Heliophilia; d.m

XXX

VIOLET

After a while, I felt better, but not enough to go to some party that I wasn't even invited to. I would have liked to spend that evening alone, waiting for Draco to talk to the top of the wizarding community and come back to me.

But he was... persistent, and I thought that maybe it wouldn't be so hard to endure a couple of hours in a strange place with strangers, even though I had no idea what they usually talked about at this kind of event.

I have visited such a place only once, and also not because I wanted to. I'd had Mariel with me then — she'd only left me once when she'd brought me to Draco, and I couldn't help but smile when I thought about it now.

I remembered how awkward it was to stand so close to him, with his silvery eyes glinting with the flashlights that lit up along the stone paths, and I remembered how my heart raced as he pierced me with his eyes and then spoke to me for the first time since the day he kissed me on the last task of the tournament.

It was like a lifetime ago, when I was still the same Violet, spending summer evenings in front of the fireplace or on the terrace surrounded by blooming flowers, talking or laughing about something with my father and Mariel.

It was like a lifetime ago, when everything was simpler, when Kristen was alive, when my soul wasn't blackened by the murders...

It was a lifetime ago, and now, when I opened my eyes, I found myself in a present that brought me neither happiness nor pleasure. There was only sadness and despair in that dark house, in the dark rooms, where the silence and emptiness hung like a heavy curtain, preventing my eyes from reaching for the light.

I felt bored and lonely that evening, when the whole house was silent, and it seemed that the only soul in the huge mansion was me.
But I knew that somewhere out there, outside of my room, there had to be Draco and Narcissa. We were the only ones left there when everyone else decided to pick up Harry Potter's trail again.

As I left the room, stepping on the wooden floor step by step, I became more and more convinced that there was no one else in the house.

The flickering lights in the dark hallway followed me all the way to the living room, where the fire was burning low, and the cool air that filtered through the slightly open window wrapped around my ankles, sending goosebumps up my body.

Why was it so unfair that when I wanted to be alone, there was always someone there, always wanting something from me, but when I felt the need for someone, at least someone, there was no one?

"Where are you, where are you?..." I whispered to myself as I stepped outside, and immediately found myself under the silvery light of the full moon.

And as pathetic as it sounds, the moon was my companion on lonely, dark evenings. When I felt particularly depressed, when my soul was torn to shreds with excruciating pain, making me want to scream, to destroy, when I hated myself and my life especially much — the moon was the only light that captivated me in its glow.

And now I was walking along a path of soft silver light, straight into nowhere, to be alone with myself outside, because the house had an oppressive atmosphere, that made me almost go crazy, sitting in the silence of solitude.

The July night was cool, and I shivered as I walked softly along the gravel path that rustled under my feet.

This path led to the back of the Malfoy compound, where there were several black wrought-iron benches that Draco and I liked to sit on on warm days, and behind us was the forest, which seemed to invite us to enter the embrace of the majestic trees that formed an impenetrable maze.