softlyforgotten wrote The Flaws of Steel for goten0040
Title: The Flaws of Steel
Author: softlyforgotten
Rating: R
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Post-HBP.
Author’s Notes: In which I exploit Christina Rosetti’s poem The Convent Threshold.
Summary: There’s blood between us, love, my love.
Beta: aliah_carina ♥
your eyes look earthward, mine look up
The lino is cracked and peeling under his feet as he paces the floor, grey eyes cast downwards. His hair is greasy and caked with the dirt of three nights sleeping under hedges, two small units with no running water and one quiet guilt that takes his mind off petty things like hair anyway.
Snape is bored and disinterested in the next room; he has paid the boy almost no attention since they arrived at this place - his dark eyes are unreadable, but Draco thinks he can see disgust in the once-professor’s eyes. It’s just another condemnation, just another place he has failed. He does not indulge in despair too often. It doesn’t suit him. Grey eyes are best suited to superiority.
He’s still frightened.
He spends nights staring up at the ceiling as the lice make themselves at home on his head wishing that he wasn’t a coward. He would pray if he knew how to. Instead he makes deals with his own soul: make me brave and I’ll kill one thousand Muggles. Make me brave and I’ll do everything He asks me for the rest of my life. Make me brave and I’ll do anything, I’ll go to Azkaban for Him.
“Draco,” Snape says, and he stops in his pacing, looks up. “It’s time.”
He sighed.
my lily feet are soiled with mud/ with scarlet mud which tells a tale
The mask is a comfort. Easier to pretend not to see the contempt with the stiff black material swathing his upper face. Easier to remain composed, too - it keeps his features stiff and straight, pressing firm into his face like the reassuring handshake his father used to give him. He never gives the mask any false pretence of nobility - it’s a signal of death, he knows, but it’s also a kind of surrendering. It’s a way of being swept up by the waves and letting the force carry him on until he doesn’t have to do anything alone, ever, ever again.
(The Cabinet haunts his dreams. He sees it smash at the crucial moment again and again and again.)
He likes the mask.
Even if it does leave lines on his face.
i seek the sea of glass and fire
The Dark Lord’s words are hissing and triumphant already, as though He sees the victory to come. Shifting uneasily in the great mass of black cloaks, Draco attempts to keep his thoughts quiet. He has not been called upon yet by his Lord - has not been punished, and gradually he has come to understand that this endless waiting is his punishment. For now, anyway. He has no doubt that eventually he will suffer a more terrible retribution for his incompetence.
Unless he proves himself first.
And it’s a secret vow in a young man’s heart as grey eyes are raised to a serpentine face who spits we will win we will win we will win we can do nothing else and doesn’t deserve the fervour of his loyalty: I will not fail you again.
the heaven of starry heavens unfurled/ the sun before their face is dim
The dusk settles around them gently, like dusk motes on the warm breeze of his mother’s kitchen, like the strokes of Pansy’s red nail varnish: one, two, three. He’s cold - the cloak is not warm enough and he wishes he had his black jumper to put on underneath (not least because it is scented delicately with innocence). It’s a relatively easy skill to master, really; distraction has never been so inviting.
“Your father,” Snape says, and Draco looks up, confused.
“What?”
“He’ll be there. Tonight. They’ve broken out of Azkaban.”
“Oh,” Draco answers, and looks away. He’s not sure what to think. He wonders if it’s disloyal to only miss your father before you did something wrong. He thinks of the disappointment that will await him when he finally gets home (‘if’ is not an option) and turns his eyes to the ground.
It could be worse, he thinks wryly. I could be Bellatrix’s son.
He looks at Snape’s dark face. “When?” he whispers.
“Now,” Snape says, and he is gone.
today is short, tomorrow nigh/ why will you die? why will you die?
It’s not a secret invasion, like last time. Last time had its successes but it becomes apparent that Dumbledore’s death was not enough: now is the time for open warfare, their Lord had hissed, now is the time for the cleansing of our noble race! The plan was simple. He suspected that their enemies knew, and were prepared - but that was of no matter.
Kill or be killed.
Draco hates the cliché.
The first of many battles, though he didn’t know it at the time. Harry Potter would not be there. There would be no fulfilment of the prophecy. Only many, many deaths.
He is not quite sure if he is ready for his just yet.
there’s blood between us, love, my love/ there’s father’s blood, there’s brother’s blood
He takes no pleasure in killing - neither is he repulsed by it. It’s a chore, a hapless task assigned to him that would be a lot easier if only someone would help him.
But he’s beyond such things, now. He’s been pushed into the frightening world of adults, and it’s taking all he has to hold his head above the tide.
So when Charlie Weasley steps in the way, it’s too easy to eliminate him.
It makes sense, and he likes that: the flash of green light is a precise mathematical formula. His first death, and he stares down at the hapless Weasley with his grey eyes wide and afraid for the slightest moment before the sneer curls comfortably around his mouth. He is frozen in time for a moment, some odd part of him knowing that he need not worry about other curses. And he looks up to see the Weasley girl’s tears rolling down her face as she stares open-mouthed at him.
