The Stirring Ecphrasis
For the French Challenge
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine.
Full Summary: After the war, Draco sees a painting of a mysterious woman that, to his surprise, strikes him to the core. He meets with the gallery's owner and something unexpected happens. DHr.
Author's Note: It was supposed to be a one-shot, but it looks like it will be 3 or 4 chapters long. Check out the challenge at: http : / www . fanfiction . net / topic / 44309 / 7092368 / 1 /
Please review!
xXx
xXx
A Stirring Ecphrasis
Prologue
Draco realized that the certainty he had felt before now, was imaginary on his part. Sanity, too, seemed uncertain.
He had heard before that some people could speak when they played. That naturally, a shy, mute little boy, could blossom when he touched his slender finger to the cold keys. Suddenly he would have meaning, just like that.
That was how he found himself at his father's baby grand, in the damp cold manor, attempting to improvise. He tried to create the majestic A to D progression of Wagner, of Pachelbel, (well known wizard composers who masqueraded as muggles) but as his stomach clenched the melody wobbled, mirroring his turmoil.
He tried to create a pattern of broken triads in the left hand and flowing right-hand melody, but every anxious breath resulted in a jilted note. This anxiety was irony in its basic form; his nervousness thwarted any attempt at a perfect piece.
The quarreling of the melody became part of the piece then; continuous conflict and its resolution.
The mustached general that constantly shouted commands to his squad in one of the manor paintings once told Draco as a young child that in the colonial ages, if war ever resembled a melody it would be a waltz forever flouncing between three-steps: revolution, war, and peace. But that was the old paradigm; in the modern world, both Muggle and Wizard, they insist the art of war has mutated into something more complex.
His life was no longer as simple as a waltz—how had it quickly mushroomed into disaster? Why did he feel like he was on the edge of a steep cliff, looming above darkness? It didn't help that the rest of the society he was living in held the Malfoys in disdain, though his parents were decrepit and had invested in charitable causes.
The war—horrific, swift, and transformative—leached the vigor of the Wizarding world. Banks closed, homeless shelters opened, and the economy floundered. Though many thought he was untouched by the devastation wrought by the Dark Lord, like everyone else, he did not know quite what to do with the emptiness in his hand.
xXx
x
Chapter 1
xxx
He finally dragged himself out of the manor.
His father liked to pace back and forth, back and forth, through the halls, down the stairs, preferring nothing better than to hear himself speak.
"Doozy," he had commanded the feeble house-elf, "bring me some parchment. No, no, no! The page must be slightly yellowed. This letter is being sent to a very important member of society." Draco found the letter sometime later, discarded, his father surely accomplishing another imperative task.
His mother instead was not capable of preferring much of anything anymore. She now sat at the dining table, slowly polishing already sparkling wineglasses, staring blankly at the silver tray in front of her.
Everyone seemed to be going slightly insane.
Walking across the bleak street, he avoided the stares of the people who passed him by. He passed Olivander's, the Singham's Tailors, and an unfamiliar building. Lorthause Gallery, the decrepit sign read.
He glanced by, intending to walk right by. Instead, he stopped. And stared.
It was a painting of a brunette woman, emotions swirling under the transparency of her face. Her eyes stared out from the canvas, almost transferring her turbulent emotions directly to him.
She was clothed in bright, luscious red—the color of roses, blood, and apples (which symbolized sin, Draco thought salaciously to himself)—almost declaring herself the opposite of a virgin. She was experienced; she had seen darkness and death.
She was dressed like a English peasant. He looked at the date, but the artist had painted this recently, a few weeks ago. She looked so familiar, but he couldn't place her. Why did her face affect him so? He looked at the other paintings in the collection. They too were historical reenactments—one was an eighteenth century maid, one was a horseman, one was a soldier.
He looked back at her. Her delicate hands, long and nimble, but rough at the tips, were clasped awkwardly together, squeezed in nervousness. She stared out of her dark, glistening eyes, past his head, hesitant to meet the eyes of spectators, of voyeurs that wished to peek deep into her mind.
She left herself completely open emotionally, through the soft curves that composed her stance and delicate lines that made up the fabric of her clothes, but especially through the inscrutable gaze of her eyes that revealed only the intensity of emotion. The painting was magical, conveying more depth than a muggle portrait, but the woman was still.
Was it pain that Draco could see, feel? Was it vulnerability or soft sexuality? Was she wary of how the angle of her cheekbone tapered down into plump-pink lips, naturally chapped and pouted, and of the flushed cheeks that served as evidence to the long hours spent outside, as well as the scintillating curve of her breast visible through the thin material of her peasant blouse?
What had caused this enigmatic passion he could see in her face, he asked himself. Perhaps her lover dragged his thumb across her lips and disappeared during the night. Perhaps she only realized his betrayal in the light of the morning, wrapped around her covers. Perhaps it was not love's trials but the ache at her arms and back—from bending continuously over in orchard where she might labor, or in the kitchen—that creeps into her eyes. Her right hand pulls at the fingers of her left hand, either in anxiety or in agitation, or both.
