Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the Harry Potter characters.
A/N: I'm really not sure about this one. It came to me in the middle of the night, and I loved the idea. I'm just not sure I did a very good job on it. Please review and let me know what you think.
As she approached the garden, her heart was fearful, though her face did not portray it. She knew why she was here. A voice was screaming in her head telling her to turn and flee, but her feet ignored it, pressing forward slowly but without caution.
The rose bushes grew in rows, and of these there were many. Each rose in itself was a thing of great beauty, perfect and red as can be. Yet, there was something sinister about them. Intrigued, she reached out her hand, brushing one finger against the petals of a rose.
The voice inside her head cried out, and she drew back in shock. Horrified, she held her hand in front of her face. It was stained with blood. She wanted to scream, but silence loomed over her as did the veil of moonlight tainting the sky. Then
it appeared. She knew she would find it, all in good time.
There before her was a single black rose, set aside from the many red. Despite what she had just experienced, some alien force caused her to reach out and touch it. A shiver ran up her spine. It was cold, colder than death.
Suddenly he was behind her, watching her with steal gray eyes that could betray no emotion, for none was felt. She could not see him, and had not heard him, and yet she knew he had come. His presence filled her head with hatred and her heart with a forbidden compassion.
Spinning around, she faced him with a will not her own. She stood stone still as he reached out a hand and dragged a finger down the side of her face. "Virginia," he breathed. "Oh, I have waited so long." His voice drew a thousand daggers through her heart. He pulled away, and, wand in hand, spoke the words he had been born to say. "Ava..."
He stopped. Why did he stop? It's her eyes, whispered a voice. Then, softer this time: You can't have this one.
"And why can't I?" he spoke aloud, looking away from her. "I had the others, didn't I?"
You can't have this one. The voice taunted again.
An invisible force turned his head. "No," he said, fighting it, "No, please!" Her brown eyes, empty as his, seemed to bore into him. It was a long while, perhaps many years, before he was able to look away.
When at last he was free from her he turned to look at his garden, ripping her from his heart and mind. But the flowers, oh, the flowers! They were dripping, slowly at first, forming puddles that grew at an ever quickening pace. Blood. All at once it was rushing at him, filling his lungs and soaking his skin. Innocent blood, the blood of the many he had slaughtered.
She looked on with loathing eyes. Oh yes, she hated him. Or did she? Unbidden, she felt wetness against her cheek, filling her heart with something familiar and yet unwelcome. And she knew, then, what she must do.
Once again, she faced the black rose, which was wilting at an alarming rate. Bowing her head, she allowed a single tear to fall amidst the decaying petals. Even as her vision was blurred, she saw the contrasting change. The rose, moments ago a cold, heartless black, was now the purest of white. For a while she stood staring, unable to tear her eyes from its newfound beauty. But then she remembered him.
The blood was gone, that was the first thing she noticed. The roses were there still, red as ever, but changed nonetheless in a way that surpassed appearance. He was there too, but like the roses, something that went beyond physical boundaries, something that was spiritual, had changed him.
It's his eyes, a voice whispered. It was his eyes. Gone was the eerie coldness that had allowed him to show no mercy. Now, he looked lost; lost and alone and human. But he wasn't. He wasn't ever.
"Why?" The question hung in the air; his voice loud and soft and pained seemed suspended there forever.
She couldn't answer him, for she didn't know herself. So she instead looked at him, hoping he would see and understand what had no explanation.
It's in her eyes, said the voice. And in her eyes, it was. He saw, he understood, and he knew.
Approaching him, she touched his face, knowing he knew what she couldn't say. For everything she cared for or could comprehend at that moment could be expressed with one word. "Draco," she breathed.
Surrendering, he pulled her closer to him, knowing now who he wanted to be. It had been there all along, in her eyes.