Vonne: Hello! Just a bit of a side note, this was written before a "Icarus Icily" but finished afterwards. There are a couple similar sentences here and there that I didn't bother removing. My apologies for the lack of... renovation, but this one really was just begging to get completed and published already! Also, please keep in mind that this is a bit gruesome; though wherever Fenrir is involved, I think such an aspect is hard to evade. Still, please don't hesitate to leave me comments or constructive criticism! I also Beta for Harry Potter related pieces, so if you'd like me to return the favor, I'd be more than happy to. Finally, this was done as a request from hipsterslick on LJ, who wanted something based on Greyback's obsession for "pretty, easily broken things". I thought Draco would fit nicely. I hope you enjoy it!
Red Right Hand
"On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man in a dusty black coat with a red right hand."
I.
Close your eyes; this won't hurt a bit, but nobody's promising anything.
Imagine a home. Nay, imagine a Manor. Imagine the proud and pompous way that it rests on the top of a hill, all lit up and glowing like the pearly gates of Heaven or something else ironic. You're within the innards of its very floor plan, a leech in the blackness that just doesn't fit; but you bask, however, in the ways that you make them squirm. The house owners, that is- Lucifer and his bride, the lovely Narcissus. Now imagine a fire.
Harsh, heavy, and hot, the flames lick at the walls of the elegant mantleplace in attempt to roast something unseen. Your nostrils ache for the stench of human flesh, but you retain your enthusiasm with the likes of a jagged smile- all teeth, you are; and it's funny, for they watch you is as if they already expect something horrible to happen. Still, nothing's yet occurred, so you take time with your torment, relaxing upon the emerald green divan with your rugged feet stretched outwards. And, Tick. A minute goes by whilst no one says a word.
Tick. Instead its your eyes that flash yellow and every time they do, Narcissa Malfoy flinches just a little.
Tick. Without even trying you become the picture perfect of something dangerous. Just like that, all simultaneous with rancid poise and electric conductivity.
"My, what a lovely house, you have," you smile, and Lucius frowns and Narcissa fidgets. Mainly, you speak in clichés for the principle of it all and the feeling of glee spreads deep within your chest to the fanning point of your very toes.
Anyway, the year is 1985. The likes of the first war has come and gone; and the Malfoys, they're just living off the likes of their left-over mechanics. Waking, spending, sleeping. It's the life of two wealthy aristocrats, you think, of a bloody political pair. But all that truly means is that nothing's even changed. Not really, at least. Not for them.
Barely having escaped by the skin on their necks, their lot retreats back to the wizarding world and lies under oath. They scramble into their magnificent mansion and keep their jobs with the Ministry; and, as it so seems, nothing quite hurts and everything stays well. You, on the other hand, reside wearily within the outskirts of the entire fucking terrain. It's not as if you have much of a choice, but you scramble to your pack like the bloodthirsty beast you are, and when the night feels right, you even come a-crawling to remind them that after all this time, you're still here.
Keep your eyes closed.
Imagine how the sounds of Narcissa Malfoy's fingernails sound against the delicate stem of her wineglass. She's nervous, and rightfully so, but her eyes are bloodshot with the likes of frantic leaks, faulty in naivety yet telling just by nature. Every so often she glances over at her husband, lips trembling beneath the straight of her white teeth. And she hums, slightly, under her breath; for you think, of all things, that there must be something they don't want you to know. That there must, for that matter, be something they are hiding from you.
And come to think of it, the house smells differently, too. It's the strange sense of innocence that washes over the place and you think in your solidarity, "Where in the world did this curious aroma come from?" for surely it does not belong to the likes of Lucius or Narcissa, who reek heavily with the essence of an immorality so strong that it perhaps is something of an acquired taste. Still. The scent rises up to your nostrils and picks ticklishly at your brain. You want to contain it, but it wriggles between the ridges and seeps splendidly out your eardrums like an infection.
Your name's Fenrir Greyback. It's purity you can smell, and it lingers longingly about the granite, untarnished. But when the footsteps creek gently from the floor upstairs, everything settled shifts.
"M-Mummy?"
Enter a sound so small that you have to hold your very breath in order to even hear it. Closely it floats at the high ceilings and dwindles down to the darkness, separated only slightly so by the shiny sliver of light that emerges through the crack of the door to your right. But Narcissa's face pales and Lucius' back straightens; and it all happens so suddenly that you think perhaps all of the oxygen has flooded from the Manor completely. The sight of ten pink fingers dismisses it. Long and tiny, they clutch around the wall in the distance and a mini blond head shines there in the moonlight.
"... M-Mum?" asks the angel in the foyer, and his eyes are two rain clouds in the nighttime. Mummy...
Narcissa drops her wine glass. Ink-like, the deep liquid spreads to the elegant rug beneath her feet in a pattern distinct enough to make you think, "Crimson." Crimson like the color of her face, stained forever within your mind's eye. And it's an image you never want to forget, either- for the weak way Lucius looks then is so foreign to the wobble in his knees and the sweat at his palms. He's perspiring, you know; and by the light of the chandelier it's obvious. For every single bead that oozes out from his every single pore, slips slowly down his face to intermingle with the cotton of his nicely pressed collar; and then it hits you like a train with something thick and living in a frenzy on its tracks. All these years, the Malfoys have been hiding a child.
And a nice, proper one, too; one that stays at the frame of the door and clings to it for dear life until his eyes find his mother and then, like a bullet, comes stumbling. You watch him from your spot at the sofa, caught up with the terrified way that he scatters, for his face is streaked all over with bedtime drool and salty tears until he wraps his little arms around his mother and buries his messy visage in the fabric of her skirt. You consider how comforting it might feel to him, to be nestled there in the cloth of her dresses; but Narcissa Malfoy just freezes and her hands go all jittery like a spider's until they fall to rest protectively upon the smooth angles of her son's hair line.
