LXVI
Late night is always the best time for spirits to manifest, 3am particularly; it's when the veil is at its thinnest. The dead can touch the world of the living and the living can touch the world of the dead. There's a reason it's called witching hour.
So it was no surprise that after not one wink of sleep, y/n found herself slinking out of bed in her nightgown, robe and absolutely, atrociously, ugly fluffy socks. The way the fabric used to feel made my insides shiver, y/n is one of those people who feels the need to warm her cold feet up against you and it drove me nuts; just don't tell her that I told you.
Her fingers were sore from the incessant biting at them she had been doing ever since Longbottom miraculously came to a sudden conclusion. But dinner hour was the strangest, all of a sudden she had developed selective mutism and refused to make conversation with a few of the returnees. Plenty of bewildered faces took their glances at her, seeing for themselves the truth of the rumours though.
It even spooked the professor's a little but I knew she was just saving her voice on the hope that she would be able to use it here in the strange cavernous classroom, deep within the labyrinth of the castle. People don't generally come so far down, averted by the myth of the screaming woman who haunted the halls. I now know that there was no truth in it, but even so it did not deter y/n in any way.
She'd already seen things far more frightening.
The black velvet covering was yanked off in one swipe, displacing a cloud of dust that had her sneezing and coughing. That of course followed with a displeased groan of a woman who had just leaked a little because of it. Not the time to be amused Draco.
Instantly she saw me, or the version of me she wanted to see at least. Her expression was hard to read, clearly she knew that it was just the power of the mirror bringing her the sunshine and roses vision of a happy and healthy me.
So I strode out from the side, briskly swiping the false reflection away as a mist and arrived beside her; quickly the energy shifted when I placed a hand upon her shoulder that she not only saw but felt too. Yet y/n remained calm, or at least calmer than she had been any other time I got close enough for her to notice.
"How can I know that this is real?" She asked, barely moving an inch. So I pressed a light kiss against her temple, having her eyes drop shut and flinch from the sensation of it. It was a hit or miss that what I was about to try would indeed work but neither of us have anything to lose anymore.
The silvery glass seemed to ripple as I took careful steps into it, warping the conception of three dimensional existence since the opposite world was pretty much identical even if it is only an illusion. And coming face to face I put out a hand against the side of the mirror that she now stood inside of.
"It's real, I'm really here. Always have been."
Her shaking hand came out in front of her too, pressing a palm up to mine. Then a subtle shake of her head and huff of contempt preceded a disappointed sigh. "Of course I can't feel it, why would I be so stupid to think otherwise."
"Well I can feel you." Her head came back up from her chest, eyes a little more frantic now as she must of been toying with the idea of this being another trick. "I'm not a reflection, I'm simply looking at you from a world that you're not a part of yet. Hello, love."
"Hello love?! Hello love?!" Oh boy, I've never wanted to run so fast in my not life, life. As if being dead would protect me from being told straight, a pretty giddy assumption to make. "You start this with a fucking hello love?"
"What would you like me to say instead?" My question sparked a response that only came in her dropping her head back down and pinching back the urge to weep, although her lash line did start to fill with a tear slightly. "How about I'm sorry? For everything."
"You hurt so many people Draco, you stupid idiot." Her voice trembled, switching between anger, confusion, guilt, grief, relief, and consolation. "Fuck, I thought I knew exactly what I'd say to you if I ever got to talk to you again, but now I suppose all of it's useless anyway. I just thought we'd have more time."
"Well you disappeared y/n. For months. You told me you never wanted to see me again and that you wished we'd never met?"
"I was petrified." Finally our gazes connected again. "I found myself seventeen, pregnant and in the middle of a war I wanted no part of. Of course I hid, I didn't know what else to do? The life I thought I had was snatched away so suddenly that even processing that required deep silence."
"It was silence that got us into this mess, we both told each other so many lies to keep the other falsely happy when neither of us really were deep down." I'd been foolish to assume that our reunion in whatever weird way would be a happy affair. But truth of the matter is there is so much to flesh out, and it needs to happen. We both need that closure.
"Did you think I'd be angry about it or something?"
She pulled back her hand from the connection in the mirror and awkwardly sat herself down on the floor, I could see the disorganised thoughts milling behind her eyes. "I was about to tell you, and somehow it turned into an argument and then you revealed yourself as a fucking death eater. So yeah, I kind of thought better of it at the time as any normal person would."
