Tales in the Sand

Tales in the Sand

They left a note saying teenagers were as capable of true love as anybody else - maybe more capable. And then they took off for parts unknown.

-- Runaways, Kurt Vonnegut.

They travel cheap, by means of thumbs and dusty roads or from a shore to a distance separated of the bitter water only by some layers of creaking steel. At first they went east and north, to the Baltic Sea and along it. Train travel and creaking bunks, the repetitive sound of little iron wheels skipping a beat as they encounter little gaps between the tracks. In the morning you wake up stiff-limbed.

Harry has seen some deteriorated little railway stations of small towns in the nameless corners of Russia, the walls scratching off paint like dust, and wild and uninhabited countryside and forests. He has ridden the metro in tunnels that go deep into St. Petersburg's bowels, and felt the change of the air pressure block his ears. The corridors were filled to the brim with people hurrying everywhere as he walked and heard the whine of the approaching metro and saw it shake and waver pulling to a halt.

Having watched Russia for a couple of weeks, they have seen an orthodox liturgy and stared at the onion-shaped roofs of wooden churches, all grey and ornament-cut. He has learned a few words, his tongue swelling in his mouth whenever practising this new endeavour. Draco finds it amusing.

Together they have explored cities and poor villages, and having touched the boards of a deserted and burnt cottage had Draco wanted more and insisted on going south; travelling in a train in a carriage for four, two other men speaking them English with thick hiss-like grunting for one oil-black Russian night.

Draco had smiled and listened to their troubles with girlfriends, mothers and fathers. They insisted on explaining Mother Russia's customs for "these foreigners", her troubles, grievances and virtues with a drunken voice and a tender eye. The gulp of clear vodka had nearly made him choke, and that night had been spent playing cards betting matchsticks.

They had separated in Moscow, Harry and Draco continuing south and the two men going to their homes. Amicable fellows, but he has forgotten their names.

*

"We travel. Get your things fast. I've planned a route!"

"What? Where to? When were you supposed to be telling me this?"

"Egypt. I'm telling you now."

"Why Egypt?"

"Why any place."

"You're kidding."

*

On moving steadily south they have lived in a one-star hotel in Paris, walked the floor of their room that was covered with dark stains for some weeks and watched as each one's turn came the water being reluctant to fill the tub. The windows gave off to a construction site dotted with the occasional red plastic pipe and chunks of plywood board.

They have seen the grey plainness of poor asphalt quarters of Parisian suburb, flea markets on the streets with merchants and equally shabby buyers bargaining for used junk. Candlesticks and old novels, ragged doll's clothes and telescopes.

There were motorways stretching for kilometres until the eye betrayed you. Everything you could see everywhere but still different because you could say you had been right here, at this spot. In Paris. There was no Louvre and no luxurious cruise at the Seine accompanying this trip, no fat pigeons on the front opening of the Notre Dame, no green parks and angel fountains. Draco had seen pictures and had said he needed no more.

They continued south for some weeks, through French countryside counting endless fields, vineyards, counting a small town after another. One and a ten. Sometimes they would stop and compare gothic churches to the ones they've seen before, or the quality of southern patisseries after the taste of the ones up north.

Draco likes churches, every kind, because they are fine fairy tales to him.

*

"I fucking hate England winter, fucking cold and wet and boring. I need out of here."

"It's January, Draco."

"Are you coming with me or am I going alone? It'll be just for a little time, and it'll be great. Do this for me."

*

There were black moustaches of fishermen at fish markets Draco had had to have a look at, various kinds of aprons smeared with fish guts tied across many a protruding stomach, whiskers one two three and counting... and stripes on their shirts, there were many - oh, too much to count but they still tried. They loved the Francais typique, played little games of drinking café du laits and eating croissants and sticking their noses up until they got wary of it and went on.

South, down on the maps and reaching the Mediterranean and having a first taste of that foamy milk that hit's the rocky shores. The water was salt and shipwrecks, murky and secret and unravelling memory. Italy was the place of trees and plants and flowers, all the scented fruit of earth. As well as white and yellow sunshades and brittle oranges - things you couldn't count.

Venice had been a dying city, filled with babbling tourists; umbrella stands shading carts with two pence merchandise, postcards and decorative porcelain carnival masks. The city had smelled like splintering wood and gold, ancient money and faces.

"They all were there and saw past glory, the celebrities of the passed time whose names and deeds ornament the pages of thick tomes", said Draco with an amused festival air, as if quoting from a book. "But now, it decays and the gondoliers are singing less and less."

