1. 1 by chrasy_vendredi
Authors note: Unfortunately I’m not an inhabitant of Paris, merely a studier of French and thus don’t really know what the metro system or its streets are like, nor what it’s like at Christmas. I can only give you what I believe it to be like, and so that is what I give.
I’ve been to Hong Kong several times, and Hong Kong also has an MTR system, so I’ll assume that the Paris Metro is very similar to the HK MTR.
As for all the French, there are authors notes below that will translate them for you :)
For my lovely aunt, Marie.
She sleeps, surrounded by people, because she cannot sleep alone.
She cannot sleep on sheets of cotton, or on soft pillows or mattresses without dreams of darkness invading her thoughts, yet she finds her much needed rest, upright on hard backed seats in one of the carriages of the Paris metro system. Squashed in between people she’ll never know, she closes her eyes and drifts away.
Ginny has never had much of a chance to escape alone. She couldn’t escape Tom without the help of her once-loved Harry Potter, and she couldn’t escape the nightmares without potions. The war was inescapable to all, no one emerged from it alive unscathed, physically, mentally or emotionally. So the first chance that Ginny got to run away, she took immediately, and never looked back.
She didn’t run too far, she simply sought solace in the country next to her own. In France, she could simply wander the streets all day and not have to talk to anyone. No one knew her, she couldn’t speak much of the language.
It had been a year, and she wasn’t lonely yet. For now, she was content to simply sit at cafés in dowdy Muggle clothes, sip coffee and watch everyone pass her by. She was not so foolish to think that she would be happy with this non-contact human interaction, but for now it would do.
Ginny woke up as the subway was coming to a stop. She vaguely remembered boarding the metro a few hours ago as she rubbed her eyes, and stood up, ready to exit at the next stop. She didn’t care where she got off, she’d find her way back home somehow.
She walked up the stairs, out of the train station and onto the busy street and stood for a moment watching everybody, walking quickly past her. She saw a mother and her several children walk past her, down the stairs to the station, and it reminded her horribly of her own mother leading everyone towards platform 9 and ¾. Ginny felt a little pang inside of her heart, and walked on, desperate to find someplace with coffee.
As she wandered along the streets, Ginny could see Christmas displays in the windows of almost every shop she passed. Large, blinking lights that spelt out “Joyeux Noël” were everywhere. She had always detested obnoxious decorations and lights that were constantly in her face.
She remembered how much she had loved Christmas, back in Britain. But she had only loved Christmas before Hogwarts. Hogwarts was the beginning of things she wished to forget completely.
She spotted a little café up ahead, devoid of the garish Christmas decorations she hated so much and headed towards it immediately, desperate for relief from the terrible red and green flashing lights.
Walking past the outside diners, she walked into the warm interior of the café, and sat down at a small table, in front of the window. In her stumbling French, she ordered “un café au lait, et un pain au chocolat” when a frazzled-looking waitress came to take her order.
Ginny looked at her surroundings, the café was warm and its customers were noisy. Multiple paintings of flowers and landscapes graced the walls. Ginny stood up to look at one closely, and saw that it almost looked like the Great Lake back at Hogwarts. Ginny shivered involuntarily, and looked to the bottom right corner and noted the artist’s name. Marie Dubois.
When the waitress returned to Ginny, with her coffee and her pastry, she pointed at the paintings and asked “Où?”
The waitress looked behind her to see what it was Ginny was pointing at. She motioned that she would come back, and returned a few moments later with a slip of paper with a museum name and address written on it. « Le Musée de Dessin ». Thanking the waitress, who nodded and left, Ginny picked up her coffee and stared out of the window, watching the passers-by.
Today was the first day in a long time that Ginny hadn’t fallen asleep on the metro. She was adamant that she would not miss her stop. After all, today she had resolved to find the artist, who had painted a scene that she had resolved to forget and talk to her.
The metro slowed to a stop, and Ginny stood up, exiting quickly and almost running up the step. She blinked as she was plunged into sunlight and then walked on. Eventually, she came to a stop in front of a large white building, with tall revolving glass doors, and large windows scattered on its many stories.
She walked in and paid her 10 euros, while searching for someone to guide her towards Marie Dubois’ section. She found a security guard and slowly spoke to him. “Excusez-moi, oú sont les peintures par Marie Dubois?”
“Le troisième étage” he replied in a gruff voice.
She thanked him hurriedly and rushed off to the elevators. Ginny stepped out onto the fourth floor and was immediately greeted with images of familiar scenes.
One painting depicted a Dementor sucking the soul out of a blonde male, another depicting three teenagers with their arms around each other, limping around the bodies of the dead, and another of a great castle overlooking a large lake, with a tentacle or two disturbing the water and a large green symbol hanging over it.
As she stepped forward and stared at the Dementor painting, she could feel the cold wash over her and dark memories invading her mind.
Ginny tore her gaze away from the dark painting and focused on a man who had stood in front of the painting of the three teenagers. His hair was of a similar shade to that of the man who was being “kissed”. Ginny had only ever seen two people with hair that blonde. One was dead, had been so for two years, one was missing and had disappeared around the same time she left Britain.
She stepped forward again, closer to the man, closer to the paintings. Again, she stepped closer and closer until she was almost next to him. She moved forward, so that they were side by side.
He was a good thirty centimetres taller than her, and had a pale, angular face. His eyes were cold, a dull silver. She imagined that they had once been bright, but were no longer. His hands and clothes were smudged with paints of different colours, and his hair, his pale blonde hair, was unkempt
Ginny knew who he was. She knew that he was Dubois, though why he chose a female alias was beyond her.
“Why do you paint the flowers? And then these dark, terrible scenes, Draco?” she whispered.
Draco closed his eyes and sighed heavily. “Sometimes, one must think of, and paint something as simple and pure as a flower before something like this,” he said, as he motioned towards the paintings in front of him.
“Why do you paint at all?” Ginny asked.
“It’s like a pensieve for me. My memories are transferred from my head to canvas. And then I can revisit them here which unfortunately, I do a lot.”
Ginny nodded, and asked her final question. “Why did you come here?”
He looked towards her, and simply said, “Because you did. Because you pulled me here.”
“How did I…? I never saw you after what you tried to do to Dumbledore.”
Draco gave her a soft smile. “That doesn’t mean I never saw you. I know you fall asleep on the metro every morning. I know you haven’t spoken to your family in a year. I know you need to talk to someone.” He sighed deeply again, and took her hand. Surprisingly, Ginny did not pull her hand away.
“Go home, Ginny. This is not the place for you. Go back to Britain, and leave me to paint my memories in peace.”
“Maybe I am home, Draco,” she said softly, leading him towards the elevator.
That night was the first night of many that Ginny learnt to sleep in a bed again, on sheets of cotton, soft pillows and mattresses without dreams of darkness invading her thoughts. Curled up next to someone she had known all her life, yet still had much to discover in, she found her much needed rest.
Fin
Author’s Notes :-
“Un café au lait, et un pain au chocolat” – White coffee and chocolate bread.
“Où?” – Where?
« Le Musée de Dessin » is not a real museum. And it’s a very unoriginal name for one as well. Literally, “The Museum of Drawing”. How unoriginal of me!
“Excusez-moi, oú est les peintures de Marie Dubois?” – Excuse me, where are the paintings done by Marie Dubois ?
“Le troisième étage” – The fourth floor.