But she wasn't just a depressed, broken creature, like so many post-war portraits, or purely a lascivious vixen, or a sanctified virgin clothed in soft blues and whites. No, she combined multiple qualities of humanity—fatigue, purity, sexuality, experience—and expressed them in one gaze, in the one stance of her body.
"You like that painting, eh son?"
Draco started, and jerked his head away from the image of the woman.
An old man, probably the owner, limped from the inside of his gallery towards Draco, "it, shall I say, inspires many of my clients." The man, face crinkled with age, wore long, forest green robes, his snow-white beard curling down to his chest. He leaned on a golden-knobbed cane, his free hand resting on his hip.
"Yet, no one's bought it yet, I see?" Draco raised an eyebrow, his face not betraying any emotion other than faint interest in the painting.
"Hmmph!" the bearded gentleman snorted and leaned on his cane, intertwining strands of his beard around his fingers, "like I would sell this painting to any leering schoolboy. You on the other hand seem quite of the decent sort. Intellectually interested, not ruled by your raging hormones."
Well, not completely ruled by my raging hormones. Draco frowned, perplexed that the old man wouldn't sell the painting to the highest bidder. "Do you know the artist personally?"
"Personally? Quite personally, intimately you might say."
"Oh." He looked at the signature on the painting. Thomas Wilkes. While being gay in the wizarding world was becoming more and more acceptable, admitting the fact openly, especially when your clients were rich, upper-class citizens,was rarely done.
The old man sniggered, "Especially because I am Thomas Wilkes."
"Right." Draco smiled. He rather liked this ancient wizard, though he reminded himself he shouldn't be too hasty in trusting the man. "Are all of the paintings in this gallery yours?"
"No, just the ones in a historical context: sailors, jesters, peasant women, soldiers. You know back in my good old days." He chuckled to himself. "Actually I just received a collection of Henry Braklewurst's works."
He motioned Draco inside, and indicated a large moving painting of a ferocious lioness, her teeth piercing the side of a zebra, blood trickling down the striped flanks. The Manor was decorated with many painting of a similar genre. Exotic hunts. War scenes. Creatures, especially centaurs, attacking each other. He was more curious about Mr. Wilkes' own works.
"The process of painting must be hard work, Mr. Wilkes. How do you ever find your models?" He anticipated the answer almost anxiously, though his face did not belie any emotion.
"Oh, people I meet, who I find intriguing. Most of the models in my historical reenactment series are veterans of the war, like I understand you are, Mr. Malfoy. Would you be willing to pose?"
"Me?" After the war, almost no one would want to connect themselves with the Malfoy name.
"Yes…you." Mr. Wilkes grinned at him and waved his cane around. "You might know this man." He pointed to an elaborate painting of a horseman, riding furiously across a field, that Draco had noticed before. Carefully he looked at the man's dark skin and bright eyes, until his eyes widened in recognition.
"That's…"
"Blaise Zabini. You know him?"
"Yes, we were friends at Hogwarts." He made a mental note to owl him later. A silent presence at Hogwarts, Blaise was a worthy ally. He neither joined the ranks of the Dark Lord nor Dumbledore's Army, but would have been a commendable addition to either side.
"Hmmm…What would you say if I asked to paint you?"
"What would I have to do?"
"You would have to come here and pose for me in my studio," he motioned to a door to the side of the gallery, "You would have to come for three sessions, three hours each. I also provide the clothing you will wear. You might wear robes, maybe even Muggle clothing."
"That's it? Wear the clothes you provide and pose for three sessions?"
Mr. Wilkes nodded. "Nothing else."
Draco paused, thinking. If Blaise agreed to this, it couldn't be such a bad idea; the man always tread carefully. Plus, Mr. Wilkes already showed some audaciousness by linking himself to prominent Slytherins.
"Yes. I'll do it." he said slowly.
"Great, my boy! How about every Saturday for the next three weeks. Does that work for your schedule?"
"That' s fine." Currently there was no was schedule.
"Oh wait! You were interested in the painting of the peasant girl, yes?"
Draco nodded his assent. "Who is she? She seems quite familiar. Perhaps I have run into her before," he mused.
"The most interesting girl, she is. Would you like to meet her? We actually have lunch every month at this quaint restaurant in Diagon Alley. Zabini's Pizzeria. Delicious place."
It must be Blaise's place, Draco thought with surprise. He remembered his friend had owled him some time ago about opening up a café, but he hadn't realized he had actually gone through with its construction.
"You seem like a fellow she would love to talk to." Mr. Wilkes looked at him questioningly.
Never before had just a painting struck him like this before. Would meeting this woman ruin the passionate allure of this painting that struck him so deeply? This wasn't such a good idea, was it?
Draco raised his eyebrows, "Perhaps I can squeeze a little tête-à-tête in."
He knew his curiosity would kill him if he didn't take Mr. Wilkes offer.
xXx
A/N: I based the painting off of one I saw called: Ols Maria by a painter named Anders Zorn. You can see it here: http: / i17 . photobucket . com / albums / b87 / Mal-1 / ZornAndersOlsMariaCustom . jpg. Or, you know, google it. I'm not really sure where this is going, but I do have the second chapter outlined.
Please review! (Even if it is constructive criticism-- which I can use!)