"It'll sink and everyone will forget," he had said, "it'll be another great bed-time story for fat children with thumbs in their faces."

The clock-tower bell rang and its ear-shattering noise had made him smile, happily like an eight-year- old getting his long awaited toy. Perhaps they both are, Harry had though, little boys throwing pebbles off a bridge into the water below. Little boys counting the ripples on the water's surface they cause.

The alleys between houses create a strange illusion, like they are too narrow to be walked through, but they had nevertheless housed them both. Draco fed pigeons on Saint Marcus' Square, when they clustered too close to him he'd kick and dispatch of them all instantaneously. He told Harry about documentaries he had seen on Muggle apparatus called TV a coulpe of times, it had something to do with servant but wasn't important.

A documentary about Venice, when the flood season comes the St. Marcus' Square is filled up with water sometimes even up to the waist, and the Venetians can't avoid but to move around in boats and roll enormous rubber boots almost to their hips.

"They plan on building dams or something like that, shutting the city off the rest of the sea. To preserve the centenary greatness. But you smell it? The rotten wood." He pretended little child's sparkling happiness.

He made them stay for the carnival, to look at hundreds of Deaths and Plagues and Fools. There were peacock feathers and big puffy dresses underneath their hem you could catch a glimpse of the occasional sneaker.

The festivities were laughed away and many had drunk all their money, soon life returned to its usual ways. Week had already passed since their urgent departure, but Draco had plans still, to go further and faster.

Floods of new faces kept coming and going every day, pairs of eyes came down cruise ships and stared at the Bridge of Sighs, and ears were told those damned to death took their last steps on it. All of us think about the same things eventually. All of them sighed, and placed themselves there.

"Here's one bridge so you have seen them all." Said Draco one day. Shortly after, they took away again.

*

When sleepless nights attack, Draco finds crazy, silly things to be all the answers needed. Why would you persist on staying what you are when the darkness has the ability to hide? School's out, after a fashion, there's no one else. I create.

(Hush now, love. Don't speak, but look at me.)

He makes binoculars of his hands by pressing the thumbs and the index fingers together and spreads the rest like littlewings to flank his temples.

"You look like Aunt Maude." Harry says, his face an odd mesh of colours from suppressed laughter.

"Then hold on to your hat, dear Dorothy. I've read some damn stupid things, and I'll show you more."

*

The pizza was mostly not made by the original simple recipe he would have liked it, not the thin pastry with little ingredients. Just 'tourist-food', failing to please him in every which way. They didn't put sausages or damn minced meat in the golden old days, he'd point out, because you don't get adventurous making food out of scraps.

This is how it always goes, and Harry braces himself for the next stage of the sequence. The little things go wrong, which means there soon will be a rush to leave like a fire was catching at their heels. Many times he was guessing: was it boredom? Was it freedom?

Draco has money, plenty, and he is using it sparingly. Harry didn't have time to go to the vault, just to grab a little clothes, barely. At the back of his mind he had been sure all the time it wouldn't have lasted but for the occasional week until Draco moved on to other things. He'd been embarrassed not to be able to contribute to most expenses.

At first he used to think he was a burden of a sort. But maybe now the roles have changed, flipped as easily as a coin to its other belly, and he's the one doing all the taking care of. He poses questions that aren't answered.

So Italy was left for the charms of Spain. To travelling along the southern coast to see the sun and the mountains, bullfights where bloody bull ears were cut off and flung high to be caught by little children. A custom of bringing good luck. In the arena hearts stopped pumping, abandoned to motionless masses like rotting fruit. Rage was a game.

Blood on the sides of the bull, running down it is stamped in the sand. The sweat of the animals smelled of salt and foam, he remembers it easily. When they fall, they are no more but mindless bulks of meat staggering, furious and dead as the last blow comes.

Draco insisted on seeing and smelling several.

Sangrias were drunk, sugary and red, pieces of tropic sunk to the bottom of cold glasses, the ice cubes clicking against each other.

"It smells different here, not like Italy. It was all about green and wet undergrowth there, but here...dust and heat."

They had to go swimming in the Atlantic as well, because Mediterranean had been all seashells, sea urchins and rocky seabed.

It was a lonely wild beach where the wind blew five feet high waves and the only thing surviving the watery tumult was the seaweed. It grew on the fine yellow sand of the beach also, in unevenly planted patches. They walked the rest of the day with salt on their skins, white flakes peeling away slowly.

