A/N: If you haven't yet, you can go read Decadence of a Defector and Like a Heartbeat. Two one-shots I wrote that are actually scenes from the future of this story (when retold here, it will be from the opposite POV). Trigger Warning: graphic depiction of murder and self-mutilation.
Chapter 1:
As he frantically shoved clothing into an old rucksack, Draco's heartbeat thrummed against his Adam's apple. His hands were shaking wildly, barely able to grasp anything at all as he attempted to work quickly. His stomach lurched violently, and he only narrowly made it to the bathroom before the food he had eaten earlier came back up with a sickening splash.
He did not know when the tears had begun to fall. Perhaps when he was still downstairs, in front of everyone? Or perhaps now, as he vomited weakly? Either way, hot streams spilled over his cheeks, collecting onto his chin before dripping down his shirt. His blood ran cold within him as he sank onto the tiled floor.
Drawing in breath was difficult. The events of the last two days nearly brought him to insanity and, despite desperately trying to put it out of his mind long enough to get away, the memories overtook him completely.
"Astoria, you need to get out of here," Draco told Astoria in the confines of their bedroom, just before Christmas. "The Dark Lord is displeased that you have been unable to conceive."
The raven-haired beauty sat primly on her vanity seat, and though her chin quivered, no tears fell. "We knew what was expected of us, Draco. We need to face it together."
"He will kill you!" he hissed, crossing the room and grabbing her shoulders harshly. "You must run!"
"He will find me anyway. Perhaps he will give us another year?" she inquired, sounding far too sensible to be speaking of an unreasonable monster.
"He is not a patient man, Tori. He expected an heir by now—Theo and Daphne, Blaise and Hortense. Greg and Millie. They've all been able to produce children. He will not keep waiting—he blames you," Draco told her, his fingers digging into her shoulders.
"I can't leave you here!" she cried, the first tear falling.
Astoria Greengrass-Malfoy. A foolish witch. Draco's freshly deceased wife. Spinning the wedding band around his dead-cold finger, he tried to steady his breaths from where he was sprawled on the bathroom floor. The Malfoys had entered into a binding arranged marriage contract with the Greengrasses back when Draco was still suckling at his mother's breast. Two years ago, that contract had been fulfilled when Draco married Dark Lord had threatened the Greengrass parents into removing Astoria from Hogwarts so that she might become an heir-producing machine earlier than originally projected. Draco had never truly loved the girl; they had only been brought together out of contractual obligation. But he had grown to tolerate her, to see her as his wife, regardless of whether there was love between them or not.
The thought of consummating a marriage with Astoria when she was still sixteen had made him physically ill. Two years might not have been a huge difference—there was only seven hundred and sixty-two days between their two birth dates—but it felt a world of difference to him to take such a young bride when he himself had just turned eighteen. Eventually however, the Dark Lord caught on that the young couple had not even attempted. He had forced them to consummate on the one-year anniversary of their farce of a marriage, in front of a select group of Death Eaters, with even Draco's parents in attendance.
Since then, the two had tried every month, dutifully shagging like rabbits during her fertile period. With no such luck. True to his word, the Dark Lord claimed his spare.
"Come closer, young Mister Malfoy," the Dark Lord ordered. "I want you to look into your bride's eyes, watch the light leave as you take her life."
On the floor of the ballroom, a sticking charm held Astoria firmly against the marble. As she attempted to struggle, her skin tore in places where it was steadfastly attached to the surface.
"Tori!" Draco shrieked, fear arresting him in place as he stared in her direction.
A trail of blood, thin and vermillion, ran in the crack of a marble stone, pouring from a spot on her wrist where she had managed to pry her hand free from the floor. The thin river of blood crawled toward his feet and Draco stood, transfixed at the sight.
"Come closer, Draco. Now!" With the firm command, the Dark Lord waved his wand in Draco's direction. Draco could feel his legs moving against his will, and he clenched his eyes shut as Astoria's cries filled the room, echoing off of the walls and reverberating against every corner of his brain.
"Draco, please!" she was screaming. Her voice was already growing hoarse with her pleas.
Unable to find his voice, Draco could not say a word to either her or the Dark Lord. Terror had fully seized him as his wife continued to wail like a banshee, pleading with him pointlessly. Draco knew this was it—the Dark Lord would take her life, all because she had not been able to give him a child in a timely fashion.
"Mister Malfoy, open your eyes and peer at your pretty little witch," the monster hissed, his voice eerily snake-like. When Draco shook his head a fraction of an iota, the Dark Lord let out an angry growl. "Now!"
The young wizard felt his eyelids being magically pried apart. His head was shoved at a painful angle so that he might stare directly at her face.
"Kill her," came the orders he had dreaded since he had been brought into the ballroom.
"No," he choked out, unable to say anything more.
"Draco!" Astoria screeched, attempting frantically to pry her remaining limbs from the shining obsidian floor. "Draco, please! Don't do this!"
Draco could feel his stomach turning over and he held his wand firm in his hand. He would be sick. The Dark Lord knelt beside Astoria, her blood covering his shoe's sole as he took her chin between his fingers harshly. Now directly in Draco's line of sight, he shot a wickedly nefarious grin in his direction. "Finish her, I said. So that we might find you a more useful match. Or three."