When they both move, she flies in a frenzy at him, but he steps away and disappears easily amongst the rabble.
She’s not finished with him yet.
and blood’s a bar i cannot pass
It’s easy to get lost in these battles. Too easy. He finds himself swept away, unable to stand on his own feet, and he’s spun and shoved and he flies through the air countless times. No one is ever quite real enough to kill him, and he’s grey mist, he’s a spell all on his own, occasionally tripping people up but never really there long enough to become a proper nuisance.
And he spins, spins, spins into the Forest, until the trees enclose him like his mother’s arms. He doesn’t realise where he is until he’s lost, and he is almost glad even though horror gathers him to her breast and whispers: this is desertion, Draco. You’re being a coward, again.
Desperation tastes like home.
The logical thing would be magic - spells to lead him back to the battle, but he can’t, or won’t, and he spins on through the dark, soul flying before him as his body takes wooden, staggering steps and at some stage he’s surprised to find that he’s bleeding, a jagged cut down his side that wasn’t there before, he’s sure. He touches it from afar and it stains his fingers black-red, like the Dark Lord’s disappointment.
When he first sees it, this place that will haunt his dreams for the rest of his life, he knows one thing with a certainty that surprises him: the clearing is cursed.
He didn’t expect to see the littlest Weasley again.
But then, he didn’t expect to see his father here, either. Not like this, anyway. Especially not like this, he thinks numbly.
The blood on the ground matched the tint of her hair, glowing in the dim moonlight, and for some reason, it was just so very fitting for one like her.
“Hullo, Malfoy,” she says quietly.
But his eyes are on the blonde man by her feet. “Hullo, Father,” he answers quietly, and the girl steps back as he feels the world shake around him. It’s the ground that’s cracking, not him, and he’s stumbling as he wonders how the girl can keep her balance and can’t she feel the world breaking - he’s dizzy, and his breath is too, too regular.
It would be nice if Lucius Malfoy could turn his once handsome face and impart some dying wisdom upon his young son; it would be passionate and dramatic if the two had a confrontation in this dying forest, if they argued and then wept and then Draco’s father sighed his goodbye with a blessing. But the man is quite, quite dead, and the tresses of bloodstained blonde hair do not cover his blank eyes.
And, just like that, Draco is the last Malfoy.
He laughs, very quietly, and is somewhat surprised to find himself on his knees. He staggers slowly to his feet and his eyes meet the tear-filled brown ones of Ginevra Weasley. “Touché,” he murmurs, and she turns away and weeps quietly for a moment.
He is surprised that she cries at his father’s death. He supposes vaguely that it is some sort of Gryffindor thing.
young men and women come and go
They’re quiet for a long time. For a moment, they both mourn. And then defiance flashes in her eyes and she meets his gaze fiercely, looking for a fight, hating that there is none. “We should duel,” she chokes out, and he knows that her brother’s death is killing her slowly on the inside, and that, should he accept her challenge, he would overpower her easily.
“I would, Weasley,” he sighs, and his eyes close briefly, “But I am just too, too tired.”
She spits a curse and slams against him, forcing him backwards into the comforting weight of a tree. The slightest smirk smooths up the corner of his mouth and it infuriates her; she hurls damnations and swears with an impressive vocabulary at him, until he catches her forearms and whispers, “Enough.”
She stares at him, and he realises with a start that she’s afraid. If only she knew, he thinks, if only she wasn’t the only one in the whole world who apparently doesn’t know about his cowardice.
Potter must not have told her, he thinks with sudden bitterness.
“Let me go,” she whimpers, and his fingers tighten. Tomorrow there will be dark bruises on her arms, and she will scrub uselessly at them with soap as she sobs into a white enamel basin.
“We’re not done yet,” he hisses, and her name comes to him with a start, “Ginny Weasley.”
“Let me go,” she repeats, and her voice is stronger this time.
He draws her closer and whispers in her ear, so close that she feels his warm breath. “There’s blood between us, love, my love.”
She wrenches free from his grasp, gives him one last terrified look, and flees.
He sinks back against the tree, knees buckling, and laughs hoarsely.
i tell you what i dreamed last night/ it was not dark, it was not light
He returns to the camp finally, stumbling on his feet, bloodstained - his own blood mingling with his father’s - and exhausted, and Snape catches him as he sways, and forces whiskey down his throat, and it burns, it burns.
“Draco?” his old Professor says, and searches for some kind of response in the boy’s face.
“My father,” Draco says, and his voice is cracked, dry.
“What about Lucius?” Snape asks swiftly. “Draco, where is Lucius? Quickly now!”
