Outward Beauty

You could not understand how much I cherished your skin. It may have been the one thing that let me know that you were human in the first place; your glares, your remarks, your actions--they were all crude. They were not suitable to be kept under such skin that reminded me of pure things. It was soft, but overall it was white and I was almost afraid to touch it too often because I knew I might bruise you...I knew I might mar the one thing that balanced your snide demeanor, Draco.

It was petty, as you often remarked, to glorify such a silly thing: your skin color was not something you could control, I knew. I also knew, however, that if that was what it took to allow me to see the rest of your good then so be it; let that have been our common ground: your outward purity and--what you so often referred to while you messed my hair and made me flush with opposition--my inward purity.

Though I believed I was just as much a carefree child as you were and that you had just the same pride as I had, you insisted that we were different in those ways. -That you wanted the Dark and freedom and daring, and that I wanted the Light and contentment and security. But I knew you were wrong. I knew that you noticed our breaths surrounding us, visible and warm, during the winter; and you noticed the snow that fell around us, laid itself down at our feet, and chilled us into standing closer than we should have. I was the one who took your face into my hands and kissed you, Draco. I was the carefree one then, not you. I was the daring one.

When the Dark Lord came to have his last fight a year later, you proved yourself wrong by standing next to me, still vulgar on the inside and lovely on the outside. Did you not uphold the same pride that I did, fighting for your school and your friends and your life and your lover? You would laugh if you were with me now, saying that it was only to save your own skin--your own white, delicate skin--and you would mess my hair as you always did. You, Potter, fight for your honor and I'll stand in the background and look nice.

You always looked nice. You looked nice with your tresses strewn about in a puddle of your own blood, gripping your wand as though it would bring you back to consciousness. You looked nice with your eyes rolled back into your head so that there was no longer gray there. You looked nice in your pasty skin--once very soft--that was clammy and covered your convulsing muscles. You looked nice being torn away from my side and while I struggled to hang onto perhaps a single glistening strand of your hair as they carried you to the other bodies.

You looked nice in an urn.

Your ashes were just as white as your skin once was as we scattered them upon the snow.

Finis