Resipiscence end
Jump?
Disintegration:
Part 1, Part 2
Lassitude:
Part 1, Part 2
Resipiscence:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, End
Resipiscence (end)
I am alone, and in front of me there is a hall of tile, ever and forever ongoing, it seems. The tiles and the grout are white, and the only grey that lies in the room is the shadows cast by the jutting walls that separate the showers. I look up, but the tiles climb up and up as far as I can see. Ahead of me, behind me I search, but it is useless. There are only the tiles and stalls. If I listen, look closely, there is steam and noises that rise from those stalls, all the stalls, but they are soft and harsh like puffs of hot air that burn my skin. I have been in this hall before, and although my mind screams to get out, get away, my heart is still, my fingers calm, and I move forward.
I walk toward the nearest shower, the sound of drops falling echoing down the hall. There are no curtains for privacy, and although the water sounds and the steam rises, there is no water flooding out on the tiled floor. I move unhurriedly, my legs stretching leisurely in front of me as I take my time, curious and cautious, watching.
However, as soon as I am in view of the first shower, I stop and gape. In the stall, there are two benches facing each other, and a window on the wall that depicts a moving landscape. And there, there stands a small, pale boy in black robes, and on a bench sits another boy with dark hair and glasses. Their lips are moving but I cannot hear them, and I don’t dare step closer. Something in me prevents me from intruding to listen, as if the scene is sacred, and by stepping into it I will taint it.
And so I stand, my shoulders sagging a little as I watch, as I begin to understand. A weariness creeps into my blood as I gaze, helplessly, and the words I now remember ring in my ears.
You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.
I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.
I watch as my younger self turns a light shade of pink and I shudder, suddenly feeling cold, my throat expanding and filling with the taste of bile at your blunt rejection. I turn and stride away, continuing down the hall and ignoring the stalls that line the wall on my left. That is, until some one tumbles out of one and into the hallway.
You’re lying on the ground, your lip bloodied and face bruised, but you’re quickly standing again and running into the stall you just fell out of. My feet are suddenly running, and I have to put my hands on the walls as I stop and look into the space you’ve gone into, my breathing labored from the small sprint. I watch as you wrestle someone to the ground, the grass where the tile should be, and in a flash of light hair, I realize that it is you and me again, our younger selves fighting in front of the Quidditch pitch. Our brooms lie somewhere off in a corner.
I back away from the scene slowly, and I feel my face falling. Not for the first time do I wonder where I am. I have an idea, a horrifying idea of what I’m trapped in, and as my heart finally reacts, finally begins to shake and thunder like it should, I panic and begin running back the way I came, glancing into the various showers. What should be my fast, loud footsteps against the tile are slow, languid sounds of water dripping into puddles and pools. I speed up, desperate to hear something, anything other than the water.
As I run, I see people and robes and scenes, scenes I know. They’re all blurred as I dart down the hall, because I do not need to stop and watch; these scenes are mine, ones I’ve experienced and have ingrained in my memory. I pass us in a hallway with ‘Potter Stinks’ badges; there we stand in front of a hippogriff, and I am on the floor, screaming; in that stall we duel, when suddenly a snake erupts from your wand. The images are all swirling, streaking past me and I feel my head pounding, pulsing erratically, just as fast and frantic as my heart.
These, these are my memories, my life, and if I run far enough backward, backward into my past, I do not need to see my future, need not remember what I’ve lived though. It is a terrifying, pleading thought I have, wish I have, and I need to get away from this. If I go far enough, there will be an end, an end before I began, and maybe I can escape this.
I dash past the first memory I saw, of us on the train, and I speed up, my feet hurting as I push myself harder, further, faster. I stop a few stalls away, and I panic; my palms sweat and I blink as fast as my heart beats. It’s not true; it can’t be. I frantically shake my head and run again, look again, but I’m lost. I’m lost. I’m trapped.
I look into a stall that seems a mile away from the first one, from the one behind me of us on that train. But it is no use; I stand here, at what may have been my childhood, my infancy, and see a small, pale boy in dark robes, and you, you sitting on that bench, and the window of the moving landscape.
I am trapped in this hall of selective memories, and I do not know the way out.
Gravity pulls me down, onto my knees against the cold tile and I am screaming, crying out as fiercely as I can, my hands in my hair and I am pulling, then digging my nails into my scalp. My blood is throbbing in my head, my temples burning and my neck is swelling in anger.
There is no sound, but the drops falling gently into pools.
I try screaming again, pounding my fists against the tiles, but there are no sounds, just the water and the steam. I try clapping, yawning, yelling again and again, but there is nothing. Forlorn, drained, I lay my head on the floor, my sides flush against the cool tile. I rest there, my pulsing head slowing, my frantic heart dying, and I listen to the harsh whisper of steam that surrounds me. My throat is raw, and my cheeks sting, and beneath my fingernails there is blood.