No one says a word, but especially not you; for you can't quite think of anything really to say at all. At least, not while you're too busy staring.
Imagine the eerie way that silence hovers around the three of you in the form of great, glistening daggers. It's only the boy's muffled sobs that embark on their mission through his mother's thin clothes; and his shoulders bob up and down with the strength of a deer or something else far too easy to take down.
And he's all Malfoy, too. Despite the whimpers and cries that wrack his frail body, it's the similarities you've noticed- right down to his porcelain white skin and even his aristocratic fingers. He doesn't look around right away, but instead finds refuge in the Narcissist's narrow side and relaxes only when she's snapped back to reality enough to rub calming little circles into the groove of his pyjama-clad back.
You think perhaps its the lighting, but Narcissa's neck does a jig. It seems she's swallowed a million times over before finally working up the courage to ask the small thing, "A-Another n-nightmare, darling?" as the rest of her sentence snags away in the depths of her throat. But the boy's nodding is feverish, his grip tight, and he doesn't seem to notice the terrified look that she slips her husband, all eyes and a timid little squeak. Though you, on the other hand, do not fail to catch it. Rather, you can smell the fear that falls from them, dripping like flood water from the crack of the ceilings and the leaks in the plumbing and my God, it is spectacular.
Keep your eyes closed. Now imagine circumstance.
It doesn't bother you one bit when Lucius takes a brave step in front of his family and positions himself just between you and them- a barrier of his flesh, perhaps, though the threat is real and you sense it. You allow him to relish in his moment, a big twinkling smile on your face as his stoney eyes study your very demeanor that's collected, you think, with a side of overflowing interest.
But God, he knows it, too. You catch, for that matter, the small flinch that plagues his handsome features, twitching at the corner of his lips before his mouth forms the words on his tongue. "Narcissa," says the man, all eyes on you and unyielding like a statue. "Take Draco back to bed." It's funny, of course, how she listens. In her skirt, Draco's head plummets just a little and he hiccoughs, pink fingers sending ruin to the fabrics in the form of undesirable crinkles. It's like a captain, however, that Lucius Malfoy speaks. Or a general, you think. Or something else with power. And it works in the way that Narcissa bends down swiftly to scoop the little lad up off his feet to the safety of her embracive limbs. She edges one hand beneath the child's rump and slants the other around his shoulders, letting her palm shield the back of his bowed, blond head. And Draco sobs back into the curve of her collarbone, arms laced around her with his eyes squeezed shut and his legs loose around the slim circumference of her wiry waist.
He doesn't watch you, so instead you watch him; trickling away in the distance, Narcissa Malfoy moves her feet so fast across the floorboards that you think she stands strong to win races. Still.
Words float like fairies about the bleak, gray holding room. They've only said his name, but you watch the syllables bob up and down gaily before entering your ear drums and pound pound pounding your body into consciousness. It's what happens before the 'Crazy' sets in. Before the world turns to mayhem and the wolf arrives to showdown. But you're standing on the edge now, of all reality and conceivability; and it's not as if you had actually seen it coming, but you feign expectancy as you watch, weary, the result of the chaos of such youth. Draco. They're gone before you have time to register the absence; a swift little appearance from the son that's been hidden- for five whole years, in fact- right under the air of your ever skillful nose.
And it's Satan and his wife who have finally claimed their dragon. Their 'Draco', like the constellations in the sky and the sparkling specs about the open of the night. Somewhere, you know, it rests beneath the mighty, magnificent moon. Don't peek. Not yet.
"A boy, Lucius?" you ask, unable to help the smile that spreads across your features in a nasty sort of sense, fawning wide from ear to perky, pointed ear.
"I want you out of my house," arrives the heated reply. It's sharp and jagged, and his hands dive down to his wand, squaring it away over the place of your heart as if ready to do you in.
Simply the thrill of the game propels you now; for you feel it in your feet like a fog, a haze- both a blessing and a curse. It creeps to your ankles and dances merrily about your shins. And even the steady way you lift your palms upwards amuses some sickly slice of you. So you form the mask of mocked surrender, still beaming beneath the broad expanse of darkness that conceals the rest of your unseen image. "Of course," you want to tell him but you don't; for half the fun, you think, lies there in watching him fidget. Nonetheless, your swift nod is the most you can manage without bursting. So you slide from the home, slipperily; all feet like a canine or something else beastly. And your focus lies not on the way Lucius Malfoy watches your back but instead on the way that Luna calls out to your heart. As, "Come," she sighs, "to the midnight and the madness and the men."
Come to the souls that mack menacingly on the meat of the meek; of the frail, and of those too weak to fight back. Come...
And then you're breathing under the poignant paste of atmosphere, careless as always. The lining of your core is unfathomable, but you know not of the moments Lucius may break and instead of every capricious kiss of the moonlight reflects to you- wave-like with illusion to move your body not just in ease, but eagerness, too. But Malfoy stays stiff at your back, so you stride out grinning; successful, however, in the blatancy of his petrified expressions. Despite the obvious tension, you slip through the door in the moments in which you bask in his weakness. Now that you know it exists, it's the temptation you consider; and you smile fondly at the inquiry of how you might not even be able to help yourself. But what matters now is your presence- guilty even beyond the edge of anticipation. No one quite knows it yet, but the span of your existence has already found purpose, for his name is Draco Malfoy and he is Lucifer's most prized possession.
Outside it's foggy and faded. The Manor rests behind you and you dwindle on down the path through the vines that wrap in a lovely manner around stone. There's a light on at the top floor, right where you assume the boy sleeps. And for reasons you won't explain, your stomach growls greedily. But you stand beneath the brush like a spectator, not quite moving, but not quite not moving, either. For the sway in your arms is fueled throbbingly by the pump in your bloodstream and the widening of your pupils. And half the task, you think, is in standing there without action- in walking away from Lucius Malfoy's heir without utterly destroying him. Anyway.
Are your eyes closed? Don't peek don't peek don't peek don't peek...
