Fire and Fallacy
Fire.
Burning.
It starts in the only way it can.
Fed by anger and contempt; it sears his insides and brings to him the thought that maybe, just maybe, he might have something to live for.
…
He sees her curly hair first, wild and frizzed about her face, a tedious shade of brown. She stands on the platform with her parents who, judging by the expressions of barely suppressed wonder on their faces, are muggles.
Mudblood.
His fingertips sting.
…
Gryffindor.
But of course she is.
…
Her hand reaches, it seems, for a sky he wishes she'd disappear into.
She knows the answers to questions that haven't been asked yet, and he wonders what she'd look like if she cried.
Even more hideous, probably.
Or perhaps the tears would bring a pretty sheen to her skin.
He smiles.
…
She's friends with them.
It maddens him to see them together. None of them should have friends.
But, he thinks, they've clearly found solace in each other's insignificance. The knowledge takes him to the pinnacle of a serene sort of elation; it kindles the fire and drenches his soul.
He loathes them.
…
Mudblood, Mudblood, Mudblood.
She stands in front of him, small and shivering, nothing yet something. There's blood in her hair, thick and putrid. His hands are clasped around her brittle little neck and her nails cut into them, but the bones still crack crack crack–
His mother calls his name.
…
He calls her it. In front of everyone.
Mudblood.
He sees nothing but her as her face falls and lips pale to a lovely translucency. His entire being yearns for her as her eyes widen – they're brown, he realises, though he'd noticed this long ago. She's his entire world as they gloss over and glisten sadly in the sunshine.
Filthy little Mudblood.
He gazes into those brown eyes and thinks, just for a moment, that perhaps mud isn't so bad.
…
That night, the burning swells and undulates like the waves of an unforgotten ocean. It's a deep, fiery thing that maims his dreams and inhabits his nightmares.
When he wakes, he feels whole.
…
It is a morbid kind of fascination that soothes the blood through his veins.
He laughs, laughs, laughs as they drop like flies; the castle wants rid of them the way he wants rid of her.
And it's happening.
…
It is a desperate kind of terror that forces the blood through his veins.
She's been taken to the Hospital Wing – he hears them talking about her. Everybody is talking about her.
He hopes the damned castle burns down.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Only he burns now.
…
She's a corpse, pallid and stiff. Her arm is outstretched and her hand curls in on itself.
When he reaches for her, his fingers tremble. Her skin is soft, but so very cold, and he wonders fleetingly if her blood is as frozen as she is.
He looks down at the mirror sat innocently on her bedside table.
He hates that is exists, hates that she lives because of it. He wants to fling it against the wall; if it was gone, split into a thousand tiny shards, maybe she would be too.
That's all he's ever wanted since he laid eyes on her.
He shifts, his own reflection moving into sight, yet all he sees is fire.
You could have let her die.
His footsteps are swift as he leaves.
Behind him, the mirror gleams whole in the candlelight.
…
The sobs tear through his chest, rip through his throat, and leave him every bit as empty as he has always craved to be.
Filthy little Mudblood.
He won't survive.
…
She is alive by the end of the year.
He will. Survive, that is.
…
The moment her hand whips across his cheek, the burning wavers.
She's a tidal wave of the beautiful kind, vast in her power and enthralling in her fury. She's descending on him and his fire; down, down, down–
She submerges him.
He holds his breath as his eyes meet hers; instantly, wonderfully, willingly, he takes an eager gulp of the iciness that tastes of blood.
When she turns away from him, his lungs ache.
…
The ache becomes part of him. He thinks he hates it.
She walks by him in the corridor, a pile of books clutched close to her chest.
He thinks he hates her.
…
He begins to realise the permanence of his misfortune when she wears blue.
He's never seen her in anything but her Gryffindor robes; red, gold, black, infuriating. They are a part of her as much as her bushy hair and pale skin, bound together to make the perfect picture of a Mudblood.
Yet she stands there, body skimmed in periwinkle, hair smoothed back with a smile lingering over her rosy lips – a smile he has never seen (or imagined) before – and something within him shatters and splinters irretrievably.
Oh, he'll never be the same again.
He doesn't mind.
…
Lips are pressed against his.
They're soft and they belong to somebody who smells lightly of honeysuckle. It hits the back of his throat with a sickly sweetness that makes his body tremble.
His eyes are shut tight; he wishes he were dead.
Those lips could be hers. They're not. But they could be.