There was never a place to stay more than a few weeks or sometimes a few days, according to Draco's liking. They were drawing a jagged trail across the old continent towards the inevitable aim.

Cheap hotels, sand and dead gods everywhere, Draco repeats every time Harry is talking of dates. He wants to see it for himself.

*

Draco writes short stories, as they sit on some pier waiting for the ship to arrive and the sea-gulls scream and the fish plunge in the depths beneath their feet, or as they sit on their luggage on some side of the road and count passing cars.

Draco writes:

We see him as an odd geometric shape, wading through the marsh waist-high in water. There's no direction for his wandering, only a step after a step in the thick water and the sun reflecting of his shoulders. Made of iron, strong as a newborn ox, immortal. We could see him lift mountains with a flick of a finger.

A few days pass and he's still walking, in the marsh, circle after circle, like humans do lost in the woods. But he doesn't panic, because he simply cannot think. The sun reflects of his armour in the day, heating him up, and in the night as the moon exposes its lidless eye he freezes over.

Never does his motion stop, that faithful time counter's that measures the length of each second with his step, until one day the sun glances at him and he breaks down, crumbles like a sandcastle licked flat by a sudden wave. He'd rusted through and through, our walker, our faithful clock, because of too much water and sun.

The tin foil man, the sad bastard, no one taught him physics is a deadly force.

His stories never travel with him.

*

Most of the days in Spain are hot, and the sun likes to scorch the ground to dust and dry root. They walk along the beach near the hotel, eat chicken and dried fruit and talk trivial. These days Harry looks back more often and, on occasion, says too many things Draco doesn't want to hear.

("When? How long still? What for?" Time. Space. People. Be quiet, stay still.

Hush, my love. Look at me, right here. What would you want more?

Besides we'll arrive to the final destination's quite soon, I said it so many times already. Enjoy this, damn you.)

They take a quick tour on a tourist bus. Mountains and electronic windmills stretching for miles and miles, making no sound and standing put like axes. It was a long sightseeing, right and left and a turn again along the serpentine roads.

But they couldn't see the Moroccan mountains. There was so much mist on the water, as thick that it reminded something solid. They stood and looked at it, hopefulness and disappointment clashing together and sinking in their stomachs. The speaker's sputter carried to the small group an apology.

*

Some nights Draco comes to him crying, crawls under the bed sheets and muffles his sobs in the crook of his arm. In the morning Draco's skin is always healed again, it's only Harry who has little bruises on his skin pressed by bony pads.

When this occurred for the first time they were still at Hogwarts. Draco snivelling like a small child and biting down on his fist. The situation was nothing but awkward and embarrassing, Draco sobbing and visibly ashamed of himself, and Harry just at a loss what to do except to hush and absently pat Draco's hand.

They didn't talk about it in the morning, like they never have ever since. All he remembers from the first time is the Draco was shaking by his side and he was only hoping for nobody to hear.

He'll never forget Draco's expression as he cast the silencing spell.

He never asked, and the moment is gone. He'd been only hoping it would end, thinking up a hysteric plan. Nowadays it's like some habit hard to lose, as if Draco is unable to cry alone. Harry's embarrassment never loses its grip.

In the mornings, there is always silence.

*

There is always a time for everything; a perfect timing. A moment of shame, a second for guilt. The most important for them now is everything they should forget.

It's like endless preparation for an ultimate game - a games of games, a theme almost mythical. There has to be the setting of the pieces to match a millimetre for a millimetre; to make each knuckle snap with a slow deliberate satisfaction; to take a sip of a drink, the ice cubes greedily pressing to slightly open lips, going limp against the tongue; swinging a knee over the other.

The ceremony is an endless repetition, like a hustle and bustle behind the curtain as the actors sweat and the set is collapsing, and the audience is collectively shuffling their feet. Sometimes he's thinking Harry and him are static figures, not running, never running, because never starting anything at all; a curtain that never rises, a long way coming up to an unreachable point.

*

There's three simple categories, and a simple example to illustrate them.

Let's take a plunge down - for example aspiration, inspiration, and perspiration. Comparing them the first click the logic machinery of the brain makes is to look for similarities, as we see it's "spiration", easily to be connected with spirit without breaking a sweat.

Spirit - firstly: the thing translucent flying about your house and wailing miserably into the night. Secondly: you. Questions like "who am I" and "what do I consist of"; these thoughts leading to materialist, vitalist, and endlessly unsolved visions of the dilemma of the difference between the body and the mind. I am not considering this.