Perhaps the worst night of our lives, I remember it well. I broke her, she broke me. We were no longer the rebel and the snob, we were fractured timelines that had made the mistake of crossing paths; growing roots where nothing could flourish. "Were you planning on telling me that you're slowly dying anytime either?"
"You don't get to use that against me." Recognising that the secret was no longer that, she straightened up and pulled her robe tight to try and avoid it. "And I don't know how and when you found that out but don't you fucking dare try to paint it like I deceived you."
"Did you miss the part where I mentioned that I've been beside you the entire time? Yeah, literally I had to find out that the girl I love, the one I died for essentially and would die a thousand times again is sick from a random person from the ministry."
"Sorry, what?" The fact that this was news to her inevitably unsettled her, but I could not offer any kind of comfort because I was just as confused and shocked as she. Truth is, I don't know if anyone is sure of their motives yet. "I think someone wants to take our son from you, well from us, but you know what I mean."
"You know it's a boy?"
This girl has the power to completely fry my brain sometimes, that will always remain. "Yes, like I said. I've been there."
"Alright don't speak to me like I'm a moron. You seem to have forgotten that I can literally just walk away from here and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."
It's blaringly clear exactly what she's doing, going on the defensive to hide her true feelings. She's pretty skilled in that, but it wasn't going to work this time. Not today, I need her to open up again.
"You and I both know that isn't going to happen. I know you're angry, I've sat and watched you mutter to yourself all of the things that either of us could of done differently whilst dragging the tip of your quill up and down your thigh; fighting the urge to push it into the skin. Please don't do that, no matter how much your brain tells you that you deserve it. You don't."
"You say that like you have personal experience."
No answer needed, just a foretelling thin little smile confirming the subconscious question. "Quill tips are pretty sharp, it hurts, so please don't."
"Are you upset about all of this? Hand on heart truthfully?" She nodded down at her torso that she had began to rub mindlessly. No, I nodded. Also taking to the floor since I figured we might be here a while.
"Well the old me would be probably. Frankly the old me would of likely been entirely disgusting about it and either flown into a rage about how to kill it, or just denied that it had anything to do with me."
"Wow, good to know. So what's different now apart from the obvious? Because you were almost half way into running back to me when you were struck." Her entire face twitched and fist fidgeted with the edge of her robe as she recalled the vision of my murder.
"Because it was the first good thing that wasn't created from the ash of evil I'd seen since the day you left me. And how could I ever reject anything that we created together? How could I not love someone who was half you?"
Another self contained twitch to her lips almost allowed her to give into a little smile, but it was going to take a lot more than a few evocative words to have her feel like she could be vulnerable again.
It didn't stop me appreciating the sight of her though, hair loosely thrown up in a pin, the gregariously painted fingernails and scent of perfume bringing with it a million different memories that were far more fond than the ones we speak of now.
I'm not a much of a creative person, never have been. But I could paint the sky with what I feel for her, because she is colour and I am the haggard artist searching for inspiration.
So I'll never grasp the concept of how so many people have walked by her on any given day, and not fallen perpetually in love the very second they became aware that she exists.
"People seem to have the predisposed idea that whoever this child may grow to be, they're going to wind up carrying on the generational discourse like you did. And I think they might be right."
"Some people are just born for such lives, there isn't ever really a choice. But our son won't have to worry about that, because he's going to be all the best parts of ourselves we were unable to action. Either that or he's going to be a total nightmare just like his mum."
"Yeah he probably will," she murmured. "But only because you did the exact same to him as what my father did to me."
Realisation speared me like a clap of thunder, view dropping to the floor with widened eyes and an uncomfortable sense of responsibility. It had me tousling my hair just as a distraction from what was so plainly in sight now.
"Just another death eater that got to check out of the mayhem with death itself, leaving behind a burning trail of destruction. And now our kid is going to have to spend his entire life proving to other people that he's worth more than the name he carries on his back. Or just pray that nobody realises who he really is, just so he can get by without drawing unwanted attention to both me and him..
.. I know how that feels, which is why I'm walking away from him the second he's born so he doesn't have to struggle with the weight of that on his little shoulders."
It hadn't occurred to me to cast my mind back to that beautiful spring day in the woods of Hogsmeade. In which her words were direct and carried weight, in confidence she confided her deepest fear and source of distress; unknowing that every aspect of her life in the wizarding world would eventually resemble that exactly.
It was the iron lock around her neck, and I just added an extra keyhole and threw away the key, preventing her from escaping it.
