Let's Talk

Let's Talk

*

"I don't think I love you," said Granger one night. We were on the floor of an empty classroom blowing smoke rings like the cinematic goddesses I was introduced to by a stream of governesses as an innocent.

I think I snorted. "I hope you don't." I find being honest makes enough people mad at you that you don't waste large amounts of money on presents. "This is just fucking." As an afterthought I said under my breath, "With a side of philosophy."

I could see her silhouette nodding in the shadows, a faded sheet wrapped around her chest as she leaned against the wall, looking out at the sky where all the clouds where playing games with the stars. "Good, because you love Parkinson."

"She's dead."

Chuckling Granger said quickly, "That doesn't mean shit. If it does mean anything then don't tell anyone because Jesus is dead too."

I pulled the cigarette out of her hands and took a drag, long and slow, exhaling like a reptile. "Who?"

Tilting her head Granger replied slowly, "You know what? I don't know."

*

"I wonder what it's like to die?" voiced Granger a week later, a new vice in her hand, something called the bible, a battered book she said she borrowed to catch up on her theology.

Drawing my head back I examined her carefully, but she looked like average Granger. Smoldering eyes underneath layers of smudged kohl, eyes that were little shards of ember left from the fire, she looked like a demented pixie in a faded rose slip at least one size too big. "Why?" I asked, hoping to dodge around the question.

With a shrug Granger rolled over and put her head on my thigh. Reflexively I ran my fingers through her knotted hair, even more out of control than usual. "I'm curious. I was studying the killing curse today and suddenly there were more questions than answers."

"So that was where you were in arithmancy. Library, should have guessed."

Fingering the edge of her book she stared a hole into the ceiling. Vaguely I wondered what the ceiling had ever done to her when she spoke again, apparently I wasn't derailing her that easily. "This war is going to kill us all."

I shuddered lightly at that, my hand trailing up my arm, dragging extra blanket behind it. The astronomy tower was chilly tonight, especially since we hadn't done anything, it was her time of the month and she wouldn't let me. "Doubt that."

"Do you really doubt it, or do you just hope it won't Malfoy?" She was shrewd this one.

Biting my lip I took a stab into the night. "I hope this war doesn't kill anymore of us."

*

Malfoy-

I can't come tonight. They need me to help pack Ginny's things so we can send them back to her parents. I'll be ready again on Wednesday. Let's go outside. Please?

-Granger

*

Outside? It's Halloween. It's freezing. I thought to myself as I walked out doors wrapped in my cloak with more pairs of socks squeezed on my feet than I thought possible.

Granger walked out of the shadows, she too was laced up to the neck in a heavy black cloak. "You're late," she said bitterly, leading the way.

"Time is irrelevant. You could live a million days and never wear out your shoes," I replied, trying my best to sound both wise and graceful as we sat down by the lake.

"Do you know how old you'd have to be to live a million day?" whispered Granger quietly, slipping her hand into mine.

"Please don't cry," I breathed, pulling her over my lap and kissing her along the jaw line. I don't think we've ever kissed on the lips.

She guided the cloak off my shoulder as she bit the tears back and arched forward so I could reach the clasp on her bra, the same one she had on yesterday when she'd caught me between classes as we dashed in two opposite directions.

I maneuvered her underneath me and the clouds moved to show the horror on her face by moonlight. "We don't have to," I offered noncommittally.

"Yes we do. Fuck me Malfoy."

So I did.

"Harder."

So I did.

*

"What was wrong in potions today?" I asked politely as Granger found me in a random classroom. I figured it was in the deep interest of my health to make sure screwing her would not result in a discomforting change of lifestyle.

"I was ill," she explained lamely, her eyes glassed over dreamily and before I could reply she collapsed into a desk and said in a rush, "I refuse to have your baby."

"Come again?"

Granger looked up at me and I noticed for the first time that she was wearing an overlarge sweater inside out and a pair of excessively baggy jeans with holes in all the wrong places. "I threw up on my school robes," she shrugged sheepishly, seeing my lingering gaze.

I nodded my understanding and pulled up a chair next to her, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. "You're pregnant then?" I checked, mumbling in case there was any chance I was concluding incorrectly.

"Morning sickness in potions," she confirmed gently, rubbing my hand, the one resting on her knee.

Shaking my head to clear away the short one word phrase that were drifting across my mind I met her eyes. "Isn't abortion...like against everything you were reading a few weeks ago?"

"Do you mean...Is it morally confused?" edged Granger, trying to get me closer to the root of my question.

All I could manage was to swallow and nod numbly.

"Perhaps. That was only a book though, and I'm only a girl."

*

"Get up!" called Blaise one morning as he threw back the curtains to my four poster to see Granger wrapped around my side, her head on my chest. Seeing all this Blaise cocked his head, looking squarely at me, I nodded. Clearing his throat he just asked clearly, "I'll just bring some toast then?"

He was at the dorm door when Granger croaked, "And coffee. Bring coffee." I let her stay there until Blaise returned with the rations.

"Up," I chided gently.

