Title: Popcorn
Author: Marine Galdeone () (site / blog / reviews )
Source work: Two Lost Souls by Amalin
Summary: Insert chapter between 8 and 9 of Amalin�s Two Lost Souls. Written for the Armchair Christmas Challenge.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: I loved Two Lost Souls. More than anything. And when I took this assignment for the ACC, I guess I didn't really know what I was doing. I was so overwhelmed by the chance to be a part, somehow, of the story. And I�m sorry if I didn�t meet the standards that were expected of me. For this ficlet, I tried to imitate Amalin�s style, with the figurative language and parentheses and all, and I�m afraid I may have made a botch of it. Nevertheless, I hope I did TLS some justice. Because I really did like it and I didn�t want to spoil it with this insert chapter. Meanwhile, Amalin, congratulations still. XD
�Portkeys,� I announce, �are entirely the most sickening forms of transportation in the magical world.�
His lips are parted before I even see him, cheery sunlight filtering through soft coral. His smile is slight and amused; after two weeks where clammy dreams and scratchy ink on parchment are the only marks of his presence, it disarms me once again. For a moment I have so much to say and no way to say it.
I settle for, �I�m surprised you�re not too busy to be here.�
�Nah, things are slow. Not much to do in Sirius�s flat.�
Heat tiptoes down my spine, though the sun is hidden. The alley is narrow and the only pleasant display in sight is the rectangular patch of clear blue sky above us beyond the graffiti�d walls. Trapped in this sweltering hollow. If only he could share what is flowing through my veins and bubbling in my chest like some ensnaring potion; if only he could see how unbearable it is that I am here and he is there and I cannot touch, I can�t, because I have to wait.
I have to wait for him.
I shake the familiar feeling like dust off my trousers, and walk out to the open street.
An expansive lake, a flat canvas of sparkling blue-green behind painted metal railings and plastic chairs, greets me with its breath of summer�s warmth. On this side, behind the pavement, are small, quiet stores; on the other side are docks, where scattered boats are bobbing calmly over the surface. A couple passes by, holding hands and whispering sweetly to each other; otherwise, the street is empty. Hubbub and strange, toy-like music float from the distance to my right. All I see from where I stand iswhat appears to be a large wheel with carriages attached to each spoke.
�Ferris wheel,� he explains, and I scrunch my nose. Muggle machinery, and the name sounds like it too. �I�ll take you there later. We�re going somewhere else first.� His jaw is set in that rigid, secretive stance to stop himself from saying anything. He wouldn�t tell me, when he owled, where we were going. I�m curious, but I know I shall find out eventually; thus, I keep silent in the ridiculous fantasy that this surprise could actually be something special.
It is obvious from his eyes darting around that he is expecting someone.
Almost as if he is avoiding my gaze, he squints against the brightness of the sun as he awaits whoever is about to arrive from down the street. The heat sends shivers of perspiration down my back, unbearable but for the wind, a shy schoolgirl kissing my cheeks. I am in a T-shirt and no robes, and I am nearly thankful how he asked -- no, demanded -- me to come in Muggle clothes, but even in the sun�s persistent burning, I remember what my mirror said before I left the Manor. And I take my mirror very seriously.
I sigh with the knowledge that my hair does not go at all with any shade of green, the only color of Muggle shirt I have. (He, perhaps, can manage to look presentable in anything, to me if not to everyone, because his hair is the silken blanket of midnight and his lips are pillows on a temptress�s bed and his eyes are the shade of audacious and beautiful watercolor no artist would dare use. He can pull anything off, come to think, and I am here feeling stupid and looking it.)
