Waiting For The Green Light

We've been cooped up in this room for days, hidden because you don't believe that your Fidelius Charm is going to work after all. Not because you didn't perform the charm correctly, but because you doubt your secret keepers' intentions. You're suddenly not all that sure of your friends anymore, and that's disturbing you no end. You don't even seem to trust yourself. What happened to the confident you? But I guess that all melted away, once she got to you.

And now you're resentful, and in a sulk because she won't have you. A good thing too. I shouldn't think any woman deserves you. Not like this. Not even me.

Don't look at me like that, you know it's true. Well, maybe I deserve you, but no other woman should. You're just pissed off because you finally have to face your demons. So I may be talking like Professor Trelawney, so what? You never cared how I talked before, but she changed you, and I'm not altogether clear that I like it. All of a sudden you're feeling things you never did before - feelings like remorse, and guilt. At least he never made me feel that - he just made me feel inadequate, not good enough to lick his shoes. Now, now, calm yourself, I didn't name him. You needn't bare your teeth at me. You've no right to, anyway. Now he's with her, and we're stuck together, as everyone expected us to be so, just as they did expect them to be. Only thing is, we believed the myth so much that we fell out of lust, or whatever kept us together for so long, and started to be inexplicably drawn to the two people we should abhor most of all. Meanwhile, they constantly denied the rumours about them for so long that they never knew that they loved each other until it came to the crunch. You know the story, of course. The Dark Lord almost killed her, torturing her for information with the Cruciatus Curse, and he, of course, saved her valiantly. Nearly died in the process himself, the only thing that stopped him from taking silly risks was the thought of her. Don't make barfing sounds at me, Draco, I know it hurts you to hear it. Don't you think it's hurting me too? But I know I deserve the pain, I've been a selfish being all my life, and it's not as if I deserved him. She probably did, much as I despise her. Oh shit, maybe that is remorse I'm feeling. You learn something new every day.

I hated her even more when I realised you didn't love me anymore. We're having no more arguments on this topic, I know you were the first to fall out of love. Merlin knows how it happened, and I'll have no more starry-eyed remembrances from you on the subject, I'm sick of hearing it. So one day it suddenly dawned on you that she wasn't the snotnosed, hoity toity chipmunk that you thought she was. Too late, Draco. A bit hard to combat nearly seven years of verbal abuse and endless hexing with declarations of true love, what?

Of course you tried to woo her, you muppet. She looked at you as if you were a spineless little slimeball - oh wait, I forgot, you are - and flounced out of the dungeons. And you said you thought Snape had overheard you. I certainly think so - he never acted the same in Potions class after that little incident. And then, as I began to realise the same thing, that Merlin forbid, you felt some sort of attraction towards that buck-toothed little Mudblood, which led me to glower at her every time I got the chance, I started to see the dark-haired figure constantly beside her in a new light. He wasn't just You-Know-Who's nemesis, and the champion of the wretched Gryffindors, but fearless, and intelligent (not like her, studying all the time, but instinctively brilliant). Yes, he was brave - something that you'll never be - and rather attractive, too, pools of green that arrested me every time I caught sight of his face, the distinctive dark hair that never stayed down like yours did. He made me shiver in ways you never had, all without even touching me. Yes, I was in love. For the first time ever too, I might add.

I was too bright to make a move though. I knew, even before he did, that those two brainless Gryffindors had designs on him, Patil and Brown. As for her - since you won't permit me to mention her name - she seemed very caught up with Weasley to care very much. I suppose I could have tried to stick my oar in - supposing he rejected those little fools, as it seems he did - but what is the chance I would have succeeded? I'm a true Slytherin, Draco, unlike you I assess situations and see what I can get out of them. Maybe you should have been in Gryffindor with your only love - it seems a very Gryffindor thing to do, to declare your desire without thinking of the consequences.

Everyone in Gryffindor knew, for Weasley had told them all. He found it hilarious that for once, he had something that you wanted and couldn't get. But he was probably too smug for his own good. She didn't like being treated like a possession, which she was now, ever since he'd found about your little foolishness. She was just the toy that you couldn't have, and Weasley gloated about it, every opportunity he got. In the end it was just too much. I saw the signs coming when Weasley's sister ran out of the hall in tears one morning, after a short conversation with him. I didn't hate her, she was too pathetic to hate, the stupid ginger twat. It seems like she's been slobbering all over him since she was ten, for Merlin's sake. But then your darling got her dirty hands on him. Damn it, Draco, I'll never forgive you for that. Because you couldn't control your feelings for one time in your life, you had to wreck whatever tiny chance I had. I knew I didn't have much chance, and I would have to wait a long time, but I also knew that if they ever realised the truth, or Destiny herself would bring them together, then that would be it. I didn't fucking think you would be Destiny.