Draco laughs, a terrible, barking cough of a laugh. “Dead,” he smiles, “He’s dead. Weasley - the girl, the - traitor, blood - the - Ginny, I think her name is - she killed him, and then she cried, Professor, can you imagine that? She cried.” And he laughed again, although every breath was a sharp stabbing pain in his side and when he closed his eyes for a moment the blood on his face sealed them shut.
He remembers darkness. It’s an old friend, by now.
And after the darkness, there is Ginevra Weasley. She is standing on a hill, watching the sun set (or is it rising?) and she turns to face him. He can’t see her face properly - the sun blinds him. He wakes hot and sweaty and hard beneath the blankets, and escapes from the tent that he has found himself in. He finds a deep stream and wades into the freezing water, trying not to think about the dream.
It’s not so easy.
how long shall stretch these nights and days?
Someone has mended the gash in his sleep - now there is only an angry looking scar that he runs his hand over with abstract interest.
And when he returns to the camp, the Dark Lord is talking again. Attack, he says, and Draco blinks politely at the roar of approval that rises from the (somewhat wearier this morning) Death Eaters, attack and attack and attack again. We will give them a war they will never forget.
He is given a bowl of cold lumpy porridge which he shovels down his throat as quickly as possible, suddenly starving, and then it’s a return to the mask, to the swirl of the black coat around him and the whisper of satin against his cheek.
And as he is led to fight again, and again, and again, day after day, week after week, until his eyes burn with exhaustion and he is hollow-cheeked with hunger, he can’t help wishing he had some time to grow up.
you linger, yet the time is short
It’s only when he’s grown used to not seeing her, to catching only an occasional glimpse of copper hair (forever bloodstained, since that one time), to hearing Death Eaters curse at her exploits, to becoming used to bitter spit following her name, it’s only then that they meet again. Of course.
He sees it a scene, theatre acted out exquisitely. An alleyway, dark and grimy, one of thousands in an equally dark and grimy war. At the end, a young Muggle, terror in her eyes. He, quiet and graceful, advancing upon her as a silver predator. And then, she is there, at the opposite end, bright and dangerous, and he is caught in the middle as the two girls stare at him: one with the heaving breath of cornered prey, the other with hatred and fierce disgust.
A challenge: “Let her go, Malfoy.”
He turns and inclines his head slightly, an acknowledgment of the irony to this red-haired woman-child - I remember where you last said that, he is telling her, silently. The words were different, a little, but I remember my fingers pressing into your skin.
There is a clutter and a scramble as behind him, the Muggle escapes. He doesn’t turn around.
He is moving swiftly, now, down towards her and he takes her face in his hands, studies her features minutely, concentration creasing his brow. And then he smirks again, delightfully, and murmurs - “There’s blood-”
“It’s a poem, Malfoy,” she says harshly. “I looked it up.”
“Ah, so she’s a clever Weasley,” he whispers, and kisses her.
the time is short and yet you stay
They’re a hot blend of metal and water; she staggers slightly and they move without meditation or stopping to the side of the alley - she is pressed up against the wall, dark and furious under his fingertips and she presses against him, so that his breath comes in a wild gasp and she is brilliant and crackling smothered under his weight. They exchange electric shocks quickly, smile against open mouths, shuffle their feet, tangle hands through dirty, unwashed hair.
He cannot feel any dried blood on her skin.
And she sings into his mouth: can you taste the lies, and he laughs, because he can’t cry or pray and anything else would be inappropriate. And he’s always been so good at observing the proper decorum for a Malfoy.
Especially when kissing Weasleys.
you sinned with me a pleasant sin
Ironically, it is she who has finally dispelled his cowardice. He fights as often as he can, and when he sees red hair and he knows that she has seen him he fights for perhaps a half hour longer before they slip away. And Muggle hotels have never been so welcoming.
Her breath is sharp when he slides into her. She flips him over more than often and rides above him like a harpy of old, stretching to the sky and laughing and crying and slumping, exhausted, onto his increasingly more scarred body. He makes no attempt to withdraw: she holds him deep inside her and they lie as one covered by a thin grey blanket that scratches their skin.
Their unions are brief; never longer than two hours, and that is pushing it fine. The Death Eaters, however, are becoming used to him returning late after battles. They attribute it to a solitary soul that still hesitates to kill (but as long as he does kill, Bellatrix informs a heartbroken Narcissa who could care less, then we’ve nothing to worry about).
Bellatrix doesn’t know it, but what she’s actually saying is as long as he keeps shagging the Weasley girl, he’ll keep fighting, and we’ve nothing to worry about.
It’s funny all on its own, the things that make Draco laugh now.
repent with me, for i repent
She lies half on him, half off, and stares straight into his eyes with fierce concentration. Two high points of colour appear on his cheeks, he tries to look away - embarrassed, but she catches his gaze and keeps it, eyes demanding.
“What’re you looking for?” he asks finally.
She sighs, and rolls off him, lying at his side for a moment, silent and thoughtful. “Freedom,” she whispers, so quiet that he can’t be sure she said it.