"Then why did you keep it? Why didn't you just go to whoever or whatever could kill it?" I wondered, trying to understand her motive for holding on to something that she clearly did not choose. Her answer would only bring more truths to the table that I wasn't going to enjoy hearing. "Because I had nothing left Draco."
"Nothing at all, my mother burned to death in her own bed. My owl that I'd had since I was little screeched and screamed from within her cage because she was trapped, because of your decisions and your actions. And I knew deep down if I had told you there and then, you would have demanded that it be rid."
The sound of heavy and deep inhales filled the room when y/n got back up, and paced toward one of the empty tables slightly irritated. "But your decisions and your actions were not going to take that from me as well, those decisions and actions were your own; but my body was not or never will be yours no matter how much of it I chose to share with you."
"Seems a bit fucked up that you'd bring a life into the world on the basis of proving a point?" Her lip curled, gaze roamed off to a dark corner before landing back on me again with a slightly nerved stare. A spider tried to scarper across the table top, which she squished with the centuries old text book now in her hand; it was quite symbolic of her next words which were a statement and not a question.
"And you lost yours doing what, exactly?"
The silence was deafening, even in this obscure mirror world it was only my thoughts I could hear. If I could reach forward in to the glass right now and pull her to this side I would, because that side was full of mistakes and misjudgements; this side wasn't real but at least it's better than anything else.
"Helping a maniac prove a point that he is exactly that, by taking lives out of this world instead of bringing them in. A world that people fought for so hard, I would not deny anyone of. Besides, I never thought I'd live long enough to have a child. So now I can actually say that I left something good behind when I do eventually get too sick to keep living."
"I wish I could just reach out to you and touch you, so badly. But not like this, like really touch you in a meaningful way, like I used to."
We were both frustrated now with the fact that we could see and hear each other but what we wanted more than anything was out of the question. "It seems like I'm slowly watching you unloving me. And I'm just stuck, forever watching..
.. Can you at least tell me I'm a good person? I just want you to say it, no one else. I don't care what anyone else thinks."
"No. Because you weren't Draco, and I cannot pacify you with lies, I'm too tired." The glowing tint to her cheeks was dwindling from the baron coldness of night, the floor was no doubt like ice to sit upon. "Do you know that I have a bottle of Amortentia hidden away? Just so I can smell your scent to remind me what it was like. But I'm too afraid to open it, in case it doesn't smell the same as the perfect memory I've kept inside my head."
No, I didn't know about the Amortentia. Clearly what I had been paying attention to was from an all too misted perception, my perception. But she was right, our memories were perfect and I'd trade whatever it took to go back to that time and re-write the narrative. "Well, I think it would probably smell just like the perfume you made for me."
At last the sneaky little grin. You see, it's not all bad even if not ideal. And much to her detriment, she loves me; that much cannot be debated about. The brief spark of connect would be aptly disturbed though, by her catching a tiny paper cut from the History of Goblin Genecology book she just disrespected. "Ow, fuck! Fucking, dusty old rancid cock bandit!"
Eloquently expressed my love, it's nice to see her still as talented in swear words as ever. Then her poor finger came to point right at me in contempt. "Do not fucking laugh at me right now Draco, I mean it."
I covered my mouth with a fist to stifle the sound, chewing at the inside of my cheek desperately but ultimately unable considering the circumstances. The more I sniggered, the more she squinted until the book that had caused this entire flaw in the emotional moment was sent hurtling at the mirror, bouncing back off after having no effect on me.
So stupidly, I just sniggered even harder.
"No! Stop laughing! This isn't funny!" Y/n was seething, and waded up to the mirror of Erised again as if she was going to be able to wrangle me by my collar and walk me like a dog.
Although, I could see down her top at her chest quite well now that she was closer. Not helped by the fact they were enormous at this time and only more likely to get bigger. "God, I really miss those tits. They look so lonely. I just wanna dive inbetween them."
An almighty clack erupted as her wand hit the floor, leaving a two second window of quiet astonishment until she at last broke into a wheezing laugh with me; unable to resist. Finally, my y/n was here. Not just the damaged version the war had created.
"You're literally dead but the one thing that bothers you is that you can't play with my boobs?"
"I'm just a man, a dead one yes, but one nonetheless."
"Why?" She softly asked, following with a rhetoric. "Why after me spending years shouting, and pleading to be heard, were you the only person who ever listened to it? Why did it have to be you?"
"Well, I don't know love. All I do know is that it was the most disorderly electric sound I'd ever heard. It sounded just like me."
