Lake of Drowned Memories
ByClorinda
The time we spent is perpetual
Yeah, I'll find a way to cure this pain
If I said that you're my friend
And our love would never end
How long before I had your trust again
I opened up the doors because it was cold outside
Hopin' you'd find your own way in
But how can I protect you
Or try not to neglect you
When you won't take the love I have to give
I bought me an illusion
And put it on the wall
I let it fill my head with dreams
And I had to have them all
But oh the taste is never so sweet as what you'd believe it is.
Locomotive (Complicity), Guns N' Roses
The moors will never change, his mother had said, staring out through the carriage window steamed by her breath. They will forever look barren, cold and dreary, lumbering on for miles beneath the fog and the shrieking wind. Only in the cold, shivering small hours will you see the cerulean blue sky with the sunlight spilling over all creatures that live and stir on the moor.
We have lived for a long time without sunlight, she had explained, not turning her head but addressing Draco all the same. When the fog clears, we too will live again.
The lights glowed all the time in the evenings at Thwaite village. After the rains, the streets glimmered with an almost phosphorescent sheen, streaks left on the tarmac to show where the cart-wheels had run. It was almost shameful how Thwaite village lived in the past, but its very rural, bucolic nature made the people keep to themselves.
On the whole, they were good, clean, hard-working folk who knew better than to talk too much about the bleak, dreary silhouette of Malfoy Manor sitting on the crest of the faraway horizon.
Phoebe, who worked all evening and stayed awake somehow until eleven, knew even better than most— so, she kept quiet, did as she was told, kept tipping the hot stuff into Mr. Malfoy's glass, keeping her eyes down and herself unobtrusive. She wasn't used to society patronising the tavern; they came down from London and stayed at the Wellington, and that was only if they couldn't — or didn't want to — find accommodation at the Manor.
Over the last few years, she'd seen enough: hooded men not bothering to lower their voices or veil their threats and Aurors hot on their trail. After that there had come the new bandy bunch, more subtle, better-dressed, but unable to fool even the village idiot, for they had the same hungry look in their eye— the same keenness and burning greed for power. Banquets had been held at Malfoy Manor, and people came down to Thwaite village for supplies. The villagers had kept mum about it to the outside world, only watching, knowing. If even one of them were to breathe a word, they'd be found mysteriously dead when morning came.
But even after that, people with puffed-out chests from the Ministry had Apparated to the village in hordes, and for days on end they stayed at the Manor, breaking curses and confiscating all that they dared to— there was very little they condescended to leave behind.
In that time, very little was seen of the Malfoy family. News had come that the Dark Lord had fallen— one night of mad euphoria, after which Narcissa Malfoy stopped patronising the village bakers. Rumours floated that they went on the run like so many of the Death Eaters, and yet the lights at the Manor never stopped glowing— some said that Lucius Malfoy had returned to the shell of his fortress.
And yet there he was— not-so-young anymore Draco sitting at the bar bold as brass, nose turned up even if just to inhale the smell of pipe-smoke and liquor.
Her clothes always had the lingering scent of lavender, and he never found out where it came from. And he never asked her. Too proud — too manly — to admit he remembered such tiny details about his bedfellow. He never told her either that when she turned her face up to the light, the sun lit chips of topaz in her toffee-coloured eyes.
Neither did he ask her simple things: what her favourite flower was, what she liked to eat, what did she do when he couldn't see her and she was alone. She never seemed to find anything amiss in that; she'd look up from whatever she was doing and wave at him when he'd enter the flat they shared, blow him a kiss if she was in a good mood. But their relationship had been built up on all the unspoken things.
And the unspoken things alone.
"Phoebe."
The sound of her name made her start. Her shoulders jerked and the liquid splashed over the brim of the glass. Head still ducked, she snatched up a ragcloth and started to wipe the spill away, but he reached over the bartop, grasping both her wrists.
"Let me go, Mr. Malfoy," she said very quietly. "I want no part of it."