He likes the way the hollow of her throat tastes.
for all night long i dreamed of you/ i woke and prayed against my will/ then slept to dream of you again
They are not real.
They are caught somewhere in a fiction that does not quite work, factual details conflicting, so that in the end they are left with a faint taste of irresolution in their mouths, on their tongues. They share confused, heated glances, and then they turn away from such expressions of alliance, and hate with unabated passion again.
He knows this, somewhere, deep inside as he stumbles slowly through the days-weeks-months-years with eyes wide and blank, lips tight and pinched together, and his silver-grey eyes are merciless, which is a blessing after all this time.
And he’s obsessed, utterly obsessed, and he hates her even more for it.
Especially because in the few dreams she does not haunt, he sees his father, and the disappointment in his eyes is worse than a hissed Crucio.
when once the morning star shall rise/ when earth with shadows flees away
He sees her fall.
She falls alone, in a little battle of no importance, and her comrades are not close to her and they do not notice the sway of her slender shape (arching beneath him, hands twined in his hair, breath ragged and laughing) and they do not see the rise of the asphalt road to meet her (and she takes his hand when no one’s looking and they leave swiftly, fingers twined together) and they don’t hear that last, startled cry (the whisper of his name as she is suddenly still and rigid, muscles clutching greedily at him).
They don’t see her fall. But he does.
And it’s the most terrible betrayal of all that he turns and keeps fighting until the Death Eaters grasp one last, trivial victory and Apparate away with cheering and laughing and hasty celebrations - we did not die today, we did not die.
And only then does he approach her fallen shape, and he marvels at how natural it is, how she looks as though she is only asleep (although her hand is flung at an odd angle; he stoops to straighten it carefully). Her hair is spread like fiery glory, and it looks the same as it did on the single pillow they have shared so many times.
He lies down beside her, and takes her cold hand in his, and threads his fingers through hers. And he lies there for a long, long time, as the sky darkens and the stars first appear, and he has to firmly close his lips against star light star bright first star I see tonight.
And he doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t cry.
Some time later, he rolls over, presses a light kiss against her forehead, and says, “Goodbye, Weasley. We had two good years.”
Because his voice can’t quite manage there’s blood between us, love, my love, and he doesn’t understand why.
there we shall meet as once we met/ and love with old familiar love
The story ends there, really.
Ginevra Weasley would have laughed and cried had she seen the war end the next week with Harry Potter’s triumphant return and the last Horcrux destroyed. And perhaps she would have spoken up at Draco Malfoy’s trial to prevent him from going to Azkaban, and perhaps she wouldn’t have.
(He secretly thinks she would have: the girl who cried as she killed his father; the girl who looked for freedom in his eyes; the girl who didn’t pull away from his kiss; the Gryffindor.)
In any case, he did.
He never quite went mad in Azkaban, although, if they had the wits, the other prisoners would complain about the occasional soft laughter that would echo around his cell for hours at a time, and then the unabated silence that went on and on and on, and it was far worse.
He didn’t remember how to cry, Draco Malfoy, and he never knew how to pray. But he could laugh, and he delighted in it - the same way the red-haired girl had in his smirk.
He suited Azkaban, in an unreal and ghostly sense, in the only way one could; the grey stone walls matched his eyes and his smile fitted the barred windows and the crash of the ocean exactly. He was never proud of this (it didn’t occur to him to be), and while it impressed the human guards (the Dementors having long been eradicated after their conversion to Voldemort) a great deal, it made his mother cry on her rare visits to see this unspeaking son of hers.
Which no one took much notice of. Narcissa Malfoy was always crying these days.
Sometimes, in Azkaban, he remembered the sun shining behind her head, and it was on these days that he acted most like a normal prisoner (that is to say: not normal). He would curl into a small ball and clutch his stomach, where it hurt, where it hurt, and take the long, gasping breaths that made the scar on his side burn.
He liked to pretend that he hadn’t been in love with her.
But prisoners in Azkaban are brilliant liars, especially to themselves. Which is where it matters, after all. In Azkaban, the only other real person in the world is you. You and the stone walls populated by memories.
People were furious for a long time that he escaped death through simple, boring legislation; there were long, bitter, angry letters to the Prophet and rallies outside the Ministry when his trial was on. He seemed completely unaware of such things and even as he was told of the bitter arguments his quiet composure never changed.
They never understood, such people, and he was too, too tired to explain it to them: that really, it didn’t matter whether or not he was killed because his story, as it was, had already finished, on a night where he lay beside a red-haired girl who was quite, quite dead, and the stars circled slowly above them, singing.
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
BRIEFLY describe what you'd like to receive: Draco finds Ginny in the Forbidden Forest... standing above his father...
The tone/mood of the fic: Dark
A Theme/element/line of dialogue/object you want in your fic: "The blood on the ground matched the tint of her hair, glowing in the dim moonlight, and for some reason, it was just so very fitting for one like her."
Canon or AU? Canon
Rating of the the fic you want: T-M
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): *shrug* I don't think I'll mind anything.
