my_thestral | Fic: Art of denial (Part 21/3)

Author's note: Nothing to add really :)
Pairing: Ron/Draco
Word count: 3053 (this part)
Rating: PG-13? Don't ask why...
Disclaimer: Still the same, not original and penniless ;)

Even though Hermione asked for a clear answer, he was still taken aback when it came so unexpectedly and so bluntly from a woman that was known for her intricate play.

But Narcissa had already turned away from the window and crossed the room with a resolute pace, her eyes stormy and unsettled, suddenly terrifyingly alike her mad sister Bellatrix in Hermione’s alert brain.

“I want you to step aside... and I will show you why.”

The majestic woman’s hand twitched almost as if she wanted to grab her and pull her from her seat, but she refrained in the last moment and spoke with absolute control in her voice:

“Follow me... to the Pensieve, if you please.”

She turned around without looking if Hermione was at her heels because she knew the young woman, who came to look for the truth and some sort of resolve, won’t be able to refuse her. Her wand, pitch black with silver pins decorating the holder, was promptly pressed against her own forehead and with a skill that testified of many years and occasions of practice she extracted a string of memories she wanted to share with the younger woman.

“See for yourself,” she invited her closer and stepped aside. And Hermione did.

She fell herself falling, the familiar sensation associated with the use of Pensieve, and she landed in a brightly lit ball-room that seemed to burst with riches and decorations. Judging by the elaborate attires of the small million of people present, it was some sort of formal event. A wedding, she determined after she noticed that everything around her seemed to literally glow in white. And once she looked at the person beside her she knew whose wedding it was: the wedding she had missed, the wedding of one Draco Malfoy. The groom himself was standing next to her, looking impeccable in all his pureblood glory, a perfect male specimen, a marble statue made of grace and elegance – with the numbest, most desperate eyes she had ever seen.

Perhaps it was Narcissa’s perspective that had changed her view of him, but when she looked at him like that, she felt no hatred, just a sickening feeling that something was off, that something wrong was about to happen.

Then she saw his chest heave and she followed his gaze and there it was, there he was: her beautiful husband, her Ron, a head-taller than the rest and for once groomed to perfection, moving through the crowd, slowly approaching the receiving party. She had never seen Ron through any other person’s eyes but her own and it hit her like a fist to the stomach, how very breath-taking he was. But perhaps it was because she was seeing it through another person’s eyes that she seemed to notice the little things she knew about him, but hasn’t been aware of for a very long time...

How silken and shiny his long red hair was, even like this, tied in a plait, with the few loose strand brushing softly against the long strong neck. How elegant he could be with his endless muscled limbs and wide shoulders, his Auror-posture just radiating hidden confidence and authority. How very blue and unfathomably deep his unforgettable eyes were... and how they suddenly began to radiate brilliance when they spotted Draco Malfoy. And then there was a small sexy smile on those generous lips and his very skin seemed to glow against the spray of golden freckles at that moment.

He was irresistible. Even to her as a spectator and an illusion, he felt so real and so captivating she had to suppress an urge to fly into his arms and claim him as his wife. But even if she did – he had no eyes for her that day, he had no eyes for anyone else but him. Small wonder, then, that she could almost physically feel the brutal desire that burst like a tidal wave out of the man standing next to her. His whole body tensed and his chest expanded as Draco Malfoy’s eyes had literally turned silver with want and expectation when they devoured Ron’s face, making him look every bit like a man starved and possessed. The blond was spellbound by her husband, and so obviously so, that she began to wonder how she could ever have missed it in the first place.

And there could be no doubt about Ron’s feelings for him. When those incredible blue eyes, just sparkling with provocative sex-appeal, met the silver... the connection between them was downright physical, the desire it oozed so real, it could be bottled.

She had witnessed the introduction Draco almost neglected to make for he was just too busy drooling over her husband and she stood quietly through Ron’s reluctant attempt at removing himself, which was promptly sabotaged by the blond who dove into the crowd to speak to him in private with barely an excuse to spare. And she was forced to listen to that awful woman, the mother of the bride, pester Malfoy with all the insignificant little questions about his redheaded partner that clearly stirred her imagination like no other and she watched Draco give one polite response after another, growing visibly more restless and irritated by the moment.