In the distance there's a tree and on the tree there's an owl; and its presence confirms moonlight, just like the type you feel inside your very system. There's a full one coming soon, and the notion brings back that great, big smile all over again. As, "Ah, familiarity," you muse to yourself, making your way down the dwindling path that isn't just the ground, but also the corpses of the scaly bugs you step on. "Ah, everlasting pull; oh, pleasantly turbulent tide." It swells, and it grows, and it extends within your core like a web, connecting and protecting and harvesting all the left overs that reside there. For you, just for you.
And though you think you may have let something good slip from your fingers, you relish in the notion of all the teeny tiny things you've garnered in the process. So there you stand; between the gate and the dirt road- your temptation and your destiny. It's amusing, in a sense, how you remain half hidden and shaded beneath the flourish of bulky bushes, watching for the moment when the light at the top floor goes out. For the silence leaves you to wonder whither or not the lovely Narcissa has left her darling Draco to his sleep or if she's curled up next to him, hands wound around his snoring torso in traumatized fear of your unspoken threat.
Open your eyes.
That wasn't so bad, now was it? Just a little pinch, a couple pokes, and a whole damn train wreck to seal it all up.
From out of the wreckage you've come back with just a little bit more enlightenment; and that itty bit had been the cherry on top after all. It doesn't matter that you're in up to your neck with the bothersome reminder of Satan's son, doesn't even count that it's the image of a small, white toddler that will plague your dreams for fortnights. Oh no, not really. Because the way you see it, you've still got one thing left.
And that's all the bloody time in the world.
Take a breath- in through your mouth and out across the lengthy expanse of your wide, wolfish nostrils. There's a breeze out tonight, so cold that it runs through your dusty gray coat and slides down the collar at your thick, protruding neck. Nonetheless, you pay no attention to the specifics and instead consider the evening as a whole- a vast, open, black, one, too- like the ones in space, or in the ground, or in your chest... right at the place where you think your beating heart should be.
You think it's only a short road to Hell, so you give the palace one last glance before extending your foot just one inch outwards in welcoming anticipation for the rest of the trip.
Yet even in the dark as the fire slaps your ankles, you grin. Slow and menacing, it creeps up your face and intertwines around the likes of your ratted portfolio to give you the appearance of a jack-o-lantern, or something else revolting. And though no one can quite see you now, you bask in the glory of your solitary haunt, reaping the grounds like a phantom just for the notion of what you'd like to call 'good measure'.
Nonetheless, you've have your fun and you've had your laugh. Despite the loss, you candidly consider the night to be a success; and for that, you smile. Then its your shadow that fades along the bleak, bushy road and as you go, a faint trickle of mist covers the mark of the spot where your figure once stood. You're sliding next to the moon and the stars and all the little Dracos mixed somewhere in the galaxy, and you think how it might amuse you, to make the Malfoys suffer.
So you arch your head back and howl to the constellations- just a little show, really, of what will happen when the wolf finally does come out to play.
Inhale the scent of the wild and the lives of those left in it. You're at the tippy-top of the food chain, you know; and if you wanted, you could put an end to the cycle with one swift crunch. But you're getting too far ahead of yourself. Roll your shoulders back and calmly crack the knuckles that line the edges of your every calloused claw. When you've finished, you're refreshed and relaxed and, most of all, you're ready to pursue that feast.
Now close those eyes, darling; the rest might hurt a little.
II.
Pain folding flesh crunching bones snapping breaking arching aching; after all is done, you're not even human anymore. Oh, no- not when the wolf's thrown the sheep skin clear off it's back. Not when Luna smiles down upon you, caressing your skin with her light. Not then, not now, not ever.
Keep your eyes closed.
Imagine the way the night looks through the eyes of your pulse. In the darkness you scan a wasteland that's dim and creaking and rustic, but the overall aroma reminds you of faultlessness and, for that, you keep your ground. Still, every single second comes together in specifics; you're dwindling down to the details and where that leaves you is to an old clearing in London, just outside the suburbs Dagenham. Along the skirts of the brush sits a sandpit and on the sandpit stands a playground where someplace mixed in the middle resides a small blond boy.
He's alone and no one's looking.
Anyway, it's a mere mumble, the wind; and it floats along the deserted park until it reaches your ears and slips down the steady slope of your back. Tonight's a night unlike any of the other twenty-nine, but you feel fueled by the throbbing thunder at the lines of your very stomach. And what that means is that you're sewn together, constructed by the very needles and strings within the solace of the moon and the astronomy at it's sidelines. You're a living, breathing, machine now- filled up with the likes of an unyielding hunger and just a tiny tendency to fancy the weak ones. But this isn't dreamed up hallucinations or carelessly convoluted hypotheticals. Rather, this is the night of the full moon and, in your opinion, she couldn't have come any sooner.
Snap. You don't think you boy even registers it when your foot breaks the nearest twig lying face down in the middle of the earth. He turns over his shoulder absent-mindedly and instead surveys the scene of complete and utter blackness to find you absent among the woodwork. Death does not dawn upon him and fear does not riddle through his bones. Yet a nasty sense of naivety runs throughout him and you beam in the distance thinking, "Mummy and daddy should have taught you better."
Oh well, funny that. Someplace in the bane of his being lies an unfortunate soul and, either way, it's really yours for the taking now.
Still. It's the tide that's pulling you and in the wake of your wastefulness, you take time in the pivot of your iris. Grazing within yellow upon the mess of persistent purgatory, your hands are tied, quite blatantly, against habits both stonily cold and icily omnipresent. But the boy you're glaring at is just an ordinary boy, and the night you're stuck upon comes pleasantly once a month. Against the vast shade of black, his pale blond head rests lowly against the park swing's chains and, though his eyes are just about closed, it's the clues that are all right there. Tonight, he is going to die.
