Chanson Innocente


in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

e.e. cummings


I think that the moment I was born I lost my innocence. I guess that means I really never had any.

But she, she carried it around as if it were some badge she had won.

And I hated her for it. I loathed the fact that she could have ignorant bliss while I had my father. The fact that I was a Death Eater while she was a D.A. Member. Potter’s golden girl, and Voldemort’s chosen. She had something that I never even knew. And I always got what I wanted.


I would sit at the Slytherin Table in the Great hall and surreptitiously watch her and the pack of loons she associated with. She looked so untouched. But the huge irony of that was what lurked beneath the surface. She had scars that ran nearly as deep as precious Potter’s.


Her fiery hair looked as if it was woven in the sunlight. Her milky skin was indescribable. I couldn’t fathom the depth of her eyes that were of bittersweet chocolate. But my hatred grew, and my malice was not curbed.


I had to have her. I had to take her-- to pluck her from the pedestal that the simpering Gryffindors had placed her upon.


Obviously she was not supposed to be who she was. She was too exquisite to be a common Weasley. She was as chaste as Diana herself, but she had a powerful lust. She had an intensity that could make the mightiest cower. She would soon be mine.


She was ‘good,’ so to speak. And ‘evil’ would never win her affection. But I had not yet had a chance to properly woo her.


-


She was sitting outside on a stone bench. Reading. And making it look a saintly sport, one ankle tucked behind another, her spine perfectly straight, as if she was royalty. I almost spat at her feet. She took a gloved hand and tucked a lock behind her ear as I approached, my breathing labored and steam was coming out of my mouth due to the cold weather.


Though she could not hear my footsteps, for they snow muffled any noise, she looked up when I was about three feet a way. She gave me a feral smile, which immediately disarmed me. She then bit her lip and shut her book.


“What can I do for you, Draco?”


“I thought Granger was the bookworm,” I snarled.


“Yes, well we all do make assumptions.” She smiled cordially as she said this as if to indulge me. “Draco, I must ask again, what can I do for you?”


“Give up your fantasies.” I winced inside. I hadn’t meant to lack any grace and eloquence while doing this.


“Oh.”


“Of Potter.”


“Oh” Her mouth made a beautifully perfect circle. She looked up then as if to ask for assistance from a higher power. She then looked back down and frowned a bit.


“I think I already have. I can’t seem to find them. No more messy haired, red- headed children, with emerald eyes. They have all been dead for quite some time now.”


“That makes everything a lot easier.”


“I’m glad.” Her whole body seemed to emanate frigidity. A harshness overtook her voice and she began to breath heavily. She looked into my eyes, begging the question, ‘Are you happy now?’ She began to clutch her throat. She tore off her gloves and then began to claw at her face. Blood. It matched her hair.


I stunned her and, miraculously, stole her to my room, unseen by any.


-


She was arresting. Her head thrown back and blood smearing her pale almost translucent cheeks, and yet, she was still ethereal. She was like a limp doll in my arms as I laid her on my bed. I went to my desk to go read or write… just to do something.


I came back to her. And sat beside her.


Some time later she woke up and her eyes looked at mw in a way that I felt almost naked.


“I’m sorry that you are broken.”


She gave a throaty little laugh.


“Oh how sweet. And do you think you can fix me?”


She smiled and twisted a curl around a long finger, twisting my viscera. She bit her lip looking up at me, challenging me.


“No. You cant fix you’re wounds, and besides you aren’t meant to be fixed.”


“You’re right. Not the mudblood, nor Ronald, nor Potter can fix me now,” she trilled! She turned to me, letting me know that she was indeed mocking me. She then laid back down on the bed and smiled.


“I don’t want you to kill them.”


He was surprised, “Why?”


“I want to damage them. Make them feel one ounce of what I have been feeling. Let them see through a keyhole into my soul. And let it ruin them. They will not know what has hit them and I will laugh and dance. And you may be my dancing partner from now on.” She gave a little satisfied sigh and settled into the sheets, blissfully.


I was satisfied, for this girl was more treacherous than I could ever imagine. Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. And the Golden Trio would find that out.


