Nightmares and Nocturnes

The Faith in the Horizon

Chapter 31: The Faith in the Horizon

The day boy; the hunter; so steeped in sun, was raised to hear the change in the wind, to trust the steady beat of his footsteps; to recognize a prize that called to him; and so he drew the night girl close, and on his charge, they forged ahead. Boy and girl headed towards the castle in the distance, watching it come nearer and nearer as they drew to the edge of the forest, locked in a blind embrace.

They saw something coming towards them, and for a moment the night girl, her vision tampered, was helpless in sight of it: a shadow; a tremendous beast; a monster. The day boy, shielding the night girl, loosened his knife in his sheath, and drew an arrow from his quiver, lest his first shot fail; he drew it back and struck, and the arrow descended to pierce the monster's heart, prompting a loud, terrifying wail. But the night girl, who clung to the day boy's side, had suffered too long in darkness to put her trust blindly in an arrow's flight; she reached for the knife and buried it in the monster's heart, entombing the blade in its chest.

The monster, defeated by the product of its own hand - the boy it had gloried in the day, and the girl it had enslaved in the night - gave a shudder, falling as if it were a stone, and dissolved to rubble as the castle fell around it, buried amidst the wreckage of its gruesome regime. A great cloud came over the sun, and rain began to fall heavily, refreshing the earth; and from the ashes, boy and girl grew strong enough to rise.

For what force was night, and what blessing was day, and what did it matter, when girl and boy were joined? And so, together, night and day joined hands, and in the immortality of triumph, the sun rose anew. For the monster had looked upon them and seen them as its prey, never knowing the truth of its sightless error: that alone, boy and girl had feared the monster's wrath, but together they feared nothing, and thus rose eternal in their joining.

. . . . . . . .

The running jump from the castle's edge into the lake was both imprecise and foolish, something they would never have considered had they possessed even a single wand between them, and Hermione's grip on Draco's fingers tightened painfully only to be ripped away as they cycled their arms through the air, ill-equipped to fly. They smacked hard against the water's surface and Draco, losing sight of the others, was fully submerged, the water ice cold and constricting; he thought he felt his lungs shrivel to nothing as he broke the surface with a gasp, instantly dragged back down.

His first instinct was to look for her. Beneath the surface of the lake the light from the clouded sun was extinguished and Draco was met with panic, with desperation and fear, before emerging from the water's ruptured surface to search for her. The sky was grey and tinted red, rubble from the crumbling castle raining down onto the lake; but Draco, familiar by now with destruction, dove back under without hesitation, struggling to aim himself somewhere they could land.

To say the water was murky was an understatement, but he spotted her, catching the glimpse of gold from her hair, just visible from afar; he kicked himself towards her, cursing his inexperience with water, and reached a hand out for hers.

Every wrong I ever committed -

She seemed to feel him coming towards her and she turned, finding him in the water. She surfaced with a gasp, everything but the rapid cycling of her legs momentarily disappearing from sight, and then forcefully dove towards him.

Every foolish decision I ever made -

Their outstretched hands met and missed, briefly, and he tried again, catching the tips of her fingers this time and letting her pull him up by his wrist.