It doesn't matter how old he is or how many years he's wandered about the earth, doesn't matter that he's young and inexperienced with the likes of a full and healthy life ahead of him. Either way, nothing changes and everything persists- everlasting, you know, beyond the burn of blatancy that this one just did not see coming. Damned and forgotten within the depths of the continual survival of the fittest, it's not your fault that, from the back, he looks just like the real one- the other one that's Lucius'. Against the dirt of the metal swing set, his hair sweeps steadily across the moonlight so that it dances. But even the light movement takes the life out of you, so you breathe in heavy patterns just to remain still, eyes focused on the outline like a demon.
"They're going to Kiss you, you know," the illuminated faces of the midnight say. "The Dementors. You're going to pay for this." How you should have paid years ago. The latter is not said, but you decide that it's certainly implied.
Anyway. They've spent years trying to catch you, and look how far they've gotten. Now-a-days, you don't even think of Kisses in the way that they've intended you to; and it does nothing to put the fear of the Lord in your veins. Rather, the kisses that trigger in your mind are the kisses that brush the skin at your lips, commanding and careless. They're the type of kisses that flutter in a hot and heavy way as they run down the sheath of your neck and slide past the marks that reside there. The type of kisses that pump your heart and fuel your core. The type that make you strong as, electrically, they curl the ends of your toes and shake your fingers so that you melt into them to feel both big and unbreakable at the very same time. Luna's. Lovely Luna's. You feel them even in the darkness, feel them even in the madness, and in the tantalizing turn of your torment, you feel them still in the chaos.
"Going to Kiss you, you know," hums the rest of them at the back of your head. "Going to Kiss you."
In your spot in the blackness, you relish readily in the likes of your pretty preparation. It's the consequences, in fact, that you'll worry about later; though currently, you don't think you've got much time for silly things like those at all. Rather, when you pounce, its the teeth that you sink in first. Piercing, they puncture the flesh at the blond child's exposed neck and it invades, quite quickly, the vulnerable spot right below his unsuspecting jugular.
Keep your eyes closed.
The gag that escapes his throat is heavenly and he struggles for just a moment as you pull him away from the street lamps savagely into the nighttime. He's nowhere near as beautiful as Lucius' son, however, and you take in the palate of his squashed up nose, scowling at the mingled way it fails to blend with the likes of his lopsided pout. So, to make up for his ugliness, you piece his disappointing features together in your head; first by the mirror of your minute memory, followed suit by the fragment of your anxious imagination. And his face fills out to a point, enunciated by the lovely curve of his chin. Spectacularly, he shrinks down in size and you marvel greatly at the newfound shade of his collarbone. He's perfect before you can think too much about it- dressed no longer in the Muggle clothing you'd caught him in, but instead covered in children's soft pyjamas with a trickle of drool to piece it all together.
And he's almost a shame to devour now, all pretty the way you've made him; though when he struggles and flails beneath you, you remember how stopping was never really part of your game plan.
Still, the longing wails that escape him sound nothing like the horrified and desperate ones that echo through the clearing and bounce around your eardrums. Oh no- the way you hear it, they arrive muffled and soft, sadly as if dreaming. "Another nightmare, darling?" an absent Narcissa asks him someplace in the bushes. And you think, of all things, you're indeed the most appropriate.
Anyway. He's nearly still underneath you and its the pitter-patter of his heart that you sense as you show him a preview of your golden, glowing dentures. He yells, nonetheless, for a moment before he can't anymore- silenced by the clamp of your teeth and the tearing way that you pull apart the scope of him. However, when you finish, he's not Draco or anyone at all, of course. Rather, the formless, faceless lump of your newest victim fades on to the night life and the post-world beyond it; so to the dark you come a-crawling- a one-man show standing way high up there, clad on all fours.
The applause emits from the stink pile and the matted blond hairs still struck between your fangs, in sync like an orchestra or something else unyielding. But to the insects you bow and then promise to return, for the act has not ended and the dusk goes on longer as though the stretch of the wasteland, the moon only calls you.
And there, beneath the paws of once crackled, calloused feet, lies the hearth. Mixed within the dirt and the gravel and the rock seeps the blood of the non-magical and the Muggle. And it's enough, don't you know, to contain you- to leave you never coming back and, instead, remain hidden. You could leave. You could go. You could, in all honesty, disappear to the wild with the wolves and, with that, refrain from the moon like a good, good dog.
Yet, come now, let's be frank. Really, you're only just getting started.
III.
Fast forward ten years later to a graveyard, to a smoking black cauldron and a cloaked man that emerges dauntingly from the deep.
Blink once,
twice,
and breathe.
Clear the smog from your peripherals and extend your boots against the same polished marble that you'd tread someplace previously. There's a great, big party in the midsts of this Manor; and the hosts are too busy to keep an eye on every corner. Nonetheless, you reside in the back like an object grown dusty; large, hulking fingers curled around the neck of the wine glass you're just about crushing. There's a clatter of silverware in the corridors, but the guests at the threshold wear black like the sky and they brood there together like the ravens and the worms, devouring death like the maggots that they most certainly are not. Anyway.
Lean back and let your body carry you up- not to Heaven, of course, but instead to the winding white staircase of the dimly lit floor plan. You're alone and no one's watching, but you graze gaily the fingernails of your rancid right hand along the facade of fancy floral wallpaper. In your head, the red roses wilt.
Still. Imagine dark, deceitful hallways and leering, luminous portraits. Generations among generations of Malfoys peer petulantly at your back in the moonlight, so you smile not unkindly at the women and the children that hang there. Nonetheless, you slip against the granite and graze into the charcoal, unbothered by the voices just beneath you. Rather, you permit the clench of your claws, intertwining them around the knob of the door that rests at the end. Just a small, blue light protrudes from the teeny-tiny crack and you know... this room is Draco's.
The thing creaks right open when you push on it. In the corner, one window's been left open and long, silk curtains rustle gently in the silence. For a moment, you think that the room's been deserted; but it's the light blond head that you notice beneath the soft safety of the emerald green covers and you breathe, in fractions, the scent of his wafting, weakened aroma.
