Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine. Draco's paintings are inspired by the artworks of Takato Yamamoto.
Warning: Disturbing imagery
A/N: Happy Birthday, Harry! This is a vaguely unsettling tale that is not quite horror.
Trompe l'œil
Part I
The first impression Albus Potter had of Draco Malfoy when he stepped into the spacious house was how piercing those grey eyes were. He felt spellbound by their immeasurable depths and their keen brilliance; they were objects of admiration as a beautiful blade would be.
The second thing that struck him was that he could not tell the age of the painter. Several strands of grey amidst locks of blond suggested Malfoy was at his prime, yet his face was that of a man who had barely passed his fortieth birthday. Albus could not help wondering wildly if the hearsay about the painter devouring young human flesh to preserve his youth was true after all.
Indeed, fantastic rumours constantly surrounded the elusive painter, who had established a rule to only take on offers that interested him. Nevertheless, as far as Albus could tell, Draco Malfoy did not look at all like the eccentric recluse the gossipers made him out to be. Casually dressed in a white shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, Malfoy did not possess the image of the notorious aristocrat his predecessors had maintained.
The seaside cottage Malfoy dwelt in was charming in its simplicity. Like a white canvas waiting to be painted upon, the studio was sparsely furnished. A dozen glass cases containing butterfly specimens were hung on the wall, and an elaborately carved rosewood cupboard of oriental design crouched beneath the unmoving butterflies. Large picture windows opposite of the entrance opened to an infinite stretch of sky and sea, cerulean on lapis lazuli.
An easel covered by a white cloth stood to the side, and at the centre of the room was a chair. It was on the chair that Albus now sat while sipping the tea offered to him by his host. Strangely, this place struck him with a sense of nostalgia; he felt as though he had seen this room before.
Silence stretched. Easing into the role of his borrowed identity, Albus cleared his throat several times, and then said in a business-like manner, "As I was saying, my client, Mr Giraud, is a great admirer of your work, especially the Birds of Sheol series - as I am. But I digress. Mr Giraud would like to commission you for a painting, and he is willing to pay handsomely for it."
Malfoy leant against the cupboard with a mug of tea in his hand, a sardonic smile creeping onto that smooth visage of his. "I'm flattered, but surely Mr Giraud has means to obtain my other works?" His voice was mellow and deep, a rich, hypnotising baritone.
"It is my client's explicit wish to commission you for one particular piece, Mr Malfoy."
A pale eyebrow arched. "And what, may I ask, will the subject be?"
Without a word Albus took out an old photograph from his breast pocket, and held it out for Malfoy to see. The subject of the photograph was a boy in his adolescence, his windswept hair dark as raven's wings, haunting green eyes hidden beneath a pair of round glasses, and a bashful smile flirted about the corner of his lips. The picture was taken in a room decked in scarlet and gold.
Albus observed Malfoy's expression closely. The painter's silver eyes narrowed as he gazed intently at the photograph, but that was all. The relative lack of reaction from Malfoy was disappointing, not to mention unsettling.
Something behind the painter caught Albus' gaze. In the glass case just beyond the painter's right shoulder, a black swallowtail was imprisoned and in all appearance pinned to the white board. For some reason, the butterfly stirred his memory, just like the atelier itself. As Albus stared at the butterfly, those jet black wings began to quiver. Like a pair of hands clasped in prayer, the swallowtail folded its wings together.
"I assume Mr Giraud was not born with the last name Giraud," Malfoy remarked, drawing Albus away from the reverie.
When Albus looked again, those delicate wings were spread across the board once more. Surmising he had imagined it all, he mentally shook his head and uttered the appropriate response he had prepared beforehand. "That is indeed the case. Nevertheless, it is his greatest desire to employ your talent for a piece that will surely be a great addition to your exquisite collection of works."
"Perhaps your client is not well-informed about my feeling towards the say subject." A wry smile fluttered onto Malfoy's face as if in mockery, though to whom it was directed at Albus could not tell. "I fear I am not the suitable person to paint this piece."
"Not at all." A certain painting that was exhibited in a Muggle art gallery on Cork Street resurfaced from the depth of Albus' mind. "My client does not wish for a glorified vision of heroic deeds. He wishes for someone to bring out the brutal, naked truth behind the persona, and that someone is you, Mr Malfoy."
"The truth behind the persona, you say?" Malfoy savoured the words as if in reminiscence of an inside joke. He took another look at the photograph. "Very well, I shall accept the commission, but on one condition."
"My client will offer you everything you require," Albus said immediately, knowing many others had failed to hire the evasive painter.
"It is not from Mr Giraud that I would extract my condition." Malfoy's voice was slow but firm, a tone that refused to be disobeyed; Albus edged forward in anticipation. "I ask that you sit as my model for the duration of the day."