I got undressed and into the bed next to her. I thought she was asleep, but she put her arm around my bare waist and whispered breathily into my ear, “I’m yours. I’m what you wanted, what you needed. Take me now that you have me. I can never go back again.”

And I did.


-


I woke up feeling her gaze upon me. I looked into the unfathomable depths and saw something utterly foreign. There was a cold, dark beauty there. She still had fiery eyes that smoldered. And her hair was the same. But It was gone. She had no purity, no innocence. She knew the secrets of the world. I had shown them to her. Her lips twitched and she raised her eyebrows. Her mouth formed a small smirk.


“Morning,” I rasped. I wanted to say something to her, to communicate something to her. But I had no idea what to say. She seemed to know and understand my internal struggle for she smiled up at me, as if to assure me that I was the only one in the world she wanted to be with right now. I almost felt married to her then, I’m not sure exactly why, but I knew that when she let me take her last night, she meant forever.


She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. She looked at peace for a moment then and I wished that nothing would ever disturb her. She bit her lip and began to massage it with her teeth. She peered up and me.


“I am in the dragon’s den,” she said, her voice dripping with some unknown irony. “And I have this feeling I am never to fully leave it again.”


“No. I’m sorry”


She gave a little laugh that lacked any humor whatsoever. “You’re not sorry. I have given a lot of things to you, but not my commonsense. You just clawed your way into the very center of Harry Potter’s universe. And you took the only thing that you saw that you could. You’re ecstatic, triumphant, victorious, satisfied and elated. But you’re not sorry.”

She got abruptly up and then looked into the mirror and combed her fingers through her hair. She looked majestic as she did so. She then looked at me with a pitiless smile.

“Do you want to go break some hearts, ruin some fantastical notions?”

“What do you have in mind?” She looked ready.

“We merely walk into the great hall.”



As I strode purposefully into the Great Hall with Ginny on my arm, I saw heads turn towards us, with unabashed confusion on their faces.


Ginny’s oaf of a brother called out to her but she kept on walking and leaned into me, letting me know that I was all she cared for in the world.

She whispered, “I have no brother.” And just like that she seemed to loose any dregs of her prior self that still remained.


After breakfast, which I can’t remember all too well, we went outside and sat on one of the benches.


She looked up at me and bit her lip. She was unsure. I knew why when I saw Potter, miraculously without the other two, stepping towards us.


I turned to her and saw her watching him with keen intent.


Turning back to me, almost violently, she placed both of her hands behind my head and gripped my hair. She placed her lips firmly on mine and gave me a hard kiss. When she pulled back she said in a husky, breathy voice, “Let me have one last goodbye.”


I nodded. And she flounced off, looking for the last time free. I could hear them speaking for they were only about ten feet away from me.


“Ginny—please! Don’t!” He spoke to her as a dying man would. She must be loving this.


“There is nothing to be done about it now, and let us not talk of such things.” She took both of his hands in her own and looked down. He tried to break free of her grasp but she wouldn’t let him.


“But you must promise me one thing.”


“Anything.”


She looked up at him placed a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth. Pulling back she said in an almost sing- song voice, “ Darling, remember me, not as how I am but as how I used to be.”


Giving him no time to answer, she came back to me. I took her hand and led her back to my room.

-


Once we arrived, I sat her down on the bed and pulled a chair up so I could sit facing her, intending to talk to her. But she gave me no chance.


She threw herself at me. She was sitting on me now and I held her to me, rocking her back and forth, though she did not cry, would not cry.

I told her that I would die for her. I told her that now she was mine, but that I was also hers too.

And I realized that I was wrong all along. She would always posses some sort of naivety and innocence, because that was just who she was. But I would have to take care of her now. And I meant what I said- that I would gladly die for her.


All she mumbled was ‘ok’ and that she was scared. And I asked her why and she said it was because she thought she might love me and if she didn’t that she would someday probably love me. And then I told her that that wasn’t so bad because I loved her too.




PS I experiment with different writing styles…probably not too well….. and the poem above is the inspiration for the title. Oh! And reviews, even bad ones, are appreciated.