Title: Between Darkness and Light.
Disclaimer: First and foremost, I do not own any of the characters, locations, objects etc. in the 'Potterverse', I'm simply making use of them. They are all J.K Rowling's creations; hers entirely, and I am not about to claim otherwise. I also do not claim any ownership of any lyrics that may crop up at the beginning of each chapter and I will give due credit to those I use where appropriate.
Just no one try and sue me, k? The only thing I lay claim to is some of the ideas in this fic and an OC or two.
Summary: A new world order from Draco Malfoy's POV (subject to change along the way lol). AU, Post-DH. Possibility of spoilers cropping up.
After the Battle of Hogwarts reaches it's climactic end, Lord Voldemort has finally risen victoriously, Harry Potter is dead, and the face of the wizarding -- and indeed muggle -- world as we know it, has undoubtedly changed forever.
Warnings: Violence. Substance Abuse. Bad language. Potential DH Spoilers. Possible sexual scenes.
A/N: AU fic, but one that follows canon pretty much up until the last few chapters of DH, albeit with a few possible changes here and there in plot throughout the series of books. Anything that deviates from canon when it comes to back story, will be noted in due course and if a difference is not mentioned in the story, then it's safe to assume it sticks to canon. Also, it's probably worth noting that my basis for characters veers strongly towards the RP group I am a part of (Myspace - HPRPU - !pimp pimp pimp!), so forgive any discrepancies with the characters you think you know and love, as they may well stray from that lol. Also, I'm rating this M as of the start, simply because as it's going to lean that way from pretty early on even though the first chapter is tame. So don't moan that it's wrongly labelled, I HATE when people do that! - This story is NOT a oneshot, therefore the rating is for the story itself; to be applied to its completed form. All will make sense in due course, so don't bitch about it yet.
Oh, and R&R S'il Vous Plaît. Even if you hate it, I'm open to know why you do and what I can do to improve things.
K, I'm very nearly done with the rant now, I promise, we're drawing close to the 'on with the show!' moment... Save for one last thing..
This attempt is dedicated to the ever present and Blaise shaped ray of sunshine; my rock.
She-who-must-not-be-sane to suffer my ranting so willingly,
The gal who got me through the DH death scenes,
Who giggled at every Malfoy Manor mention with me,
And finally, she-who-wrote 'We've Got Peacocks!!!' on my wall.
This one's for you, Paula (OrbThesela).
Between Darkness and Light.
Chapter One:
The White Room
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"We walk the narrow path, beneath these smoking skies,
Sometimes you barely tell the difference, between darkness and light.
Do we have faith?, in what we believe?
The truest test, is when we cannot, when we cannot see."
It Can't Rain all the Time - Jane Siberry.
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There had been no sinister flash of green nor the crippling pain of a spells impact, just the sudden dead weight of his body slumping to the floor of it's own volition, his eyes open and staring blindly ahead as a great wash of blackness covered over him, as if a heavy blanket had been thrown over the battle; thrown over the world. All that remained now was a darkness so deep that the frozen figure felt hard pressed to stare into it any longer; an infinite dusk to which his eyes soon shut.
There was no sting to his descent and no fire and brimstone awaiting him after he had fallen, no stab of pitchforks or snarling demonic visages to welcome him to what he was sure could very well be a long term vacation in hell. In point of fact, when he had finally dared to open his eyes, there was nothing. Simply nothing. A vast white chasm that stretched out around him for miles and miles in all directions - no hint of a landscape or single breath of wind, just a still, blanched oblivion. It was as if all life bar his had simply ceased to exist. 'Perhaps it's merely the antechamber to the afterlife then' he thought with the first of many bitter smirks.
His body, despite a slight air of uncertainty regarding it's own stability, slowly twitched into being, every nerve abruptly springing into life amidst its insensible surroundings. There was still no pain though, merely the few telling signs that there should be pain present; a few cuts and scrapes, as well as a rather long and noticeably deep gash along the side of one arm, which throbbed quietly beneath his torn sleeve as it bled violent drips of colour onto the stark white floor.
Rather stunned by the lack of the pain that had previously coursed through his veins, he shrugged agreeably to himself at the change before raking his fingers along the seamless floor, marvelling in its slight coldness given that he had felt nothing thus far. Having become a little more accustomed to being at such a sensation, his bloodied arms soon made easy work of pushing him up off of the ground and into a seated position, propping himself up on one arm as he stared around his desolate surroundings, with nothing but the occasional sound of his blood dripping onto the floor for companionship. Such silence fast becoming beyond frustrating, he called out into the still air - willing a reply to follow, but it didn't.