His hawthorn wand was firm in his grip, though his hand trembled gravely. Forced to look into her eyes, he stared down, but refused to bring the incantation to his lips.
The Dark Lord's sneer dissolved into a murderous glare. "Imperio!" he said firmly, pointing his wand directly between Draco's magically wide-open eyes.
A fog began to settle over his brain and his thoughts became scarce as his mind cleared, ready to accept whatever instruction was given.
"No!" Astoria yelped, doubling her efforts in trying to get away from the pair.
"Give me that wand, boy. You're no wizard—you can't even finish this simpering, little tramp!" the Dark Lord growled, snatching Draco's wand from him. "Now, take the dagger from your boot and make a clean incision right across that dainty neck."
"No! No!" Astoria was thrashing wildly, freeing another leg and effectively spreading the pool of blood around her even wider.
As Draco leaned down to retrieve his blade from the cuff of his boot, she began attempting to kick him. The thought came to a dark recess of his mind that he would never do this willingly. Still he climbed over her, straddling her waist. Her cries ebbed to small hiccupping pleas. The tip of his knife touched her skin, drawing a scarlet necklace in its wake, her screams becoming gurgles as she drowned in her own blood. The Dark Lord lifted the curse, just in time for Draco to see his wand being broken in two by the maniac, before unconsciousness took him.
Rising from the bathroom floor, Draco wiped his tears and the drippings from his nose on the back of his sleeve. He went to his closet and began digging through his suits, looking for the coat with the missing button. He threw clothing to the floor and angrily slapped away shoes. The suit-coat he was looking for was way at the back of the small room, and he nearly ripped it off its hook as he reached into the breast pocket.
A tiny square of parchment with an address rested within. He read it three times, committing it to memory before he crossed the room and tossed it into the fire. Sinking onto the edge of his bed, he looked around his room one last time as he unsuccessfully tried to catch his breath. Trinkets from his childhood, framed photos of himself and his parents, all of Astoria's belongings, his collection of books. All would have to be left behind.
Draco stood and walked to his tallest bookshelf, plucking a glass-framed photograph of himself and his mother when he was just a boy. His mother was hugging him from behind and smiling widely, in the indulgent way she always did when she was in the middle of spoiling him rotten. For his part, the Draco in the picture was giggling jubilantly. His heart caught in his throat and he swore he would quite literally choke on the damned organ as his hand fisted the front of his shirt, trying to pull the constricting garment away from his throat. Replacing the photo onto the shelf, he took the one beside it—his parents, both looking proud beside a thirteen-year-old Draco.
He should have known. Draco should have been astute enough to realize that the Dark Lord's retributive carnage would not simply end with Astoria's death.
The Dark Lord had ordered he go with Theodore Nott to interrogate a wizard in Nurmengard about a wand. After returning, while still reeling from his wife's death two days prior, Draco scraped his boots in the foyer of the Manor, and a house elf readily swept up the remnants of dirt. His nerves were singing within his body, his every synapse on edge since he had been forced to kill her.
He felt mentally exhausted, even as adrenaline coursed unrelentingly through his body. His feet carried him into the place he had once called home, but more accurately could be described as Hell now. Gone was his sense of safety within the confines of the sprawling fortress, the comfort of being
master of the Manor. His home had long felt cold and terrifying, ever since the Dark Lord had slithered in three years prior and made his nest there.
Crossing the foyer, Draco kept as quiet as he could. Before the constant influx of Death Eaters around every corner, he would have once made his way to the kitchens for a snack, then sat with his mother for tea. Now, he quietly padded, a prisoner in his own home, and peered into empty rooms in search of his her.
The day was bright and cheery, contrasting splendidly with the ever-present misery he waded through daily. Figuring his mother would be taking advantage of the first lovely day in weeks, he made his way to the back gardens. She tried, Merlin help her, to keep her wits about her for her son's sake, and Draco appreciated her efforts more than she could ever realize. He pushed open the heavy oaken French doors that led to the mezzanine and quickly felt all of the air leave his lungs in one breath.
His vision began to blur as the blood rushed from his heart to his head, swirling dangerously behind his eardrums. In a split second, he wished to blind himself; the sight before him nearly ripped the very life from his core.
Twenty feet above the ground, his parents were bound and levitating, upside-down. Their throats had been slashed in much the same manner the Dark Lord had forced Draco to kill his wife. They reminded him of the suckling pigs that had been hung upside-down in the market where his nanny had shopped when he was a boy. The piglets had made him nauseous then, but the sight before him now caused a visceral, guttural yowl to rip from his lips as the bile and stomach acid burned at the back of his throat. "Mother! Father!"
Draco found his footing and ran toward them, trying to harness every ounce of concentration he could muster to perform wandless magic and get them down. In his grief and dismay, with his entire body vibrating violently, he was unable to gather his thoughts readily enough. Behind him, he heard a sound that perhaps was meant to be a cackle, but sounded more like a wheezing hiss. "Young Malfoy. I trust you approve of my choice in fertilizer for your mother's dear roses," the Dark Lord taunted, gesturing to where his parents' blood mixed, mingled, and dripped over his mother's prized damask roses.