I sigh, silently, my eyelids becoming heavy as I give in to my mind.
All these memories - they are so few, so selective. Was there no other point to my life? Every scene played has only been us, you and me, violent and loathsome. We were never alone, but there, but here, we are. Everyone else is omitted, but you, and I, remain.
What happened to my parents? My childhood? What of my games and my choices and my home. Was nothing else important?
I open my eyes and stare blearily at the scene in front of me, watch as the benches, the window, the train repeats over and over again. I watch your face, your green eyes, your broken glasses, and remember the feelings from my childhood as my younger self stands there, mortified, humiliated, and determined, vowing to prove his worth to you, even if it took him his entire life.
My entire life.
I blink, and sit up painfully, my body cold, hunched and sick. I was so sure, so certain my life amounted to more. Like family and friends.
But it hasn’t, and my mind is suddenly convinced so, as if I knew it all along but ignored it. My family; my mother’s death compelled me to help you, and my father murdered, only because you told me to. My friends; in school they helped me hurt you, and now my only friend was your friend. Everything I’ve had or known, is connected to you, revolves around you.
My life belongs to you.
Even when you were not there, I devoted my time, my knowledge, my everything, to finding you. These seventeen years, you have consumed me whole; my thoughts and my energy you feed off of. I am your greatest source of life, but there are no scraps left for me to pick at. Because you are selfish.
Because you need.
Eventually, I stand with the slow grace of a death march, a sad parade, my heart deathly quiet as I make my way forward. If this hall goes on forever, then I will walk forever, and watch and remember as I am torn to pieces, bit by agonizing bit. Watch and remember the worth of the life that only you could have taken.
And as I walk it is as if a switch is being flipped, and I feel my emotions, my will ebbing, slowly being stolen from me, bleeding from my mind, through my legs, and out my feet onto the tiled floor. I can feel them crawl from me, my body growing colder, my mind stumped and my heart stone. But I continue walking, for I know of nothing else to do. It may be weeks, or months, or only minutes to arrive at where I’m headed, I do not know the passage of time here.
So I continue until I finally spot it; our last, shared moment of reality, before it was all ruined.
The back of the shower I am stopped in front of is laced with trees, towering and imperious, and the tiles are covered with dark, thick grass. I sit on the tiled floor outside the stall, watching as leaves on the trees rustle and the grass bends to the wind I can on longer feel. After a while, you appear, and I gaze at your back as you retreat toward the trees. You’re wearing those muggle clothes you always wore. And behind you, my teenage self follows, stalking quickly toward you in tattered robes.
Come on, Potter. Now is not the time for a secret rendezvous in the Forbidden Forest; we’re going to be late for dinner.
I don’t want to go into the Great Hall.
He sprints the rest of the way, grabs your shoulder and spins you around.
They took the dead out weeks ago. You can at least try to eat a proper meal before we leave tomorrow.
You ignore him and continue walking to the forest.
Potter.
You speed up.
Potter!
He runs toward you again and grabs fistfuls of your clothing, pulling you back. You stumble backward into the grass, and he drags you away, even as you kick and claw his wrists.
Let me go, Malfoy!
There’s no need for you to go back into that forest, Potter. No one’s going to come back to life, no matter what you do or how hard you try.
He lets go of your clothes and your head falls into the grass. I know from memory that you are wiping your eyes now, but I cannot see it from where I sit now. As I watch us, my hands curl tightly around my ankles and I pull my knees against my chest. My younger self is looking at his nails, waiting, waiting for you to get up and leave. With him.
But you don’t, and I watch as the memory plays, and as he ignores you, pretends he is impatient and tired, you discreetly pull your wand. And in my mind I can hear you whisper;
Stupefy.
In a flash of red light my body is on the ground, and I, on the other side of the stall, watching, sigh. This - this was all you gave me. This is the last thing I can remember before you left, after all the pain you caused me, after all the nights you claimed me. This was all.
You didn’t even say good-bye.
I begin to stand, my legs feeling worn and my arms stiff, when I notice from the corner of my eye that you are standing too. I pause, my heart lurching suddenly, my dying emotions startled momentarily back to life. My memory should stop here. I don’t know anything past this. But you continue to move, hovering over the body on the ground, on all fours you are above him and watch. And you touch his hair, you touch his lips, and as you sigh your whole body crumples, barely suspended over him, as if you want to give in.
And your voice, cracked and broken, whispers desperately,
I need you, Draco Malfoy. But I can’t do this anymore; I can’t hurt you, I don’t want to hurt you. Please understand. Please.