Instead, his voice seemed to be sucked up into the ether just as soon as it had left his mouth, leaving the same dense silence in its stead and a panicked frown on the boy's face.
Declining the urge to submit to the fear that was now boiling beneath the surface, he slowly pushed up from the ground once more and rose to his feet, such an action causing the room to swell around him as though someone had just fed him a large dose of a rather potent shrinking potion. Looking around the widened space before him, he had never felt smaller or more insignificant in all of his 18 years; for one who had always seen himself as a big splash in the pond of life, it was rather hard to be left hopelessly flapping against the still surface and not have a single ripple to show for his efforts.
His face paled, his frown growing larger by the second; Whatever could be described as life here, seemed long past futile.
It was hollow and raw and severe.
Perhaps this was hell after all.
--
--
What felt like hours after initially fumbling around in his tangled robes and trying his wand, he had sighed dejectedly to himself and tossed the wooden object angrily across the brightly lit space. His spell-work had worked, in a sense, but he seemed to only be capable of magic that was the equivalent of parlour tricks for muggles, to various pointless ends, all of which were now strewn across the floor in front of him. Wildly coloured blooms of flowers, gleaming carved goblets, colourful wisps of smoke and explosions of fire, he could manage. But when it came to locator spells, apparition, summoning charms, or any attempt to glean a slight indication as to where exactly he was, his wand merely sparked lifelessly and seemed to almost wilt under the pressure of trying for such a pleasant end. Even his most brutal selection of hexes had merely jetted into the distance until their vivid colour had become so far off that it faded completely into the ever-white horizon.
He sunk to his knees, eyeing the wand across from him with a colossal air of contempt for a moment before slumping down more so onto the floor, his entire body shaking as he put a hand to his head and let out a couple of dry bewildered sobs. The questions twirled round in his brain like an out of control spinning top, clashing noisily against the walls of his mind before spinning mercilessly in the opposite direction. 'Is this a dream? Some sort of coma? A spell to mess with my mind? .. Or..' he gulped 'Am I.. dead? ..' biting back another sob at the thought, he frowned suddenly, looking upwards in confusion as a crackling sound resounded somewhere within the radiance of the room.
"Master Malfoy?…"
The voice faded for a brief moment before sounding again in a delicate whisper.
"Draco?"
His head turned frantically in all directions at the sound splitting the silence a second time, trying to determine its source and fast getting lost in the faint echo of it as it bounced around the nothingness in a way that seemed rather baffling given the place's effects on his own voice. He stood up again, turning around on the spot and staring up into the sparse vacuum that was his holding cell, screaming out in vain to the disembodied voice; his own words disappearing inertly into the air with every attempt, crumbling as though an ancient ruin under the footfalls of a particularly heavy set man. The voice sounded again, this time accompanied with a sigh and a clear edge of fear to its tone.
"I thought he stirred, madam, but apparently I-- I was mistaken. My most humble apologies, madam. Forgive me."
There was the unmistakable fizzling crack of a curse being fired, followed by a loud yelp and scurrying footsteps as whoever the mysterious handmaiden was, fled. The sound of her footsteps was soon cancelled out, however, by the sound of a new voice booming through the brilliance of the room.
"Just leave me to it! Why I allow myself to suffer your incompetence day after day is quite beyond me! Filthy muggle scum.."
Draco's heart leapt slightly at the sound of his mother's voice, ringing as clearly in the air as though she was stood right beside him. His eyes widened; if he could hear her, then perhaps she could hear him in return? Such thinking in mind, his mouth opened and his voice pleadingly, furiously screamed out into the abyss, relentlessly calling out to Narcissa Malfoy long after his throat was raw and his words were mere whispering echoes of their predecessors.
And then there was silence. Again.
--
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"D-- Do you think he's.. going t--to.. live.."
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"That damn house elf was more use than you could ever
dream to be, you disgusting wretch!"
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"Don't look at me like that.. I'm only trying to help!"
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"Just bring me a bottle of Firewhiskey,
I'm sure I'll be far more inclined to read if I'm on the way to being drunk.."