The pain of waiting skitters inevitably into the borders of my mind, and I ask, �Who�s coming?� at the same time a voice says from behind, with the roughness and accent I could never misplace, ��Bin waitin� long, Harry?�
Hagrid, former Hogwarts gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, emerges from the shadows of the alley with the grace of a house-elf and the size of a sentinel. My initial surprise is quickly dismissed with the memory of Hagrid associating with Harry more than necessary when we were but schoolboys. (Haha, I tell myself, as I realize that we still are.) I used to be as afraid of the half-giant as Harry liked him. Now, it�s not fear as much as it is awe, that a man that large could hold himself together and smile serenely down at us; and that, despite him being large and undoubtedly dangerous, we are standing close enough for him to crush us with his bare fists, and yet we trust him with our lives. It is like looking confidently down into a bottomless pit with the knowledge that nothing would make you fall.
�Hi, Hagrid,� he greets, and then gestures to me. �Draco Malfoy, the one I told you I�d bring.� (The only Draco Malfoy you know, I want to say, but then I don�t think he�d find it funny.)
��Lo, Draco. So, ready to go?� He doesn�t wait for an answer: with the enthusiasm of a Muggle child showing his mother a crayoned masterpiece, he leads us with big, heavy steps down the street. Harry -- Potter -- and I follow, crossing over to the other side where the water is closer. Its scent and sound beckon to us, but I keep my eyes trained on the back of his neck, shifting ever so slightly with every step. I wonder where we are headed.
We walk until the stores change into houses and we turn at a corner. A village lies before us, tree-lined streets meeting in a plaza at the center. Hagrid takes us down one of the paths until we reach the end, where woods start. There, precisely at its edge, are the ruins of what used to be a house. And what now?
The corners of Hagrid�s mouth twitch, I see, as if he is uncertain whether to laugh or frown. I look at Harry: his face reveals nothing.
�Godric�s Hollow,� Hagrid whispers mysteriously, and I know. I can�t not know, not after hundreds of school books narrating Harry Potter�s story, how his mum and dad were betrayed, how Hagrid got there just in time to save him. When I was a child, before I even met him, I tried to imagine smoldering walls that crumbled around me, the rage of fire and asphyxiation by foul smoke, my last memory a flash of green light and my parents� lifeless eyes. I tried, but I could not; and besides, my father always interrupted me before I got too dreamy, saying I had my head in the clouds, never knowing that I thought Voldemort was a meanie.
�Well, I �spect yeh�ll wan� tuh be left alone. The Portkeys�ll take yeh tuh Sirius�s when yeh charm �em. I�d better go.�
�Thanks, Hagrid,� Potter says.
Hagrid takes a few steps backwards, eyes fixed on the house. (It cannot be forgotten.) And then he�s gone.
�So, your parents� house,� I remark, for lack of anything to say. Sunlight glares on the corner walls and abrupt edges, bathing them like the harsh light of inquisition. There is nothing, really, but dirty walls with the paint long peeled off them, a fallen roof whose tiles have been chipped and cracked by the years, broken glass whose edges are smooth and would feel merely like worn seashells on my skin, I imagine, if I took the time to pick them up. But seventeen years later and the air still reeks of death: I smell it through the pores of my skin and the hair at the back of my neck.
We go almost all the way around it, investigating the scene of a crime that took place years and years ago, and I notice moss growing in cracks and crevices where seasons of rain must have pooled, and around the edges of the wreckage, just above the ground. It is hardly visible, but they�re everywhere, the fringes of bright green, like his eyes. (How does death allow life to grow? Perhaps mankind shall always be this way, gilding the borders between life and death, unable to decide which is which and which is proper. Perhaps we shall remain alive and dead, at the same time, forever.)
�This has been here since they died,� he says finally, breaking the long and sweltering silence. �It�s a Muggle village; they couldn�t do anything, really, besides alter their memories. They couldn�t clean it up or build a monument or anything of the sort.� He leans against a tree, crossing his arms over his chest, gazing at nowhere into the deep recesses of his mind. �They were too busy celebrating, really. And, just being here, I can feel...�
He looks at me. I nod. �I know, Ha -- I know.�
He is about to say something else, something important; I�m sure of it. But he shakes his head ever so slightly, looking away as he does so. I have the feeling he feels uncomfortable around me, though I don�t know why that could possibly be. (Maybe, I tell myself, he wants to press his lips against mine as I once did to him, that day the wind carried me and flew through my hair and caressed my face. It is a feasible hope, but a fleeting one, nonetheless.)
