Read A/N at the bottom.
Repentance
It wasn't a vivid memory, for obvious reasons. It was actually more like fragments of memory, shards of glass that formed an incomplete, hideous structure. Each one made its own deep, bloody gash. Each one haunted him day and night, triggered by some accidental matching fragment of real life. A woman's scream, torn clothing, alcohol, darkness. The voices of his friends, before they had been taken from him. He wasn't as saddened by that as he might have been.
At first he felt like a stranger in his own body, a monstrous stranger. He abhorred himself with every fiber of his being. He tried to find solace in the fact that his friends showed no remorse- at least he was better than them- but it had all been his fault and his actions had all been far worse. Eventually he no longer felt like a stranger- he recognized that he was to blame for that night, that he had been the monster all along.
He developed a hatred for all human contact. It felt only right, or as close to right as possible. Nothing was ever right, nothing could stop the torture.
Fragments.
The smells:
Alcohol. Muggle alcohol- vodka and scotch. On his breath, his friends', their clothing. Cigarette smoke. Her perfume, gardenia, saccharinely sweet. His own cologne, the one he hadn't worn since. The cool summer night smell. Sweat. And sex: the repulsive, sticky smell of sex.
The sounds:
Screams. Shrieking, bright screams, feminine screams. The tearing of fabric. Laughter. His friends' sick, twisted laughter. Their words, egging him on. His own grunts.
The jangling of the chain of her heavy gold locket, as she held it out and yelled something. Did she want them to take it instead of hurting her? Blaise grabbed it; tore it painfully off her neck. It didn't save her.
The feeling:
Pleasure. It made him sick to think about it now, but pleasure. The pleasant buzz in his head that came from drink. Hot skin, the last that he would ever touch willingly. Her skin, an occasional brush of his friends' knuckles wrapped around her arms. The feathery ends of her short hair. Stickiness.
The taste:
Bitter, metallic blood. The taste of her; sweet and innocent. Her tears; salt. Skin.
And then there were footsteps. Footsteps saved her. It was too late, but it saved her from having to endure even more. They ran. He tore the locket from Blaise's hand, threw it back at her. They shouldn't carry any evidence. Her cries as they left.
The taste of his vomit, the pounding of his head. His own tears the next morning, when he remembered. More vomit. The water running down his shaking body, the soap that could never make him clean.
o0O0o
Draco Malfoy tied his silk tie deftly, his back to the bathroom mirror. Once it would have been difficult for him- to do it without looking- but by now he was used to it. He turned to the mirror for a split second, to make sure it was okay, but quickly looked away. He had been avoiding mirrors for years, but he needed to look good today.
Today he would meet his future bride.
Draco knew very little about her. She was the eldest daughter of a well-known Italian pureblood family, the de Contis, and had been chosen mainly because the number of pureblood families that were not closely related to the Malfoys was rapidly decreasing.
She was supposedly very beautiful, but a quiet girl. This was, according to Draco's father, both a good thing and a bad one. Submissiveness was good, but she had to learn to hold her head up in society functions.
This meeting was more than a year overdue- normally it would take place as soon as the girl came of age. Draco was now twenty years of age, and his bride almost nineteen. The war had delayed their first acquaintance and their now impending nuptials, but it could not be delayed forever.
Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco had come out of the war relatively unscathed despite having been on the losing side for much of it. Lucius had a talent for coming out of things unscathed.
The experience- the actions, his own actions- that constantly haunted Draco, though it always felt like yesterday, had happened almost two years ago in the midst of the war, as the Malfoys and an assortment of other Voldemort sympathizers were recuperating in Italy. The three boys who had been there (Blaise Zabini, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle) with Draco had all died shortly afterward, and Draco viewed his continued life as a special punishment designated for him alone.
Draco glanced at his watch and sat down in a rather uncomfortable straight-backed chair before the fireplace, waiting. He stared at the flames, letting their flickering forms engrave themselves in his eyelids.
What he had done that night changed Draco's life forever. His arrogance, a trait that seemed to have been passed on genetically and had been encouraged all his life, disappeared entirely. Any superiority complex or pureblood supremacism vanished. He was a changed man, but he did not see that. He only saw the monster he had been and always would be.
Draco was pulled from his hazy reverie by the quiet pop of a house elf's appearance.
"Mistress Narcissa requests your presence at the manor, Master Draco," the tiny thing squeaked. Draco nodded slightly, still staring at the fireplace. He didn't rise to apparate out of his mansion and into his family's manor until a few moments after the small elf had given him a low bow and made her exit.
o0O0o
Draco entered his mother's elaborately decorated dressing room quietly. She was seated at her vanity wearing a floor-length silver satin slip and tilting her head so that her specially trained elf could sweep some shimmery makeup over her eyelids. When the elf was finished, Narcissa caught Draco's eye in the beveled glass above her vanity. He quickly looked down.
"Draco, there you are! What took you so long? They'll be here in half an hour!"
"Yes, mother."
"Tell me, Draco, the diamonds or the emeralds?" Narcissa held two ornate bracelets up against the dark green evening gown she was planning to wear.
"The diamonds, mother." Draco answered. He watched as a short elf stood on a stool to lace up the corseted back of his mother's dress. She looked at her son for a long moment.
"You should be happy, Draco. She is said to be very attractive. Not like that Parkinson girl you went around with at Hogwarts."
Draco felt his blood boil at the disrespectful reference to his long-dead friend, but his aristocratic visage displayed nothing but calm. "I know, mother. I am happy," he lied.
o0O0o
"May I present Emilio and Gianna de Conti and their daughter, Aniela." Draco stared nervously at his feet as the wide French doors opened. His father nudged him, and he looked up as the girl and her parents entered the room.
She was beautiful. Slim and rather small, with long dark hair halfway down her back. Her eyes were big and brown, her olive complexion clear, her lips naturally pink. She was wearing white, as befit the occasion in a very ironic way- a creamy silk empire waist gown with long layers of chiffon on the skirt. She curtsied neatly, looking down at her golden-slippered feet, and then looked up at Draco. Her eyes widened slightly, but she did not make a sound. Looking into those eyes, Draco also felt like he knew her from somewhere.
Then the sun caught a bit of gold at her neck. It was a heavy oval locket- the locket. Draco suddenly understood what the girl had been trying to say with the locket- it was engraved with the de Conti crest, something Draco would have recognized anywhere if he had gotten a good look at it.
Bile rose in Draco's throat, and he swayed slightly on his feet. He lifted a shaking hand to his forehead, and it was all he could do not to collapse on the cold marble beneath him.
o0O0o
A/N: I'm going to be on vacation for the next three weeks, so I'll post the next section after I get back on July 26th. I'll also update "Unlikely Places" then, for those of you who are reading that. I just had to get this idea out, because it was driving me crazy.
I recommend putting me on Author/Story Alert (if, of course, Author Alert isn't how you found this story in the first place :-) so that you'll be alerted when I post next. For those of you who don't know me, I'm usually a very fast updater, especially while I'm on vacation. I wrote my first fourteen-thousand-word fic in one week over February break.
Please review and tell me if this thing is worth continuing anyway. Thanks in advance! (Muhahaha, I've already thanked you so now you have to review…)