Chapter 2
She stands in front of the mirror, looking at her reflection with distaste.
‘No, this is not a story where the heroine dislikes herself and the hero is head over heels in love with her and her perfect body.’
‘There IS no hero. There is only tragedy, and suffering, and how to get back up and just move fucking on already. There is only life. No romanticism.’
The war is over, and there have been SO MANY, SO MANY deaths. She stares at her curly hair, still enthusiastic in its bounciness, while she rots inside.
Sometimes she wonders if she were better dead. If those who survived wish they were. Because feeling this hurt, this damnable despair, is not worth living for.
She’s barely slept in over two weeks, and there are dark circles underneath her eyes so deep they seem permanently etched into her skin that she disguises with makeup, and she doesn’t give a damn about code, and rules, and conduct, because it’s worth nothing to her anymore.
She bitterly remembers those snatches of laughter while they were operating on stolen time, of midnight rendezvouses, those fading memories of her childhood. She doesn’t think shell ever be able to feel those emotions again. She’s too hollowed out from the inside.
The media and the press have glorified her to be some sort of angelic savior, the Gryffindor lioness who saved the world.
Well, the lioness’s lost her roar. Too bad. Fuck them all.
She fakes a smile for Harry, for those emerald eyes that twinkle with laughter and happiness from underneath his glasses, because he has Ginny.
He has something to live for. Something worth living for. And she can’t help but feel envious, for just a moment, and then feel guilty for being envious, and then losing herself in a never ending cycle.
Luna has Neville, Lavender has her stupid boyfriend.
And Ron- Ron’s lost himself too. He just doesn’t know it. He is an extrovert through and through, and he’s started clinging to it like a lifeline he doesn’t know he has. Going out every second he gets, to unknown cities, places, people.. He barely eats now, and she’s forgotten the happiness of seeing that dimple in his cheek when he smiles, it happens so rarely.
She’s started smoking now, turning to muggle drugs for salvation, knowing how wrecked she is, secretly going to bars after the witching hour strikes.
Her headaches pound a rhythm into her brain, and she doesn’t even know if she is capable of rational thought anymore. Her scar bleeds every so often, and the blood underneath her skin thrums with her heartbeat, and she wonders what it would be like to let it out.
She spends hours staring at those carved letters.
M.U.D.B.L.O.O.D.
Why was the world this cruel? Why did she get to suffer?
She visited her parents as a part of self-healing, though it would be good for her emotional wellbeing. It isn’t, she very quickly realizes once she’s there. She stands, watching them from afar, watching them laugh gaily, watching them shop for their daughter, her SISTER, and all the while drowning in self-pity. They didn’t even know she EXISTED.
She meets her five year old sister on the street as a stranger and feels nothing at all. Her expression must have been frightening, for the blue-eyed little girl screams with fear and runs away, tears blurring her tiny glasses.
Surprisingly, it actually makes her feel a bitter resentment for the world. Resentment instead of hurt. For its cruel misogyny.
She never goes back. They’re happy there. Without her.
But they deserve to be.
And she doesn’t.
She knows too much about reality. She’s one of its victims. She sits in the bathtub of her pristine bathroom, drenched in water, holding a knife to her hand, wondering what it would feel like, just once.
When she does, she cuts slowly, wanting to feel every last shred of pain. Her own subconscious is turning against her. She cleans up her own blood just as emotionlessly afterwards. She’s not really a self-harm type of girl, she realizes.
Its at The Flying Dutchman, late night, when she finds him. She’s high with a couple of others, passing around the blunt enough times to let her feel something other than her despair.
Its then she sees him. Sitting in the corner of the bar, barely illuminated in the dull light, but visible. It was always his hair that gave him away, wasn’t it? Like a bright star in the darkness. He’s leaning against the wall, head thrown back, with shallow breaths escaping his parted lips as puffs of cold, white mist. She can see the glint of the firewhisky bottle in his hand. He raises it to his mouth and takes a long drink, and she watches his Adam’s Apple bob with a fascination she would otherwise be disgusted with if she was sober. His movements are slowed, and she can only guess as to how drunk he his. She thinks she’s the only one who might remember the night, out of the two of them.