Eyes widened in undeniable bewilderment, Albus stared at the painter. "Mr Malfoy," he swallowed, "is this some kind of a joke?"
Coolly the painter replied, "I do not jest. The session will not take more than several hours of your time." Malfoy gave the young man a winsome smile, which brightened his alabaster face; Albus found himself unable to turn away. "It is but a small request. If your employer is of any importance to you, surely you have no reason to object?"
Did Malfoy act purely on impulse, or did he have some ulterior motive in mind? Albus could not tell at all, but it would seem suspicious if he were to refuse. Besides, he had yet to extract from Malfoy what he was looking for. "It will be an honour." He bowed his head. "But I must first inform you that I have no experience in serving as a model."
"There is no reason to worry, Mr Aubrey." The painter's smile deepened. "You only need to do as I say."
Without waiting for Albus' response, Malfoy opened the rosewood cupboard, and took out a sketchbook and a case of charcoal pencils. Leaning once more against the smooth surface of the cupboard, Malfoy observed Albus with those keen eyes of his, as though meaning to memorise his face. It made Albus feel suddenly self-conscious; he had to suppress the urge to fidget.
"Turn your head slightly and look out the window. Try to relax as much as you can."
There was very little Albus could do but yield to Malfoy's command. Putting his mug on the floor, Albus sat up as straight as he could, but he knew he came off looking stiff and uncomfortable.
Metallic eyes contemplated the curves of his hair, the shape of his eyes, and the contour of his cheek-bones. A pale hand diligently sketched out what the eyes had seen, transposing the image within one's mind onto paper. The soft scratching of charcoal on paper occasionally seeped through the silence in the room.
After comparing his sketch with his model, Malfoy flipped to the second page. "Turn your head to your right and look towards the door. Lower your head a bit. Yes, that's it."
Albus followed the instruction as best as he could, but lacking experience in such a task, he felt as if he had turned into a wooden puppet that could only move in jerky, mechanical movements. The painter, however, made no comment as he captured his vision onto the page. After what seemed like several hours of remaining still, Albus began to feel his shoulders aching from the tension and his legs falling asleep. He wanted to shift his position, but he dared not move.
As the monotonous silence dragged on, Albus thought he could hear a man's voice singing in the background, a voice so soft and low he could not decipher the words being sung. Unable to resist, he stole a glance at Malfoy, whose lips neither moved nor parted; and yet, the singing persisted.
Puzzled by the discovery, Albus was about to ask if someone else was in the house when Malfoy's quiet voice disrupted his train of thought. "Stay still. I shall be finished in a moment." Placid as if nothing was amiss, the painter moved the charcoal swiftly across the page; either he was oblivious to the singing, or he was good at concealing his emotion.
Albus stared at the open doorway, seeing neither a lurking figure nor a moving shadow. Did the singing stem from his imagination and nothing more? And yet, like everything else in this room, the song unlocked something in his head he could not quite describe. He had heard the song before, though he could not tell from where.
"What are your thoughts on art in general, Mr Aubrey?" Malfoy asked in a conversational tone, a departure from his cool demeanour earlier.
"I don't possess the knowledge to develop any professional opinion, but people have a tendency to perceive what they love as masterpiece. I find it tiresome when someone tries very hard to persuade me about the merit of a particular work, especially when I don't feel the same level of appreciation for the piece."
"It is true that each person has different taste in art, but there is a general consensus amongst the population as to what constitutes beauty. For example, people generally agree that Monet's paintings are pretty, but they cannot quite agree on Kokoschka's works."
His curiosity piqued, Albus cast another glance at the painter. Uncanny and bold in execution, Draco Malfoy's paintings were subjects of both mortification and adoration. Depictions of the macabre, the morbid and the moribund were not uncommon. No one can remain indifferent to his artworks, though Albus had an entirely different reason for being bothered. "And if I may ask, what kind of aesthetics are you striving for, Mr Malfoy?"
The singing had ceased abruptly at what sounded like the middle of a phrase. Malfoy smiled the same sardonic smile from before. "You are asking this humble painter a difficult question, Mr Aubrey."
"I apologise if I had offended you," Albus hastily said.
With grace Malfoy waved aside his apology and continued his sketching. "You are not the first person to ask me this question. Rather than articulating the answer in words, I prefer revealing my answer through my paintings. Whatever you see in my paintings and however you interpret them would be my reply to you."
How was he supposed to interpret that painting then? Albus thought while staring at the door. Eternity by Dorian Marlowe - the initials of the artist, the style of the painting, the minute details, and the subject could hardly be a coincidence. Even subtle differences between this painting and Malfoy's works could not disguise the fact that they were created by the same person.