Author: softlyforgotten
Rating: R
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Post-HBP.
Author’s Notes: In which I exploit Christina Rosetti’s poem The Convent Threshold.
Summary: There’s blood between us, love, my love.
Beta: aliah_carina ♥
your eyes look earthward, mine look up
The lino is cracked and peeling under his feet as he paces the floor, grey eyes cast downwards. His hair is greasy and caked with the dirt of three nights sleeping under hedges, two small units with no running water and one quiet guilt that takes his mind off petty things like hair anyway.
Snape is bored and disinterested in the next room; he has paid the boy almost no attention since they arrived at this place - his dark eyes are unreadable, but Draco thinks he can see disgust in the once-professor’s eyes. It’s just another condemnation, just another place he has failed. He does not indulge in despair too often. It doesn’t suit him. Grey eyes are best suited to superiority.
He’s still frightened.
He spends nights staring up at the ceiling as the lice make themselves at home on his head wishing that he wasn’t a coward. He would pray if he knew how to. Instead he makes deals with his own soul: make me brave and I’ll kill one thousand Muggles. Make me brave and I’ll do everything He asks me for the rest of my life. Make me brave and I’ll do anything, I’ll go to Azkaban for Him.
“Draco,” Snape says, and he stops in his pacing, looks up. “It’s time.”
He sighed.
my lily feet are soiled with mud/ with scarlet mud which tells a tale
The mask is a comfort. Easier to pretend not to see the contempt with the stiff black material swathing his upper face. Easier to remain composed, too - it keeps his features stiff and straight, pressing firm into his face like the reassuring handshake his father used to give him. He never gives the mask any false pretence of nobility - it’s a signal of death, he knows, but it’s also a kind of surrendering. It’s a way of being swept up by the waves and letting the force carry him on until he doesn’t have to do anything alone, ever, ever again.
(The Cabinet haunts his dreams. He sees it smash at the crucial moment again and again and again.)
He likes the mask.
Even if it does leave lines on his face.
i seek the sea of glass and fire
The Dark Lord’s words are hissing and triumphant already, as though He sees the victory to come. Shifting uneasily in the great mass of black cloaks, Draco attempts to keep his thoughts quiet. He has not been called upon yet by his Lord - has not been punished, and gradually he has come to understand that this endless waiting is his punishment. For now, anyway. He has no doubt that eventually he will suffer a more terrible retribution for his incompetence.
Unless he proves himself first.
And it’s a secret vow in a young man’s heart as grey eyes are raised to a serpentine face who spits we will win we will win we will win we can do nothing else and doesn’t deserve the fervour of his loyalty: I will not fail you again.
the heaven of starry heavens unfurled/ the sun before their face is dim
The dusk settles around them gently, like dusk motes on the warm breeze of his mother’s kitchen, like the strokes of Pansy’s red nail varnish: one, two, three. He’s cold - the cloak is not warm enough and he wishes he had his black jumper to put on underneath (not least because it is scented delicately with innocence). It’s a relatively easy skill to master, really; distraction has never been so inviting.
“Your father,” Snape says, and Draco looks up, confused.
“What?”
“He’ll be there. Tonight. They’ve broken out of Azkaban.”
“Oh,” Draco answers, and looks away. He’s not sure what to think. He wonders if it’s disloyal to only miss your father before you did something wrong. He thinks of the disappointment that will await him when he finally gets home (‘if’ is not an option) and turns his eyes to the ground.
It could be worse, he thinks wryly. I could be Bellatrix’s son.
He looks at Snape’s dark face. “When?” he whispers.
“Now,” Snape says, and he is gone.
today is short, tomorrow nigh/ why will you die? why will you die?
It’s not a secret invasion, like last time. Last time had its successes but it becomes apparent that Dumbledore’s death was not enough: now is the time for open warfare, their Lord had hissed, now is the time for the cleansing of our noble race! The plan was simple. He suspected that their enemies knew, and were prepared - but that was of no matter.
Kill or be killed.
Draco hates the cliché.
The first of many battles, though he didn’t know it at the time. Harry Potter would not be there. There would be no fulfilment of the prophecy. Only many, many deaths.
He is not quite sure if he is ready for his just yet.
there’s blood between us, love, my love/ there’s father’s blood, there’s brother’s blood
He takes no pleasure in killing - neither is he repulsed by it. It’s a chore, a hapless task assigned to him that would be a lot easier if only someone would help him.
But he’s beyond such things, now. He’s been pushed into the frightening world of adults, and it’s taking all he has to hold his head above the tide.
So when Charlie Weasley steps in the way, it’s too easy to eliminate him.
It makes sense, and he likes that: the flash of green light is a precise mathematical formula. His first death, and he stares down at the hapless Weasley with his grey eyes wide and afraid for the slightest moment before the sneer curls comfortably around his mouth. He is frozen in time for a moment, some odd part of him knowing that he need not worry about other curses. And he looks up to see the Weasley girl’s tears rolling down her face as she stares open-mouthed at him.