Weasley fumed and whinged for weeks on end, and you took great delight in taunting him, but I knew that inside, you were devastated. I think you'd began to realise the same thing - that she would never leave him, that Weasley was some sort of phase, but with him it would be forever. All your fantasies fell by the wayside, just as mine did. Our dreams were finished.

But that's our fate. We're Slytherins, we look out for ourselves. We're meant to be loners. They're Gryffindors. So even though Weasley had been a bastard to her, and suitably pissed off with him for taking her away, he soon changed his view of life, and moved in with that sandy-haired idiot Finnigan, who apparently was such a love machine that he permanently changed Weasley's sexuality. And he also managed to break up Thomas and Patil (who only got together with Thomas since he'd rejected her), so that Thomas could whisk Weasley's sister off her feet and up the aisle, and Patil could run off with some ex-Beauxbatons boy racer. Meanwhile, Brown's affections had mysteriously changed to land on Longbottom, for some obscure reason no one can identify, and she's now apparently expecting triplets. Isn't that lovely, Draco? Happy families. No, maybe being a Gryffindor wouldn't suit you. I can't see you standing for any of that shit.

I know you too well. When you start biting your nails, it's a sign of your fear. Your left hand strokes my right knee, as you say that you want me to ride you. Charming. How typical of a Malfoy, to proposition me in such a manner - and such a situation. I've heard infamous tales of your father too, but it's pointless at this stage to relate them to you. Maybe you've known of them yourself. The fact is that antagonising you now, just before the end, is even cruel by my standards, and you know what I'm capable of. Which is a hell of a lot, by the way.

And I know that's all the comfort I can give you, meaningless sex, and meaningless conversation. You know I'll oblige, but don't expect me not to know that all the time you'll have your eyes closed and imagine that it's her that you're shagging. It seems eternity since we meant anything to each other, and come to think of it, did I ever mean a thing to you anyway? Your heart was virtually untouchable - I thought it would be for ever, but one woman unlocked it, and now you're tied to her for eternity. Anyway, I'm more or less the same. How I wish it was he who was groaning on top of me and planting kisses along my neck and breathing heavily all the while. Then I'd have my eyes open wide, just so I could catch quick glances of his face and those startling pools of emerald which make me shiver just at the memory of them...

Enough.

We both recoil and exhale unsteadily, expecting at every moment to hear the pop, and to know. Because we're Slytherins, we were meant to be alone. The only reason you and I are together is because we know exactly how the other feels. And because it's the Slytherin way to look out for yourself, and only yourself, we both know that our secret keeper will betray us, and quickly. Then our days will be finished. We will die for love, even if they never know it. Those emerald eyes and heavenly body were enough to make me actually volunteer information to Dumbledore, so that it became as regular as a weekly update on what was going on inside the Circle. And you used that famed Malfoy heirloom, that blasted Time Turner I always hated, to save her life when you overheard it being plotted by You-Know-Who's most faithful followers. Only dressed all in black, covering your face, she never knew who had saved her. The second time, when you couldn't get there, he did, and maybe she thought it had been him the first time as well. We got found out though.

We'll never be like them, no matter how hard we try, we'll only succeed in being pale imitations, and that's because we spent so much of our school life doing nothing else but observing them. Sad, isn't it? And we've just made love, even though love is the last thing that could describe our relationship, for the last time. We're just waiting now. When we hear the gentle pop, we'll know. Then we'll see the green light, and die instantly. No, they'll probably go on a bit about how we betrayed our oath, our house, our families. Bullshit like that. Then they'll ask both for a final wish. Fuck that, Draco, I'll just wish them the painful death they deserve. It's Crabbe and Goyle, they can't perform any other spell other than Avada Kedavra, really, so they won't torture me or anything. And if someone else comes, I doubt they'll have the skill to perform really powerful curses - you always surrounded yourself with people of inferior ability, didn't you? And I'll die. But not without having loved, Draco. At least we'll have loved, even if it was in vain. At least we've known something of humanity. I'll always love Harry, just as you'll always love that buck-toothed little- oh, all right, you want to hear her name now, just as you'll always love Hermione.

Maybe love has redeemed us both, slightly. We might be spared by whatever spirit governs the great beyond. It's too late for us to think positively, that's too alien an idea for us. No, let's think of our loves and leave it at that. We don't have much time. They'll come soon enough. We'll just lie side by side, waiting for the green light.