They didn't have a bed; they couldn't afford one on Draco's allowance. They'd gone furniture shopping once, in one of the thriftier corners of London, and bought themselves two futons, a table, a couple of chairs and a second-hand couch. It was pathetic almost, and she could feel the muscles trembling as he fought to control himself. His parents refused to support them, giving him nothing but his inheritance early, and they were both too proud to beg.
The name of Malfoy alone was a curse, leaving him unable to find employment anywhere. They lay side-by-side on the floor, and she ran her hand through his fine, thread-woven blonde hair, saying softly like the thought had just occurred to her, hating herself all the same:
"There are still many Death Eaters left running in the streets. The Order was asking about you."
He stiffened under her touch, waiting for — daring — her to continue.
"It was strange, to say so in the least. Ron tries to hold his tongue, and Harry and I don't meet each other's eye ever since he came back to Hogwarts and I didn't stand there with open arms or whatever other romantic cliché seems appropriate. But anyway— Bill brought it up. Said you were a fine devil to go gallivanting off with— if you have to do it, do with a devil with finesse. Then he said it was a shame I couldn't exploit our relationship and make you join our side."
"He said that—?"
"Well, he told me to tell you that expressly."
He chuckled low in his throat, and she smiled at him. "Now I know why I like that brother of yours."
"I told him I'd see what I could do." The smile had lost a little of its radiance. "And I meant it."
She hated herself for giving in to him— she always did, and he knew it, smiling secretly, gloating in the knowledge, his exterior still sombre and solemn and craving sympathy. She wanted to tell herself she loathed the contact of his hand and hers, but there are some things you can't lie to yourself about.
Once upon a time, she'd been his friend, helping him up after her into the boughs of the peach tree outside the Manor, and nestled comfortably, they'd share stories, encouragement and promises of tomorrow. He'd always been lonely, more so than ever when he came back on holidays from Hogwarts, and Phoebe had always be there to wipe away his shameful tears.
When he took her hand and tugged at it ever-so-gently, she had no choice but to comply. Her body moved beyond her control, her heart surrendered to him without consulting her. They were never lovers — that was a strange side to him; girls were never cheap, gilded objects to him — and the fact that he never touched her somehow cemented the deep-seated knowledge that she meant nothing to him.
The sound of running water from inside had startled Draco when reached the flat, knowing Ginny was spending the night in the rooms above Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes with George and his girlfriend Katie Bell. For a minute, he couldn't think why the taps were on, and then it hit him.
Someone was there.
He nearly brought down the front door, and barrelled into the unlocked bathroom. The shower was on and water sloshed out of the bathroom. The first thing he saw was the drenched, sullen figure of Ron Weasley sitting on the cold floor. All the energy seemed to flow out of Draco as he hung in the doorway, staring dumbly at Ron, his least favourite person in the world.
Throat working furiously to find the appropriate words that would convince Ron of Draco's opinion of him, he was taken off-guard when Ron himself spoke first.
"You're a piece of work, aren't you, Malfoy?"
He should've been thankfully there was no expletive underneath that heavy, dripping sarcasm. Without replying, he unhooked the bathrobe from behind the bathroom door, and tossed it. Unthinkingly, Ron's arms went up to catch it as if the bundle of cloth was a Quaffle. They dropped to his side when he realized it wasn't.
Moroseness and a deeper sense of misery permeated from every pore of Ron's sodden, slumped body, and Draco who could live each day because he had Ginny, felt himself recoil inwardly at the sight. With a sudden twang of pity, he realized that he couldn't bring himself to throw Ron out.
Against his sense and better judgement, he muttered, "Don't waste my water bill any further, Weasley," turning to go out.
"Malfoy!"
"What?" He was halfway out, and couldn't bring himself to turn back.
"You should be glad. He's dead."
He was young and nimble, and easily scaled up the tree. Phoebe had to gather her skirts to climb, and his hands dangled down from above, ready to haul her up. His fingers had a hard, tight grip that almost hurt her. Thwaite village faded away into murmurs and distant bawdy laughter, and Draco settled comfortably into the branches of the sprawling oak tree.