What is of interest to me are the prefixes. A, in, per.

"A" emphasizes continuity, a spirit - something simply unknown to man, unclassifiable. But the word I've chosen as an example, "aspiration", interprets a craving. So what one has is a longing that is spiritual

"In" spirit, inspiration - something o-golly-wonderful, that strikes you like a burning boiling light from the sky. "In spirit" takes the eye to the evident problem of what is the quality of the spirit. It takes you to see what its bowels look like.

Perspiration - obviously the trickiest one. Now that unknown, unnamed substance "the spirit" has something accompanying it. Taking the initial meaning of the word in consideration we have secretion. This one is like a double tongue; something applied to it and meaning something coming from within the body. Per easily derived from the Latin pro by any fool.

So there are three choices, three possibilities. An entity in itself, it has something inside of it and lastly something comes with it or from inside of it. In three variations we have three meanings.

But I'm making a loop; I'm not considering other options. The rooster croaks and the morning comes sending the wicked witch up in cinders and ash.

He's getting more ingenious disposing of the things he writes, or maybe hopelessly bored. Harry's at the balcony so goes to the bathroom, dips the paper handkerchief he'd been writing on in a whisky bottle and lights it above the sink. A few seconds of flaming and he drops it into the water. The remains are perfect, the paper still perfectly white. The ethanol burns - an angry flash but no damage. That is how everything usually goes.

*

"Stop. What's this? You've done this before."

Harry's hand had sneaked inside Draco's pyjama and had been playing with ribs and vertebrae, counting each protrusion, each tiny hollow. And now he stops, pulls back and faces Draco, squinting - the glasses are resting on the bedside table.

"What is it?"

"You've done this before. What's this? Suddenly half-hearted? Is this too banal, kind of a bore?"

"Why do you have to take it that way? I touched your back."

"Oh, yes? Meaning to spoil all this? Is that you little plan?"

He is completely still, thin-lipped, getting a sharper tone to his voice. For a minute Harry is thinking what is the right way to act, how to manoeuvre through all the artificial obstacles Draco loves to construct nowadays. It's always like standing before the train, thinking which direction to jump, because they both seem bad choices.

Now he stays put, closes his eyes, exhales slowly. He is tired.

" Stop it, Draco. You know that's not true."

"Really? You, whining all the time, spoiling, brooding! Frankly, I'm getting sick of this all. Fine, I don't need you. I never have! I can go on alone. Go back to your little life, I'm sure they'll all except you with a big grin slapped across their faces, even the Dark Lord!"

Draco throws the sheets down onto the floor, scrambles up and finally slams the door behind him. There are always two rooms they take in a hotel while their travelling, as a method of precaution, in case of what it has never been a subject of discussion. He doesn't know if he used to care. Now he lets it go.

Sometimes Harry thinks it's because of times like this they always get two rooms in a hotel, so that Draco'd have a place to run to.

But he'll come back, because he always does.

*

Once upon a day there was one who thought 'free am I'.

He saw an old man standing on the street,

Vengeance in his hand

And broken shoes on his feet.

He said to the old man:

'Why must I be wasted here and now,

Told again and again it is not time?'

And this is how replied he; the man:

'All of you must be directed, to chase a goal good and fine,

To forget there was ever "me" or "mine".'

*

"Everything is filled with magic here. I can feel it like some strange pulse. Can't you?"

The desert stretching to the far horizon is quiet and the dry wind propels sand into little whirlpools that twirl like frenzied dancers. They crash down and dissolve soon again. Draco's voice is small in the gush, insignificant and drowning. He thinks how funny it is, how obviously irrational that they are here. Maybe somebody is laughing.

"Can you hear this? The wind speaks!"

Draco is raising his hands, like a little child trying to catch the sun in the palm of his hand. He drops to his knees and digs his fingers into sand, pushing deep and greedily. Then he get up to his feet again, throwing handfuls of it up in the air, head cocked back and laughing.

"I love this place," he says, but it is just a hoarse whisper.

Harry turns his back, the sand flies into his eyes and they sting. The thirst is becoming intolerable, and he can hear Draco gasping now. The sand gets everywhere, they should have known to cover their mouths. For a moment he has the primal fear of a hunted animal: maybe it's the simoom.

"We should go now, Draco," he says. "The wind's raising."

*

They had come to Egypt by a tourist cruise ship filled to the brim by elderly couples, their suitcases and impatient demands. They had spent their days in the cabin mostly, Draco planning what they'd do once arrived and Harry giving him the occasional nod.

