Autumn Leaves

PART TWO

"If they are true, these hopes that from thee flow,

If it is real, this sweet expectancy,

Break down the walls that stand 'twix me and thee,

For pain in prison pent hath double woe."

-Michelangelo

***

The wind around him plays with the mirth of a child, throwing leaves, feathers and other bits of playthings at each other in an endless and exuberant game of catch around the many turrets and towers high on the roof. He sits on the ledge of a window in one of these wind filled towers, legs dangling a precipitous drop away from the outcropping of the outer castle walls. His wild black hair and woollen cloak whip out from around him, bits of yellow and red leaves sticking out from everywhere. His face is upturned towards the whipping wind, cheeks like roses unfurling in the cold.

Another stands behind him, a young man of the same age and height but with avidly contrasting appearance; the flaxen hair orderly where the other's was mussed, robes immaculate where the other's was messy, and no wind turns his cloak into billowing sails. They lie smooth and creaseless, untouched by nature, unassailable to the rushing leaves.

And still more avidly contrasting than their appearance was the fact that one has ceased to be living, and the other have yet to die.

The one still alive turns to look at his friend, tracing with his own dark eyes the white radiance exuding from his eternal face. Has it really been two years from the night that he had found his friend, and this a new autumn?

Two years, since he followed that divining light to the abandoned Slytherin dorms in the dungeons, and meet Draco Malfoy.

Two years, and now they are of the same age, him for a year, and Draco for eternity.

Two years of friendship, and they have reach so pleasant a parity between them that he is ready to abandon reality, mortality or immortality, and forget that time passes only for one for them.

He is beginning to forget of the life beyond him, and has only eyes for the lifeless before him, which for some reason was perfection; pure and pristine.

And he feels that it is because of curiosity perhaps, or wonderment. Ash would usually never try to answer any curiosity within him. When he sees something beautiful, he is never one to crave possession or seek control. He would simply let his feelings flow through and out of him as naturally as it is water, as if his body is a channel. His eyes would follow it meditatively and without excitement, but his face would be fixated, as if for that moment, he was living though that beautiful thing.

But today, he is breathless; he is caught in a new desire, to touch.

Today, he wants to connect, and to communicate. Today he wants to feel beneath his fingers the tangible evidence of his friend's proximity. He wants to believe that there is something substantial behind the dead mist of grey which shrouded the other boy's form, pulsing within so strongly with something it must surely be alive.

He twists around awkwardly, stretching out a hand, and after a brief hesitation, guides his fingers into brushing closer to the Slytherin boy. In one part of his mind he is numb, and feels like an independent entity that watches his own form with the same detachment that he would usually employ to watch the affairs of others around him.

The touch is like a death which he feels his own instinct driven vitality beating wildly against, and his eyes widen at the impact. Then he wonders no more, for frozen tips of miniscule needles shoots through his fingerstips, entering veins and slithering up his arms.

The iciness radiate outwards so that he is eloped with cold from the inside and his blood begin to chip and freeze beneath his still warm skin. It writhes up to his chest and seizes his heart in a fist of silver pins, to press deeper the sharp icy shards that he is sure would eventually stop his breathing.

Something within him begins to shriek, a will or instinct for life that he had always supposed would not be audible above a whisper. His fingers recoil and he draws back sharply, the violence of the motion almost throwing him out of the ledge into a drop of a thousand feet to the unforgiving courtyard pavement below.

When he recovers his balance and his breathing, he finds that Draco has not moved. The Ghost still stares out at him from glassy grey eyes, as grey as the lack of life within him.

At this very moment, staring at his naïve apathy, his unconsciousness, Ash feels the chasm of separation between life and death diving them like an abyss, inaccessible even in the most wistful of dreams.

He wonders if their friendship, if it could even be called such, as one born solely of dreams, his own dreams, seen solely through the prisms of his own grey green eyes, a kaleidoscope which landscape only existed on one end and is nothing more than a distortion of the true nature all things.

The dull whistle of the winds behind him caresses him mockingly, its currents laying flat his hair in a gentle reminder him that if he had fallen over the ledge and smashed into the gardens below, Draco would probably not even have noticed.

Even if he had then become a Ghost as well, willingly keeping him company for the rest of eternity, he doubted that Draco would remember him more than intermittently in between the memories lived and relived even onto the death that must have taken both life and sanity from the Slytherin youth.

He looks at the bits of red and gold leaves that had blown themselves into his black robes, notices that none of them are whole, their bloom of scarlet colour actually darkened with rot. The same red leaves that, so far away, had looked so perfect in form and shade.