When they both move, she flies in a frenzy at him, but he steps away and disappears easily amongst the rabble.
She’s not finished with him yet.
and blood’s a bar i cannot pass
It’s easy to get lost in these battles. Too easy. He finds himself swept away, unable to stand on his own feet, and he’s spun and shoved and he flies through the air countless times. No one is ever quite real enough to kill him, and he’s grey mist, he’s a spell all on his own, occasionally tripping people up but never really there long enough to become a proper nuisance.
And he spins, spins, spins into the Forest, until the trees enclose him like his mother’s arms. He doesn’t realise where he is until he’s lost, and he is almost glad even though horror gathers him to her breast and whispers: this is desertion, Draco. You’re being a coward, again.
Desperation tastes like home.
The logical thing would be magic - spells to lead him back to the battle, but he can’t, or won’t, and he spins on through the dark, soul flying before him as his body takes wooden, staggering steps and at some stage he’s surprised to find that he’s bleeding, a jagged cut down his side that wasn’t there before, he’s sure. He touches it from afar and it stains his fingers black-red, like the Dark Lord’s disappointment.
When he first sees it, this place that will haunt his dreams for the rest of his life, he knows one thing with a certainty that surprises him: the clearing is cursed.
He didn’t expect to see the littlest Weasley again.
But then, he didn’t expect to see his father here, either. Not like this, anyway. Especially not like this, he thinks numbly.
The blood on the ground matched the tint of her hair, glowing in the dim moonlight, and for some reason, it was just so very fitting for one like her.
“Hullo, Malfoy,” she says quietly.
But his eyes are on the blonde man by her feet. “Hullo, Father,” he answers quietly, and the girl steps back as he feels the world shake around him. It’s the ground that’s cracking, not him, and he’s stumbling as he wonders how the girl can keep her balance and can’t she feel the world breaking - he’s dizzy, and his breath is too, too regular.
It would be nice if Lucius Malfoy could turn his once handsome face and impart some dying wisdom upon his young son; it would be passionate and dramatic if the two had a confrontation in this dying forest, if they argued and then wept and then Draco’s father sighed his goodbye with a blessing. But the man is quite, quite dead, and the tresses of bloodstained blonde hair do not cover his blank eyes.
And, just like that, Draco is the last Malfoy.
He laughs, very quietly, and is somewhat surprised to find himself on his knees. He staggers slowly to his feet and his eyes meet the tear-filled brown ones of Ginevra Weasley. “Touché,” he murmurs, and she turns away and weeps quietly for a moment.
He is surprised that she cries at his father’s death. He supposes vaguely that it is some sort of Gryffindor thing.
young men and women come and go
They’re quiet for a long time. For a moment, they both mourn. And then defiance flashes in her eyes and she meets his gaze fiercely, looking for a fight, hating that there is none. “We should duel,” she chokes out, and he knows that her brother’s death is killing her slowly on the inside, and that, should he accept her challenge, he would overpower her easily.
“I would, Weasley,” he sighs, and his eyes close briefly, “But I am just too, too tired.”
She spits a curse and slams against him, forcing him backwards into the comforting weight of a tree. The slightest smirk smooths up the corner of his mouth and it infuriates her; she hurls damnations and swears with an impressive vocabulary at him, until he catches her forearms and whispers, “Enough.”
She stares at him, and he realises with a start that she’s afraid. If only she knew, he thinks, if only she wasn’t the only one in the whole world who apparently doesn’t know about his cowardice.
Potter must not have told her, he thinks with sudden bitterness.
“Let me go,” she whimpers, and his fingers tighten. Tomorrow there will be dark bruises on her arms, and she will scrub uselessly at them with soap as she sobs into a white enamel basin.
“We’re not done yet,” he hisses, and her name comes to him with a start, “Ginny Weasley.”
“Let me go,” she repeats, and her voice is stronger this time.
He draws her closer and whispers in her ear, so close that she feels his warm breath. “There’s blood between us, love, my love.”
She wrenches free from his grasp, gives him one last terrified look, and flees.
He sinks back against the tree, knees buckling, and laughs hoarsely.
i tell you what i dreamed last night/ it was not dark, it was not light
He returns to the camp finally, stumbling on his feet, bloodstained - his own blood mingling with his father’s - and exhausted, and Snape catches him as he sways, and forces whiskey down his throat, and it burns, it burns.
“Draco?” his old Professor says, and searches for some kind of response in the boy’s face.
“My father,” Draco says, and his voice is cracked, dry.
“What about Lucius?” Snape asks swiftly. “Draco, where is Lucius? Quickly now!”
Draco laughs, a terrible, barking cough of a laugh. “Dead,” he smiles, “He’s dead. Weasley - the girl, the - traitor, blood - the - Ginny, I think her name is - she killed him, and then she cried, Professor, can you imagine that? She cried.” And he laughed again, although every breath was a sharp stabbing pain in his side and when he closed his eyes for a moment the blood on his face sealed them shut.