�This reminds me of the cemetery.� He gives me a mildly interested look, and I continue, �When I went to--�
�I know,� he interrupts. He must have seen the roses, then, before his parents� headstone: one that he had placed before my mother�s, and one from me.
�Why are you still grieving, Potter?� I walk closer to him until I, too, am leaning against the trunk, the wood rough on my right arm. �I knew my mother; you never knew yours. And yet...�
�I love them precisely because I never knew them. All I have is the fact that they died trying to save me -- that�s enough.�
I understand, somehow, just by seeing him with his eyes, mirrors that swallow and never reflect, and his back resting on the tree as if he is too weary to stand on his own, his fingers tangled with the hem of his shirt. I understand the way he feels for a second, when the world seems to stop its rotation and I know everything there is to know, even life, even him. When the world spins again, I blink and I forget.
�Let�s go, I promised to take you there,� he says, amusement trickling into the small and unreachable pores of his being. He tosses his head toward the direction we came from, and we walk, side by side this time, the silence between us reassuring. We both know what the other is thinking; I know for a fact that he wants to have one last glimpse back. But he trains his eyes dead forward. And together, we leave the hollow behind.
The music gets louder as we near, even stranger than the Muggle pop I�ve heard once or twice in my life. There�s no one singing, and it seems to come from only one very loud accordion. The Muggles� voices buzz in my ears, disturbing the quiet I was enjoying not so long ago. We reach the entrance and I can see, now, the bedlam in its full splendor.
�This is what you call a carnival,� he tells me.
�Carnival? Like, for carnivores?�
�Well, no, not really.�
We enter: it�s complete and total pandemonium. In this corner, teacups are spinning around on a surface and laughing little children are in them; in that one, men are making fools out of themselves throwing balls to make bottles tip over, the latter of which seem glued onto each other and onto the table. Here a little girl munches on sticky Muggle cotton candy, licking the residue off her filthy fingers; there, the Ferris wheel goes round with the monotony characteristic of History teachers� voices, and the couples inside don�t look very sick of it. Again, I witness how Muggles are complete freaks.
�This is all for... fun?�
�Exactly.� He leads me through the noisily droning crowd until we reach a semicircle of food stalls. I notice �hotdogs� first of all, where there is fortunately no illustration or photograph whatsoever of a mutt or two. I would be traumatized: I already am. I�m about to walk off in sheer disgust when he drags me toward something very sweet-smelling, indeed. (Just his fingers and that aroma, and already I forget all the Muggles within the vicinity. It�s him, and me, and we�re in Heaven, lounging under the sun on clouds made of butter.)
�One of those large tubs, please,� he orders with a sparkle in his eye, and the man behind the stall takes out a small metal shovel-like utensil and scoops out the bite-sized yellow cornflower things.
�And that is?� I ask, trying to seem uninterested. I still am a wizard, after all.
�Popcorn.�
�So it�s corn that they�ve -- well -- enlarged? Hmm, it looks strange.�
He pays the man and takes the gigantic bucket. The scent wafts into my nostrils, beckoning me to take a kernel and melt it in my mouth the way I imagine his kiss would feel. But I wait for him to take one for himself and toss it into his mouth with the kind of grace that can only be pulled off by the Boy Who Lived, not because he is that Boy, but because he is tired of being him. He chews, but only slightly; I can only picture what he would taste like.
He offers me the tub, and I put one in my mouth and yes, it�s the way his tongue would graze my lips and his breath would stroke the roof of my mouth and his name (Harry, always Harry) would travel from my warmth to his. He raises an eyebrow.
�Best edible Muggles have ever invented,� he says. He is absolutely right.