Not for the first time he wondered who would cast such a curse on him.

On the both of them.

Hesitantly, he pushes himself up from the ledge. He notices that his hands are shaking, the floor rippling like water beneath him, and that he can hardly stand. He stumbles towards the exuding cold of the Ghost; the newly enlightened neurons on his skin physically shudder and crawl against the grip of his mental willpower as he approaches the glowing spectral again.

"Draco?" a whisper, only slightly above the rustling winds echoing through a hollow chamber.

The Ghost stares lifelessly past him, steeped in memories which had long crumbled into pieces like the dead autumn leaves swirling about their feet.

"Draco." he calls again, and the Gryffindor draws as closely as he dares, his own living eyes dark with pleading upon the dead, milky orbs of the Slytherin who finally stirs. Hazy recognition swirl in grey eyes like a fine white mist, and the Ghost parts his cold white lips to speak.

"Autumn..."

"Yes Draco. It's autumn. Look, the trees are shedding. The fall colours are all around us."

"Colours... I remember...Red. Red is for..."

More words than he had ever spoken in a week, and Ash ignored his own tremulous nerves to press on a encouraging "Yes, Draco?"

"Draco. Draco is a name..." the ghostly youth pauses again, trying to remember the feelings from another place hidden deep within him. He frowns and shakes his head. "Time passes and it becomes inconsequential..." then he straightens, remembering the lines he had clutched to for so many years, waiting for something or someone that Ash doubts that the dead boy even remembers.

"I was once known as Draco Malfoy..."

Ash closes his eyes and looks away from the desolate reality of this mumbled reply, the numbing cold on the outside catching up with his painfully beating heart.

At last he had found another more steeped in dreams than he.

***

Despite the near tumble he soon finds himself back at the tower, sitting out of the same ledge, one hand clasped idly around an opened letter, its golden seal of a roaring lion torn away at the head. Their sombre contents however remains not the reason for the pensive air he exudes, but rather because Ash is examining his memories, turning them slowly like the leafs on an album which only seemed to begin two years ago.

The album of his memories are scattered, random thoughts and images playing in which he tries to decipher exactly when he had formed such an strange attachment to another being which was perhaps not even a being at all. Was it during one of the countless times he had returned to those abandoned dorms, drawn by some strange stimulus to seek out the spectral? The times he had cajoled Draco into leaving the dorms in the hopes of waking him up to memories of what life felt had like before he died?

He watches a leaf fall, then another.

But Draco couldn't feel. He felt not the wind that blows, nor the subtle message of approaching winter, nor the rays of the sun on his face.

Neither the scent of autumn in the air, nor the sounds of rain, its wetness like tears of absolution upon the gentle earth; the dead were deprived of all that which those who live takes for granted.

Ash leans further out of the window, further out into the wind and her tumbling leaves. He close his eyes, feeling it all, absorbing it with a greed almost a step away from desperation as he tries to live through the moment for two.

Trying to feel for both him self and the one who died.

He leans further out, fascinated with the giddy feel of the heights, seduced by the whisper of beckoning winds and the occasional leaf which brushed against his face like dried, crinkled tissues. His fingers begin to loosen on the clammy stone walls.

It is an euphoria so different from the time he had almost fallen; when his unprepared heart thought for one brief moment that he was going to die. His fingers slip just a little more, and he thinks that perhaps if he could to let go, he would truly begin to live.

"Hey, Griffindork."

Caught up in the winds, he did not see the stark faced brunette approaching the tower window until she speaks.

He has to twist his head around and crane his neck to look into her face. She looks like a vengeful succubus, her obsidian robes and hair melting into each other, incongruous against stiff, remorseless features. It was easy to see her unconventional, impenetrable beauty, just as it was easy to see why two year later, many still couldn't believe that she came from a family as conformist as the Weasleys, seeing that there was not a single red hair or freckle on her face.

He shifts to the side of the ledge, making space. She raises an eyebrow, but accepts his silent invitation by throwing a long leg over the ledge, striding it like a horse before swinging both legs over the ledge. He is momentarily shoved against the hard wall as she does this, and his skin crawls as his face is pressed against the freezing stones. The sensation carries him back to the cold, to him..

Can one careless touch truly linger so? Even when that which a person touches is not real?

But the cold was real, and if Draco was eloped in the icy death that had Ash felt for that brief moment, then the Slytherin is truly in a place much worse than Hell.

What had prompted the Slytherin to endure such a fate, he wonders. Such a choice.