I want to see you in a painting like this, the expert and his occasional lover had said on a whim after making his final judgement. Then again, if you let another man paint you this way, I might become jealous.
Casting aside the unpleasant memory, Albus calmed himself and put on an apologetic smile. "I fear this is a mystery beyond my ability to solve." He paused. "By any chance, do you know of an artist by the name of Dorian Marlowe? His exhibition is truly fascinating. Desire and loathing, love and death, beauty and decay - it is impossible to separate one from the other."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Malfoy's hand halt for a moment, but he could not quite fathom out the expression on Malfoy's face. Was it resignation or relief?
"You are too modest to claim you know little about art." The painter turned to the third page, the charcoal in his hand poising to violate another virgin field. "Turn your head this way and look at me." The reluctant model met the painter's gaze, the intensity of which gave Albus a start. "It is not Daniel Aubrey's face I'm interested in, but your true face."
Albus sucked in a deep breath, unable to think of anything beyond letting out a weak chuckle. "I am quite certain that unlike Dr Jekyll, I do not possess another personality inside me."
A fair eyebrow arched. The attempt at a harmless joke fell apart at Malfoy's feet. "Perhaps not so much a different personality as a different person altogether, Mr Potter."
His smile frozen on his face, Albus put forth one last defence against the painter's accusation. "What makes you think I am this Mr Potter?"
"Dorian Marlowe's agent informed me that a young man who, in his words, looks like he's just stepped out of your painting, was asking about Marlowe and a certain painting. I expected someone would make himself known to me before long, though I did not think you would disguise yourself." Grey eyes contemplated Albus calmly, twin pools of undisturbed water that reflected little and revealed even less. "Does that answer your question?"
Silence lengthened into aeons as the young man sitting on the chair searched for his voice. One simple remark from an unsuspecting agent had rendered all his planning to naught. He did not know whether he ought to laugh or cry. Seeing little reason to pretend any further, he shed away the illusion he had worn and slipped back into his real self. Hay brown hair darkened to jet black; dark eyes brightened to forest green; the square jaw and severe cheek-bones softened to a faintly boyish visage; the tall, broad-shouldered frame transformed into a lean, agile figure.
For a long while, Malfoy studied Albus in silence as though comparing the visage before him with the vision in his head. Uncomfortable with the blatant stare, Albus squirmed in his chair and fixated on the spot beyond Malfoy's shoulder. The glass case that housed the mischievous swallowtail now hung empty on the wall. Perplexed, he looked around the room, searching for a spot of fluttering black in the white atelier, yet the only splash of black he could find was the charcoal pencil in Malfoy's hand.
Unmindful of the young man's peculiar behaviour, Malfoy tilted his head and whispered, his soft voice bringing Albus out of his daze, "You are Albus, the younger son? You do not resemble him as much as the rest of the world believes. Those eyes, however, are a different story."
Albus was at a loss for words, the mystery of the butterfly forgotten for the moment. It was rare for someone who had known his father not to remark on how he was the mirror image of his father's younger self. At length, he gathered his wits and bowed his head. "I apologise for deceiving you, Mr Malfoy. Your agent refused to let me meet you. And," he gazed into Malfoy's eyes, unwavering in his determination to pry from the painter what he was after, "I didn't think you would talk to me had I come to you looking the way I am."
A twisted smile passed across Malfoy's lips. "You might be surprised." The charcoal pencil resumed its dance across the page, trailing black curve in its wake. "What do you want to know?"
Countless questions swirled inside Albus' head, yet all of them were born from the same origin - the acrylic painting named Eternity. At a glance, the painting depicted the century old theme of man and death. In a ruin of a room where vines crawled across the wall like blood veins, a dishevelled man reclined across a crimson chaise longue like a sacrifice. The man, his eyes half-closed and his mouth hung slightly open, tilted his head back to face the invisible audience. A skeleton in rags leant over the man and embraced him as a lover would, while the man reached out to the skeleton, not quite touching it, as though unsure whether he should repel it or bring it close. Nevertheless, two details betrayed his true feeling to the audience.
One of the man's legs appeared to be almost wrapped around the skeleton, and the look on the man's visage could only be described as one suffering from the death throes or from la petite mort. The necrophiliac sensuality exuding from the image was made all the more disturbing to Albus, for the man in the painting wore the face of the Potter patriarch.
Was the painting meant to be a mockery or an expression of admiration? Albus had not the slightest idea. What he did know was that the vision Malfoy had captured on the canvas clashed with his impression of his father. Quiet and composed, the famous Auror no longer possessed the recklessness and the vibrant passion that defined his youth. Something was missing inside his once affectionate father, though the actual notion did not occur to Albus until much later.