The sun deck was a small triangle across which you'd have to push through. The sun chairs were an organization of pink swimsuits and easy novels, populated by slowly burning skin that was constantly oiled and exposed.

The travel from Spain took about a week. During the night it was cool, and the lights of the boat reflected off the black water.

Upon arrival Draco's first word had been "Cairo".

*

It was a caravan ride that stretched like a long tail behind them, an unnecessary vanity, but amusing nonetheless. Inside the tombs the air was musty and hot as if they were walking into an oven. Hot, rasping air circling in his lungs as they climbed the dim-lit corridors, but along with his comfort he was beginning to lose his myths.

"Nothing impressive inside, really. It's also pretty demanding physically." The tourist guide had said, mastering punctuation.

"So here you are." Harry says, offering a sympathetic smile. "Pretty nice anyway. And we can always go to the museum."

Of course, pretty nice. He touched the bare stone of the wall and his came off caked with sand.

*

I limp: I have a useless part of me dragging, dragging - which I'm unable to hide.

I don't know where it's supposed to feel anymore.

You know this, don't you? In the silence of the night I cut us apart a hundred times.

*

"Pyramids. The ultimate sightseeing tour that lasts for a full day will show you everything! Every secret and every little gory detail you ever wanted to know about the curious ways of ancient Egyptians. And no worries about lunch!"

That was what the poster said, showing a caption from a cheap 30s Hollywood movie to ensnare the average westerner's flair for secrecy and extravagance. Rouge warnings with bleeding letters and a glint of protruding teeth are of the things one always finds endearing, it's everything that Draco runs to see and drags him along.

"Lets go! What's taking you? Come on."

*

"You wrote them letters? You want them to come and catch us? All you've wanted is to go home all the time. Couldn't just enjoy for a bloody one second!"

And at some point, though he tries, Harry can't help losing his temper.

"It's been eight months, Draco.

Do you realize what you do to me?

Do you?

And what are we going to do when the money runs to an end?

When you'll have all your illusions of your silly freedom shattered? I'm sick of this! We shouldn't have ever gone away for so long."

"But it's all for us, you fool! Listen to me - here's what we'll do..."

"No, Draco. I've listened enough. You say this is for us? But have you, have you ever for once truly asked what I want? This is for you, Draco. Only. I'm here to pat you on the head, lick your wounds, roll over. The stupidest thing I ever did was to know this, but still keep trying."

"No. We've gone so far. We! Don't you see? We'll make it." Draco says, standing up from the bed. He's holding a piece of parchment in his hand, half filled with large black squiggles.

It's an afternoon, heat seems to be pouring from each shell and crack in the room though the windows are carefully covered by oilcloth drapes. It's been a few days since the trip to the Pyramids, since then they've returned to the hotel in Cairo.

Harry is standing on the opposite side of the room, suddenly tensing, losing his angry mask. He looks tired, like someone who's give up. So Draco sees his chance and insists:

"You can't send your friends letters. I know it's hard, but they can trace us easily that way. There's so much still to see, Harry. So many places to go. It'll be good. And I always, always think about what is good for you! What is good for both of us."

Harry doesn't notice he's been clenching his fists until they go limp at his sides. This is a fight that never ends, because there's only one thing he has to say and Draco doesn't understand. How has it become this? He has wasted months. His voice is strained, a thin whisper.

"You are right, Draco. I have been a fool. A fool to ever follow your dreams and your ambitions. No, I'm not coming with you anymore, I never should have. I'm going to go back home."

Harry walks to the door, when his hand on the handle Draco starts again. The argument that kepps dulling its edge.

"What do you...? Harry? What do you want to hear? That my world is flat?! What - what do you want? Don't you leave me! I tell you we can make it."

"I'll come back in the evening. Tomorrow another ship leaves the port and I with it, as every single day. I really hope you'll be on one of them." As he closes the door a few screams trail behind him, as he goes down the steps he know Draco has opened the door and is searching for him.

Harry has gone out. Draco walks about the room, flings the curtains open and looks out the window, sits on the bed. He walks about the room, and sits down.

The worst thing is I trusted you.

*

You know what I'll be? You know what I'll become if we go back? What they'll make me?

I'll tell you.

I'll start subtle, a little trickle of blood, one little word. Just a little trick that will be practised and polished over and over until perfection, and one is ready for the bigger games.

You know what I want, Harry? I want to have control of my life.