He shivers again, but it is no longer from the cold. Again he wonders what it is which the Ghost haunts. His gaze drifts to the Slytherin beside him; her head almost tall enough to brush the roof of the window walls.

For two years he had debated telling her that he had uncovered the infamous old dorms, but she had never asked, and he has never ventured to draw apart the veil between their private lives. Instinctively he senses convoluted motives at work in their relationship; in the easy coincidence which she finds him in, at any place or hour, but yet never looks for him whenever he was in the abandoned dorms of Slytherin, or with Draco.

Somehow he does not believe that she is ignorant about his other out-worldly friend.

Angela turns to face him, and he wonders how long she had been watching him. Not just hear on the ledge, but ever since they met.

"Sitting with you is like going deaf."

He smiles. "How is life in Slytherin this week?"

"Better than life in Gryffindor at any time of the year." she says succinctly. "But still... hell, this whole school is pathetic. Wished I could have finished back in Durmstang. My parents must have been too busy getting into each other's pants for seven years to notice the shitty quality of this place, the way they go on and on about Horty-warty-warts. The only entertainment I ever get to see is our most lubricous and greasy Headmaster flapping around like a disgruntled bat."

She makes no secret that she had developed a massive crush on Headmaster Snape since the jello jinx incident two years ago, but the dismissive admission somehow makes it dignified, matured. He notices her idly eyeing the opened letter in his hand while she speaks, obviously intrigued by the decapitated lion's head and wondering if it is a coincidence or a conscious act.

Smiling slightly, he allows his fingers to loosen on the letter, and the gilded parchment falls away, tumbling wildly with the golden leaves towards the castle grounds below. He lifts his head back up at the Slytherin beside him, looked into her flashing, irate eyes with the deathly calm of one who had simply ceased to care.

Angela's face tightens for a moment, a visible contest of wills between her pride and her patience waging across the usually smooth planes of her face. Then, satiated upon some convoluted conclusion, she relaxes and draws away, a corner of her mouth lifting in a silent, acknowledging smirk. Ash looks down at her white hands petting down her robes and withdrawing some muggle cigarettes. As usual he lights it for her with the tip of his wand, then lean back against the wall and watches the Slytherin exhale slowly as she begins one of her stories.

"One of the Slytherins came forward this morning to claim the betting pool I told you about. It seems the old dorms have been found, or will be."

He abandons his relaxed posture, but she ignores him.

"One of the Blaise brothers, campy looking fella. Says his father never talks about it, but he's managed to figure between the lines. I was saying that he should put his money where his mouth is, but he didn't seem perturbed by the fact he hasn't yet laid eyes on the place himself. Has no idea where the place is, I think. Yet."

"How does he plan to find it?"

She leans forward, eyes gleaming. "Tell me what that letter was about."

"Family business."

"And Slytherin business never concerns a Griffindork."

He is silent for long moments.

"I'm going home."

She continues to stare at him, her eyes black and unblinking like a snake.

"My mother is dying."

She seems momentarily disappointed at the paltry results of their barter, and then shrugs nonchalantly the way a gambler would after losing a bet.

"I met her once. Weak looking woman," she tells him, not adding if it is a physical or mental constitution to which she refers.

"Weak because of her medication."

"Weak because of she possess the worse components of Gryffindork sensibilities: blind trust."

He wants to ask her which component of Slytherin sensibility pivots her into seeking out the company of a Gryffindor, but says nothing, and watches as she takes another drag of her cigarette.

As she speaks swirls of milky mist writhe out of her moving lips like live snakes, as if the wisdom of Salazar was personally speaking through one that belonged to him

"People are like potions, Griffindork. Some are virtually indestructible. Some are thin, reedy and weak. Some are rare, others common. There are a thousand ways to make the same potion, and this same potion will turn out a thousand different ways when you do so. I have seen potions lie in dust for years with ingredients dead or inactive..." she arches an eyebrow at him, and continues; "...turn into the most potent of alchemies. Some are mesmerising in their beakers, swirling indescadent colours. Some are dull and muddy. Most..."

Another drag, another mass of writhing worms to herald the wisdom of Slytherin.

"...are not what they seem."

He does not answer, this is their way. She finishes her cigarette and pushes herself out of the ledge, walking away. Her voice echoes back to him with her descending footsteps;

"They plan to follow that Ghost of yours."

As is their way, he listens and replies neither to her spoken or unspoken words.

***

When Ash reaches the Slytherin dorms much later he sees Draco standing beside an open window, the glass doors thrown open to admit the fresh air of a new autumn morning. A ghost would not feel the freshness of the air or the wind on his face, but perhaps the living memories are so much a part of him that even when the life was no more, the humanity behind it remains.

