The Mists of Memory

Chapter 1: The Fugitive

NO! I must find people. Damn, why isn't there anybody around? He tripped and fell. He got up, tired and gasping for air, and looked around, granting himself the luxury of a short rest.

It was eleven o'clock on an icy mid-December evening. The rain was pelting Draco's skin like a whip; only a little colder and it would've been snow instead. His breath looked like a thick cloud in front of his face and his muscles burned like fire under his soaked clothing, as his frozen feet shot icy waves of pain through his core. He coughed from fatigue, but his eyes continued searching feverishly. The darkness that enveloped London's roads and alleys didn't help at all. He saw a flash in the shadows and his heart skipped a beat.

"Mr Malfoy, do you know what becomes of snow when it melts?"

"Well, sure...water? Vapour?" echoed his own voice from his memory into his head.

Draco had finished Hogwarts four years ago...and had passed the last two hiding from the Dementors who hunted him everywhere he went. They tormented him, bringing back to the forefront of his consciousness all his resentment, all his pain and remorse—all his hate.

"No, Mr Malfoy. You are mistaken! It becomes spring!" Her luminous smile had warmed Draco's heart; he remembered it as if it had been yesterday. He remembered the short girl he met at the Ministry of Magic. She used to talk to him about snow melting into spring. Marion... Marion was her name.

No, please! Don't make me remember her! I don't want to remember. I can't...

He looked around, terrified.

I can't allow myself to remember, again.

Every angle that the spectral lights of the lampposts left in the dark could hide traps, or worse, a Dementor ready to suck his soul. No! He'd like to hold on to his soul, thank you very much.

He resumed running, even though his legs were giving up on him; even though his eyesight was becoming clouded. Even though his heart was bursting in his chest and the pain at the back of his throat was making his endurance reach its limit. He felt his lungs with raw precision. He would've been able to tell exactly where they began and ended. His spleen made its presence known as well. His knees shook and his feet slid around in his sneakers, too wet to adhere to the slippery floor.

I'm a coward, a selfish idiot, Draco thought, his gaze still darting around. Anything would do: a gate ajar, a disco-pub still open; anything that took him off the street and brought him among people, where the Dementors couldn't find him.

Perhaps it would be better to end it, he thought, slowing down. To die was perhaps more dignified than to continue living as he had. He wouldn't be able to resist much longer anyway. But something prevented him from letting go. Was it a survival instinct? Was it a will to hold on to life or at least to a memory of it? Or was it, perhaps, his pride?

Of course, not...the truth is that I'm a coward! he thought, hurrying his steps. I don't have the courage to die.

Turning left without looking where he was going, he found himself on a dark alley, feeling the squishing of his feet in the puddles as if they came from another world.

He bumped against someone and uttered empty words of apology; he turned and struggled not to fall and continue running. A car went to a halt in front of him. The headlights hurt his eyes, which by now were accustomed to the dark. To avoid collision, he stepped to the right and continued straight, his eyes still dazzled from the headlights. He did it without watching where he was stepping or where he was going. This alley was just like any other alley, right?