Work Text:
A Halloween Afternoon Walk.doc
Author - Flutesong
Mail - Flutesong@hegalplace.com
Site - www.hegalplace.com/flutesong
Rating - T
HP/DM
Short one shot.
Draco remembers
Who can say what love is or means in a man's life? Certainly, I cannot. With the wisdom of age, I know enough that it is different for everyone, so I don't stress about it particularly.
I know that just about everyone who reviewed our relationship, or judged it, would have decided I was bad for him, not the right one, maybe not even a healthy choice for him to make.
The thing is, I don't think either of us actually had a choice and it certainly wasn't love in the beginning. It wasn't exactly hate either. It was something primal, maybe pheromones, or blood calling to blood, or like to like. Ha! As if anyone would ever dare say we were like to like. Or, that he was in any way like me.
Somehow, we knew it though, and our bodies acted on that bond before our minds or hearts had anything to say about it.
For a long, long time, I thought he brought the suffering and the pain with him to our bed, while I brought the fear and possibly, the shame. I was wrong. However, that was long ago and we are not subject to any of those feeling anymore. Incredibly, we have outlived the critics, the judges and those who believed they had jurisdiction over the choices we made. Either of us.
No longer young, bloody hell, no longer even in the prime of our lives, we walk the path from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts and back again, every evening. Rain or shine, dog days or midwinter, we walk. Each rock and gully, covered bridge or stone bench has memories for each of us and for both of us.
The world, and we it seems, were young on this path once. I hear Crabbe's high-pitched, manic giggle as sure as I believe Harry hears Weasley's latest list of Zonko's tricks he is going to buy, or Granger's summary of the next book she is waiting to devour.
Here is where he threw mud at me, shielded in his cloak. There is where I covered a huge hole in the road with a simple glamour spell and he tripped headfirst right into it. Moreover, Crabbe was too dumb to stifle his laugh. We were caught and got detentions for a whole month. I had to miss Quidditch practice while Filch, sucking on his rotten teeth, chortled and gave us the nastiest manual labor he could devise.
We always walk a little quicker when we pass the stand of red maples. Here is where Harry met the Dark Lord for the final time. There is where my father grabbed me and shoved me, a human shield, into the dizzying array of green curse beams and turning back, bought a Killing Curse right in his black heart.
Tripping over his body when I tried to run probably saved my life.
Harry fell beside me, trembling and white. I rolled on top of him and probably saved his life. We toast old Lucius when we get back to the tavern, he would have truly been pissed to know he had been such a help.
History piles up, along with the leaves and weeds by the side of this road. Now a days, we carry stout walking sticks in our hands, instead of wands. Now, we pause at the shimmering site of the castle in the mist, instead of running willy-nilly to get back before dinner and curfew. Now we remember our hats, gloves and scarves and tuck our chins into them on the return journey.
The End