Vacantly, his gaze rested on Phoebe, brushing over the features of her face that had filled out with time and blooming age. But all the time, she was apprehensive, waiting for him to say those three words: You remind of … Because she didn't want to be told that she was like Ginny Weasley, she didn't want to hear that she was a replacement, a prop standing in place before his eyes, a lump of stone waiting to be chiselled into an aide memoire of Ginny.
Even if she was just that.
When she came home from George's, grinning and flushed with merry-making, he wasn't able to tell her the truth— or anything at all. Certainly not about the blood in the bathroom, the guilty traces he had not been able to wash away yet.
"Ron called while you were gone," he said casually, leaning against the entrance to the kitchenette as she started to put coffee on the boil. She was still rumpled from travel, but bubbling with news and chatter. He'd exploited the fleeting lull in her stream of words to say it.
"He did?" Ginny didn't withhold her surprise. "But I didn't see any broken furniture … wait, now I know what happened to your nose."
"He's been going around with a split lip."
"Wow, what a gallant fight for my affections."
"Don't you want to know what he wanted?"
Ginny shrugged, and began pouring milk into the mugs. Draco's tongue was like lead in his mouth again.
"Nothing—" he croaked out. "Nothing much."
She flew into a rage when she found out from Hermione.
She had the same vicious a temper as him, and like his, it was ungovernable and tempered only by her habit of taking things with a pinch of salt. She stormed back to the flat they shared, fists clenched until her knuckles were white and her lips drawn into a tight red slash.
For the first time, they fought — not bickered or quarrelled — but accused and baited and taunted and wounded with words flung well-aimed to hurt. The storm lasted for an hour, the lights burning only in their tiny bedroom. Ginny, white-faced, wound up with fury, hugging herself as she sat on the futon. Draco, trembling with the intensity of his emotions, stiff and straight-backed against the wall.
"I didn't know how to tell you," he roared, shouting without meaning to. "That's all, Ginny — I just didn't have the words—"
"Liar!" she yelled back. "You would've gloated if you could. You were afraid — that's all you were — a coward. What? Did you think that if Harry died, in my grief I'd forget all about you and let my family convince me that our love was a mistake? Is that what you were afraid of?"
"I was afraid of wrecking whatever it was that we had," he snarled. "Say what you like, but Potter is the most Goddammed sensitive topic there is under this roof! One mention of him sends you skittering away from me like I'm contagious and leaving him was a sin you committed."
The silence that crashed down on them then crushed them, strangled whatever restraint was left.
"He died, Draco," she said very slowly as if he was an uncomprehending child. "Harry is dead. And you — you kept that from me for what? Do I look like a harlot to you? A gold-digger? Or do you not know how to respect someone you claim to love?"
"I never claimed anything that wasn't true."
"And this is your way of showing it? By not even telling me about Harry's funeral. I would have said goodbye to him, Draco, and that would have been the end. I'd still have loved you."
I'd. Still. Have. Loved. You.
His voice was hoarse, "You — you—" Something snapped inside him, and he hated himself for stuttering. "Past tense, isn't it all? Funny how I tried to save us; should've realized it would be an one-man job."
"Damn you," she snarled at him through clenched teeth. "You utter, utter bastard."
"Do you expect me to understand and forgive you?" she asked quietly; her knowing green-eyed gaze was disturbingly piercing as she faced him, and he silently shook his head.
"I don't expect you to be her replacement in any way."
Liar! The word leapt to Phoebe's lips and she realized its meaning for the first time.
Draco wasn't looking at her, watching her without seeing, and without meaning to, the words tumbled from his lips, softly, sadly, but not inaudibly, those three fateful words:
"You remind of…"
Four years after he left Hogwarts, his NEWT results published in one of the educational gazettes versus Hermione Granger's, Draco Malfoy sent out invitations to his impulsive wedding with a common girl from a village near his notorious home. According to the Daily Prophet, the bride was some "childhood friend" of his and the romantic cliché was pale in the onslaught of articles about the reaction of Malfoy's ex-girlfriend: Ginny Weasley, previously linked with none other than Harry Potter.
When he went home a second time, nineteen years later, recovering Malfoy Manor from the Ministry and the newer generation Death Eaters, Draco realized that his mother had been right, after all: the moors could never change.
