Haunted

25 | enigma

A/N: ... hey..... how yall doin...........

The morning was gray. The sky was filled with clouds that seemed to threaten rain, the air holding a foreboding moisture. Hazel had hardly slept, had watched the day gradually lighten outside through the window. There was no real sunrise, no brilliant moment when the sun crept forth from the horizon and bathed her room in golden light. One minute, the sky was a deep shade of navy, and the next, it was a muted gray. She was not aware of when the change had happened, only that she'd been watching the whole time and at some point, must have seen it.

Her mind was exhausted. She'd passed the sleepless hours making a mess of her sheets, tossing and turning so often that eventually they crumpled at the base of the bed, a heap of discarded fabric that could not put up with her exasperation. There were so many frustrating things to consider that she could hardly fathom them all at the same time. Malfoy, the lack of answers, the growing number of questions.

She started making a list of them in her head, the questions, if only for something to do in the hours that stretched out before her like a winding road disappearing into the horizon.

One: Did Malfoy actually like her?

Two, if the answer to question one was yes: Why did he refuse to admit it?

Three, if the answer to question one was no: Why did he call her beautiful then?

Four, unrelated: Why had he told her to hide her memories when being examined via Legilimency?

Five: Why was it important enough to tell her to come to her room in the middle of the night when he was drunk?

Six: Why was she being evaluated via Legilimency?

Seven: Why had he clammed up after starting to say something that began with 'Gray'?

Question number seven likely bothered her the most, perhaps because his tone when he'd said it was like he'd been saying her name. Her real name. Not Seventeen, not Hazel. The name she'd lost along with her memories.

Gray.

It was unlikely that Gray was the entire name, given how he'd stopped so short, but maybe it was a part. The options were limited if it was a first name, Grace being the only genuine possibility that she could come up with. But the name meant nothing to her. It didn't strike a cord with her like she'd expect the correct name to. Wouldn't her body have some instinctive reaction to her real name if she heard it? Perhaps she was delusional, but she imagined a sudden rush of memories, an astonishing moment of revelation. The name Grace triggered neither.

Maybe since she called Malfoy by his last name, he used her surname as well? Maybe Gray was just the beginning of her surname? Unfortunately, this made theorizing on possible names difficult. Surnames were far more unique and there were too many options to consider.

And so she used the information she did have to give herself a temporary name. Hazel Gray. Hazel was not her true first name, and Gray was not her true last name, but they were all she had to go on.

Hazel Gray.

In the rumination on her real name, another thought struck her. Malfoy knew her name. He knew what her true name was, and he would not tell her. Why?

The very thought wounded her, a terrible ache that originated from her heart. A piece of her wanted to trust him, but he'd purposefully turned himself into an enigma, and his lack of transparency to her forced her own identity to be shrouded as well. It felt like a deliberate blow, him stopping himself from saying her full name. He was not keeping the secret by accident. He was very clearly hiding it from her. Again, why?