Imagine the depths of massive unknowing as it circles about your chest and sinks low to the pit of your stomach. You can't see his face, but you consider the naive way his features may fall, even in sleep. Thus, delicate little breaths emit from the sheets like a song. Humming, Draco's sighs bounce breathlessly around the interior of the bedroom and, in anticipation, you let the door shift back shut.
It is, of course, you and him. Fenrir and Draco. The boy and the wolf. Caught up in the masses of the midnight and the party downstairs that perhaps he hadn't been allowed to attend. But it's sweet, you think, the calming way his breath hits the pillow as cool, collected sighs hum purely into the fabric. And you notice the gentle glide of this fingers grazing against the mattress like a ghost, slow with light trepidation as, "Mum," he breathes, so unlike the toddler who'd clung to Narcissa's skirts and cried his rain cloud eyes out.
Not 'mummy' but 'mum'; a grown up, despite looking so small. Or it appears that way, at least, from your angle above the bed sheets. You're close, but not close enough, so you step forward to meet the edge of the cot against your shins. Then his shoulders rise and the mound of his knees lift. He does a little groan and, with sleepy effort, adjusts his torso to the side so that he's greeting you- face to shaded face. And it's strange, next, when his brows knit together as his long, pale fists curl tightly around the cotton. Perhaps he's dreaming, but the breaths from his lips come out fast and the next time he sighs, it sounds something like, "N-No."
"No, what?" you laugh and bend forward to brush aside the stray blond locks from his eyes. It amuses you how easily he's manipulated- instantly swayed in subconscious simply by the arrival of your presence. Nonetheless, a small, bright twinkle catches your eye and, shoved beneath the bed frame lies a glistening glass whiskey bottle; and that's when you realize: this boy is not a saint. Rather, he's every inch of his father's son, for there's a hickey upon his slim neck and a bruise above his exposed eye. He's curled up in a tight ball with his legs against his stomach, but he moves enough to let slip the sheets around collar bone and you spot the slip of his anguished expression. Innocent, with the faintest slight of adolescent corruption.
Fourteen. The boy is fourteen.
An awkward age, you think. A curious age. Perhaps he'd had his first full kiss at the Yule Ball, received the black eye from that Golden Boy, Potter. It's all speculation, of course, but you smell the bitter enlightenment upon him like instinct. Wafting, it floats through your nose and emits out your eyes until you're smiling all over again. And you push through the blackness like a specter, voice rusted like metal as you lean forth to ask, "Another nightmare, darling?" as Draco, fourteen-year-old Draco, sobs once into the pillow.
Wringing your fingers is all you can do to keep yourself from scooping him up and dragging him into the darkness. He thinks he has nightmares, but you laugh at the ignorance of his ill-guided assumption; because Draco Malfoy, he doesn't know a bloody thing about nightmares. Oh no. At least, not yet. Anyway.
Keep your eyes closed and imagine the cruel way you grin, nagging with the determination to show him sometime soon exactly what you mean by 'nightmares'. Imagine the thump thump thump of your heart and the swelling way your muscles clench back together. He's such a delicate looking thing, and you think you could break him with just one scratch. But it's late tonight, so you back yourself away from the bed on your heels, close enough to the door to make your swift, careless exit, but a stir from the mattress stops you.
"Father?"
Draco's sitting up upon the bed in a halfway sort of sense. His eyes, though open, are glossy and unfocused; and in the dim light, a small trail of spit covers the slightest expanse of his red, right cheek. Yet you stand still for just a moment, partway turned with your chin over your shoulder to scrutinize the semi-conscious version of him. And his hair is rumpled and his face is squashed. He looks as if he's slept on himself the wrong way, but the uncaring visage and the sloppy way he leans off to the side only excites you. Still.
Feet slide away from the bedroom door, fingers drop away from the knob, and mouths open to mock pretty little boys and their underage drinking habits. Perhaps his eye sight is really just that bad, but you chalk his stupidity up to grogginess, mimicking Lucius Malfoy to the best of your jagged ability to ask, "Yes, my son?"
And in the dead of the night he tells you, "T-They're coming to get me." Anyway.
It's a strange thing to say aloud, but in the confines of his sleep he emits it easily. Eyes sloppy and unseeing, he hangs his head low towards the mattress and, by the light of the night, you can see the shimmer of his tear-stained face in the blackness.
And it's ironic, you suppose, though you step towards him with care- falsely friendly, of course, but still shaking your head with the notion of collected reassurance. Still. You plaster on the mask of a deeply caring father like an actor; and the make up of your falsified face sits in hypotheticals, caked on in layers so thick it commends you. And it's, "Who, son?" that you ask, "Who's coming to get you?" like the parent you never, ever will be.
Though it's soft- in a sense- like the wind from the sill and the hums to his pillow. Certainly, he's drunk and half-conscious enough to buy it, but either way, nothing stops and everything persists. Any way you look at it, this right here... it's your first official meeting. Your true and undeniable face-to-face. In the darkness, its his gray eyes that twinkle and, filled up to the brink like a child, his sad, cold pupils shine straight theough the blackness to feed your thumping heart and ache your tempted limbs.
"... Monsters," replies the boy. Monsters. Like the creatures in the closet or the figures beneath the bed. Big, toothy, slimy ones and, great, ghastly, growing ones. Ones that make pit-stops at weary wine mixers and climb the steps to the depths unknown. Huh. 'Monsters,' like a boy and not a man- a child and not an adult. Still.
The Monsters are coming to get him...
Imagine the gut-wrenching twist that churns your empty innards. Imagine the sloppy slick of saliva as it beads your tasteless tongue. The want is in your veins now, in your core, in your spine, and in your mindset. It's consumption, digestion, and addiction. Reliance, respondence, and dependence. Withdraw, withdraw, withdraw, withdraw.
