Gaining Memories
A/N: I'm so sorry for the people who have been waiting for so long till I updated, but to let you all know, I've not forgotten this story - I merely lost inspiration, which I hope is coming back to me now.
Also, now I have a beta, yay!
Chapter 11 - Finding faith again
It's who I am
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Throughout all the crashing rain that fell all around him, closing in on him, he saw the flicker of gold that he was searching for. His heart started beating faster, the adrenaline rushing through him as he gripped his broom tighter. The rain almost made it impossible for him to see the tiny hint of gold in a sea of grey. This was the moment he was waiting for, the moment to win. But instead, he turned his broom around, going opposite of the golden light. Somehow, the adrenaline mixed with something else that he wasn't used to when he was playing a game. He felt the need to check up on something, to make a promise, a promise to win.
He made a promise to her.
The broom zipped through the sky and he flew across the stadium. Ignoring the rain painfully hitting him in his eyes and the wind blowing him almost off his broom, he searched. The crowd started gasping, pointing in the sky. But he already knew; he just had to do one thing. Then he stopped right above the crowd. His grey eyes looked down beneath and his heart skipped a beat. His lips formed words, words that were directed towards her. It seemed she noticed, but he was still moving his lips that were meant to be words. Though the sad thing was, she might not have caught it because of the thick rain that stormed above their heads.
"I have already won, I have you."
Then he turned on his tail to go and prove it.
--
Ever since he had gotten that letter from a fan, he had started having those weird mushy dreams. Dreams where there was always a certain person. The person made these dreams seem real, though the dreams never made it clear who this person was. All he knew that it was a girl - a girl that made his heart beat faster. It was all a bloody messed up situation.
"I can't believe I still do not know what happened these past months. The dreams are not making it any easier," Draco sighed deeply as he leaned back in his bed. His eyes glanced at the letter lying on his nightstand. The letter was unsigned; it only contained a small text for his column.
Draco was sure the letter was directed to him, instead of the usual whiny problems he had to deal with. But it wasn't. It was for the column, for everyone out there to see. He wondered why. Draco sneered at the letter. Why was he keeping it? Normally, he would just feed it to his eagle, or Goyle for that matter.
For now, Draco just had to keep looking for the truth.
Which was somewhere in the castle. Hogwarts truly was a castle of many secrets.
And it was bloody awful.
Draco sighed again and rolled off his bed. If he had nothing better to do than mope around, the least he could do was to improve his Quidditch skills, which were lacking.
It hadn't gone too well at the Quidditch pitch today. First of all, it seemed there were some first years flying around, falling off their brooms. Second, Madam Hooch wasn't looking all too happy to see him; she rather rushed towards him and kicked him off of the pitch. Draco, determined as he was to fly today, growled at the now closed gates in front of him and stepped on his broom. As soon as he started hovering in the air, the gates opened and Hooch was clearly barking mad at Draco. She screeched some things at him. He yelled right back. She tried to go for his broom. He defended his broom and insulted her, so he ended up having to give his broom up to her and landed a detention for a whole week.
It wasn't so bad having one week detention. It's not like he actually had to go there, he usually weezeled himself out of detention with the help of Snape. Speaking of Snape, maybe he had something for Draco to do, to get him out of his boredom. So Draco got on his way to the dungeons. He knew Snape was teaching but that didn't matter much. He was his favorite student of course.
Draco looked coolly on front of him as he walked throughout a corridor. The silence that surrounded him forced him to think of something. Thoughts had plagued him since he found out he had a gap in his memory. It was like a black hole, sucking every memory he had into the black thing. It was hopeless. He was hopeless.
After a long, slow walk Draco arrived at the potions dungeon. He knocked politely on the door and opened it. He stepped inside of the dungeon and immediately got a chill. His grey eyes were looking right ahead of him, but in the corner of his eye he saw something that caught his attention. Red hair.
Great, this is Potter's class.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape tilted up his head at young Draco from his desk. The rest of the students were furious scribbling down something on their parchments. There were a lot of whispers when Draco entered.