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The days -- or what Draco imagined to be days; for all he knew, it could have been either mere minutes or several full years since he had fallen to the ground and the world had been lost beneath him -- continued like this; random pockets of sound violently erupting in the space for moments at a time before they vanished as swiftly as they had come. Draco had felt no stab of hunger in this time, no ache to his bones, no sensation of the air or the brilliance of sleep for his entire duration in what he had come to dub simply as 'the white room'. It was as though the world in which he had once lived, only existed in these tiny moments of noise, and that was enough to keep him going. Barely so, but enough.
He waited for such moments in near silence more often than not; having rescued his wand not long after tossing it aside and holding it as close to his chest as if it were a newborn heir, that was, of course, in between the moments that he had chosen to implement every spell he could fathom to try and escape the clutches of this barren world. Aside from that, he had kept himself vaguely amused with numerous enchantments; conjuring various seemingly useless objects to pass the time with and seeing what he could do to occupy himself with such things as a clean pressed shirt, a chocolate frog that he had repeatedly charmed to the point of it melting into a less-than-froglike shape, several rather ornate vases as well as a deck of exploding snap cards that for some reason didn't detonate; anything to keep himself sane. He had to keep his spirits up, this he knew. He wasn't quite sure how he knew, but the innate pang of certainty towards such a fact that grew inside his chest each time he wanted to give up, was enough to keep him from caving in to the misery of such a bleak seeming situation.
But, all in all, it was the sporadic voices that actually kept him sane; even his most amused hours always seemed to be spent purely sat in wait for his next glimpse into what was happening back in the real world. He had sadly heard no news of the war as of yet; of who had won, lost or perished in the struggle. The only insight he had, was to who was at his proverbial bedside; a thought he had rooted so harshly in reality given the voices of a few choice family and friends, that he was scared to question it every time his mind inquired. Even in his moments of deepest despair, he forced himself to stick to such a conclusion due to the dismal alternative that it was just his imagination running wild, and only ever would be.
He had to believe there was some truth to an existence outside of this place; he couldn't possibly exist only in his mind, or the remnants of such.
It had to be real,it just had to be.
--
--
The more the time slowly passed him by, the more maddened he began to feel. He had taken to talking to himself without realising it somewhere along the way; the sort of insane mutters that you'd expect from a wasted homeless man on a park bench, half dressed and too fucked up on Crack to remember his own name. He had drawn out long one sided conversations as to the owners of the voices that randomly echoed from the endless space around him, talking at them rather than to them when they boomed forth from above and interrupted his isolated ranting. He cursed the names of everyone who had ever wronged, annoyed or crossed him; Potter, Granger, Dumbledore, Longbottom, Loony Lovegood and the entire Weasley clan, being among the widespread few who had been verbally slammed into the ground again and again in increasingly bitter tones, his voice sharp enough to cut through bone at points as he supplemented the urge to just scream into the void with a few more harsh words aimed toward old enemies. He stared on in near astonishment at the amount of hate in himself sometimes, quietly revelling in a loathing which he had never had the opportunity to effusively explore; it seemed now to be a feeling that was as tangible flesh, and one that only became more fully formed the deeper he dug his fingertips into its skin, tearing out leisurely chunks at his will.
He tried several times to envisage other things, happier things, things that had once existed before this bitter conclusion; agreeable times gone by, faces he had known and would currently kill for the company of, the look that accompanied the sound of laughter whether it was rooted in scorn or elation, the superlatively terrifying expression on his father's face when he had been wronged. But try as he might, nothing came.
His mind was a blank canvas that no paint could seem to stain, leaving him with a monotonously toned recollection of events in the place of what had once been memories.
Then, suddenly, amidst the tangles of corroded thoughts and screaming accounts of 'what-could-have-been', on a day that Draco could not have named if he had tried his utmost; an entirely new voice sprung forth from the depths of the brightness, it's three simple words sounding more delighted and swollen with pride than he could remember having heard anyone speak since his confinement.
It was a sound that brought a grin to his lips which felt so foreign that it almost hurt.
"I've got it..."
--
Added A/N: The next chapter wont be too long a wait (hopefully), so if anyone's a little confused, fear not, all will be explained in the next few days... probably... cue a slightly miffed eyebrow raise.. lol.
Whilst I'm actively mid rant once more, I must add, again; Please R&R if you can! All comments are welcome ;)
I'm quite psyched about writing this story and hopefully shall get more than just a start out of it this time around, so it'd be fabulous to know that someone was actually reading and perhaps even enjoying it :p lol.
Any opinions are welcome, but be careful if you just wanna flame me, I can be rather apt at doing so in return if the need arises ;)