And you choke as you stand and run into the forest, leaving him to wake up alone in the grass, wake up to the ugliest morning of his life. My life.
I turn from the scene; my breathing is labored again, my throat thick. I did not expect... anything, expected nothing from you, except to be needed. And so when you left me in that grass by the forest, I felt betrayed and angry, alone, forgotten, unneeded.
All these years, I’ve looked for you to find answers. To make you need me again.
But now I know you already did.
I kick at the tiled floor, frustrated by your selfishness, at the years wasted because of your self-pity, self-loathing. If you had stayed with us, with me in the wizarding world, things could have been so much more different. I would not have had to suffer through those years with Wilone, the years spent with the Ministry and the firm; Hermione would have had her child, and Weasley might not have become so rotten. If you had stayed, things could have been better.
But as I stand here, I think for a second, and I stop. There is no point wishing things different. This is what has happened. And as I take a step ahead of me, my anger begins to fade, my thoughts spiraling down and away as I make my way through the hall. It is as if by walking, a stupor of thought grows, and eventually everything I feel falls away.
And so I continue forward, because there is no point in going backwards; I already know what is there. But ahead? My memories will stop eventually. And there may be an end.
I don’t know what I expect; maybe an exit sign or an open doorway.
But then I wonder; what is my last memory?
I walk, all determination and arrogance and will I’ve even know taken from me by these porcelain walls. Curiosity barely drives me forward, fractionally allows this forlorn mind and this failing heart to function. My feet move mechanically, systematically, a steady march, and my hands stay limp by my sides, stiff from disuse.
I am not certain how I will know which memory is my last. I guess if I keep walking, and pass it, it will repeat itself like the memory of the train had. And so I continue to make my way forward, pausing every now and again to look into a stall and see if the memory changed. When I realize that it has, I shrug and continue on, uninterested.
It isn’t long before I notice the light dimming. Or at least, I think it hasn’t been long, and I am sure the light is dimmer than it had been. The shadows cast from the stalls are growing, increasingly darker, more menacing than they were before. And it’s suddenly like walking into Knockturn Alley, the grout black and molding, the tiles shattered, chipped, broken, the walls leaning down in on me, breathing heavy, putrid breaths that are filling my lungs and clog my throat. I cough, my hands coming up to cover my mouth, my throat irritated and inflamed, and I succumb to the fit that takes over.
When the irritation finally passes, I look up at the stalls, and for the first time notice the stark, white light that is spilling out from one of the showers in front of me. I make my way toward it with sloth like steps, my body frail and weathered.
As I move to look into the shower, the simple knowledge that this was my last moment, our last moment together, is clear. I do not know why, and I do not know how. Maybe it is in the way my back arches, my head dipping back and my hands clutching your shirt as if my life depended on it. Or maybe it is the way your arms flex as you grip me, your eyes bright behind your glasses and unwavering.
And in my mind, I hear us whisper.
I have to go.
You can’t.
And I hear the irregular heartbeats of my body in your arms, the frantic plea in my throat that begs you to let go, begs for you to keep me alive, and hear the spraying, the steam that hisses in my head as I buckle, as I fall.
And then the hall is black, the light gone. My heart does not lurch, my mind does not scream. It is as if I do not know how to panic, and I no longer fear anything. There is no need for me to spin around and look for something, no desire for curiosity or need. There is nothing here.
The lure to simply stop, stop thinking, stop anything in this dark is strong. But before my mind fails and sputters out like my heart, there is a noise that murmurs, that stops the water and the hissing steam.
“Draco.”
And I turn, to whatever direction the sound is coming from, barely registering that that is my name, that from somewhere, someone can speak, someone is speaking. I haven’t been able to make a single sound the whole time I’ve been trapped here, but someone else can, and it has captivated me. And so I move toward the whispers, the low lulling that comes to me from across the darkness.
“I know you’re angry, Draco, and maybe there is no way I can make you understand why I had to leave.”
In the distance, I can see a faint glimmer, faint glow, and I approach it.
“But I’ll try.”
I can barely make out the shape of a table, and someone sits next to it.
A deep breath echoes across the silence.
“There was something dark in me-” another breath “ -something poisoning me. I could feel it, Draco, but I didn’t know how it got there, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it.”
I’m closer now, and I see a hand rake through the hair of the figure next to the table. The light around the scene is growing, and I am close to stepping into it.
“I could feel it every time I tried to make a decision, like it was trying to make them for me, but not in a good way. Like the time-” And there is a pause, and I see now the glasses that are perched on the person’s nose, and the lumps covered in sheets that lie on the table next to him.
“Like the time I told you to kill your father.” A breath. “I could feel my world turn red when I laughed at you, when you ran away from his body.”