He stands on the floor, as if he is still grounded by gravity, his hands clasped behind him and looking out of the window to watch the falling leaves that he could so easily have stepped past obstructing walls to greater enjoy.

Yet Ash was certain that Draco would not have done so, perhaps the thought would not even had occurred to him.

Finally the Slytherin turns his head sideways to acknowledge him. His own heart beats a little faster, for he recognises the rare moment of lucidity in the posture, the dignity of carriage which marks Draco, for this brief moment, as one of the legendary Malfoys from history books, so much more than just a ghost.

He tells him about the betting pool, and Draco smiles and ask him what his plans were.

To hide you, he admits. Then he adds hurriedly; that is if you had been, uh, been still...

Insane?

He shrugs helplessly, and does not reply.

I'm seldom lucid, the dead Slytherin admits. I seldom feel myself and whatever is left of my memories slip away from me more and more as each autumn passes. He glances restlessly around the cobwebbed dorms. When last I last coherent?

I don't... two years. Two years ago, when I first follo.. when I first found you.

He starts, and would have paled if it were possible for a Ghost to do so. Two years, he whispers softly to himself, and looks idly down at his shoes tracing obscure patterns on the chalky floor, patterns which only he could discern because they would never materialise on this earthly plain. Then he notes with a macabre, humorous detachment that the matted dust remains unmoving, giving away no signs of his presence.

Ash finds the soft voice almost painful to hear. He does not know how to reply, and the room lapses into a heavy silence, odd against the crisp feeling of the chilly autumn air.

Your father, the Slytherin says suddenly, and it is his turn to start. He is well?

Well? Oh yes, yes he is. He automatically recites: he now sits on the cabinet for the Ministry of Magic, and the board of governors for Hogwarts.

These are offices, Ghost muses, which once belonged to my own father. There is a strange look of thoughtfulness on his face, a cross between a smile and a grimace on his lips.

I... I didn't know. Not much is known about the Malf, about your family, except...

Except that it no longer exists, he cuts in.

You exist, he instantly returns, but the words echoes unspoken in his head.

The Slytherin Ghost turns towards the window again, lighting up the encroaching darkness of the night that had gathered behind the window panes. It makes him looks more luminous than ever, a heartbroken face hallowed by a radiance that seems more painful to look upon than ever. What of Malfoy Manor, he wonders aloud. Does it still stand?

Yes, the Gryffindor confirms, his heartbeat in his throat. I can take you there tonight.

***

"Hope fades, and yet my desire increases that by you I may be freed from selfish love."

-Michelangelo, sonnet, March 1555.

***

A/N: A shout out to those who made writing Autumn Leaves a pleasure; my reviewers!!

Blackbolt: Hats off to the Artist who creates wonderful, inspiring art for Autumn Leaves.

Waternymph: My constant source of encouragement and love.

Edition 1013: You reviewed twice for one chapter! O joy! O angel! *glomps*

Pepsibabe2: Gosh finally somebody who doesn't think I overdo the eyes. I loved all your suggestions, and your comments left me with much insights on what I'm doing right and where I can improve. Yay you.

Non: yes, you're very perceptive about Ash being almost a ghost. Its funny how they exchange roles isn't it: one lives too much and the other doesn't live enough. Thanks for your review, and I'm so glad you like the enigmatic Angela Weasley. I might just make her star in her own story yet!

Erised: Blown away by the length of your review! Wow. I generally read from wide sources, leaning towards classical writing, which explains the way I tend to go on and on describing everything, and the formal style. I confess although I do enjoy modern American novels (Attwood and Picano being firm faves) I am not familiar enough to try the casual styles. But thank you for all your criticisms: no I did not take it wrongly, and yes they were of great help. I appreciated every point.

Dina Darby: I fall to my knees and kiss the hem of your robes. I am almost positive that you are an reincarnated muse. I am humbled. I am inspired. And I thank any God who will listen for your beautiful review.

PhoenixSong126: The amount of effort you took to review astounds and humbles me. You offered me a great deal of insights and I am a lot more careful now of falling into my usual droning habit of lengthy stylistics. *kowtows*

Autumn to Ashes: wow, I cant believe my story actually qualifies as a recommendation. You have no idea how happy you made me. Thank you.

To the other reviewers with much gratitude:

ShortySC22 (thank you for reviewing twice!), Werepup, Solarphoenix, VampyRockster, Miss Kaiba, Mistykaisumi, and Hibiscus.

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