He remembers darkness. It’s an old friend, by now.
And after the darkness, there is Ginevra Weasley. She is standing on a hill, watching the sun set (or is it rising?) and she turns to face him. He can’t see her face properly - the sun blinds him. He wakes hot and sweaty and hard beneath the blankets, and escapes from the tent that he has found himself in. He finds a deep stream and wades into the freezing water, trying not to think about the dream.
It’s not so easy.
how long shall stretch these nights and days?
Someone has mended the gash in his sleep - now there is only an angry looking scar that he runs his hand over with abstract interest.
And when he returns to the camp, the Dark Lord is talking again. Attack, he says, and Draco blinks politely at the roar of approval that rises from the (somewhat wearier this morning) Death Eaters, attack and attack and attack again. We will give them a war they will never forget.
He is given a bowl of cold lumpy porridge which he shovels down his throat as quickly as possible, suddenly starving, and then it’s a return to the mask, to the swirl of the black coat around him and the whisper of satin against his cheek.
And as he is led to fight again, and again, and again, day after day, week after week, until his eyes burn with exhaustion and he is hollow-cheeked with hunger, he can’t help wishing he had some time to grow up.
you linger, yet the time is short
It’s only when he’s grown used to not seeing her, to catching only an occasional glimpse of copper hair (forever bloodstained, since that one time), to hearing Death Eaters curse at her exploits, to becoming used to bitter spit following her name, it’s only then that they meet again. Of course.
He sees it a scene, theatre acted out exquisitely. An alleyway, dark and grimy, one of thousands in an equally dark and grimy war. At the end, a young Muggle, terror in her eyes. He, quiet and graceful, advancing upon her as a silver predator. And then, she is there, at the opposite end, bright and dangerous, and he is caught in the middle as the two girls stare at him: one with the heaving breath of cornered prey, the other with hatred and fierce disgust.
A challenge: “Let her go, Malfoy.”
He turns and inclines his head slightly, an acknowledgment of the irony to this red-haired woman-child - I remember where you last said that, he is telling her, silently. The words were different, a little, but I remember my fingers pressing into your skin.
There is a clutter and a scramble as behind him, the Muggle escapes. He doesn’t turn around.
He is moving swiftly, now, down towards her and he takes her face in his hands, studies her features minutely, concentration creasing his brow. And then he smirks again, delightfully, and murmurs - “There’s blood-”
“It’s a poem, Malfoy,” she says harshly. “I looked it up.”
“Ah, so she’s a clever Weasley,” he whispers, and kisses her.
the time is short and yet you stay
They’re a hot blend of metal and water; she staggers slightly and they move without meditation or stopping to the side of the alley - she is pressed up against the wall, dark and furious under his fingertips and she presses against him, so that his breath comes in a wild gasp and she is brilliant and crackling smothered under his weight. They exchange electric shocks quickly, smile against open mouths, shuffle their feet, tangle hands through dirty, unwashed hair.
He cannot feel any dried blood on her skin.
And she sings into his mouth: can you taste the lies, and he laughs, because he can’t cry or pray and anything else would be inappropriate. And he’s always been so good at observing the proper decorum for a Malfoy.
Especially when kissing Weasleys.
you sinned with me a pleasant sin
Ironically, it is she who has finally dispelled his cowardice. He fights as often as he can, and when he sees red hair and he knows that she has seen him he fights for perhaps a half hour longer before they slip away. And Muggle hotels have never been so welcoming.
Her breath is sharp when he slides into her. She flips him over more than often and rides above him like a harpy of old, stretching to the sky and laughing and crying and slumping, exhausted, onto his increasingly more scarred body. He makes no attempt to withdraw: she holds him deep inside her and they lie as one covered by a thin grey blanket that scratches their skin.
Their unions are brief; never longer than two hours, and that is pushing it fine. The Death Eaters, however, are becoming used to him returning late after battles. They attribute it to a solitary soul that still hesitates to kill (but as long as he does kill, Bellatrix informs a heartbroken Narcissa who could care less, then we’ve nothing to worry about).
Bellatrix doesn’t know it, but what she’s actually saying is as long as he keeps shagging the Weasley girl, he’ll keep fighting, and we’ve nothing to worry about.
It’s funny all on its own, the things that make Draco laugh now.
repent with me, for i repent
She lies half on him, half off, and stares straight into his eyes with fierce concentration. Two high points of colour appear on his cheeks, he tries to look away - embarrassed, but she catches his gaze and keeps it, eyes demanding.
“What’re you looking for?” he asks finally.
She sighs, and rolls off him, lying at his side for a moment, silent and thoughtful. “Freedom,” she whispers, so quiet that he can’t be sure she said it.
He likes the way the hollow of her throat tastes.
for all night long i dreamed of you/ i woke and prayed against my will/ then slept to dream of you again
They are not real.