I stop walking, and suddenly I see, I know who sits there. You, you sit there beside a table, talking. And I am confused, because this, for sure, is no memory. I have no recollection of this; I don’t even see where I am.
I hear you choke before you continue. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I didn’t want to be away this long. I just - I didn’t want to hurt you. I couldn’t stay and let myself destroy you while I let the guilt destroy me.”
I watch as your hand reaches out. I begin walking again, approaching the table to peer at it. And as your hand reaches under the sheets, you pull out - a hand. Someone else’s hand, and I realize that the table is a bed, and that someone lies there.
There is no caution or care as I step closer to the bed, watching a pale face emerge as you pull the sheets away. And with an indifferent glance, I realize that it is me on the bed, grey and immobile.
And now I stand, watching you from across the bed, as you touch the hair of the body on the table. Your eyes are not bright, but they are not the same dull they were when I first saw you after our ten year separation. Your face is creased and scarred, your hands rough. But your hair is the same as ever, unruly, unkempt.
But when you look at me, your face is unguarded, so full of need.
You take a deep breath. “It’s ironic, how your energy is what saved me; I wasted all those years running when I might have been fine if I had just stayed with you.” You laugh, sour and defeated.
And I feel sadness as if I’ve never felt it before, the feeling suddenly striking me, weighing down my bones and plucking at my silent heartstrings. It’s like you are force feeding me your grief as you sit there and speak, watch me with your helpless expression. And the feeling intensifies with every second you touch my hand, the warmth of your fingers against the palm on the table flooding me with a cold pang of sadness.
But then, someone else walks in.
“Harry! What are you doing here? You know the doctors have told you to stay away from Draco.”
Heels click as Hermione strides over, her hands on her hips and her hair looking frazzled.
You look up, indignant and irritated.
“I haven’t seen him in nine months - I’m fine now, even you’ve said so - it was just my guilt. That’s all. I’ve done everything you wanted, I can control my magic again; I’m fine. Can’t I be allowed to see him now?”
Hermione huffs, “Harry, there’s nothing-”
“I just want one moment with him, Hermione! That’s all I ask!”
You turn back to the body on the table, ignoring Hermione as best you can. I watch as you begin stroking the pale hair again, and Hermione’s stony face falls as she watches you too, slowly turning to walk away.
I stand and watch you, the knowledge that nearly a year has passed ignored. I can’t comprehend it, don’t want to comprehend it, and so I watch you as you slowly trace the features of the face in front of us.
“Draco, I need you.” You gulp and blink. “I’ll find a way to bring you back. I promise.”
You put your forehead down on the bed next to the body, and against the sheets your hair looks like an ink blot on parchment. Your back moves up and down minutely with every slow breath. I move my attention to the grey face on the table, bending over to peer at it. Slowly, I use one of my fingers to poke it. Although my finger touches the cheek, I don’t feel anything - in my finger or my cheek. I shake my head and move closer, trying to pull some of the hair. It is odd to watch as I tug the hair in front of me, but not actually feel it in my hands, or feel my scalp being pulled.
I step back, my brow knitting. When you touched my hand, I felt it. But I cannot feel anything else.
I hear you gasp, and my head snaps to look at you. And I stop breathing. Your head is no longer on the table, but is up, your eyes wide and bright, and I realize you are staring at me; not the bed, not the body, but whatever I am that stands here. I step backwards, the sudden urge to be lost in the dark a much more reasonable thought than staying here. But you stand and your hand is reaching out, trying to touch me.
“Draco?”
I take another step backward and am about to turn, but you are instantly around the table and in front of me. The corners of your lips are twitching up, and your eyes hold mine in their gaze. From the corner of my eye I see your hand move toward mine, and suddenly I feel a warmth spread up my arm as your fingers graze mine. And I blink.
You watch me, eyes intense, but I do not react when you remove your fingers. You step closer, green eyes dazzling, bright and brilliant like every time you came out of your mental stupor, as if your previous insanity allows you to see through and to me. And your eyes are searching mine.
“Draco,” At this, you raise your hand up into my view, cautiously extending it toward me.
And you touch my chest, your fingertips sliding over my heart, and it is beating again, bumping painfully against my ribs as my mind floods with sounds. Layers and layers of sounds, some distant, some close. I hear my mother’s voice somewhere distant, pleading, telling me to save you. I hear the horrific rush of you falling to the ground, off your broom, off the bed, and my bleating pulse as I race to you and hold you, hush you until the dreams and the shrieking stop. I hear our screams, our needy, helpless screams as we searched for each other, grasped each other amid the destruction and war that crashed, collapsed down around us so many years ago. And need, the word curling in my blood as it moves again, feeling the pull toward you as if strings were attached to my chest.
“I need you.”
And I nod, because yes, you need me. And I have given my entire life to you.