I looked deep in her eyes, taking comfort in those mismatched lines of her irises that were once the only place of safety for me. "The weirdest part of it all is that I was begging inside of my mind that if there is a higher power in existence, it could give me a sign I'm gonna be alright."
Y/n tilted her head a little in confusion, pressing her fingertips up to mine again but waiting patiently for me to finish the confession. "And then you walked up to me. That night, on the fifth floor."
"Let me guess," she humoured with an eye roll. "You wouldn't change a thing blah blah?"
"No. I'd change everything."
A sudden disappointment spread across y/n's face, shoulders tensing and posture shifting. Un-needed however, as the assumption that I was about to wish our entire history away was incorrect. "I'd of fucking begged on my hands and knees to come and hang out with the freaks and misfits. Because I reckon you were right from the beginning, I am a misfit too. And honestly I've never felt more belonging to a stereotype until now."
"Wow that was so gay and cringey I'm really debating on just leaving."
"Oh no. It was wasn't it?" I grimaced and squirmed whilst it was her turn to hide her amusement now. "That was so fucking bad, if I wasn't already dead I'd kill myself."
"Weeeeee," y/n teased, bracing out her arms to remind me of the last time I'd said that out loud. "Don't forget to do a flip!"
"Don't remind me. I should of known this was all going to end in disaster back then, but a glutton for punishment, I just couldn't for the life of me stay away."
"I told you that you were delusional." I'd not heard her giggle so sincerely for a while. It was like an entire storm cloud had been lifted from us both, relief in the deepest degree. "Oh I believed you, wasn't gonna admit it though."
"Ah- fuck." Y/n suddenly winced a little, finding herself having to lean back against a desk for support. The anxious thudding of a heartbeat filled my insides again, it was beyond strange and even made me feel slightly sickly. "Are you okay? Are you in pain?"
"Yeah, just not in the way you're thinking," she panted. "Utter agony if truth be told. But this is just some good old fashioned human squirming around inside of me kind of pain."
Is this the right time to find that endearing or charming? Personally I've not a clue.
The subject was quickly changed by y/n looking me dead in the eye and asking.. "Hang on, if you're always around and don't sleep or anything do you like just wank next to me and stuff?"
Wait a minute, what?!
"No. Darling. The fuck?" How the girl had the audacity to act as if that was literally a relevant and necessary question is astounding on its own. "Okay but aren't you just kind of bored?"
"Again, no. Believe it or not finding the time to have a tug hasn't really been a big concern for me. I do miss smoking sometimes though." Ah, the things I would do to be able to smoke a cigarette or joint again is limitless. Seeing the plants that her and Longbottom had found yesterday only added to the vexing resentment.
"Yeah same," y/n added in deep thought. "First thing I'm doing once your child crawls out of me is lighting up a doob."
Lighting a what? Never mind.
Clearly we had been here for a while because the sounds of doors opening and closing in the distance echoed down faintly, no doubt people would be up and plodding around soon. Yet I wasn't ready to leave, and I didn't want her to leave either. Any measure of time would never feel like enough.
"Sometimes it feels like I knew a different Draco to everyone else," she said, pressing herself against the mirror before it was time to part ways between worlds again. "Because you did, that's why. I didn't need to play pretend when I was with you. I just wish you'd stopped playing when you were with me too."
A timid smile came, one that was conflicted still. It complimented her now tired and darkened eyes, pulling together the whole birds nest-esque ensemble. Something seemed off though, and when I rolled my eyes over her face I was shocked to notice a little stream of blood starting to drip from her nose.
"Y/n? Your nose is bleeding, are you sure you're alright?"
Y/n was confused at my all too serious concern, until pressing her fingers in to the blood herself. Panic quickly arose as the bleeding continued on to her sleeve and over her lips. "I don't know what's happening," she mumbled, trying to stem the redness from smearing all across her face. "We need to go to Pomfey now, love."
"No I don't want to. I wanna stay here!"
"I'll be with you come on! The mirror isn't going anywhere! Please?!" With frantic eyes, and trembling hands she nodded furiously and span on her heels with me right behind her. I stepped across the border of the mirror and back in to the world with ease, but it for sure left a dizziness weighing over me. Even so it didn't matter at all at right now. Only she did.
"Be careful running in case you feel faint or something!"
Oh, of course.
Back to being a silent and invisible loser again now. Not looking forward to the regression but swings and roundabouts I guess, still grateful for the mirror and its unexpected powers. Because now we had a way to communicate, and maybe we could both somehow contribute to the healing of this place for the people who are destined to call it home.
Our son included, more than anything.
Small steps, big changes.