"No monsters," you lie next, doing everything in your power not to crack. "Oh, Draco, didn't you know? There's no such thing as monsters."
"... No such thing?" The boy's voice is slippery and his back is hunched. He watches you with lifeless concentration, but there's hope there, nonetheless.
So you do all the clarifying for him. "No such thing."
When Draco sinks back beneath the bed sheets, its with a tired little sigh and a breathy sort of moan. Like a puppy, he curls into the blankets and nuzzles the drool-encrusted pillow with the point of his runny, red nose; but through the mantra of his mouth, he mumbles- all muffled and quiet through the fabric like a secret. So you slide through the doorframe as a shade, all shadow intermixed with the flash of your molars and the fade of your feet. Down the corridors you wander, through the foyers, and past the portraits and the pane sets.
It's the irony, nonetheless, that berates you- the sinking, searing symptom that has embedded its presence within your very floor plan. And amused, you throw back to the comfort of your namesake, your DNA pattern, your fiber make-up, and your blood type.
He's a child, of course, but what that means it that he just doesn't know. Just shouldn't know- 'cause how could he? Still. In time, you think, he'll catch it- just as you're certain you'll catch him. Like a cold, or a fever, or the plague. It's the patience, though, that you need now; and you find it in the moon and the message on her lips. So to the garden you go in the meantime, to the auburn and the ivory of the mansion and to the rod iron gates in between. And from the green of the gardenias you disperse. Gone down the road, gone past the party.
And gone into the midnight.
IV.
Close your eyes.
It has been one year, three months, nine days, and seven hours. It has been a long summer, a full moon, and a whole hunt. It has been daunting, dreary, and dragging. Coming before swiftly, silently going. Of all things, you think you'll go mad. Beyond all purposes, you consider you might snap. And then, and only then, they suggest the boy. He's right about the Monsters, at least. Huh. It's funny, a bit, when you think about it.
Anyway. He is, of course, almost sixteen. Too old for your taste, but pretty enough to be worth it. Often, you spot him arriving and leaving with his head down and his eyes averted; and it's the task, you think, that's turned him.
Murder. This one's been assigned to murder.
And of course, such a thing is easy enough for you, but you can sense it in Draco's figure and the spent sort of way his eyes sag tiredly beneath his pupils. This one's not cut out to be a killer. You know this, of course, simply by study- by the frightened way he looks at the others and the strength he builds up to even speak in the times that he's called upon. He hates you most of all, though. Hates the way you watch him when his parents aren't looking, hates the way you smile when he's told to go to bed, and hates the way you glance at the moon- every time, a threat- as if excited; each night in anticipation of the cycle. You want to tell him, "Oh, Draco, this just how I'd imagined you'd be," and run a fingernail of the most jagged sort down the length of his bloodied-up cheek. And it's true, too, of course. He is, in every way, just how you'd pictured.
His father's son. His mother's son. You can see it in the poised and proper way he tries to carry himself, in the lovely physical attributes of his personal demeanor and, in turn, the confused, uncertain depths of his ever beating core. Draco Malfoy. Draco bloody Malfoy. Not a boy anymore, but still, in some way, clinging on to the fabric of his mother's lovely dress skirts.
Oh. Well. Everyone has their gifts. It's, "Kill or be killed," you suppose, nevertheless; and, as you watch him through the darkness in the times when he least expects it, you smile in anticipation of this philosophy.
And as for semantics, you don't think he'll do it.
V.
He doesn't. Do it, that is. Draco Malfoy, on top of the Astronomy Tower in the dark- wand stretched out with every opportunity in the world- doesn't do it. Despite the simplicity, despite the pressure, despite the hot, heavy flutters of your breath down his back. He still doesn't kill Albus Dumbledore. Not now. Not then. And not ever. In fact, when Snape casts the Killing Curse and the wrinkly old man falls to his death in space, the pretty boy is nothing more than a rag doll being pulled. Lured away by the grip of the Potions Master, he limps, crying, down the steps and sputters, on command, off into the night.
You almost run after him, but instead save the hunt until later. Until, at least, the Dark Lord hears of his failure and, in turn, gets very, very pissed off.
So what you do instead is wait. Rather, watchful, your yellow eyes stare longingly at him as he stumbles through the brush and trips, once or twice, over the twigs and branches that lie there. He breathes loud, panting breaths and dives through the limbs of the forest as if they'll curse him. Yet, staggeringly handsome thing that he is, Draco's tear and sweat-stained face does absolutely nothing to divulge from his beauty. And so, with that, you purr in his ear, "My, my... you are going to get it...".
If Draco had been afraid of monsters and beasts then, quite certainly, he's afraid of you now. Of course, you've known that ever since he'd laid eyes on your figure. Ghostly pale with a hint of absolute panic behind the fleck of his stony iris, Draco Malfoy had almost bloody wet himself the first time you'd officially extended out your fur-coated hand to announce, "Hello, Draco, seems I'll be staying in the Manor this summer, yes?" with a smile that'd been broad, and toothy, and telling. Nevertheless, it's nothing compared to the horrified state you've put him in now; for, chest close against his back, Lucius' boy gets all rigid before going quite limp and then fall fall falling into your arms like a present. "Ah," you muse to the others, "seems he's gone a bit ill."
"Poor dear," laughs Bellatrix.
"Bloody coward," sneers Amycus.
But you, on the other hand, take matters into your own burley paws. All strength and adoration aside, you lift the boy up high into your arms and, unlike a bride, let his head fall back over the space between your right arm and your sternum. Above the ground, his blond hair sways; and his hands, gangly and thin, resemble twigs that you could snap right in two, given the option. But, "Hush," you whisper lovingly, as he gurgles while you walk, still unknowing and unaware in his sleep. "Hush now, Draco, hush. Go to the calm place; go to the safe place. Sure they'll be monsters there, but those dreamed-up things will be nothing compared to the demons at your wake."
