trin's harry potter fanfiction

title: Curfew
date: june 30, 2002

At approximately 11.30 pm, the prefects make their rounds around their respective Common Rooms, telling any erstwhile students to pack up and head to the toilets to wash up and go to sleep. The main difference between Slytherin and Gryffindor prefects is that the Slytherin ones cruise like sharks and command; the Gryffindors ask politely and slightly sheepishly, because they know all too well that the students are going to stay up late anyway.

11.40 pm. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter take their flannel towels and toothbrushes and mugs and walk over to the Gryffindor toilets. The toilets are tiled and pleasant enough; they’ve heard horror stories about the girls’ loo, where some mad girl vomits up her supper late at night and the place smells like acid and bile.

As Harry changes into his pyjamas, pulling his shirt over his head and exposing flashes of freckled skin, Ron has to stop himself from counting them. Ron has all the luck and all the freckles are on his nose; Harry’s are spread out on his back, artfully, constellations of pigment against a pale sky. He can’t stop himself from wondering how many other people have touched that back.

Harry probes at his teeth and scrub out his gums; he can’t remember whose tongue has last been there, but he knows he’d like to get the taste out. He spits and strains of blood run stickily through the saliva.

The hygienic sterility of the toilet magnifies detail and ritual. At this time of the night, almost everybody is asleep and Hogwarts lies curled around the Lake like a fat cat by a cold fire. Every single action is amplified by the quiet.

Harry’s spitting is viciously loud. Ron wants to know what kind of person Harry would have been if he were brought up by Lily and James Potter, and if Ron would still like Harry if his parents were still alive -- and instantly feels ashamed. Seems to him he spends a lot of time feeling that way.

In the Slytherin boys’ toilet, the lone Draco Malfoy has his monogrammed towels and his imported luxury facial cleansers, toners and moisturizers, his pumice soap, his ivory-handled hairbrush , and his impeccably kept skin to keep him happy.

He places his face very close to the glass and turns it this way and that, looking for spots in different lighting, and observes that he has very nice cheekbones. Then he finds a solitary spot, and leans forward to examine it; his face bumps against the glass and the fog of his breath obscures his reflection; he jumps back in fright. He almost thought he’d fall straight through the mirror.

All Malfoys have good skin, and despite what people may say, the Malfoys firmly believe in the power of the appearance, and since skin is the largest organ in your body, you better damn well take care of it.

Draco’s almost obsessive-compulsive about his skin because of this; although he needn’t be. It’s naturally so clear and pale the veins stand out, purplish-blue, if you go near enough to his face. A few months ago, Harry would have been happy to tell you that; now, Harry can barely tell you who it was he was kissing last night.

The decline of a hero, is what Draco called it; and after a while he just stopped because it hurt too much to say anything at all.

12.00 pm finds Hogwarts even more silent and unwelcoming; the stone floors beginning to sting with coldness from the night winds. Peeves floats through, disconsolate at having nobody to tease or insult and composes bad haiku about loneliness in his transparent head.

Harry is lying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, thoughts dwelling on the dream he had the previous night:

In a sea of flashing carnival green neon: “COME ONE AND ALL!

The Oldest Game and Greatest Show -- The Incredible Lightness of Being Malfoy! Float right off the ground with your wrists bound to the most fantastical being on God’s green Earth and BEYOND, Ladies annnn’ Gennelmen! He won’t hold you down! He won’t ground you! He won’t commit! He’ll FLOAT STRAIGHT OFF THE GROUND WITH YOU TETHERED TO HIM! He’ll bring you to the clouds and then he WON’T COME BACK! COME ONE AND COME AALLLLLLLL!”

Harry had woken up, sweating.

In retrospect, Harry thinks he will take dreams about Voldemort any day. They’re generally less deranged and personal.

Ron has gone to sleep already, after the night’s customary deliberation about Harry and if being infatuated with one’s best friend is such a good idea after all; Ron has no conception of Harry’s nocturnal and in-between classes excursions to broom closets, cupboards and toilet stalls. Ron has mostly been neglecting everything else in favour of turning over this stupid crush in his head; this includes friends, Hermione and reality.

Ron would like to be able to think it through carefully and dissect it apart and put it back together and make it more wonderful and magical; but he always stunk at Potions anyway.

Draco would like to say he’s a cynic and in the same breath, say he doesn’t dream. But he usually does dream; nonsensical dreams that make no sense. The last time he dreamed something even vaguely coherent was when he dreamt of Snape walking in a garden full of candy flowers and chocolate park benches.

He tried to tell Snape that the man-eating toads were coming (and indeed they were, in a hopping, writing mass of slimy green), but Snape had shook his head in puzzlement, said something in Chinese, walked straight into the toads, and immediately had his flesh eaten.

Closing his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest, Draco’s monogrammed down blankets suffocate him in an insulated feather embrace; Draco wants to pretend he is a statue, a dead King, resting, just sleeping, shrouded in mystery and legend. He won’t wake up tomorrow, but he’ll wake up someday.

At 12.15 pm, Hermione Granger puts her head against the tiled walls of the girls’ toilet and stares at her supper swirling down the toilet and wishes she could die. Who would notice anyway?