They are caught somewhere in a fiction that does not quite work, factual details conflicting, so that in the end they are left with a faint taste of irresolution in their mouths, on their tongues. They share confused, heated glances, and then they turn away from such expressions of alliance, and hate with unabated passion again.
He knows this, somewhere, deep inside as he stumbles slowly through the days-weeks-months-years with eyes wide and blank, lips tight and pinched together, and his silver-grey eyes are merciless, which is a blessing after all this time.
And he’s obsessed, utterly obsessed, and he hates her even more for it.
Especially because in the few dreams she does not haunt, he sees his father, and the disappointment in his eyes is worse than a hissed Crucio.
when once the morning star shall rise/ when earth with shadows flees away
He sees her fall.
She falls alone, in a little battle of no importance, and her comrades are not close to her and they do not notice the sway of her slender shape (arching beneath him, hands twined in his hair, breath ragged and laughing) and they do not see the rise of the asphalt road to meet her (and she takes his hand when no one’s looking and they leave swiftly, fingers twined together) and they don’t hear that last, startled cry (the whisper of his name as she is suddenly still and rigid, muscles clutching greedily at him).
They don’t see her fall. But he does.
And it’s the most terrible betrayal of all that he turns and keeps fighting until the Death Eaters grasp one last, trivial victory and Apparate away with cheering and laughing and hasty celebrations - we did not die today, we did not die.
And only then does he approach her fallen shape, and he marvels at how natural it is, how she looks as though she is only asleep (although her hand is flung at an odd angle; he stoops to straighten it carefully). Her hair is spread like fiery glory, and it looks the same as it did on the single pillow they have shared so many times.
He lies down beside her, and takes her cold hand in his, and threads his fingers through hers. And he lies there for a long, long time, as the sky darkens and the stars first appear, and he has to firmly close his lips against star light star bright first star I see tonight.
And he doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t cry.
Some time later, he rolls over, presses a light kiss against her forehead, and says, “Goodbye, Weasley. We had two good years.”
Because his voice can’t quite manage there’s blood between us, love, my love, and he doesn’t understand why.
there we shall meet as once we met/ and love with old familiar love
The story ends there, really.
Ginevra Weasley would have laughed and cried had she seen the war end the next week with Harry Potter’s triumphant return and the last Horcrux destroyed. And perhaps she would have spoken up at Draco Malfoy’s trial to prevent him from going to Azkaban, and perhaps she wouldn’t have.
(He secretly thinks she would have: the girl who cried as she killed his father; the girl who looked for freedom in his eyes; the girl who didn’t pull away from his kiss; the Gryffindor.)
In any case, he did.
He never quite went mad in Azkaban, although, if they had the wits, the other prisoners would complain about the occasional soft laughter that would echo around his cell for hours at a time, and then the unabated silence that went on and on and on, and it was far worse.
He didn’t remember how to cry, Draco Malfoy, and he never knew how to pray. But he could laugh, and he delighted in it - the same way the red-haired girl had in his smirk.
He suited Azkaban, in an unreal and ghostly sense, in the only way one could; the grey stone walls matched his eyes and his smile fitted the barred windows and the crash of the ocean exactly. He was never proud of this (it didn’t occur to him to be), and while it impressed the human guards (the Dementors having long been eradicated after their conversion to Voldemort) a great deal, it made his mother cry on her rare visits to see this unspeaking son of hers.
Which no one took much notice of. Narcissa Malfoy was always crying these days.
Sometimes, in Azkaban, he remembered the sun shining behind her head, and it was on these days that he acted most like a normal prisoner (that is to say: not normal). He would curl into a small ball and clutch his stomach, where it hurt, where it hurt, and take the long, gasping breaths that made the scar on his side burn.
He liked to pretend that he hadn’t been in love with her.
But prisoners in Azkaban are brilliant liars, especially to themselves. Which is where it matters, after all. In Azkaban, the only other real person in the world is you. You and the stone walls populated by memories.
People were furious for a long time that he escaped death through simple, boring legislation; there were long, bitter, angry letters to the Prophet and rallies outside the Ministry when his trial was on. He seemed completely unaware of such things and even as he was told of the bitter arguments his quiet composure never changed.
They never understood, such people, and he was too, too tired to explain it to them: that really, it didn’t matter whether or not he was killed because his story, as it was, had already finished, on a night where he lay beside a red-haired girl who was quite, quite dead, and the stars circled slowly above them, singing.
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
BRIEFLY describe what you'd like to receive: Draco finds Ginny in the Forbidden Forest... standing above his father...
The tone/mood of the fic: Dark
A Theme/element/line of dialogue/object you want in your fic: "The blood on the ground matched the tint of her hair, glowing in the dim moonlight, and for some reason, it was just so very fitting for one like her."
Canon or AU? Canon
Rating of the the fic you want: T-M
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): *shrug* I don't think I'll mind anything.