After wetting his dry lips, Albus stared long and hard at the painter. "Why did you paint him?"
Silver eyes gave him a searching look. "He was the right model for the painting I had in mind."
Bemused, Albus folded his hands together and leant forward, forgetting that Malfoy was still drawing away in that sketchbook of his. "Did my father agree to be your model? I didn't think he's the kind of person who enjoys being noticed, least of all through a painting..." He trailed off.
"It took some convincing," Malfoy replied, his tone more amused than displeased. "While I did have him pose for the painting, I studied his face in the same manner I'm studying yours. Other details you have observed in the painting came strictly from my mind."
His face flushed at the reminder, Albus disguised his embarrassment by picking up the mug of tea that had gone cold. The liquid in the midnight blue ceramic was as unfathomable as the night. "Why did he agree to it?"
"Why indeed." The painter pushed himself off the cupboard and put aside his drawing tools. "Do you fancy more tea? Or perhaps coffee would be more to your liking?" Albus decided coffee would do him some good.
While Malfoy brought the mugs back to the kitchen, Albus got up to stretch his limbs and to examine the butterfly specimens. Not a single corpse was missing from the coffins. He tapped the glass cover; nothing stirred. Undeterred, he ran his fingers over the glass, finding neither cracks nor openings for a wayward swallowtail to exploit. Stricken with unease, he rubbed his eyes and steadied himself against the cupboard. Had he been hallucinating all along?
His fingers brushed against the sketchbook. When he looked down, he saw a rough sketch of a fresh-faced young man staring back at him in all his stubborn, defiant glory. In Draco Malfoy's eyes, was he a rebel who longed to rip apart his father's disciplined facade, or a child who yearned to learn the truth about his famous if distant father? Absent-minded, he flipped through the pages. Malfoy could have made a good portraitist, and yet his interest lay elsewhere.
Leaving the sketchbook where it was, he turned his gaze to the easel. Could this be Malfoy's latest work? His heart pounded in anticipation. Lured by the prospect of being the first person to behold the new work, he crossed the room to where the easel stood. The sound of his footsteps created an echo in the bare studio, counting down the seconds he would arrive upon the forbidden. He stood still before the easel and strained his ear for any movement in the corridor. When he heard none, he pulled the white drape aside in one swift motion.
Shades of blue leapt out from the canvas. It took Albus several beats to comprehend what the painting depicted. On the far left, a man was sitting on a chair; on the far right, another man leant against a cupboard and appeared to be drawing in the sketchbook. The model was looking at the artist, yet the artist was looking down at his own drawing. The distance between them stretched almost to the entire length of the canvas. In the background, there was nothing but a blur of evening blue, the horizon the only divide between the sky and the sea.
If this was a prank on Malfoy's part, Albus did not think he could laugh it off; instead, he was mesmerised. The faces of the two men in the painting were partially hidden in the shadow. Therefore, he could not tell if the artist was Malfoy himself, or if the model was supposed to be Albus or his father. However peculiar the composition might be, there was something lifelike and cinematic about the painting that it could have been a scene from a film. From the visual presentation alone, Albus could sense the stifling silence, the unspoken words hanging in the air, and the interplay of connection and disconnection between the two men.
The ghost of a certain achingly familiar song haunted the room, passing in and out of the resonating silence. Tightening his lips, Albus took out his wand and cast a detection spell: he was alone in the studio. An attempt at Finite Incantatem did not exorcise the elusive voice either, and unable to resist, he smiled wryly. Was it an apparition, a hidden device Malfoy had installed to make a fool of him, or an illusion created by his own mind? From the moment he stepped foot into Draco Malfoy's atelier, reality became distorted and took on the hue of the surreal.
After taking a deep breath, he took a step back to savour the painting for a moment longer. At last contented, he moved to replace the drape when he caught himself humming along to the song. He stopped; the phantom voice carried on alone. The rise and fall of the melody, the duration of the notes, the phrasing - they were as familiar to him as the face of an old friend whose name he could not quite recall.
When the origin of the nostalgia dawned on him, his expression darkened ever so slightly. Almost as an afterthought, his green eyes bored into the blue space that at once connected and separated the two men in the painting. In the past, time and time again, Albus had heard a certain someone sing that song as though in reminiscence, and the voice currently teasing his memory in Draco Malfoy's atelier could belong to none other than that certain someone - his father, Harry Potter.
To be continued...
A/N: The first part of a standalone one-shot. It is refreshing to write in Albus' perspective; it gives me a lot more things to think about than when I write in Harry's or Draco's perspective. The song Albus heard in Draco's studio is Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight, a favourite song of mine. Draco's painting, Eternity, is inspired by the works of Takato Yamamoto. Thank you very much for reading.