<< RESIPISCENCE (part 3)
Disintegration:
Part 1, Part 2
Lassitude:
Part 1, Part 2
Resipiscence:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, End
Resipiscence (end)
I am alone, and in front of me there is a hall of tile, ever and forever ongoing, it seems. The tiles and the grout are white, and the only grey that lies in the room is the shadows cast by the jutting walls that separate the showers. I look up, but the tiles climb up and up as far as I can see. Ahead of me, behind me I search, but it is useless. There are only the tiles and stalls. If I listen, look closely, there is steam and noises that rise from those stalls, all the stalls, but they are soft and harsh like puffs of hot air that burn my skin. I have been in this hall before, and although my mind screams to get out, get away, my heart is still, my fingers calm, and I move forward.
I walk toward the nearest shower, the sound of drops falling echoing down the hall. There are no curtains for privacy, and although the water sounds and the steam rises, there is no water flooding out on the tiled floor. I move unhurriedly, my legs stretching leisurely in front of me as I take my time, curious and cautious, watching.
However, as soon as I am in view of the first shower, I stop and gape. In the stall, there are two benches facing each other, and a window on the wall that depicts a moving landscape. And there, there stands a small, pale boy in black robes, and on a bench sits another boy with dark hair and glasses. Their lips are moving but I cannot hear them, and I don’t dare step closer. Something in me prevents me from intruding to listen, as if the scene is sacred, and by stepping into it I will taint it.
And so I stand, my shoulders sagging a little as I watch, as I begin to understand. A weariness creeps into my blood as I gaze, helplessly, and the words I now remember ring in my ears.
You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.
I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.
I watch as my younger self turns a light shade of pink and I shudder, suddenly feeling cold, my throat expanding and filling with the taste of bile at your blunt rejection. I turn and stride away, continuing down the hall and ignoring the stalls that line the wall on my left. That is, until some one tumbles out of one and into the hallway.
You’re lying on the ground, your lip bloodied and face bruised, but you’re quickly standing again and running into the stall you just fell out of. My feet are suddenly running, and I have to put my hands on the walls as I stop and look into the space you’ve gone into, my breathing labored from the small sprint. I watch as you wrestle someone to the ground, the grass where the tile should be, and in a flash of light hair, I realize that it is you and me again, our younger selves fighting in front of the Quidditch pitch. Our brooms lie somewhere off in a corner.
I back away from the scene slowly, and I feel my face falling. Not for the first time do I wonder where I am. I have an idea, a horrifying idea of what I’m trapped in, and as my heart finally reacts, finally begins to shake and thunder like it should, I panic and begin running back the way I came, glancing into the various showers. What should be my fast, loud footsteps against the tile are slow, languid sounds of water dripping into puddles and pools. I speed up, desperate to hear something, anything other than the water.
As I run, I see people and robes and scenes, scenes I know. They’re all blurred as I dart down the hall, because I do not need to stop and watch; these scenes are mine, ones I’ve experienced and have ingrained in my memory. I pass us in a hallway with ‘Potter Stinks’ badges; there we stand in front of a hippogriff, and I am on the floor, screaming; in that stall we duel, when suddenly a snake erupts from your wand. The images are all swirling, streaking past me and I feel my head pounding, pulsing erratically, just as fast and frantic as my heart.
These, these are my memories, my life, and if I run far enough backward, backward into my past, I do not need to see my future, need not remember what I’ve lived though. It is a terrifying, pleading thought I have, wish I have, and I need to get away from this. If I go far enough, there will be an end, an end before I began, and maybe I can escape this.
I dash past the first memory I saw, of us on the train, and I speed up, my feet hurting as I push myself harder, further, faster. I stop a few stalls away, and I panic; my palms sweat and I blink as fast as my heart beats. It’s not true; it can’t be. I frantically shake my head and run again, look again, but I’m lost. I’m lost. I’m trapped.
I look into a stall that seems a mile away from the first one, from the one behind me of us on that train. But it is no use; I stand here, at what may have been my childhood, my infancy, and see a small, pale boy in dark robes, and you, you sitting on that bench, and the window of the moving landscape.
I am trapped in this hall of selective memories, and I do not know the way out.
Gravity pulls me down, onto my knees against the cold tile and I am screaming, crying out as fiercely as I can, my hands in my hair and I am pulling, then digging my nails into my scalp. My blood is throbbing in my head, my temples burning and my neck is swelling in anger.
There is no sound, but the drops falling gently into pools.
I try screaming again, pounding my fists against the tiles, but there are no sounds, just the water and the steam. I try clapping, yawning, yelling again and again, but there is nothing. Forlorn, drained, I lay my head on the floor, my sides flush against the cool tile. I rest there, my pulsing head slowing, my frantic heart dying, and I listen to the harsh whisper of steam that surrounds me. My throat is raw, and my cheeks sting, and beneath my fingernails there is blood.
