, you instinctively look up, and in his eyes you see the strange shimmering glaze of reminiscence.

"I only want the best for you, Draco," he says. He directs his eyes to your pocket, where the ring and necklace are, then hastily looks away. The glaze fades.

He places a Galleon on the desk and charms it. He gestures to you, with a slight nod of his head, to touch it. He refuses to say anything more.

You take it with a sigh, and are grateful when you find yourself back at Hogwarts.

~~~

Harry.

It feels like a millennium before Remus finally finds his voice. You are quiet and sick of secrets. You always knew you could trust Remus to tell you the truth, but never the whole of it. It must be attached to the core of your identity, somehow: the fate of never knowing all you ought to know.

Remus clears his throat, playing with his fingers.

"James..." He clears his throat again. You wish he would just get on with it.

"James, as you know, was very popular back when we were in school. Many were attracted by his charm. But there were a few who despised him, of course, and no one was as open about her dislike as your mother Lily."

You notice how pale Remus looks, and remember that tomorrow is a full moon; but somehow you guess the moon's not all that is making him look ill.

"James was always in love with her from afar but she never deigned to notice until school was nearly over. As a result, James began... relations... with many students, trying to find someone else he could love who would return his feelings. He had affairs, most of them flings. But there were some which were more serious."

Your heart rate slowly ascends. Your mind points, by instinct, the directions in which Remus's narrative can go; all of them are so vile and undesirable that suddenly you half wish not to hear any more. Remus's eyes concentrate gravely on his own trembling hands and the wood grain of his desk.

"Remus," you start, almost in a plea, in the same moment he says,

"Lucius Malfoy..."

And then he looks at you and you are stung by the regret that you cannot change the past.

Gravid silence, and then you ask, "How long?"

"A year and a half."

You take a deep nervous breath.

"James broke it off when Lily started liking him halfway through seventh year. Lucius, as you can imagine, did not take it lightly. Plotted revenge and whatnot. And he got it, somehow. When he joined You-Know-Who's ranks. And when... well."

But you don't care about Lucius.

"Did he—did my father love him?"

His eyes shift and you know the answer.

"Evidently. At first we thought it was another fling, but soon enough we all thought they'd end up living together. Of course, we also thought James had gotten over Lily." Remus shrugs dismissively.

"So Lucius..."

"Yes. Loved him back."

You stare at him. "Are you trying to tell me that my father was the reason behind what Lucius did twenty years later?"

"It may have been, Harry."

You stand abruptly, knocking your chair back. It falls with a clatter. You make no move to pick it up; your senses are dizzy with disbelief and your head echoes with the reminder that nothing, nothing can be done. Remus's face is more ashen than ever and afraid of what you might be thinking. He alternates looks between your eyes and your collar, your eyes and your shoulders. You end his miserable uncertainty by turning around and walking out the door.

~~~

Draco.

The Slytherin common room is too crowded to think in. You slip past your friends to take a walk in the vast halls of Hogwarts, to reflect on how to make things better with Harry, to get your friendship with him to go back to the way it was. For hours you pass through halls without windows and halls with a million sleeping portraits. You go to the Gryffindor portrait, but when the Fat Lady asks for the password you know you are not yet ready to enter. You reach the Owlery and watch the owls hoot and eat and primp their wings, mindless of a world besides their own, at least until they are given their next task.

Sometimes you wish you could be like them: free from worries and missed opportunities, from pain and regret. But then, if you had never known Harry, you would never have felt what it was like to be complete.

You know you want to get back together with him, but not how. All plans of careful planning, however, are unexpectedly called off.

You reach the wide corridor with the stained glass window and see him by the wall across it. His knees are drawn up to his chest as he watches the torchlight make the painting alive. He doesn't notice you step closer. The sighs he heaves here and there tell you there's something on his mind.

You decide to bother him sometime else. But at the same moment he spots you and a smile spreads across his face—too quickly, as if he is relying on automatic response and not the way he feels.

"Draco," he greets. Hearing him speak your name releases a surge of heat in your blood.

"Hello," you say, flopping down on the floor beside him. As you lean your back against the wall, you realize how distant that sounded, and try to fuel a conversation: "How's things?"

"Good, good," he replies dismissively. "And you?"

"I'm quite all right." You examine the stained glass from afar, noting the painted rooms and halls that you haven't been to before. Perhaps one of these days you and Harry could explore them together. From the corner of your eye you can see him turning his head to look at you. You pretend you don't know, and try angling your face to let the dim light play like chiaroscuro on your skin. Maybe he'll find you beautiful again.

"You're beautiful, Draco," he says. "You've always been."

It scares you when you realize he might have actually learned something from Trelawney. And then you smile to yourself thinking that it might have been from all those evenings you and he used to spend together.

"You know, I missed you." You touch his wrist with tentative fingers and then curl your hand around it, absorbing the warmth of his skin. He nods solemnly, studying his shoes.

