Do Not Go Gentle

He dreams the dreams of times less melancholy. Of nights where tears don’t stream down cheeks and hiccupped sobs don’t pollute the air. A break, from the realities of a dictator in decline.

Madness in the air playing master to the weak, forsaken bodies obedient as the puppeteer commands his decaying troupe. Desolation numbs his body. Hopeless helplessness as he sits curled in his chair, head hung, fingers absently tracing the lines of hate.

Flick go the fingers of fate. The vision once desired now an anamorphic verisimilitude. Why did he not heed the warning? Sins of the father will always harrow the son.

He dreams the dreams of times less melancholy and walks the streets he once envisioned to rule.

*

Rain falls from the unwavering black, cold and heavy against Harry’s face. His hair is slicked flat to his head, coat sodden, hands numb. A lone streetlight flickers, muted in the distance, but the insubstantial glow is not enough to penetrate the shadow of where he sits. A glimpse, that’s all he wants. Confirmation he’s not sinking languidly into insanity without even realising. An accidental descent, but he wouldn’t put it past fate. To deal him a hand like that.

Was he a fool to come? He had been so sure, the platinum fall of hair something he swore could not be feigned. Just an impression from the corner of his eye, a lone soul treading an unlikely path in the pitch of night. What feels like yesterday - actually a week ago, and every eve since, he has come to wait. Come to see. Hoping for a sign it wasn’t all a beautiful illusion.

He promises himself this will be the last time he waits for Draco Malfoy.

He can’t tell yet if it’s a futile lie.

*

He dreams the dreams of times less ruined, of a boy complete with mind set and true. Who had laughed at humanity's altruism, and revelled in the anarchy of Armageddon. Unconcerned for the fallen prophesied to fall, for the blood spilt behind a manor's closed doors.

Kingdom crumbling, master waits for a lord who shall not return. Aimless destruction fuels voracious insanity, insatiable as it devours all in its path. Sanctuary turned gallows; rejoice as the guillotine prevails. He stands. An unwilling witness to the chaos, bound by isolation and 

unable to abscond.

Flick go the fingers of fate. Could he do it? Greet Death like a friend; take the hand of The Reaper?

He dreams the dreams of times less ruined and yearns for the streets he’s too guilty to roam.

*

One week rolls into two, then another more. Still Harry waits. Dawn to dusk, for a man he cannot forget. The passing of time means little to him, the inconsequential click of the clock merely the melody of this life he has chosen. He watches as the world moves forward, feeling like a spectator from the sidelines.

In the night he lets his defences drop. Unleashes the loneliness he keeps buried within. Allows himself to mourn the ones he’s lost, and wish for the besmirched normality of his teenage years. A time when he felt alive. Ravaged by emotion and driven by need, a purpose that died with the conclusion of war and was never replaced. His friends try, of course, they’re too nice not to. Yet where they were freed by the end, he was trapped, and the trio was reduced by one.

He wonders if Draco ever feels trapped.

He wonders if he’s simply chasing ghosts.

He sits. Enshrouded in shadow, the moon high in the sky, footpaths hazily lit from its luminescence. He waits, searching for the unattainable knowledge he’s not alone in this disenchanted victory.

Dusk to dawn, weeks pass without thought. He tells himself this will be the last night he waits for Draco Malfoy.

He now accepts it’s a futile lie.