Villain, D. Malfoy

31. Time's Chasing

Draco

The break was over, and we realized we couldn't keep avoiding our parents forever. Sometimes the things you want to do so badly in life are the most forbidden to do.

So, we spent our last day of liberty examining paintings in various museums. As always, we had sneaked out to the Scottish town we were familiar with at this point. In the beginning, I was the only one who knew about this town as a form of escapism.

But once Emerald became such a time-consuming portion of my life, we shared this town as our escapism together.

I still didn't speak a word to her about my father. She had no idea what he had ordered me to do just three weeks ago. But I knew I couldn't go through with what he told me. I physically could not do it. Killing Emerald would encompass me killing a piece of my new soul as well.

I decided to push my father's thought to the back of my head instead of focusing on it right now. We gradually marched through the marble floors. No one was here today. Ochroid frames, white Greek sculptures, meager rust-colored benches all surrounded us. It was so quiet only our footsteps crackling against the wooden floor could be heard.

Our heads were tilted towards the right. Both of us did that unintentionally whenever we were attracted to something or when curiosity was subjecting us. Either way, we looked like one and the same.

"Look," She muttered. "The Persistence of Memory."

"Salvador Dalí." I immediately added. She glanced back at me, a slight smile tugging on her lips.

"How do you interpret it?" My voice was raspy. There wasn't anything in this world I admired more than hearing her discuss her standpoints on art.

"Simple. The melting clocks typify the unpredictable and unreliable passage of time that we experience while dreaming. It shows how ineffective and arbitrary our obsession with time is. Whether that is inside or outside the fantasy state."

"Impressive. You know, some artwork scholars assume that it actually exhibited Einstein's groundbreaking Theory of Relativity." I deviated from her thinking.

"Well, I could see how it proves that modern concept of time as being complex, rather than being fixed and easily tracked with a pocket watch."

"They believe Dalí suggests that our current time-keeping devices are archaic and old-fashioned."

"Because we exist in a post-Einstein world?" She questions. Her eyes didn't leave the painting once.

"Exactly," I mutter. "In day to day life, we idolize killing time."

"Whilst time idolizes killing us as soon as it's nighttime." She completed my thought.

I fastened my fingers with hers as we kept walking towards the next piece of art. But to me, her charm was the entire museum.

"Ah, Gustav Klimt." I rubbed my chin as we landed on the next painting.

"You know I always misinterpreted The Kiss." She let out a faint chuckle as I wrapped my arms from behind her back. "In art, the word misinterpreted doesn't exist, my darling." I nuzzled my head in the crook of her neck.

"It's easy for you to say. I don't think you've ever made a shallow comment on anything ever before." She spun around to watch my face.

"Are you kidding me? Are you simply forgetting our initial conversations? I did not spit out one single bright sentence. You, on the other hand, have always been wiser than me."

"I don't believe you. So, let's prove it. Mister Malfoy, is it easier to love or to be loved?" She dared as she raised her left eyebrow.

Most of our time is utilized by philosophical mysteries and answers. I guess it's the way we both grow, and our relationship does so too. Well, whatever you wanted to call our thing.

"I cannot answer such a question because they wouldn't exist without each other."

"Explanation?" She asked for some sort of context.

"Being loved would require someone out there putting all my needs before theirs; therefore loving me." I crack my knuckles. "The two terms: being loved and loving, they hold some sort of codependency with each other. Kind of like humans do with escapism."

"I take satisfaction in the way you reason. It's crazy how much humans are obsessed with fleeing their existing realities. We read to escape, write to create, and love in order to disassociate."

"I suppose it's the way we're born into this world. We wouldn't appreciate the things that make us want to leave our current reality if said reality never existed."

"But what if we could all just... visit the realities we desired? Wouldn't that be beautiful?" She grinned.

"I think what makes life beautiful is its unfairness. Not everyone can live their aspired realities. For whatever reason that is, it's just the ways of the universe." I exhaled.

"Are you living your desired reality?" She smirks.

"You're here next to me, so I presume that answers your question." I placed my hand on top of her rosy cheek and sealed her lips with a kiss. "Doesn't it?"

"I just wish we didn't have to give all this up. Can't we stay here permanently? Analyzing each painting as the rain drenches the external world?"

"I wouldn't want anything else more in this world but that. Unfortunately, we have a reality of attending to."

"Hey, this could be one of our places, you know?" She released my hand to wander around the vacant room.

"We already have The Astronomy Tower, the park, and now the museum?" My voice reverberated through the big gold-painted halls.

"One can never have too many." I saw her shrugging as her back faced me. I laughed at her amusing comment.

I licked my lips, staring around what was left of the museum as well. We were going our separate ways, strolling around and soaking the environment before heading back to Hogwarts.

My feet froze as they felt a piece of paper hit the back of my shoes. I turned around and bent down, picking up the rigged piece of white paper.

I unfolded its wrinkled edges, and my eyes pierced the ink-smudged handwriting.

You're running out of time. Get the job done, or else I'll do it for you.

My stomach churned with what felt like acid as I shut my eyes closed. I bit my lip from accepting the truth. Anyone in their right mind could depict that writing belonged to only one particular individual.

My father.