Draco held his head up high and placed on his trademark smirk. He strode over to the desk where Snape was sitting. There was something not right about this class, he just had this feeling there was something, someone in here that had an effect on him. Draco bent over to whisper something in Snape's ear; all the while his eyes were focused on one thing only. The goddamn red hair was making him uneasy.
But wait; there was something off about it. The hair seemed redder, fierier, and it belonged to a girl.
"Ginny …" It rolled off of his tongue just like that. It wasn't loud, nor was it a whisper.
"Excuse me?" said a surprised Snape who had his eyebrows raised at Draco.
Draco stood back up straight and shook his head a little. "Nothing - can I still do the job?" he began like he had never said the girl's name. Snape studied his excellent student, trying to figure him out but nodded his head.
"Come here at nine." With that he waved his hand at Draco to dismiss him. The blonde haired boy turned around to walk out of the class. He slipped his hands into his pockets before giving one quick glance at the red hair and disappearing out of the dungeon. Just when he pulled the door closed, he heard a massive explosion. It sounded as if someone blown up their potion.
"DETENTION!" He just heard Snape yell after he walked out of the corridor.
The old Draco would have taken this opportunity to lean his ear against the dark oak door while trying to find out which one of the Gryffindor students had landed himself a detention. But now, he couldn't care less. Right now there was more stuff going on, more drama. Draco scrunched his features while stopping midway. When did life start to become flooded with angst, like some bloody novel? When did he give up upon being a typical Slytherin? More importantly, when did he give up being himself? How come he was still trying to figure out what had happened? Why was he still standing in the middle of the corridor like an idiot?
"Bloody thoughts," Draco mumbled angrily as he clenched his fists, ready to punch something within his reach. But instead of losing his self control, Draco just merely glared at the oak door before leaving out of the dungeons.
After an hour, Draco had settled himself underneath the big tree outside of the castle. Some people would call him mad, sitting outside when it was already winter. But for Draco, he couldn't feel the cold, he was concentrating so strongly on something else that he was not aware of his surroundings.
It was a sad and grey day, with dark and lonely clouds spread across the sky with little sunlight beaming through. It was just a cold day in winter, nothing less and nothing more.
"Oi! Draco!" A voice interrupted Draco out of his thoughts, brutally mind you. He looked up from the ground and saw Crabbe and Goyle coming his way. Did those two always expect him to be their leader? If it weren't for him passing his notes for them to copy, they would still be in first year trying to figure out what the word `Portkey' meant. His lips slightly curled up at the corners of his mouth.
"Draco! Where were you?" asked Goyle rather harsh and loud, considering that walking from the castle to here was pretty far - for them of course. They were both slightly panting and Crabbe was leaning against the tree for support.
"Don't tell me you were looking for me all day," said Draco in a mocking voice. He pulled up his right leg and placed his chin on top of his knee, looking through his eyelashes at his two goons. The two stood there for a loss of words.
"We thought you ran," Crabbe simply stated. Draco tilted up his head and raised an eyebrow at the two.
"Ran?" echoed Draco. "From what?"
Crabbe furled his brow, trying to remember what he was going to say. It seemed Goyle was also deep in thought. Draco never knew these two could have so much brain in their head that they could think. It was then Draco started laughing at his friends. He threw his head back, his blonde hair falling back into his face while he laughed out loud with a smile on his face. All the while Crabbe and Goyle were looking at him like he needed a medic, they had never seen Draco actually laugh before.
Sure, he had laughed before, but it was always an expected laugh, a cruel laugh even. But now, it was a Draco they had never seen.
"Draco?" asked Crabbe suddenly. "Why do you laugh?"
Draco looked at them with his silver eyes, still laughing a bit. He raised his eyes towards the dark clouds before he fixed them on Hogwarts. Draco's laugh was fading out and had resulted into a mere chuckle. "I don't know," he said with a smile as he looked at the Gryffindor tower.
Crabbe and Goyle were stunned. Draco gave them a funny look before he started laughing again. Somehow, he felt alive again, like some of the weight on his shoulders was lifted from him. His pale cheeks started turning red and he could feel the cold brushing against his skin.
It was a grey, cold day and Draco Malfoy was laughing.
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