"I—I missed you too." He edges a bit closer. Only a little bit, but close enough to merit hope that everything will improve and all problems will someday be resolved. You tilt your head and examine him, from the ruffled jet-black of his hair, to the wistful green of his eyes, to the rose of his cheeks, tinted with the orange light. His jumper is a faded gray. His trousers fit him well as so few of his clothes do. His sneakers are scruffy and old. Exactly the Harry you used to know.

But even if you know he's doing well in school and he's eating properly (at least, from what you've seen of him during meals), he appears weary and thin, like he has been thinking too much.

You want to make it better. More than anything.

You reach out your other hand and caress his cheek with the backs of your fingers. He looks at you under half-closed eyelids. You gently cup his jaw with your palm. He leans into your touch, a pout on his lips, as if he yearns for this but wants to avoid the bitterness he feels at the same time. You realize that sometimes there are memories worth remembering, no matter how much they hurt. And sometimes, to find happiness, you must risk your heart, your spirit, your life.

You might end up hurting him, and hurting yourself as well. But there is nothing more than this. And you know Harry feels the same way.

You lean forward and capture his lips in yours.

~~~

Harry.

You place your palm flat on his chest and gently push him away. His quick intake of breath is audible; he looks at you, wide-eyed with surprise and disappointment. His lips are parted, at a loss for words.

"I'm sorry," you begin, grappling for an explanation. When you blink, the image of his father and yours burns into the backs of your eyelids. You certainly cannot tell him that his kiss reminded you of the matter you came to this place to think about. The truth is terrible enough as it is; there is no point letting him discover it.

"No," he says, coming to his senses. "It was my fault. I mean, I should have asked..."

"It's all right." You wave a dismissive hand, though your lips are raw with both yearning and revulsion, and your head is spinning with confused memories. Conversations with Remus, pictures of your parents' wedding, Lucius's hands on your flesh... "It's just that... I have things to think about. And I... God, Draco, I can't deal with this. Not yet. Not today."

"I understand," he says, getting to his feet. "I understand completely."

"I would like to talk to you again."

"I'm glad to hear that."

You know that tone. That lighthearted, condescending tone he uses when he's impatient or anxious, as if there are too many other things on his mind for him to continue the conversation. You take a deep breath to apologize again, but something hot carves a path down your cheek. You bring up your fingers and realize that your eyes are wet with tears.

"Harry..."

His eyes are so like his father's.

You sob without knowing why or how, and your weakness fills you with such shame that you bury your face in your arms.

"Please go, Draco. Please."

At first there is stillness. Then a sigh. Then a pair of shuffling feet.

His footsteps echo sadly down the hall.

~~~

Draco.

...

Days before last year's summer began, you had a picnic with him under a tree by the lake. It was far from the castle and no one was there to see; you were free to feed him muffin bits with your fingers and let him lick off the sugar. You sipped Butterbeer from the same bottle, though it wouldn't have mattered if you hadn't, because you snogged him until you both had the same saliva and were giddy with gladness.

"As a matter of interest, do you think we could ever go back to being enemies?" you asked.

He answered, "I don't think I'd want us to. But it would be easy, I think. All I have to do is annoy you."

"Since you can no longer annoy me by existing, it's not going to be as easy as it used to." You smiled at him, and he smiled a sly smile back.

"No, no, it'll be easy. All I have to do is ignore you. You're so hungry for attention that I don't think you'd survive."

You shook your head, murmured "Shut up," and snogged him again.

...

Of course, you know Harry is not deliberately trying to annoy you. You somewhat wish he were, because then there would be nothing else to it. No tears and confusion. But when he refuses to acknowledge your existence for the next two days, you are worried sick and fearful for what might be happening. You want to do so much for him: solve his problems, throw away his troubles, make his life as enjoyable as it can be. But you don't even know what's wrong, and he doesn't seem to want to tell you.

You take out the present he gave you. The Hungarian Horntail skips about blowing pathetic spires of smoke into the air. Whenever it spreads its wings and attempts to fly, it lands face first on the nightstand surface. It discovers the edge of the table and decides to jump. With barely a second to spare, you manage to catch it before it can destroy itself. Its life seems to be as aimless as yours.

You remember flipping through some of Pansy's magazines during hellish History of Magic periods. They contained articles on every kind of relationship problem remotely possible, a bulk of which dealt with—yes—attention-hungry boyfriends. You wish—and this you think with a laugh—that you had remembered at least a few of the definitions. And you wish there were some charm you could perform on yourself to see if you have real cause for anxiety or are just craving for attention. Harry said he would like to talk to you again, but he has not even owled, not even so much as looked at you in the Great Hall. You are grossly uncertain whether he is waiting for you, or if you should wait for him.

You are nearly miserable with confusion when, on Friday afternoon, in the middle of double Potions, you catch him watching you when he should be chopping his beetroot. He hastily looks away, pretending that he was checking the notes on the chalkboard all the while.

You smile in relief, knowing that it's time.

TBC.