And once the blond had excused himself, she was promptly shifted to another location as if Narcissa had carefully selected what it was that she deemed necessary for her to see. She was still a wedding, she could see that from the decoration in the hallway, but as she approached the room at the end of the corridor, for some reason her heart started drumming in her chest as if it knew the closed door held a secret that could release and shatter it at the same time. The closer she came the more acutely she could feel the old magic hum through her very bones, dissolving the very ties that kept her sanity about her, leaving her scared and unfocused. The feeling was unbearable, the older woman must have built an incredible resistance hanging about the Dark Lord to even be able to approach the centre of such powerful magic! From close up the door seem to glow with the majestic golden glow while the edges disappeared as if corroded and eaten away by the most putrid black.

Narcissa was right – even through a memory Hermione could feel the despair and the suffocating love breathing from the other side of the door as if a terrible monster bred in there and the overwhelming sensation pregnant with unbearable intensity nearly knocked her off her feet. And her Ron was inside there with him. By his own will and choice, if Narcissa was to be believed. He took part in whatever went on in there because he wanted to. She couldn’t bear to think what a price he was paying for standing against something as powerful as that for what was years now.

And then Draco Malfoy emerged, pale and otherworldly, as if cast in stone and told Narcissa he had left his heart inside that room and indeed he looked as if he had none left. She never saw Ron come out, but as she was swept over into the next memory, the one at the altar, she had no doubt it was him behind that door with Draco. He looked absolutely wrecked and strangely blank, as if he could not allow himself to get re-connected to his feelings because it was something that was beyond his control.

And then she saw the ceremony, saw every look Draco gave her beautiful wretched husband, saw how skilfully he swapped the rings, how unscrupulously he presented the one he wanted to have to the bride, how entranced Ron was, watching the exchange and how his beautiful warm mouth had opened and said the words, exactly as Draco had said them, as if he was reading them directly from his mind. And she saw the barely suppressed shiver that shook them both once the ceremony was complete and she knew she could never un-see the look on the blond’s face, suddenly aglow with happiness that made him look like a complete different person, alight with beauty, and the tears in Ron’s brilliant eyes when the old magic closed the gap between them. They were one now. They felt like one from the mind of the woman whose memories she was sharing.

There were more memories. Those of Narcissa’s private conversation with Ron when she explained the spell and she could watch her husband smile like a child and welcome the news of the unforgivable nature of the ties he shared with his blond lover. And those of the wild untameable dance that brought Ron so close to the man he had bonded that it seemed unnatural every time they managed to separate and there could be no other end to it than them merging into each other’s arms. She saw the ring on Ron’s finger, she read the words of his lips when he begged Draco for more, she witnessed the loss of sanity in the silver eyes when the blond sunk his fingers into her husband’s fiery hair and disapparated them.

But she didn’t have to. From the moment she saw that ring slide onto Draco’s finger, she he knew she had lost. She knew what to do, as heavy at it made her heart feel. But there was no other way: it felt like a crime to stand between them after what she had witnessed. And even though she knew that was exactly how Narcissa wanted to make her feel, she couldn’t help herself. She was going to play along, anything else made her feel almost sick.

She came out of that Pensieve a changed woman. She looked the older woman in the eye, standing at the side patiently, watching her intently, a proper mother-dragon here to protect her son’s interest and save what was left of his heart – and she knew she would have done the same in her shoes.

“I will move out of their way,” she said quietly. “Just give me a year to see my son Hugo safe at Hogwarts and I promise I will use it well to settle the matters, have my proper goodbye and leave with dignity. Then I will let him go. You have my word. I deserve at least that much for the life we had together.”

And the graceful lady Malfoy took her hand, this time without reservations and without asking permission and looked her straight in the eye:

“My son cannot thank you. He can never know of this. I’ll obliviate Lucius if I have to. But I thank you. From the bottom of this mother’s heart and on behalf of my son. And of that fool you married, who will never know he was wed to the best woman in England. Best woman, I say, not best witch, because as splendid a witch as you are, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, you’re still a better person.”

And when the younger woman straightened herself up with a new energy, Narcissa knew she couldn’t have given her a better compliment.

“Love comes in a different form for all of us,” Hermione spoke quietly. “Theirs is like a beast, all-consuming, larger than life and all in all completely beyond words. I find it terrifying – and terrific. Mine, however… I love my husband, Madame Malfoy. I love him from the bottom of my heart and I have never loved another man. I doubt I ever will, not the way I love him. And the love I was given tells me I need to see him happy, even if it is with someone else.

All these years I had a feeling I was doing something wrong, claiming him for myself the way I did, I just thought there was someone else… never mind, it is not my secret to disclose, but let it suffice to say that letting Ron go is the ultimate expression of my love for him. It’s where my love for him begins, it’s not the end of it.”

She paused at these words and Narcissa could see the tears that gathered at the edges of her pretty honey-coloured eyes and which she would just not spill. She never felt greater respect and admiration for any living being.