I take a kernel whenever he does, and we slowly savor the dangerous, irresistible taste of salt and butter. He buys a huge plastic container of colored effervescent water called soda, and we take turns sipping from the straw. It�s cool relief on a hot day, but it fizzes in my nose like pins and needles and doesn�t feel very good, so I insult it as I do every other Muggle thing.
�Hmm, where to now?� he murmurs almost to himself, eyes scanning our surroundings.
�Do you mean you�re planning to stay?�
�What�s wrong with staying? You�re no fun, Malfoy.�
�Muggles,� I answer to his question. They�re everywhere, noisy, and -- well! -- they�re Muggles, for Merlin�s sake. (Perhaps I am not as different from my father as I hope.) Still, it�s not their identity as much as it is their differences. It�s a form of inherent xenophobia, I suppose. They�re strange to me; I was never like him, who lived amongst them all his childhood, and who has long been accustomed to their ways. And they�re all in groups, too: children, grandparents, mums and dads, and young couples. The latter dominate the population.
Then it hits me: �Potter. You�re not -- this isn�t a date, is it?!� I do my best to sound suspicious -- annoyed. And I think I succeed, albeit my heart is pounding like village drums inside my chest; the skin over my spine tingles at the possibility that this outing with him might be more than just that. I can feel drops of the sun at the back of my neck.
He shrugs, insouciant. �Not unless you want it to be.�
I turn away, uncertain of what to say or do. Why is he always like this? Speaking in riddles, waiting for replies to questions he does not ask? (Is his life itself is a riddle, and has he been searching too long for answers he will never find?) Maybe he�s afraid, like I am, and wants to save himself the embarrassment if things don�t go as planned. He could blame others for saying he meant what he said but did not mean.
�Fine, fine, we�ll stay, as long as we don�t ride anything. Or play those throwing games, for that matter.�
�All right,� he replies. I want to read his expression, but I looked away first and it would be odd.
As we tour the carnival, a lengthy conversation ensues concerning Muggles, their ridiculous apparatuses, and their bizarre idea of amusement. We arrive back at the entrance in an hour, with me feeling victorious and he slightly perplexed.
�Well, that was fun,� I remark, my throat dry. The last of our drink was finished half an hour ago, but he�s still holding the popcorn, a quarter of it left.
�Er, yeah.� He thinks a bit, then says, �Want to go to our flat now? He�s got an all-day Cooling Charm on -- and we�re roasting out here.� The sun�s sheen shimmers on his forearms. On his nose are droplets of sweat. I raise my fingers to swipe them off, but I stop myself before I can do so. We don�t do these things; he might not find it proper. Vaguely, I wonder how I resisted, with him looking like a boy whose little nose is summoning to be touched.
(This is it; I�ve gone mad.)
�Right. Let�s go, then.�
We go back down the street and into the same alley, charm our Portkeys, and appear inside a cozy apartment living room.
He immediately flops down on the couch, setting the popcorn on the coffee table. He sighs of relief, a half-smile on his lips, taking in the refreshing sensation of cool air. I smirk down at him before I sit.
�And this,� I state, �is why wizards are a lot smarter than Muggles.�
�I agree, Malfoy, but they�ve got air conditioning, you know. Care for a drink?�
�You have any pumpkin juice? I�m parched.�
He stands, and while he�s off at the kitchen, I think of how we are.
If only books were written on how I could determine his feelings, how I could know that we are more than friends or enemies, and how I could ever comfort someone who has been tasked all his life to do great things for hundreds of people and never himself. If only I knew what he thinks of at night, and if only I could make it all better. We have come so far already, and I do not understand why, here and now when the war should make any and every small thing possible, we cannot go further. I have a feeling he refuses to let us, that he is scared of pain or disappointment. But aren�t we all? With every step we take? Aren�t we?
He comes back and hands me the glass. �Here you go.� I drink sip by sip, waiting for the cool thick liquid to flow down my throat before I take another. Immediately I feel lighter: pumpkin juice has that skill of driving heat from your bones, and the initial glass is particularly satisfying. He sits down again, his knobby knees nudging against mine.