And anyway, into the night you continue walking while through the leaves, you stalk the others. It doesn't matter that you're way far behind in the brush or that they're nothing more than small black orbs in the distance. Oh no, not now; because all that matters now is Draco. Lucius' Draco, the Devil's Draco. He's light enough for you not to even feel the weight of his lifeless body in your grip- tall and sloppy enough to dangle above the hearth all limp and uninterested like a baby. And my God, you've dreamed of this for nights. Fantasizing, you replay the hopeful aspects of your mind's desires as you carry, ever so gently, the fallen angel through the thickness of the fog. Collectedly calm and consumingly quiet. Still.
All's fair in infatuation and War. And didn't that Muggle Darwin once say, "Survival of the fittest" or something like that, too?
Thus, "Huh," you think, all inner monologue and nothing more than a hint of devious debauchery, "Funny that." When it comes right down to it, life is nothing more than just a little bit of living and a bunch of other time just inching up to a great, big departure. So poor Draco. Poor, passed out, perspiring Draco. He never knew it of course, but his entire existence has been dwindling down to this very moment and, all in all, you're glad you'd decided to wait. Sooner or later, he was bond to be left in the earth, muddled over with limbs and ligaments and all the nasty bits in between.
And then, of course, there's the bones. Anyway.
VI.
Exhale out from your nose. Remain calm. Keep breathing.
Don't look now, but at your feet rests a snake and in your face stands the dead. Or, at least, the half-dead. The semi, midway, just-about dead. The type of man that defies death and instead rises from the ashes to personify it. Who, in his wake, lives to walk slow through the hazy confines of the world's leftover existence and instead crush his opposers beneath the soles of his bare feet. He has a name, of course, and his name is Riddle. Lord Voldemort, "The Devil," you think, "incarnate."
He's somewhere between the likes of smiling and frowning, of yelling and celebrating; for the Wise Man is dead and what that means is that it will soon be his turn. But for now he exists in the beginning- the pre-planning, in which of all things, he has not even got started. But he sees the world as it will be- soon to revolve in the palm of his calloused, curled-up hand. And then, no one will exist within it without knowing the likes of his all-powerful name. So still. It's Draco Malfoy's failure that has just been a minor snag. Draco Malfoy's slip up that has cost the game just that much more of its balance. Yet Voldemort relishes, of course, in the slight splendor that despite this, Severus Snape has emerged successful in place of the boy's massive lack of success.
Not that he hadn't seen that one coming.
Not that you all hadn't seen that one coming.
It's the cool, calculating way he looks at you, however, that makes your hair stand on edge and your feet ache all over the Malfoy's pricey granite. But the corners of his mouth twist up into a smile and you pause for a moment to make contact with the look in his eye and the gleam in his iris. And, ironic little twist that it is, Lord Voldemort does not look angry. Oh no, something about him has not been thrown; forwhen he grits his rotten teeth at you, you're just about certain he's had the best night of his whole, entire life.
Then he tells you in the silence of the dark of the dim, deserted night, "He's yours."
He's entirely, unequivocally yours.
VII.
You carry his body past the gardens, past the fences, and past the peacock. You carry it out into the night beneath the white-orb moon, and let it rest in the dry patch of a dark, deserted field full of long, invading wheat grass. Gently, you place his head up by your feet and fold his arms about his chest. And in sleep he looks peaceful and it calms you close your eyes.
He's lovely in that slick, sloppy, wet-between-your-teeth type of flesh way, too. All chest and nothing more than a few soft utterances, he ejects soft hums that fly high into your head and stay there for good measure. This one is seventeen, but the way his pyjamas sit scrunched at the hem of his trousers make him look sloppy, like a boy; and you smile at the comparison, relishing in the knowledge of how small he looks, unmoving on the soil.
Don't peek, but imagine instead the calm, careless complexion of his white, translucent face. Poor Narcissa might not ever adore him again after you've finished. But its the cold and uncollected way the vision runs up to your spine that makes you dig your nails into your thighs like a scratch-post; all aching and weak like a puppy or something else untrained. Yet you bite the lower end of your pre-curling lip for control and out rush the fools and the inhibitions you've been restraining for quite some time. Close your eyes. You've been waiting so long for this.
Imagine, if you would, the slyly swaying grass fronds as you push through the wreckage of gold. You're kneeling by Draco Malfoy's clothed figure in a mock impression of what you half think to be fatherly, smoothing aside the pale wisps of his messy blond hair and dragging the slice of your right thumb down the sullen expanse of his cheek. He looks pretty, like his mother; arrogant, like his father; and ignorant, like a child. He looks all but a man and curls in close when you brush your palm across the edge of his hairline.
Anyway. It's the reality of it all that compels you. Years ago you'd seen the child and tonight you'd see the man. Of sorts. At least, the poor thing is something of a half contender. A would-be man, you think amusedly; a supposed man. And although you've said it before, you'll say it again: Draco Malfoy, he seems so small. All done down in his pyjamas with his eyelids closed and his lips just parted, he's nothing much extraordinary, save for the purity of his blood and the pennies of his namesake. It'll be easy, of course, to devour him. Easy, too easy, to make him squirm.
But let's not worry about the specifics. Keep your eyes closed.
Draco's lids flutter in fragments. It's not the instant sort of realization you'd been hoping for, but the long lashes at the ends of his face make him feminine and delicate. Breakable, you muse, and easy. While the storm cloud bustle of his pupils search the great, gray clearing of the sky sleepily, the glassy orbs of his iris show a disconnect, as if only really dreaming. He gives a lazy sort of stir, still blinking out the grogginess of his vision when he tries a glance again. Still. This time he does not mistake you for his father.
In fact, he doesn't quite mistake you at all. Rather, the very moment his eyes fall upon your face, his absolutely plummets. And spread across the earth like a pelt, he blinks in attempt to rid himself of your vision as, "Unfortunately, my boy," you tell him, "this is no nightmare."
