Run in the Dark

Daphne was running in the park. She ran two kilometres, then stopped, because she thought she'd heard someone call her name. It turned out to be Draco, lounging on a park bench as if he owned it, only minimally concerned by the fact that it was not a particularly nice bench, or a clean one, or even entirely in one piece. He seemed only minimally bothered with the reality that he couldn't afford a better park bench, and perhaps this one either. Draco Malfoy had been disowned.

Daphne took the seat proffered to her, not making a point of it being dirty and about to fall into pieces. When one has ran two kilometres straight, even a bench like this might sound like a gift of gold. It all depended on the angle to look at it. Daphne did not look at the bench at all, nor he who was acting as if he owned it.

"Hey, Draco," she told the surrounding darkness. It was not a very nice, or clean, or safe corner of the park. There was nothing more for her to say.

"So, what's happening elsewhere?" he then asked.

Daphne shrugged, "I only know what stories tell."

"What do they tell?"

"They say there's a fake Dark Lord at Hogwarts," Daphne replied.

"Fake? Fake how?"

"Fake like not the real one," she explained, then added with much indifference, "I don't see how this can be, though. I can't imagine the Dark Lord freely handing out his nail clippings."

"Or the Dark Lord having nail clippings in the first place," Draco said with equal nonchalance.

"Exactly," Daphne agreed, nodding at the night.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" he suggested. "We could go to my place and have some… it's not far from here."

"Sounds nice," she said, accepting the invitation. A cup of nice warm tea did sound good on such a cold dark night.

They walked in silence through the nastier bits of the park, until they reached perhaps the nastiest bit of them all. It was a spot almost completely bare of greenery, filled with different sorts of garbage. Somewhere in the middle of it stood a tall white cupboard made of plastic.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Draco said, with only minimal irony and bitterness in his tone. "I call it the Fridge."

"Oh, it looks fancy," Daphne remarked, peering up at it with what might have been awe.

"Wait until you see the insides," Draco said, satisfied with her reaction.

The insides of the Fridge were equally white, and there was a lot of space filled with emptiness. Daphne sat down on one of the three boxes in the room, glancing at his back as he busied himself with making the tea. Then she turned her eyes back to the engulfing whiteness – it was almost as bad as the blackness outside.

"You know," she said, "you could do wonders here with some tapestry."

"I've never been good at that sort of thing," Draco admitted, approaching her with two plastic cups – also white. "But please, do as you like."

Daphne stared at the bare walls, "Maybe after the tea."

"As you wish," he said, handing her a cup. The tea was lukewarm, and tasted…

"Mmm, this is—" she started, but the word nice refused to come out, no matter how hard she tried.

"It's disgusting," Draco finished, laughing, and now there was more than just minimal bitterness in his words.

Daphne nodded in silence. The tea was disgusting.

"I'd offer you a sandwich, but I fear I ate the last of it."

"I'm not that hungry," she said.

"It's amazing the things people throw away," he said. "A little cleaning spell and there's a delicious dinner waiting for you."

"Maybe I can try with the tapestries now," she offered after a while.

"Of course. Let your imagination fly."

She concentrated on bright colours. Little rainbow dragons was the picture in front of her eyes, a memory covered by a film of dust, of a tapestry she had once seen, in another lifetime. She concentrated harder, pressing a hand to the wall, shivering at its coldness. At least it gave her something to do. She could sit here all night, remembering rainbow-colour dragons.

A brief rain of sparkles burst from her fingertips. She felt its warmth with her unseeing eyes. Tiny cheerful dragons glittered in her vision, and she didn't bother to find out if they were real or not. In either case, they would eventually fade.

"This is nice," Draco remarked, approvingly, "I knew you had the eye for this sort of thing."

"It is nice," Daphne agreed. "It is nice to see you. We should do it more often."

"You're leaving already?" he said, disappointed.

"I'd like to stay longer," she spoke, "but it's dark, and I have a long run back."

"Oh. Maybe another day then?"

"Yes, that sounds… nice."

He walked her to the door of the Fridge, walked her to the edge of the clearing, watched her disappear into the darkness. She did have a long run back, to where her own garbage house stood.

Daphne Greengrass had been disowned as well.

Lord Voldemort – the real one – was into disowning people these days. Disowning, dismembering, destroying, whichever sounded the nicest to him.