Her nose wiggled plaintively and she sat up, scouring around for something to cover her front up with. Blaise tossed her one of his shirts as mine seemed to have been picked up by a roaming house elf in the night. Over a cup of streaming coffee Granger studied Blaise carefully, eyes roaming freely up his frame. Plaid pajama pants, white wife beater, tousled black hair, and, "Your socks don't match. Did you know?"

*

I didn't go find her on January 31st.

She found me somehow. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"You used to love her."

"She used to live."

"Maybe she still does."

"Doubt that," I said, tossing my arm around her neck and pulling her close to me, inhaling the scent of smoke that clung to her hair and clothes. "What happens when you die?"

Granger nestled into me and sighed, " I wish I knew. I really wish I knew."

"I'm not willing to die to find out."

"Not even to be with Parkinson?"

I paused and looked forward blankly, not even sure what I was seeing. "Would you do it for your curiosity?"

*

We were in my dorm again. A pleasant buzzing still roaming up my spine. Granger was rustling around for a shirt. Grabbing her upper arm lightly I shook my head, saying at the same time, "Don't hide for me."

Pushing some hair back she observed, "You never hide."

I couldn't think of anything particularly cunning to say to that so I kept quiet and pulled her closer under the blankets, arranging my head on my mountain of pillows so I could see the profile of her face better.

She rolled over on to her stomach, her average breasts grazing the sheets underneath her as she propped herself sideways and a bit on one elbow so she too could see me too. "Never," she breathed, walking her fingers up one arm to the place on my arm that is black.

Reality it black.

Fucking Granger is gray.

White is something for a chessboard.

"Why do we hide then?" I asked suddenly, serious.

Granger thought for less than a click before nodding deeply, more so to herself than me and answered correctly, as always, "Because we don't have anything to show for all out time."

I got it: "It's not like we're in love."

"No," she murmured, still tracing the scar on my arm, the memory that burned all the time. Leaning forward she kissed the skull and snake like she would the baldhead of a baby. "Malfoy?" she began, her voice a little bit higher, "What's it like to be so black?"

I stifled my roar of insane laughter by kissing her full on the lips, something I'd never done before. "Tell me," she pleaded, intoxicated and confused by my outpour of disturbed mentality.

Lying on top of her I pressed out foreheads together and replied coyly, "It's very much in shadow. That's why I'm so pale."

Granger creased her forehead and replied, thinking over her words as she said them, "You're black and white at the same time."

"So are you," I said, proving it by wiping some of the kohl from her eyelids on to her palm and presenting that to her for inspection.

"I guess we're gray then," she concluded.

*

The day after the Weasley shack blew up she sat on the window ledge of the room we were sharing above the Hog's Head. "Have you ever killed someone Malfoy?"

I thought back to all the green that dripped from beneath my fingernails and from under my eyelids. Wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her tight I swallowed guiltily and answered solemnly, "Yes."

Granger twisted in my grasp; looking not the least bit surprised and rested her head in the curve of my neck. "If I ask who will you tell me?"

I nodded, "Yes."

"Who then?" she struggled around the words, as if they didn't quite fit her mouth.

I picked Granger up and carried her to the rotting mauve chair in the corner. I settled down with her on my lap, the pale blue and white sheets mussed over us both. "The first one was a girl." I stopped there for a moment and rested my head on her shoulder.

"You don't have to say."

"Her name was Pansy Parkinson, and I think I might have loved her."

Granger's entire face changed shape so many different times she looked like she was perhaps made of candle wax. Her eyes welled with tears. Tears for...what? Who? Maybe for me. "Oh Draco..."

*

The day they released my father from prison I knew shit was on. "Malfoy!" screamed Granger as I walked out the gates of Hogwarts like a good son, Blaise at my side and Teddy six feet ahead of us. "Who was the second?" she asked urgently, begging childishly.

"I don't think I'll be able to make it tonight," I replied smoothly as she clutched at my collar, ignoring the way Blaise had stopped too.

Granger trembled from head to toe but didn't say a word more.

"I don't remember his name," I admitted. "Lupin just wrote the name at the top of one of my homework assignments."

Blaise broke in then, "That's where he wrote all the names."

"This war is going to kill us all," claimed Granger one last time.

Briefly I held Granger against my chest, resting my chin on her head. The grounds around us shimmered oddly, like in a heat haze, except that I knew better. It was, after all, March in England. "If I don't come back..." I began.

"He'll be in hell," interjected Blaise.

"What's hell like?" asked Granger coolly, pouting out her bottom lip and backing away from me.

*

"Hell is just a place," I said.

We were naked except for our robes and ties, our slacks and jumpers, our socks and shoes. Underneath we were naked. It was mid April and we were lying head to head somewhere on the school grounds.

"I died while you were gone," she said, telling her side of the story, kept in the infirmary brewing potions and mending gaping holes. "I'm not so interested in what comes next."

Sitting up I offered her a hand and she accepted it. We stood up and walked into the school just as a light rain began to fall. When we really were naked she peered out the window of our classroom and giggled. "Black it just a color," she pointed gaily to the sky with its spying stars.

"But 2700 days is a long time to live."

Granger tapped a smoke out into her palm and lit it with my wand. She blew dazzling smoke rings into the night sky, sighing wisely as she did, "At the end we start to look at the beginning."

Yawning nonchalantly I said, " I think I love you Granger."