He drove over the moor, cutting through the evening mist in his navy blue Bentley, Phoebe curled in the passenger seat beside him, and as he stared at out through the fogged windshield, he was completely unprepared for the nostalgia that swept through him, tightening around his heart.
If he had been a fanciful man, he would have imagined the wraith-like form of Ginny materialising before his car, or had he been of religious bent, he would have accepted Potter's death as Fate working to remove the obstacles in his path. If had been fatalistic, he would have cursed every day since the one he walked out of the flat, leaving her behind and letting her let him go.
The Bentley breezed through the gates and crunched up the gravel driveway, stopping neatly outside the sheltered front steps. Phoebe unlocked the door and slipped out. Before she closed it, she sent him a questioning look, but he indicated that he would park the car himself.
Narcissa Malfoy waited outside the doors of Malfoy Manor, like she had always been waiting for her son. Fleetingly, she and Draco caught a glimpse of each other. More than a decade ago, he had brought another girl home so like his wife.
Intimidated by his mother and bristling away from his father, Ginny had spent most of her time in Draco's company— something he was all too happy to give. She joked that he was her tall, strong knight in shining armour, and he readily complied. Malfoy Manor was old, dark and opulent at that point of time, but when his parents were called to London, the house fell to Draco's hands.
It was before they went to London only to have Lucius charged with treason and their fortune paid out in indemnity — before Narcissa looked upon Ginny as a symbol of the Ministry — before Draco stood up to his parents for the first time and was disowned without a Knut to his credit and thrown out of his home.
Eventually, they came around enough to give him a measly allowance, knowing it would insult him, but that he would be forced to accept because he had no other choice. By the time, he married Phoebe, Lucius had become a wasted man, his dreams were ashes and his ambitions beaten.
They were gone for seven entire months, and Draco was forced to stay in Wiltshire. Ginny chose to stay with him and every night all the lights in the mansion glowed through the windows, a warm, inviting beacon standing out on the moors, not just in the small hours of the morning when the sun lit the greyness, softening it, transforming it.
Letters came every day, owls strutted, fluttered, pecked and left feathers and droppings, and the house would be ominously silent, save the scritch-scritch of Ginny's quill on the parchment. Draco would stare into the empty fireplace or out the fogged window, as if waiting: not for his parents to write to him, even once, but for her to finish. As if in ink, she was giving away some part of herself to her family and her friends, and he grudged her even that.
"You can't expect them to not worry," she would laughingly, sitting back in her chair and crossing her long, shapely legs. "And after all, where am I but in Malfoy's den?"
His lip would curl, but the sneer would wither. She would smile to see that, and add, "It's called making allowances."
"Oh?" An eyebrow would arch. "I'd say it's called not being psychotically possessive."
An explosion of laughter, but then the pretty little red head would bend over the correspondence again, but the smile would linger.
The day before his parents were returning, he led the way through the draughty passages of the upper floors of the Manor and through the heavy trapdoor to the attic. They'd crawled out of the oval window, and settled themselves on the slope of the cold stone roof. She waited with expectantly bright eyes, while he pretended to be royally unconscious, casting warming spells around them, but no one could miss how jerky his movements were.
Then came the silence, and Ginny, tired of waiting, took them on a merry dance around the conversational clichés: weather, state of the government, tabloid-standard articles about their relationship, the amusing sounds Ron was wont to make when the two of them held hands.
She didn't start, didn't squeak, didn't even smile wider, when a warm, callused hand crept over hers, capturing it. Her fingers moved, entwining with his. His touch was electric, routing her with a sensation of contentment that was tangible and ungraspable at the same time. The words just stopped coming from her lips: she forgot how to speak.
Because he had tilted head towards hers, and his lips were soft against her mouth. One hand went around the back of her throat, as if he would float away and melt into nothingness if he didn't hold on to her. Her arms encircled him, pulling him closer to her, and he knew then he loved this girl because the dam exploding in his heart could mean nothing else.
She murmured against his lips, "You'll remember me, won't you? Will you always remember me, Draco?" And now he was left to wonder if she knew— had always known, even then.