The blunt is passed back to her, but she’s standing, and refusing, somehow. She feels her feet carry her towards where he is standing, closer, and closer still and all of a sudden, he doesn’t look nearly as drunk anymore. His eyes are alert, wild, and wand subtlety drawn and ready to use, just hidden behind his back.
She knows how she must look, clad in a grey hoodie and worn out blue jeans, hair frizzy from the cold, and lips swollen from chewing on them so frequently. But its him, so she doesn’t really have to care.
He relaxes by a small margin when he sees who it is, but doesn’t lower his guard. She feels hurt, weirdly enough.
“Malfoy.”
“Granger.”
“To what pleasure do I owe your wonderful presence at this late of a night?”
He doesn’t bother to answer her question.
“What the fuck is the coveted Gryffindor Princess doing here?” He sneers. His voice is hoarse and husky from disuse, and she feels a shiver run up her spine.
“Is it so wrong to check up on an old friend?”, she asks.
He scoffs, slamming the bottle down on a nearby table and starting towards her.
“Friends? Is that what we are now?”
His eyes glitter molten silver, and she sees all of his emotions reflected in his eyes play out over his face as he bores holes into her own.
Funny, she always seemed to think he was as cold on the inside as he was on the outside.
His eyes rake over her disgustedly, and he doesn’t hold her stare for more than a few seconds. He brushes past her aggressively, and almost as an afterthought, seethes, “Just get out of my way, you..”
His back stiffens, and he snaps his mouth shut and heads toward the exit.
She feels fury simmering in her veins. She doesn’t know why. She was anticipating him saying those words, and he didn’t.
Somehow, that makes her all the angrier.
“Come on!” She screams at his back. “Let’s hear you finish that sentence! Let everyone see how bigoted you still are, Malfoy!”
He stops abruptly, and turns around, his mouth twisted in a sneer, his eyes now reflecting nothing but fury. His fists are clenched, like he’s holding back, somehow. She doesn’t really understand what he’s holding back. Why he’s holding back. He advances on her, backing her up into the stone tiled wall he was previously leaning on.
The sharp corners dig into her back, cutting and bruising, and she’s too shocked, honestly, to even move. His lean frame fills up her vision until all she can see is him. The disheveled, rougher version of a usually clear-cut Malfoy.
“You want to hear me say it? “
His eyes are a little wide, and his expression is just on the far side of maniacal, and his hair is in complete disarray, falling in jagged edges at the ends that were untouched by his frantic hands.
He slams his palms on either side of her, and gets into her personal space and she knows it must hurt like hell, but he doesn’t even flinch.
“You want to hear me say it?”
He’s looming over her, and she tries to back up against the wall to avoid touching him because she doesn’t know how she’s going to react and she can see his jawline, and that he’s clenching his teeth so hard his veins stand out from his neck. She can smell him, and he’s cloves and cedar and the earth after it rains, and why is she even smelling him?
She wants to slide her hands into his hair. Why does she want to slide her hands into his hair? She can feel herself reaching, so she keeps them tightly locked against the wall, fingernails digging half-moon crescents into her palms.
He leans closer and closer, lips brushing the shell of her ear, and she can’t stop the shiver spreading down her spine and into her body. It’s like every nerve of hers ignites.
“Then get fucking out of my fucking way,
You.
Filthy.
Little.
Mud.
Blood.”
His words are a caress rather than an insult, and she can’t help but wonder how he can make a slur word sound so…beautiful.
Or maybe its her who's fucked up.
Her breath is coming in pants, and it must have been her imagination, but he lingers for a second or two, before wrenching himself away from her.
The last thing she hears of him is the swish of his black cloak and the door to the bar slamming shut.
“And not even all the alcohol in all of London can drown that sorrow or chase off those nightmares. If being hurt is the only thing that makes you feel alive, that you feel you deserve, then you'll seek it.” She hums softly to herself, repeating those few words over and over, an eerie sense of contentment settling over her bones, as if a cataclysmic, drawn-out something had drawn to an end.
Even after all this time, after all these years, her words still hold true.
For both of them.