“Now you’ll have to excuse me,” Hermione said quietly. “I have a bit of grieving to do.”

And she walked through the door with her head held up and it was one of those few weak moments in Narcissa’s life when she let the regret and remorse wash over her. This woman dwarfed them all.

When Ron came home that evening, she was waiting for him in the darkness, a shadowy figure trapped among the shadows of a single candle’s dance. It served well to hide her eyes, puffy from a day’s worth of crying and it went well with how she felt: as if her world was cast in darkness.

“Hermione?”

He approached her with care and tenderness he always had in stock for her and it was like a knife to her heart when she read the concern in his eyes that was not faked. He did love her, in his own silly way, friendly, the way it should have been between them. But it was not the kind of love he was made for. She couldn’t give him that. He had given her whatever he could find in his heart for her and for all these years, it was enough – and she had given him all the love she was capable of and it didn’t even come close. He would always care for her and respect her, she knew that, but she could not light the stars in his eyes.

There was just one man who could do that and it was the most vile, troubled and unexpected creature one Weasley could ever fear to come across – and yet he was the one. If there was any ironic twist of fate in this, it was that Ron was equally a one-man disaster for a proper Malfoy. They were all wrong and the only ones right for each other. No one even came close.

“Honey, are you alright?” He had kneeled down to her and took her hands in his big palms and his pretty face frowned in concern. “You’ve been crying… has anyone hurt you?”

“No… just… it’s time to end this, Ron. I want a divorce. I’ll be gone as soon as Hugo leaves for Hogwarts.”

“What? No! What?? Why??”

The confusion in his eyes was absolute, it seemed as if he genuinely didn’t think anyone would ever discover his little secret…

“I know, Ron,” she said simply. “I know about Thursdays.”

She saw him turn ashen grey and close his eyes, promptly turning to stone on his knees in front of her.

She watched him for long moments, watched the long auburn eyelashes cast delicate shadows down his pretty freckled face, watched his soft lips press together defiantly when he had reached a decision, watched those brilliant blue eyes open and look straight at her face. And her heart was cracked open at the thought she could never have this again, that it was not for her.

“I have no excuse,” he said quietly. “Nor do I have a choice anymore. It doesn’t feel like I ever had one much. I’m… made for him. And he is made for me. It is what it is.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “I know. I saw it, I finally did. That’s why I’m letting you go. I can’t stand between what you two have, I won’t. You can tell people whatever you want, but this is the real reason. Just… I’m not ready to take Hugo’s home from him right now. He’s ever so fragile since Albus left, it’s like he’s only living a half life, he’s like a shadow until that morning owl comes every day, he doesn’t need more insecurity, the ground being knocked from under his feet. I will keep this illusion of our marriage going until he’s gone, but I will make arrangements and I will not come home with you from that train station in September, Ron.”

“I will miss you,” he said quietly and that was it. Nothing more. He had nothing more for her. No pleading to change her mind, not even regrets. He did not even ask for her friendship, as if he knew he would always have that, or – even more cruelly – as if he had come to terms with the fact that he might lose that and it was the price he was willing to pay. And for some reason those words sparked a flare of hurt and anger inside of her that all the knowledge she had gained of his lies and his treachery couldn’t.

Merlin, his sincerity was god-awful! Couldn’t he even pretend he was heart-broken!? Is that all she was worth? He had givenhim all that passion, she saw how hungrily, how possessively he looked at him and when she, his wife of almost 13 years, says goodbye, he simply tells her calmly she will be missed, almost as if he had said goodbye to her the moment she spoke the words, with no remorse, almost as if he couldn’t wait for it... She could hate him, in this moment she knew she could, if she wasn’t so damn in love with him… and if she didn’t feel so bloody sorry for what he’s put himself through.

Her hand escaped her before she could hold it back and when it landed on his cheek with a slap, she told him in a quiet anger- and despair-ridden voice:

“And for god’s sake, Ron, make it count! Stop breaking everyone’s heart!”

And for once she had left him utterly confused. Who the hell told her about them?! It could only be Draco, no one else knew. But what, what in Merlin’s bloody name did Malfoy tell her to make her leave? And why??

What if…? The thought was impossible. Surely that was a wrong explanation, Draco would never… He didn’t think that much of him, he wouldn’t… He wouldn’t. Not for him. If only...

Next: Art of denial (22): Secrets galore

Art of denial (3): Some First time... some Second time...

Art of denial (5): Milestones

Art of denial (7): Cracked open and oozing true feelings

Art of denial (15/2): Come to me

Art of denial (21/1): The truth at last