And it's nothing like the first time you'd met him, or the second time, or the times in between, either. Oh no. Not really. Instead, this time you bask in the complexity of it all- no longer untroubled by childhood or sleep, he's yours. All yours. And you beam below of the shivering sanctuary of him, all Lucius Malfoy and yet, nothing like him at all; for he's not a killer and he's not a man and, above all, he is just a boy. Anyway. It comes down to the shaking in his palms and the stillness in his posture. Though you can hear the frantic beat of his heart, Draco is nothing more than a tiny little rabbit beneath your figure and you lean forward to smell the fear that escapes out of his every single pore.
And my God, is it sweet.
Still. Draco tenses up when you draw your face across the exposed nape of his perspiring neck. His mouth opens and closes and he struggles for a moment to find the proper words that might benefit him in the long run. "M-My f-father..." he begins, and then stops short as the sentence catches in his throat. "My f-father will-"
"- Will what?" you snap, fingers hard against his soft skin. "Your name means nothing now, boy. Even Lucius Malfoy knows that."
And at this, Draco sobs, once, before shrinking back into the dirt. "I w-was going to do it," he explains, eyes averted from the vast expanse of the great, glowing moon there, behind the clouds. "He... I... I h-had him c-cornered and I was g-going to."
Lying through his teeth, Draco Malfoy sounds pathetic, like a Muggle. Desperation leaks from his flesh thickly, honey-esque and delicious; and you smell it up close as you nip impatiently at the lobes of his ears. "Mmm," you murmur, "Fibbing will get you nowhere." And it's at that exact moment that the boy knows its true. Either way, he'd let you in. Unintentional as it may have been, Draco Malfoy had repaired the Vanishing Cabinet and, through the doors, you'd stumbled through into his school. It'd been an accident, of course; of all things, you were among the many he'd been trying to keep away and yet he'd been powerless. Ignorant, you think, to the ways of the world and the wolves that sneak around it. Still.
"Don't kill me," he asks, when you lean in close and nuzzle the growing hair of your chin against the smooth flesh of his unmarked collarbone. "Please, don't kill me."
But it's the likes of that mess that you hadn't yet considered. Perhaps you won't kill him. Perhaps you'll leave him to the decision of the Luna, all high and mighty behind the mist of the fog that is just now parting. You've got about five seconds. Four more, and you'll be as beastly on the outside as you feel over the course of your every waking hour. Three seconds. Two.
Imagine the hot, heavy way you feel the crack of your bones and the pulse underneath you. It's yours, not Draco's, and you laugh with your head held back as you feel the change start low in your ankles. Oh, sweet, long-lasting glory. Oh petulant, persisting midnight. Draco doesn't know it yet, but the bane of his existence will be the very second you sink your long, rotting teeth in.
So you do.
He doesn't even have the strength to move out of the way. Trapped, he lifts up his arms in a pitiful attempt, shoving once at your chest before you're down, back in his face, stomach empty and growling. And the horrified little scream proves to be the best bit of all; for, all at once, Draco's back hits the grass again and he cries out, flailing, as if his life has come to an absolute and incomplete end. "Oh, dear, boy," you want to mutter, "There's no use in all that fret. Some day soon, you'll be out among the pack. Some day soon, when your mother won't even look at you and you can put the likes of your new tail between your hind legs, you'll be aching for the main course, too." Just wait, you sweet, small child. Just wait.
And, the best part is, you've learned to be patient.
VIII.
Close your eyes. This may hurt just a bit; but do not fret, the worst part's all done and over with.
Imagine a home, nay imagine a Manor. Up on the hilly terrain away from civilization and society, it sits proud, and elegant, and refined.
There's something about the house lights that strike you now as awful. Unlit and unwelcoming, you smile at the irony while in your hands, its the boy that you carry. Lucifer's boy. Narcissus' boy. The boy that did nothing with the task of murder and, instead, made it that much easier for you. That much simpler. And yet now its only history; past irrelevancies that do nothing to omit the obvious, the preconceived, for what's done, you think, is done. And what's done, of course, has been several long years in the making. Draco, you think, complete.
Sure, he may have a little cuts and bruises (perhaps even a couple fleas and a snout to go along with it) but it'll be nothing compared to the blood lust. You smile to yourself as you think of how bad he'd had nightmares before. They'd be nothing compared to the monthly moon, or the aches and pains of his constant transformation. But still. Think now how far you've come and how long it has taken. Years ago, when you'd first seen him, he'd been just a toddler clinging onto his mother and being placed in bed under the safety of his duvet. Lucius Malfoy had kicked you out; he'd sent you to the night, spiteful, and from the brush you'd stared up into the room that'd belonged to Draco. Had perhaps even still belonged to Draco. Though you think, with a laugh, the cellar might do more nicely now. Anyway.
Upon the doorstep, you place the left overs. He's alive, of course, but barely. All bloodied up and matted, his blond hair looks ginger from his insides and you consider with a smile how much he looks like a Weasley. Lucius will have a fit. He'll pull out his wand and he'll corner you in an alleyway and then promise to hex your brains out and hang your furry, fucking carcass above his mantle place for good measure. He'll slice you up good, you reckon. He'll take one long, level look and, for you, the moon will sing no more. And yet, every bit of it- every nitty, gritty, inch- will be worth it.
For you think for a moment how you'll never really fizzle without ending with a bang.
Then at last you smirk at Luna. In the light of the oncoming day, you shove your red right hand into your pocket and purse your lips out to whistle. Amused, you consider how they'll find him in the morning- naked, weak, and inhuman- and know the legacy of your worth. Still. What it all comes down to is your presence; fleeting, of course, in the distance of the mansion's stone pathway.
Sometimes you think you're going to Hell; other times, you're absolutely sure of it. Anyway.
Are you're eyes still closed?
Don't peek don't peek don't peek don't peek don't peek don'tpeek don'tpeekdon'tpeekdon't...