Maybe she'd smell of blood, and dirt, and flowers.
He's glad he's not dead.
…
His father euphoric. His mother is terrified.
He's back.
He thinks he might be both.
…
His nights are filled with flashes of violent green light and death, death, death.
But, dead or alive, she's always there.
Elation, painful in its intensity, surges through him when he sees her mangled body piled atop a mountain of others, blood glowing as it oozes towards him and soaks his feet, seeping into his skin until he's choking on it.
She's dead, dead, dead, he laughs.
Yet, when he wakes, it is with an awful despair heavy on his chest and tears flowing freely from his eyes.
She's dead, she's dead, she's dead.
He screams.
…
She's different.
He sees her, but she doesn't see him. She seems lighter somehow, happier. Her cheeks have some colour to them, and her hair is unruly in a blithe, appealing sort of way.
It makes the fire flicker and blaze harsher than ever; his skin burns, and he can smell it, he can hear it.
Somehow he doesn't mind burning anymore.
…
He follows them, he chases them; all of them, but only her.
They're doing something. They're planning something. Something, something, something–
He doesn't know what. He doesn't know what she's doing.
He's terrified.
…
He should have been.
He watches her as she boards the train. She has a cut on her bottom lip and a purple bruise blossoms over her cheekbone, but she's happy–
No, not happy. The shadows beneath her eyes tell a story of sleepless nights. But she's emboldened, empowered, like she knows what she has to do.
The others are worse.
He doesn't care.
…
One summer, he remembers, his father had gotten angry – he doesn't recall why – and hit him hard across the face.
His mother had screamed. Her nails had clawed at his father's face and she'd spat her disgust at him. And then she'd cried.
She's crying now. There's no room for her ire, though.
His forearm burns as if he's been touched by fire.
Instantly, he thinks of her.
No.
It's not the same.
…
It's a beautiful necklace, he supposes.
Silver twists and coils intricately and pale blue opals shimmer with malice. It would look exquisite against the fair skin of her neck.
He laughs; it's defiled.
Its purpose is death–
It won't fucking touch her.
…
For the first time in his life, he is happy.
The slashes in his face, his chest, his legs; they sting and burn in a deliciously familiar sort of way. He feels safe, he feels content, he feels his own blood slickening his fingertips.
He can hear someone calling his name.
He doesn't care.
The bathroom begins to dissolve, and he sees her.
He always sees her.
…
The legs wrapped around his waist aren't pale enough.
Pants and gasps come from lips that aren't pink enough.
The blood he draws from those lips isn't dirty enough.
His muscles spasm, his head pounds, he fucks like the world is about to end, but he is so fucking angry.
No one else will ever be enough.
…
Somehow he knows.
He won't see her for a long time.
He burns all the same.
…
His dreams begin to change.
They are consumed by her still. But now she's alive, alive, alive.
She burns with him. They're together in the fire; they are the fire.
When he wakes, he has hope.
…
He – the Dark Lord – is after them. He knows.
He's after her. And he'll find her; he will find her.
His whole being cascades into a sea of helplessness.
He will find her.
…
She's screaming.
He's never heard anything like it before.
Oh, he has savoured the din of tortured screams before; this, after all, is Malfoy Manor, and he is Draco Malfoy.
Some decrepit part of his soul has accepted that his dreams have been sentenced to death, and so he has dedicated those screams to them.
But not Hermione Granger's.
Something about the way she screams her pain is incomparable. The sound pummels through to a part of him whose existence he has suppressed; it's brought to the forefront now, hot and earth-shattering.
He could stop her pain; he could stop it now.
If his feelings for her were anything less than eternal he might do just that, but he knows what would come after would be far, far worse.
So he stands motionless, eyes shut, body taut, mind dying.
His aunt is laughing, spitting, shrieking–
Crucio, Crucio, Crucio, Crucio, Crucio
It's never ending, someone else is laughing–
He opens his eyes and looks at her.
Her eyes meet his.
It's a fraction of a second yet it contains a lifetime. Her teeth are gritted and bared, blood coats her lips, and her hair is a knotted mass of dirt, but her eyes are incandescent with a violent sort of challenge.
She knows. She fucking knows.
He moves.
Just an inch, but it's a mutiny all the same.
Despite everything, he knows she feels it too.
He moves again. He stops. He's consumed by it–
Burning.
Fire.
A little something I've been mulling over for a while. Not romance in the 'traditional' sense, I suppose. Hope you enjoyed ~