Reveries

~*~*~*~*~

I dream we´re in a white field, staring at each other: nose to nose, eye to eye, breath to mingled breath. Divided by a line of blood that you cannot cross, and I cannot leave behind. You reach out your hand for me, and without a thought I take it silently. Your fingernails shred my skin, and my blood trickles down my palm to stain the snow a vivid scarlet.

You start to cry, and apologize through your grief. Your tears are black with death, leaving dark trails on your warmly bronzed skin.

I don´t feel any pain, and I look down to see that the wound has turned white, my blood silver-blue, and that it´s spreading up my arms and across my chest with the crackling sound of breaking ice. Everything in me is turning numb--I am a statue of frost, cold to the world, fragile and infinitely finite. You cry your shadow tears and stroke my cheek.

I shatter into a thousand pieces.

I wake up sheltered in your arms, your breath a whisper against my shoulder, peach lips parted and damp. Wordlessly, I disentangle my limbs from yours, your fingers clinging, lingering on my skin as your hand drifts down to the coverlet. "Stay," you whisper drowsily. I pull my robes on and stare out the window, watching the stars twinkle as they play hide-and-seek with the colorless moonbeams.

You always ask me to stay, opening your heart to me with casual vulnerability, hoping against hope that this time, this once, I will grant your wish. You accept that I will refuse. You think that I will go because I have a role to play-that I must play the villain to your hero to gain a sense of purpose. That I leave because to stay would mean changing the rules. I look back towards you, alone in our bed. Your scar is a shadow on your moon washed face.

Voldemort gave you that scar.

To everyone else, it means that you Live. You Breathe. You are Hope Eternal sprung from Death by virtue of your existence. You are Innocence and Heroism Personified.

Voldemort gave you that scar.

He is made of night. He is the bad thing that frightens you in your childhood, the Erlking that hides in your closet, the Lethifold that steals your breath while you sleep. And curses as strong as the one that should have killed you don´t leave behind anything as simple as a scar. Survival leaves a link--it creates a bond. His gift was the vesper, and although you don´t understand it, and would deny it with your last breath, Voldemort is in everything that you are. Even in the innocence you wield like a weapon.

Your innocence is a blind, terrifyingly naïve being, a creature that produces a world that consists of closed ears and shuttered eyes. You live in a self-created midnight with dreams of sunlight and flowers and friends. You don´t exist in the day because Voldemort doesn´t exist anywhere but the places without light.

If I stayed, you would love me, and you would attempt to change me. You would make me into a silhouette of myself--to protect me, you would enclose your world of shadowed blindness over my senses, and maybe I would become like you, pushing my way through an ever present mist, running in circles to reach something that I know instinctually is there, but can´t see.

I´m afraid of the dark.

~*~*~*~*~

I dream that I´m standing in front of the class in Transfiguration, looking at you as Professor McGonagall lectures about the difficulty of the Animagus transformation. She gestures at me in irritation, obviously displeased at using me as an example. I morph perfectly, power and ease settling over me--

--as I change into a ferret.

"Draco!"

I jolt awake at the note of utter joy in your voice, wiping discreetly at the wet spot on my textbook page, where I drooled on it in my sleep. "You don´t have to shout, Potter." I sigh. "I can hear you quite well."

A wide grin twists your lips, and you take the chair next to me, nearly vibrating in excitement. "It happened, Draco!"

And you show me your Mark.

I stop breathing.

"I´m really a part of it!" you exclaim, oblivious to my discomfiture. "The Order of the Phoenix. The name´s wicked, too." You cast a sly glance at me as your hand covers mine. "It´s much better than, say, the Death Eaters." You flash the red-and-gold mark under my nose.

"Ah, but you see," I say without thinking. "That clashes with everything I wear. Black is a much better fashion accessory. Understated, yet elegant."

You take your hand from mine, your mouth thinning in disappointment. "Draco, you´re going to have to choose a side soon." Your glasses catch the light of the lamp, eye shine providing you with a shield against my probing gaze. "Choose the right side."

What you mean is, choose your side.

I think of the letter my father sent, sitting back in my room.

Your majority is official in a few short weeks. Be prepared to accept your responsibility.

Everywhere I turn, there are decisions that I´m not prepared to make.

You place your hand on mine once more, your eyes earnest and pleading. "I love you, Draco."

I look at you dispassionately. "What does love have to do with choosing the right side, Potter?"

You flinch, a small choking sound escaping your lips. "Why, Draco? Why do you have to be like this?"

"I am like this, Potter. You don´t make decisions based on emotion-you base them on logic and probability." I shut my textbook and put it in my book bag, standing up and bearing the weight. I hesitate for an instant, and place my hand on your shoulder. "I love you, too, if it´s any consolation."

You sigh despondently, your eyes following the grain of the worn wood of the table. "No, it isn´t. Not really."

"Well, then." With an inner shrug, I turn and exit the library. There´s nothing I can do when you accept the burden of the world on your shoulders.

I dream that I am a dove in a gilded cage, watching the blue sky through the golden bars of my prison. The door of my cage opens and I fly out into the open air. I am free, for an instant, when a golden hand appears on my right, and a taloned, blackened hand appears on my left. I know that these two are my masters--one rules me by love, and one by hate. Both rule by fear.

Both hands reach for me at the same time, and I am gone in a tangle of blood and feathers.

~*~*~*~*~

Voldemort was killed today.

It didn´t surprise me--I knew it was going to happen eventually. There was too much despair and madness inside of him for him to be victorious. My father is in Azkaban prison, my mother in St. Mungo´s ward for the Violently Insane, and I am the sole beneficiary to a fortune that at the moment dwarfs the treasury of the Ministry.

I should be amused.

You were killed today.

It didn´t surprise me--I knew it was going to happen eventually. I could never imagine you in a world without Voldemort. You were he, and he was you. My father wanted me to be faithful and obedient to his Dark Lord, but I was faithful to you instead. No one but me understood that I was never a traitor.

It´s raining today.

Eyes brush over me as I stand here, trying to decipher my feelings, my allegiances. It doesn´t really matter to me. All I know is that I have to say goodbye.

I start the walk back to the castle, tilting my face up as I watch the sky weep. And if some of the cool drops are searing hot, and taste of salt instead of nothing, no one knows the difference. Malfoys don´t cry. And if, perhaps, my breath hitches because of the pain instead of the exertion... well, no one but me knows that, either.

I dream that I´m a phoenix, and I soar out into the sky.

I´m never coming back.

~*~*~*~*~