I sigh, silently, my eyelids becoming heavy as I give in to my mind.
All these memories - they are so few, so selective. Was there no other point to my life? Every scene played has only been us, you and me, violent and loathsome. We were never alone, but there, but here, we are. Everyone else is omitted, but you, and I, remain.
What happened to my parents? My childhood? What of my games and my choices and my home. Was nothing else important?
I open my eyes and stare blearily at the scene in front of me, watch as the benches, the window, the train repeats over and over again. I watch your face, your green eyes, your broken glasses, and remember the feelings from my childhood as my younger self stands there, mortified, humiliated, and determined, vowing to prove his worth to you, even if it took him his entire life.
My entire life.
I blink, and sit up painfully, my body cold, hunched and sick. I was so sure, so certain my life amounted to more. Like family and friends.
But it hasn’t, and my mind is suddenly convinced so, as if I knew it all along but ignored it. My family; my mother’s death compelled me to help you, and my father murdered, only because you told me to. My friends; in school they helped me hurt you, and now my only friend was your friend. Everything I’ve had or known, is connected to you, revolves around you.
My life belongs to you.
Even when you were not there, I devoted my time, my knowledge, my everything, to finding you. These seventeen years, you have consumed me whole; my thoughts and my energy you feed off of. I am your greatest source of life, but there are no scraps left for me to pick at. Because you are selfish.
Because you need.
Eventually, I stand with the slow grace of a death march, a sad parade, my heart deathly quiet as I make my way forward. If this hall goes on forever, then I will walk forever, and watch and remember as I am torn to pieces, bit by agonizing bit. Watch and remember the worth of the life that only you could have taken.
And as I walk it is as if a switch is being flipped, and I feel my emotions, my will ebbing, slowly being stolen from me, bleeding from my mind, through my legs, and out my feet onto the tiled floor. I can feel them crawl from me, my body growing colder, my mind stumped and my heart stone. But I continue walking, for I know of nothing else to do. It may be weeks, or months, or only minutes to arrive at where I’m headed, I do not know the passage of time here.
So I continue until I finally spot it; our last, shared moment of reality, before it was all ruined.
The back of the shower I am stopped in front of is laced with trees, towering and imperious, and the tiles are covered with dark, thick grass. I sit on the tiled floor outside the stall, watching as leaves on the trees rustle and the grass bends to the wind I can on longer feel. After a while, you appear, and I gaze at your back as you retreat toward the trees. You’re wearing those muggle clothes you always wore. And behind you, my teenage self follows, stalking quickly toward you in tattered robes.
Come on, Potter. Now is not the time for a secret rendezvous in the Forbidden Forest; we’re going to be late for dinner.
I don’t want to go into the Great Hall.
He sprints the rest of the way, grabs your shoulder and spins you around.
They took the dead out weeks ago. You can at least try to eat a proper meal before we leave tomorrow.
You ignore him and continue walking to the forest.
Potter.
You speed up.
Potter!
He runs toward you again and grabs fistfuls of your clothing, pulling you back. You stumble backward into the grass, and he drags you away, even as you kick and claw his wrists.
Let me go, Malfoy!
There’s no need for you to go back into that forest, Potter. No one’s going to come back to life, no matter what you do or how hard you try.
He lets go of your clothes and your head falls into the grass. I know from memory that you are wiping your eyes now, but I cannot see it from where I sit now. As I watch us, my hands curl tightly around my ankles and I pull my knees against my chest. My younger self is looking at his nails, waiting, waiting for you to get up and leave. With him.
But you don’t, and I watch as the memory plays, and as he ignores you, pretends he is impatient and tired, you discreetly pull your wand. And in my mind I can hear you whisper;
Stupefy.
In a flash of red light my body is on the ground, and I, on the other side of the stall, watching, sigh. This - this was all you gave me. This is the last thing I can remember before you left, after all the pain you caused me, after all the nights you claimed me. This was all.
You didn’t even say good-bye.
I begin to stand, my legs feeling worn and my arms stiff, when I notice from the corner of my eye that you are standing too. I pause, my heart lurching suddenly, my dying emotions startled momentarily back to life. My memory should stop here. I don’t know anything past this. But you continue to move, hovering over the body on the ground, on all fours you are above him and watch. And you touch his hair, you touch his lips, and as you sigh your whole body crumples, barely suspended over him, as if you want to give in.
And your voice, cracked and broken, whispers desperately,
I need you, Draco Malfoy. But I can’t do this anymore; I can’t hurt you, I don’t want to hurt you. Please understand. Please.
And you choke as you stand and run into the forest, leaving him to wake up alone in the grass, wake up to the ugliest morning of his life. My life.