Merlin. He�s torturing me and he knows it.
�Where�s Sirius?� I ask to distract myself.
�Out. Probably with Remus. Or Cho.� He makes a face, sick and disgusted like a toddler. Today is indeed a day of surprises: he�s never done that before. (Neither have I, but unlike him, I will probably never.)
�Ah.�
Silence follows until our glasses are empty. The popcorn is greasier, no longer warm, and not as scrumptious, but we eat it anyway, if only to feel our teeth grinding the kernels. The butter is starchy on our tongues; nevertheless, the chill settling on us is too comfortable for us to mind much about food. He flattens and tosses away the bucket when we�re done.
�I want to show you something.�
�All right.�
I rise to follow him to his room, but he says, �It�s okay, I�ll bring it here.�
I lean against the wall and wait.
When he comes back less than a minute later, whatever he has brought is inside his clenched fist, and there are traces of cherry blush on his cheeks. His stance is not of one who searched for something as quickly as one could; I cannot help thinking (hoping?) that there was something else that made Nature tint his face with her diaphanous veil: Nature, or perhaps--
No. I won�t think of it.
Hope is the ocean to a sailor�s wife. Every day is a disappointment: she shall wait forever.
�Here,� he says, dropping it into my palm.
The pebble?
�Well. Nice to know you�ve kept it all this time, Ha -- Potter, but... hey.�
We watch as the pebble glows, a dim pinkish red like a pulsing heart. The color fades away and after a long moment appears again, hardly noticeable to one who does not pay attention. But to me, at least, it is clear that the stone is alive. Perhaps I am only imagining it, but it almost feels warm on my skin.
�It started glowing intermittently about a week ago. Unpredictable, really, but it�s been glowing more recently and, well, it�s brighter sometimes. Like when I woke up this morning.� His eyes, secret gardens to which I know not the key, avert me once again. (I wish he would open up, let me enter him and read him and know him. Let me be with him. If he truly trusts me, what must he hide?)
His ears are pink at the tips.
�Listen, Malfoy, I...� He does not finish, keeping his gaze to the wall behind me.
�Harry.�
He looks up sharply, just as I expected, and I deliberately meet his eyes and hold them. He parts his lips, knowing my maneuver: he cannot look away.
�I told you--�
�I know. Potter, then.�
I keep our eyes connected.
�Malfoy...�
�I�m right here.�
(It means more than it sounds, my reply, but I cannot summon the words to explain. Here I am at his feet -- coherent, perhaps, but not where it matters. I forget summer�s beauty and the sun�s radiance; the afternoon�s heat and the scent of the sky. I know only him.)
�I�m sorry,� he says, his eyes a worried tangle of emotions: hope, and fear, and joy, and doubt. �When I... when I look at you, I sometimes... I can�t imagine--�
�You think too much,� I interrupt.
He kisses me.
He is gentle as he pushes me against the wall. He tastes like salt, and his tongue teases my lower lip with buttery oil. I feel a hand on my waist, holding me as if I would run away. I submit completely. I press my fingers to the paint of the wall, and it is only then that I realize I haven�t washed my hands. They are bound to leave marks.
I forget about it as easily as I slide a hand behind his neck, an arm around his back. I taste my own tongue on his, corn and a tiny hint of pumpkin juice, carnivals and Muggle delicacies and heat and Godric�s hollow and life, and death, and life and death. And that is all that matters now, because I am here and he is there and even if hope is a bleak ocean, only the ocean can bring a wife�s sailor back home. If he could see through to the depths of my soul, he would see me here, with him, at this moment. He is all that matters.
And later, when we part and are desperately catching our breath, he takes me by the wrist and walks backward to pull me toward his room. �I�ve got something else to show you.�
(And when he smiles, weary eyes in a delighted face, I forget everything all over again. And it�s only him.)