Little Memories

Draco sat at his desk as he wrote upon another sheet of parchment. His head was bowed slightly as he focused intently on his words. The quill in his fingers danced gracefully across the sheet of parchment. He had gone through nearly a whole well of ink in three days and had rummaged through the house for any other ink bottles that he could find. He didn’t want to be mid-thought when he ran out, because then he may lose track of his mind altogether.

A twinge of pain twisted in his chest and he paused, his brow furrowing and his hand clutching at his t-shirt. Ever since he had woken up in the middle of the night with that horrible pain coming from his heart, he had been getting these occasional, sharp, and sudden bursts of pain just below his sternum. He knew it was because Charlotte was ill and that she was in pain. In some odd way, he didn’t ever want the pain to stop, because he knew what it would mean when the pain would.

Draco blinked hard, his jaw clenching, before he resumed writing down his words and thoughts onto the piece of parchment. If their parents hadn’t been so damn loyal, neither of them would have been put into this mess. They would be free to live as normal teenagers and do the things normal wizards and witches their age got to do. They would have a choice as to what side they wanted to be one. They wouldn’t have these lead-heavy, guilty consciences weighing on them all the time.

Before Draco knew what had happened, he had pressed the quill so hard into the parchment out of anger, he bled a hole straight through it and had broken the tip of it. He let out a heavy sigh and tossed the quill aside in pure discontent. He ran his fingertips through his hair and breathed out through his nose before leaning over and rummaging through his desk for another quill. He righted himself back into his chair with another sigh as he shook his head, cursing himself for not writing more often before hand and therefore having no need for extra quills.

He sat in his room, staring down at the half-finished sentence, and thought of what he would have written if he didn’t break his quill. Soon enough, the lack of sleep from the night before caught up with him and he found himself folding his arm on the desk, and resting his head on top of them, quickly falling asleep despite the fact that it was eleven o’clock in the morning.

When he opened his eyes, he was sitting in a dark golden ballroom at a table that was much too small for the room, yet ornately decorated to match the décor. A fire was roaring beside the table and Draco could fell the head emanating from it on the side of his face, uncomfortably warming one half of his body. There was a lit candelabra in the middle of the table, providing the only bit of light besides the fire, surrounded by copious amounts of freshly cooked foods and desserts. There was a glass goblet in front of him filled with a suspicious looking red liquid and he wrinkled his nose at it before noticing that there was someone sitting across from him at the table.

The first thing he saw were two pale, delicate looking hands that rested on the armrests of the high-backed, royal-looking chair. His eyes traveled up midnight-blue sleeves with silver buttons along the forearms. He knew he had seen this dress before and he knew who had worn the dress. Skipping looking at the rest of the dress, he peered around the intricate candelabra to rest on the pale, broken looking girl in front of him. His heart soared, but only for a moment, because he noticed how dead she looked.

Her cheekbones appeared more pronounced because of how much weight she had lost. Her once sparkling blue eyes were lack-luster and had obtained a far-away look to them; intently focused on everything and nothing at once. Dark rings and shadows lived under those eyes that he loved to look into, and wrinkles had appeared at the corners of them. Her once long, flowing curls had been cropped to just below her cheekbones, styled in neat waves and parted far to one side. Her lips were chapped and flaking, blood appearing in some of the deeper cracks. Despite her looking like death warmed over, she wore a scarce bit of makeup on her eyelids and a bit of blush on her cheeks to try and brighten her sallow complexion. Draco still thought she was undeniably the most gorgeous being he has ever seen, but feared what her appearance meant.

“Charlotte,” Draco finally found the guts to speak. Her eyes slowly lifted from the plate to look up at him. When their eyes connected, Draco felt a chill run through his body. While she may have still been breathing and living in front of him, her eyes were very much dead and lost. It felt like she was staring at him, yet looking directly through him into the nothingness that lay just beyond him. His grip tightened on the arms of his chair as she continued to stare at him, appearing more like a ghost than anything.

“What’s happened to you, Charlie?” He asked softly, his voice echoing against the high, ornately painted ceilings of the empty, forlorn ballroom they found themselves in. She merely just looked at him with her dead eyes and her slightly parted lips as she breathed in and out gently. Suddenly, a flash of emotion came across her face, yet it didn’t reach her eyes. She appeared furious with Draco for some reason; her brows furrowed together, her mouth tensed, and her jaw clenched dramatically.

Draco suddenly felt like he was getting all the air squeezed from his lungs, staring at the bottom and working to the stop with an agonizing sort of pain. One by one, he felt his ribs, starting with the lowest ones, begin to snap and break within his chest. He hunkered over the table as Charlotte’s eyes continued to watch him, her angelic, yet deathly looking face contorted with pure rage. Draco gasped futilely for air, his hands trying to pry away at the invisible binds that had wrapped themselves around his body and seemed intent on killing him. He let out a strangled groan as he felt his sternum snap.

“No!” He exclaimed suddenly as he shot up from his desk. His breathing was heavy and he could feel tears streaking his face. He became conscious of a hand pressed gently on his shoulder blade and his mother’s soothing voice asking him what was wrong as his world slowly came back into focus. His eyes slowly looked over at his mother and he drew in a deep breath to try and calm his frantically beating heart.

“J-just a nightmare,” he managed to mumble out past his numb lips and his quivering voice. His mother’s brow was quirked with worry as she smoothed her hand over his hair and she let out a heavy sigh.

“It’s time for lunch, Draco,” she said, trying to hide the deep concern she had for him but failing. Draco could read his mother like an open book. He merely nodded and stood, following her out of the room and down the long corridor that lead to the staircase. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he walked into the dining room, ignoring the greetings from Bellatrix and her husband. He followed his mother and pulled out the chair for her before taking his own seat and beginning to eat his lunch in silence, wanting to retreat back to his room as soon as possible.

The air hung heavy with unsaid conversation and the only noise was the clanking of the cutlery against the china they ate on and the shifting around of someone in their chair. Draco couldn’t eat fast enough to get out of the occasional gaze of his mother and his aunt. Normally, he took his lunch in his room, because he didn’t want to have to force a conversation or be under prying eyes. He wasn’t sure why he followed his mother out of his room, but he felt that after the horrid dream that he had, he didn’t want to be alone.

“So, the Dark Lord told me that your little bird ended up killing one of the Dementors that was bothering your father,” Bellatrix said in a taunting way, earning a stern look from Narcissa. Draco looked up from his plate to his psychotic aunt and stared at her.

“You can kill a Dementor?” He asked softly, staring intently at her. She was grinning a crazed grin in return, looking more than pleased with herself.

“No, but she can apparently. The Dark Lord is very curious as to how it happened,” she said before taking a small bite out of her lunch. Draco merely looked down to his plate, his small appetite dwindling altogether. “And she’s deathly ill,” she said all-too happily. Draco’s hands clenched into fists as his mother hissed at her to stop. “The Dark Lord says it’s a wonder that she’s even still alive with how sick she is.”

“Then it’s a good thing she’s being freed tomorrow so that she can come here and seek the proper attention for it, isn’t it Bellatrix?” His mother replied testily before resuming to eat her lunch. Bellatrix went silent, the happy look completely gone from her face as the room fell silent yet again. Draco figured that would be the end of all conversation for the rest of lunch.