I turn from the scene; my breathing is labored again, my throat thick. I did not expect... anything, expected nothing from you, except to be needed. And so when you left me in that grass by the forest, I felt betrayed and angry, alone, forgotten, unneeded.
All these years, I’ve looked for you to find answers. To make you need me again.
But now I know you already did.
I kick at the tiled floor, frustrated by your selfishness, at the years wasted because of your self-pity, self-loathing. If you had stayed with us, with me in the wizarding world, things could have been so much more different. I would not have had to suffer through those years with Wilone, the years spent with the Ministry and the firm; Hermione would have had her child, and Weasley might not have become so rotten. If you had stayed, things could have been better.
But as I stand here, I think for a second, and I stop. There is no point wishing things different. This is what has happened. And as I take a step ahead of me, my anger begins to fade, my thoughts spiraling down and away as I make my way through the hall. It is as if by walking, a stupor of thought grows, and eventually everything I feel falls away.
And so I continue forward, because there is no point in going backwards; I already know what is there. But ahead? My memories will stop eventually. And there may be an end.
I don’t know what I expect; maybe an exit sign or an open doorway.
But then I wonder; what is my last memory?
I walk, all determination and arrogance and will I’ve even know taken from me by these porcelain walls. Curiosity barely drives me forward, fractionally allows this forlorn mind and this failing heart to function. My feet move mechanically, systematically, a steady march, and my hands stay limp by my sides, stiff from disuse.
I am not certain how I will know which memory is my last. I guess if I keep walking, and pass it, it will repeat itself like the memory of the train had. And so I continue to make my way forward, pausing every now and again to look into a stall and see if the memory changed. When I realize that it has, I shrug and continue on, uninterested.
It isn’t long before I notice the light dimming. Or at least, I think it hasn’t been long, and I am sure the light is dimmer than it had been. The shadows cast from the stalls are growing, increasingly darker, more menacing than they were before. And it’s suddenly like walking into Knockturn Alley, the grout black and molding, the tiles shattered, chipped, broken, the walls leaning down in on me, breathing heavy, putrid breaths that are filling my lungs and clog my throat. I cough, my hands coming up to cover my mouth, my throat irritated and inflamed, and I succumb to the fit that takes over.
When the irritation finally passes, I look up at the stalls, and for the first time notice the stark, white light that is spilling out from one of the showers in front of me. I make my way toward it with sloth like steps, my body frail and weathered.
As I move to look into the shower, the simple knowledge that this was my last moment, our last moment together, is clear. I do not know why, and I do not know how. Maybe it is in the way my back arches, my head dipping back and my hands clutching your shirt as if my life depended on it. Or maybe it is the way your arms flex as you grip me, your eyes bright behind your glasses and unwavering.
And in my mind, I hear us whisper.
I have to go.
You can’t.
And I hear the irregular heartbeats of my body in your arms, the frantic plea in my throat that begs you to let go, begs for you to keep me alive, and hear the spraying, the steam that hisses in my head as I buckle, as I fall.
And then the hall is black, the light gone. My heart does not lurch, my mind does not scream. It is as if I do not know how to panic, and I no longer fear anything. There is no need for me to spin around and look for something, no desire for curiosity or need. There is nothing here.
The lure to simply stop, stop thinking, stop anything in this dark is strong. But before my mind fails and sputters out like my heart, there is a noise that murmurs, that stops the water and the hissing steam.
“Draco.”
And I turn, to whatever direction the sound is coming from, barely registering that that is my name, that from somewhere, someone can speak, someone is speaking. I haven’t been able to make a single sound the whole time I’ve been trapped here, but someone else can, and it has captivated me. And so I move toward the whispers, the low lulling that comes to me from across the darkness.
“I know you’re angry, Draco, and maybe there is no way I can make you understand why I had to leave.”
In the distance, I can see a faint glimmer, faint glow, and I approach it.
“But I’ll try.”
I can barely make out the shape of a table, and someone sits next to it.
A deep breath echoes across the silence.
“There was something dark in me-” another breath “ -something poisoning me. I could feel it, Draco, but I didn’t know how it got there, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it.”
I’m closer now, and I see a hand rake through the hair of the figure next to the table. The light around the scene is growing, and I am close to stepping into it.
“I could feel it every time I tried to make a decision, like it was trying to make them for me, but not in a good way. Like the time-” And there is a pause, and I see now the glasses that are perched on the person’s nose, and the lumps covered in sheets that lie on the table next to him.
“Like the time I told you to kill your father.” A breath. “I could feel my world turn red when I laughed at you, when you ran away from his body.”
I stop walking, and suddenly I see, I know who sits there. You, you sit there beside a table, talking. And I am confused, because this, for sure, is no memory. I have no recollection of this; I don’t even see where I am.