The younger wizard could not bring himself to respond. He willed his magic to leave his body and explode around the wheezing megalomaniac; he wanted to kill the bastard, to strangle him with his bare hands. But he knew an attempt would be futile—no one had been successful in overthrowing the Dark Lord yet—and would likely end in his own death.
And so, Draco Malfoy found himself shaking uncontrollably on the edge of his bed, alternating between wet sobs and dry heaves. In the past, he would have welcomed death as an old friend. He may have even attempted it on his own, had he not thought it would ruin his parents. His mother was gone, and he could easily be free of his mind, memories, and reputation. Instead, Draco found he wanted revenge.
Every day since Dumbledore had offered him asylum with the Order, back in sixth year—had it only been three years?—Draco had fantasized about running away and joining the Light. He craved a world free of the Dark Lord, desired kindness and laughter, if only brief and fleeting. Draco wanted to smile once more, to be free to ride a broom for the hell of it, to find a witch to love properly. None of which could possibly happen within the confines of the hellhole that was his home, nor in whatever the world beyond had turned into.
His Mark, branded into his skin as an emblazoned, sinister reminder of his life's choices, burned like acid on his forearm. Draco pulled his sleeve back and stared at the infernal stigma. He had been such a foolish teenager, craving power and restored glory to the Malfoy name. How long had he now wished he could rid himself of this damned symbol of perverse control?
How could he ever show up, begging for help, if this infernal thing reminded everyone of where he had come from, what he had been? They would reject him immediately, lump him in with all the others. Draco may have been a Death Eater in title, but he had fallen far from the Dark Lord's good graces, and he knew he was a world away from the others—the ruthless and brutal murderers they were. But how could he possibly look at his arm every day and see that Mark, without thinking of his father's matching badge? Without thinking of the way his mother had quite literally begged him not to do it? The vision of his parents flashed through his mind once more, the sight of them tied up and bleeding out onto their own property angering him so severely that his vision went white.
Without a second thought, he lifted the leg of his trousers and retrieved the dagger he kept tucked into his boot. He tried to swallow down the memory of the knife's last use and held it firmly in his hand. There was no time to brew a pain potion, no time to obtain a new wand to cast cooling charms or healing charms. Draco knew what needed to be done, and so he did it without reservation.
The first slice of his dagger bloomed a ribbon of blood, crimson against the alabaster skin of his forearm. The sting caused him to hiss, but the adrenaline pumped so heavily that the pain caused an almost cathartic feeling to wash over him. His next cut was vertical and ran parallel to the side of the skull. "Fuck," his breath left him raggedly between clenched teeth.
The next two cuts created a macabre frame around the Dark Mark. Once the slices were completed, Draco took a moment. Clenching and unclenching his fist, his veins rapidly pushed the blood out. He watched as it ran in rivulets down his arm and puddled between his feet on the charcoal marble. His thumb pressed into the skull angrily, willing it to vanish, while his own warm, coppery-smelling blood covered his other hand.
Relishing the searing, purgative pain that danced like flames licking up his arm, he dug the tip of the dagger below the rugged rectangle, tearing the flesh away from the muscle and ligaments. It occurred to the wizard that he may actually faint, despite the manic pleasure he was garnering from the freedom each swipe of his knife was bringing. But still, he persevered. There was no turning back, no staying, no remaining under the Dark Lord's wand.
When his knife slipped from under the flesh, completely detached now, it went so forcefully that he sliced a deep gash into the heel of his hand. Draco peeled away the flesh as one might peel away wrapping paper at Christmas and tossed it into the fire.
From deep within the bowels of the Manor, he heard a bellowing screech. He assumed that the Dark Lord had felt his disloyal act. Panicked, Draco hastily wiped the blade against his trouser leg and stuffed the dagger into his boot. He clenched his haphazardly packed bag into his clawed hand as the blood was flowing rapidly from his arm and he felt momentarily certain he would die from the depth of the cuts. But if he were going to travel beyond the veil, the wizard was determined to die anywhere but at the pits of hell the Manor had been reduced to. He thought very distinctly of the address he had committed to memory and gathered all of the strength he had left to Apparate away.
When Draco landed, he was on an ordinary-looking street in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood. His body swayed dangerously where he stood, his right hand pressed into the raw spot where his Mark had been, his precious pure blood spilling out onto the street around him. Eleven. Thirteen. Just as his foggy mind registered that there was no Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, eleven and thirteen began to split apart, bricks springing forth between them.
The blood loss began to affect his motor control and he stumbled forth, desperate to reach the stoop of his mother's ancestral home before it disappeared again. His brain could no longer remember who he was or why he was here. All he knew was that he was free.
o-o-o
Author's Note: Please review this, lovelies! Feedback is always greatly appreciated! A very special thank you to HeartOfAspen, who took Oleander under her wing when I was already nine chapters in and offered to beta. I am forever grateful!