This is what I do: I run, I run as fast as I can. I am running away from the stamp on my forehead. This is what it'll be: a personality dictated, a simple means to an end. I know I'll submit, and I'm afraid it just might not take long or much effort. A little bit robbed from you every day, you know. Until you understand there was not that much that you ever were.

I'm a bug in a jar, and I'm trying to scramble out of it. The stupid thing was I though you might have wanted to help me.

Parents gave me a Jack-in-the-box. There's something about the shape of the cardboard box, about the measures and the colouring of it that I'm not quite sure Jack is always a nice and agreeable fellow.

Mother takes the blame. Her hands are two thin lines frozen at her sides, and her lips become a thin white thread about to give in to a little stretch. She says it's completely her fault for raising me wrong, to become this. She was speaking to herself, just unblinking eyes and a hollow, dull voice.

There is the awkward aftermath of uncovering two blond boy's heads underneath the covers. He has never seen the little servant boy ever since and he doesn't know what became of him. It was the first and the last time they never employed human servants to the Manor.

There was a beehive just beneath the eaves of his window that summer, and one flew inside, buzzing, buzzing seemingly forever, and no one took heed of it.

Mother's face had been pure shock and disgust.

*

An owl had come one day. It was practically dead tumbling down from the sky like a little rocket, slowing down just before the fall, but then giving up and crashing down. It did not move when Harry reached and turned it over, oddly disappointed and relieved at the same time that it wasn't Hedwig.

A young one, but immobile now, eyes glassing over.

"So you were expecting something," he says.

"No," Draco says, surprised. Harry can almost sense alarm.

For an owl to find them out of the blue, somewhere in the world is mug's luck. The odds are one against a million, or maybe even pure impossibility. But it had flown to them nonetheless, with a badly torn wing and blood on its beak.

"It's for me. Don't touch it," says Draco suddenly, quick and jaggedly. He takes the parchment strapped around the bird's foot and then retreats a few feet.

The bird is getting stiff in his hands, hardening, some loose feathers smear his shirt with drying blood. Draco is standing his back to him, shoulders hunched, stopped dead.

There's something he says, turning sideways head down and fingers clenched around the piece of paper. But the desert wind blows and the quiet words get lost and eaten by the sand.

"No. We're still going to Cheops tomorrow, Harry. It's all right. And it's beautiful, here in the desert. Isn't it?" He says, having ripped the message in numerous little shreds that were blown away by the wind.

*

In vain, perhaps, terribly futile all this. Like thinking closing your eyes might switch off the world. Things change, so terribly quickly the speed is frightening.

He is sitting on the bed, holding Harry's letter in his hands.

Dear Ron--.

He still has friends.

Once he'd screamed that he'd be just fine.

"I'm lost, Harry," he whispers. "Don't leave me. I can't go back." The ink smudges his fingers, the edges of the paper bend. He crushes the letter into a small ball.

"You've done a fine job fucking with me."

*

What will the next whim be? India? Tigers and Buddhist temples and a great river filled with the bodies of faithful worshippers. How far to go, oblivious and aimless, until the money runs out? He can't do anything, he repeats to himself again and again. Hit him on the head and drag him back? Ask Sirius for help?

He'd only pepper the mess. His bloody mess that he can't sort out.

The sky is like the play of a hardened brush, red and a violent shimmer of gold. The clouds like dots from a child's finger painting.

"Draco?

You stole your father's money and took us to Egypt?"

"Yes," he replies, simply. "There's my cards on the table."

"What are you going to do now, Draco? Because I can't help you like this. I never could."

"Yes, you can. We wouldn't have to care about anybody if you really loved me! We'd be free."

"Stop before we start to repeat ourselves, damn it!" He shouts, and there is silence. "I'm tired. You can always come back, if not back home I'm sure something can be done. Dumbledore..."

"Oh, I'd stay with the Dursleys! Fat chance." Draco says, bitterness sliding off his tongue with every loud gasp he lets free. "You don't know a fucking thing."

"You still don't...and it won't ever end." He says, and laughs, mad suffocated hysteria breaking out. He laughs until it hurts, until he's sure he'll never stop. Draco doesn't look at him .

The wind sweeps around them as they are standing on the port, a ship calls for passengers nearby, the sun reflects off the seawater, gleaming and it's hot, hot as always and it's boring into his back.

Draco is standing back to him. He points at the obscured distance, and says:

"It's a fucking strange world when people outlive gods. Look at them. They've been forgotten."

End.