I hear you choke before you continue. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I didn’t want to be away this long. I just - I didn’t want to hurt you. I couldn’t stay and let myself destroy you while I let the guilt destroy me.”
I watch as your hand reaches out. I begin walking again, approaching the table to peer at it. And as your hand reaches under the sheets, you pull out - a hand. Someone else’s hand, and I realize that the table is a bed, and that someone lies there.
There is no caution or care as I step closer to the bed, watching a pale face emerge as you pull the sheets away. And with an indifferent glance, I realize that it is me on the bed, grey and immobile.
And now I stand, watching you from across the bed, as you touch the hair of the body on the table. Your eyes are not bright, but they are not the same dull they were when I first saw you after our ten year separation. Your face is creased and scarred, your hands rough. But your hair is the same as ever, unruly, unkempt.
But when you look at me, your face is unguarded, so full of need.
You take a deep breath. “It’s ironic, how your energy is what saved me; I wasted all those years running when I might have been fine if I had just stayed with you.” You laugh, sour and defeated.
And I feel sadness as if I’ve never felt it before, the feeling suddenly striking me, weighing down my bones and plucking at my silent heartstrings. It’s like you are force feeding me your grief as you sit there and speak, watch me with your helpless expression. And the feeling intensifies with every second you touch my hand, the warmth of your fingers against the palm on the table flooding me with a cold pang of sadness.
But then, someone else walks in.
“Harry! What are you doing here? You know the doctors have told you to stay away from Draco.”
Heels click as Hermione strides over, her hands on her hips and her hair looking frazzled.
You look up, indignant and irritated.
“I haven’t seen him in nine months - I’m fine now, even you’ve said so - it was just my guilt. That’s all. I’ve done everything you wanted, I can control my magic again; I’m fine. Can’t I be allowed to see him now?”
Hermione huffs, “Harry, there’s nothing-”
“I just want one moment with him, Hermione! That’s all I ask!”
You turn back to the body on the table, ignoring Hermione as best you can. I watch as you begin stroking the pale hair again, and Hermione’s stony face falls as she watches you too, slowly turning to walk away.
I stand and watch you, the knowledge that nearly a year has passed ignored. I can’t comprehend it, don’t want to comprehend it, and so I watch you as you slowly trace the features of the face in front of us.
“Draco, I need you.” You gulp and blink. “I’ll find a way to bring you back. I promise.”
You put your forehead down on the bed next to the body, and against the sheets your hair looks like an ink blot on parchment. Your back moves up and down minutely with every slow breath. I move my attention to the grey face on the table, bending over to peer at it. Slowly, I use one of my fingers to poke it. Although my finger touches the cheek, I don’t feel anything - in my finger or my cheek. I shake my head and move closer, trying to pull some of the hair. It is odd to watch as I tug the hair in front of me, but not actually feel it in my hands, or feel my scalp being pulled.
I step back, my brow knitting. When you touched my hand, I felt it. But I cannot feel anything else.
I hear you gasp, and my head snaps to look at you. And I stop breathing. Your head is no longer on the table, but is up, your eyes wide and bright, and I realize you are staring at me; not the bed, not the body, but whatever I am that stands here. I step backwards, the sudden urge to be lost in the dark a much more reasonable thought than staying here. But you stand and your hand is reaching out, trying to touch me.
“Draco?”
I take another step backward and am about to turn, but you are instantly around the table and in front of me. The corners of your lips are twitching up, and your eyes hold mine in their gaze. From the corner of my eye I see your hand move toward mine, and suddenly I feel a warmth spread up my arm as your fingers graze mine. And I blink.
You watch me, eyes intense, but I do not react when you remove your fingers. You step closer, green eyes dazzling, bright and brilliant like every time you came out of your mental stupor, as if your previous insanity allows you to see through and to me. And your eyes are searching mine.
“Draco,” At this, you raise your hand up into my view, cautiously extending it toward me.
And you touch my chest, your fingertips sliding over my heart, and it is beating again, bumping painfully against my ribs as my mind floods with sounds. Layers and layers of sounds, some distant, some close. I hear my mother’s voice somewhere distant, pleading, telling me to save you. I hear the horrific rush of you falling to the ground, off your broom, off the bed, and my bleating pulse as I race to you and hold you, hush you until the dreams and the shrieking stop. I hear our screams, our needy, helpless screams as we searched for each other, grasped each other amid the destruction and war that crashed, collapsed down around us so many years ago. And need, the word curling in my blood as it moves again, feeling the pull toward you as if strings were attached to my chest.
“I need you.”
And I nod, because yes, you need me. And I have given my entire life to you.
<< RESIPISCENCE (part 3)