Redamancy (d.m)

Chapter eighty four-past, present, future

My body beat my mind awake as though it could sense the loneliness sweeping over me. I panicked only for a moment, sitting up and scanning the territory of the empty room and allowing my heart to steady as I caught sight of him on the balcony. I saw only the back of his head basking in the glow of the moon as he sat silently on the porch swing that creaked faintly in the wind. His face whirled to his side as I approached, dropping a throw blanket onto his lap.

"You'll catch a cold" I said quietly
"Go back to bed, love" he breathed with an unreadable expression as he placed a hand delicately on my thigh
"Why're you out here?" I questioned, ignoring his request as I crossed my arms over my ribs and made to sit in the empty space beside him
"Just couldn't sleep much" he responded plainly as I plopped the side of my head into his lap and gazed fondly at the sky before us
"I wish it would rain again" I muttered thoughtfully
"So I can fish you out of the lake like last time? No thanks" he joked warmly, making me roll my eyes with an annoyed smile
"Don't lie, you enjoyed it" I teased lightheartedly as he twirled strands of my hair around his fingers
"What's bothering you?" He asked after some time past

I hesitated, drawing back the words on the brim of my tongue

"I can see there's something" he observed, "you can tell me, you know"
"Do you know how Bellatrix came across me?" My chest was unnaturally tight as I decided to verbalise my motions, "it was-"
"At an orphanage" he finished for me, and I turned my head inward to convey my expression of puzzlement, "my mother mentioned it once at dinner, before you came to stay here"
"And you remembered it?"
"Don't be stupid of course I did" he said with a shrug, "I haven't got this astonishingly brilliant brain for nothing"
"Oh you're a prat, you know that?" I scolded, though I matched his smile with my own
"Continue with what you were saying before" he urged
"I'd been there since I was six" I continued, his features softening at my telling, "and the curious thing about me was that I had no recollection of anything before I was dropped off there, which is practically unheard of, I mean it was like someone had wiped my first six years of life out of existence"
"Perhaps a memory charm?" Draco offered, but I shook my head with a weighted intake of breath
"Draco...it was a muggle orphanage"

His mother hadn't told him this, I could see it, I could see how it washed over him like a storm cloud

"That means you're a-" He was piecing the parts together in his head, and it made my heart ache with fear
"A muggle born" this time I finished his sentence, "most likely, yes "

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes lost in the distance

"And we all know how you feel about muggle borns so-" I said with a beaten sigh as I picked my head up from his lap
"And you know how I feel about you" his voice was coarse as sandpaper, finally locking his eyes on mine, "you know it runs far deeper than blood ever could"

That night we had stumbled upon an altogether different sort of intimacy. It was raw with feeling. It warmed my heart like lighting warms the bodies it strikes. It sparked blindingly the more I told him.

"I sort of just...knew, you know? For three years, I...I caused things to happen, without knowing I could or that I did until afterwards" I had expressed as I leaned against the opposite side of the swing, my legs stretched out horizontally over his lap and his gaze fixated on my face as he absentmindedly caressed my calfs, "there was this boy there, older boy, his name was Ricky, and he was the dimmest lump of horse shit I've ever met"

he snickered lightly at this

"and he would never leave my friend, Nallia, alone, he was always teasing her for her thick hair. Called her nappy hair nalli, he did. And one day, when I was nine and Nallia was eight and Ricky was twelve, Nallia got adopted by this sweet couple in Salisbury. She was so excited, and I was so happy for her. Then, right as the couple's about to leave with Nallia, they turn out her pockets and find about a dozen or so dead roaches. She insisted she hadn't a clue how they got there, but it was enough to scare the couple off. They cancelled her adoption on the spot. And can you guess who planted the bugs?"