Ice

DHr Advent 2018. Beta work by Jamethiel, Pidanka, and Bionically. Cover by RachelBarker07
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His eyes have always reminded her of ice.

It's the way they glint when he sneers. When he looks at her, she can almost feel the cold sensation of his gaze. Cutting, dragging through her like a knife.

She always wishes she were wearing more layers when she has to be in the same room with him. She's always cold, but it's like the room drops below freezing the moment he walks in. He makes her skin prickle. Like a dementor, he dredges up her worst memories whenever he's nearby. All the things she tries to forget. Things she wants to leave in the past.

When she sees his eyes, she hears herself screaming. Hears Bellatrix shrieking "Crucio!" Feels the knife cutting into her.

"We didn't. It's a fake. We didn't..."

Screaming until she feels her mind running.

When it was happening, she had stared at Draco Malfoy. His cold, cold eyes were the only familiar things in the room. Something to hold onto. She latched onto the ice and used it to tear a part of herself free from the fire of agony lacing her body.

When she sees his eyes now, she's back on the floor, screaming until her vocal chords feel like blood in her throat.

When he walks into the break room on his first day at Gringotts, she had just poured herself a cup of coffee. Scalding hot. Second degree burns on her stomach and legs. She barely feels them as she flees the room. There's a broken cup on the floor, but someone else can clean up.

She shivers in her office as she treats the burns.

They're in different departments; there's not much reason for their paths to cross. But his office is down the hall from hers. When she hears his footsteps pass her door, she can't help but cast a barricade spell until the sound fades.

She hears he is charming. That's what her co-workers say. Charming. Helpful. Very smart. Somehow, no one else seems to notice that his eyes are ice.

He never speaks to her. She never speaks to him. But she often feels his gaze on her.

She notices that his steps slow slightly when he passes her office.

At first she thinks she's paranoid, that she's just imagining it. But each time he passes her door, she feels a renewed sense of certainty. Finally she times his gait with a stopwatch. Step, step, step, as he approaches. His footsteps slow by as much as two-fifths of a second for the six steps nearest her door.

She times it every time he passes until she has incontrovertible proof. For three weeks, until she's certain she's controlled for all variables. The pattern holds. There is no denying it. He slows.

She wants to confront him. To storm into his office, lay out her evidence and accuse him of—

Of walking up to two-fifths of a second slower outside her door.

She shoves the scroll of data into her desk drawer and slams it repeatedly while she shivers.

It's so unfair that he's there. He's ruining everything. She was fine. She was moving on. But now he's here and dragging everything back up.

Why can't he just loll about in his manor? It's not like he needs money. She has access to his vault information. Post-war reparations and he could still buy the Buckingham Palace and several private islands. There's no reason for him to be walking around freezing her to death with his slowing footsteps.