She loved the rain.

I would see her spinning beneath the grey sky, a gypsy girl of white silk and streaming hair, dancing to a music of her own as the water bathed her skin in diamond droplets. Her feet were always bare, and she would throw her head back and close her eyes as she stretched her arms wide, embracing the wind and water that rushed to meet her. A smile would touch her lips, a smile of mystery, and there she would stand, spinning, spinning, spinning until the music stopped.

There was no logic to her behaviour, yet I could sense the freedom that it gave her, and I was envious. I wanted to understand why she danced when it rained; why she smiled with such mystery and quiet satisfaction. I wanted to hear the music, too.

I followed her to the field the next time it rained, yet I was unsure how to approach her. We were from different worlds – worlds that were not supposed to collide. Logic dictated that I leave, but it was too late. She had seen me, and then I heard her voice.

"I wondered when you would come."

"What?" I exclaimed, stunned.

"I've seen you watching me."

My face grew hot, but I forced the blush down and plastered a sneer on my lips. "That's because you look stupid."

It was instinctive for me to be rude when I was embarrassed, yet she did not seem to mind my harsh words. She simply smiled again and placed her hand palm up to the sky, catching the rain.

"I've been watching you too, Draco Malfoy, and I know it wasn't to call me stupid that you came here. You're here because you heard the call."

"The call?"

"The call of the wild."

A frown creased my brow.

She laughed and reached up to place her hands over my eyes. "Listen."

I stood there stiffly, unnerved by the feel of her breath brushing against my face while she blinded my vision. Her hands were cold from the rain, yet their softness touched me with warmth. I felt myself begin to relax as I grew accustomed to her presence and my own inability to see.

"Can you hear the music?" she whispered.

I strained my ears to listen to this so-called music, but all I could hear was the sound of the wind and the rain mixed with our own rhythmic breathing.

"I hear nothing," I said, frustrated.

"Listen closer," she urged, and I could almost hear the smile in her voice.

I tried again, determined to put this gypsy girl in her place and prove that I could hear her music too, but once more I could only hear the sound of the storm.

And then it hit me.

An unbidden smile tugged at my lips as I listened to the song being played for me. It was indeed a song of wind and rain – a fusion of earthy instruments that united with my soul to play a melody only those not blinded by reason could hear. This was the call of the wild; this was freedom.

The hands were removed from my eyes, and then I was staring back at the gypsy girl. She was so close I could count the tiny freckles on her nose and see the different shades of brown that painted her irises.

"Now do you understand?" she asked.

I nodded my head.

She smiled, satisfied, and then she took a step back from me and turned to leave.

"Wait," I called.

She paused, throwing a questioning look back at me. "Yes?"

"Why did you show me this? I thought you hated me."

"Perhaps I did once," she admitted with a shrug, "but hate is such a tiring emotion to feel. It's much easier to be indifferent."

"And are you indifferent?"

She laughed and considered me through shrewd eyes. "Are you?"

I felt the familiar heat rise to my cheeks, and this seemed to amuse her even more.

She closed the distance between us and looked up at me with an unreadable expression on her face. "I was indifferent," she explained, more serious now, "but then I looked into your eyes." She reached her hand up to my cheek, and a half-smile curled her lips. "There's something about your eyes. They're like storms: endless storms."

I shifted awkwardly, embarrassed by her description though, if I were to be completely honest, I was secretly pleased as well.

She trailed her hand down my cheek, stopping at the curve of my mouth.

"I've been waiting for you to come to me."

"Why?" I asked, my voice low.

"Because," she whispered, leaning closer.

The silence hung between us, and then her lips were pressing against mine. There was something searching about her kiss, as if she were trying to unravel some great mystery. Perhaps she was trying to understand the storms she saw in my eyes, or perhaps she was simply curious by nature. It made no difference to me. I was holding the gypsy girl in my arms, and I knew in that moment that I would never let her go again.

oOo

My mother told me once that she hated to see birds kept in a cage. She said that birds were not made to be trapped behind bars; they were made to fly.

When I married my gypsy girl, I thought that I could make her happy because I loved her. I did not understand that our worlds were too different for even love to withstand. She wanted her wild lands; I wanted a respectable wife who I could be proud of. That was why I began to resent her habit of dancing in the rain.

"You can't keep doing this," I told her, frustrated.

"Why not?" she demanded bluntly.

"Because you're a grown woman, and grown women don't dance barefoot in the rain."

"What do I care about what a grown woman is supposed to do?"

"People are beginning to talk."

She let out a derisive snort. "Let them talk. I don't care."

"Well, I do!"

She argued with me, of course, but I got my way in the end. After all, it was only logical that she should stop such childish behaviour, and it was logic that ruled the world we lived in. The wild no longer called to me. I had my wife; I needed nothing more.

But I did not understand.

My gypsy girl was never meant to be tamed. She was not part of my world, no matter how much I wanted her to be. Though I had tried to make her conform to my expectations, I would still see her stand at the window every time it rained, watching longingly as the water traced the glass that separated her from the outside world. The music was calling to her, demanding that she follow, but I had trapped her in a cage of my love, and she could no longer fly.

She grew frustrated as the months passed by, then listless, and then one night I woke up to find her gone.

I listened to the rain pounding with the strength of a hurricane against the roof, and I realised with a sinking heart where she would be. She had answered the call, and somewhere out there I knew that she would be standing with her arms outstretched, spinning, spinning, spinning as the storm raged around her.

The music would never stop for her, but I had ceased to listen. I had ceased to understand, and when I found her cold, lifeless body abandoned for the earth to consume, I knew that I only had myself to blame.

My gypsy girl was gone, and all I had left was the empty cage.