𝟒𝟗 - 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬, 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲

                                    

                                          
༻⚜༺
                          


                          
     "No." 
                          
     The heavens fell with her smile, crashing down with an earth-shattering roar. But she wiped the hurt clean from her face, just as she had that night in Andromeda's room, and smiled in her infuriatingly understanding manner. 
                          
     "Alright. Goodnight, Draco," she said, the words tight with restraint.
                          
     I looked at the way her lips stretched. The happiness in her eyes was concocted; falsified as the stories in the Prophet. And still, I thought about how lucky I was to bear witness to such a phenomenon as unassuming and devastating as her smile.
                          
     You see, in my world, moments of contentment, no matter how fraudulent, are few and far between. 
                          
     In my world, the gods love chaos. They derive greatest pleasure from upsetting the natural order of things. Because what — and why — else would you use such extraordinary powers for? They birth heroes only to set them on the path towards monsters and wars — to destruction. They save the ones they like, and the ones they don't, they leave to die.
                          
     And so when they sent Ainsley away to the Montagues', I was certain it would be the last I would ever see of her, for even her uncanny wit and charm is no match for Graham Montague's unpredictable temper and careless strength. 
                          
     But hope is a wily thing. No matter how much I try to avoid it, it always finds ways to worm itself into the invisible, microscopic cracks of my heart. It is why I found myself coming back to the Hufflepuff Common Room each day, waiting and hoping and praying for Ainsley to return. 
                          
     I didn't have to. 
                          
     It wasn't a mercy that she had survived three days alone with the Montagues. It was because even the gods know that if she died, so would the hundred other souls she has touched. 
                          
      How brutal a natural force she must be — how divine a human soul — that even Death himself is forbidden to take her? 
                          
     And sometimes, just sometimes, they may choose one more to save. 
                          
     I have only ever known shadows. I lived in them, and they lived in me. But after two long decades, they have decided to lift the veil; smash their mighty arms against the cage that held me. The gilded bars split like twigs¹. A single ray of light spills in from the crack, clear and blinding.  
                          
     This path of light is not new to me. I have been offered it many times before: When they gave me the cursed necklace; when I had beaten my fists raw against the Vanishing Cabinet in frustration; in the very moments before I utter the vile, unspeakable word I have been so unfondly associated with. 
                          
     Each time, I reject it thinking that I am meant for only anger and shame. For second. For lesser. 
                          
     Now, it is different. Because what I see at the end of this path is neither a prize nor a consequence, as I always have before. I see only another heart. One of unparalleled ferociousness and hidden hurts, with a single, flaming desire to seek, know, and understand. It waits for me to come, to tether itself to mine like two beating drums — like the wings of a submerged swan.
                          
     And despite my wretchedness and the crimes that stain my hands like fine merlot, even I know I would be a fool not to go towards it. 
                          
     I would have traded the world to have said 'yes', to keep Ainsley company through what might be her loneliest Christmas Eve yet; lie beside her until the moon conceded to the sun. But there was something else I needed to do.