Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise is mine, it belongs to J.K Rowling.

Warnings: This story contains slash and, in this chapter, het. If you don't like slash, don't read it.

Start

and that made it all alright? Kneeling on the cold floor that might have been clean but might not have been really because he wasn't able to see properly because of the lighting in the chamber or it might have been because of the fear, but no it was the light. But these robes were very expensive because he had thought that this would all be pomp and show and he would have looked regal and pure blooded in the fine cut and material. But none of it mattered anymore because he was kneeling on the floor and it was only half light anyway and it was so stereotypical but they, the ones circling him, were all on the run and hiding so there wasn't really much choice. He always appeared as Tom (though he could never be called that by anyone, not anyone at all because he was always really called the Dark Lord, on the inside) now that he had the ability to turn that little clock back. And he had heard that Potter had once seen what his Lord had looked like back when he was human and he hadn't thought much of it then, but now he hated him because he saw the real Dark Lord first and he had that knowledge inside him all those years they went to school together and he never once shared it with him, not once and the fact that they never spoke nicely meant nothing in the face of his Dark Lord.

He didn't know where the Golden Trio and their Gryffindors were now and the school lay empty because in the end even the old fool of a headmaster wasn't arrogant enough to keep a school open in the middle of a raging war, especially when he was one of the main targets. And he didn't know where most of his own friends were anymore because they were all part-of-this now and when you were part-of-this there was no time for friends. Only for kneeling on the maybe dirty floor bowing his head and hoping that he saw only good things in his mind. Because he knew that he was dedicated to this cause with his whole heart, but his mind was a different matter and he didn't know what there was to find but he could feel the layers and layers peeling away as submissive as a petal under his thumb (maybe he would see an image of himself almost glowing in this subtle half light as the true awing Dark Lord and he didn't know why he was ashamed of this). He would spare not for the name Malfoy in the days when one lay cold in his grave and another warm and he was the only one left and he was never quite good enough and he was always weak but there was no choice anymore and he did not quite look like his father but maybe all that would mean was that he would not die like his father.

The other side called themselves good but the moment outright war was declared Azkaban was swept with Slytherin green and it almost made you wonder how those hoards of Gryffindors could stand it. But it stayed and stayed and the sky shone with it and what were once prisoners of war became casualties and they were captured prisoners and they had no wands and they were helpless and they were just killed like animals in a pen, like muggles. But he only followed the Dark Lord and they drew no such distinctions as good and evil, they were too interchangeable, there was only the right blood and the wrong. And if he just focused on thinking about blood purity and the strength of the dust running through his veins then surely his Lord could find nothing to contend with in his mind. Eventually he felt the probes slowly retracting, taking their time to keep scanning as they were removed because really he had all the time in the world because no one would even think of pushing him out. And he just had to keep focusing on blood and the waning power of their kind due to tainting and not the possible dirt of the floor and the creases that were slowly being fixed into his beautiful robes because there were levels of importance at that very second. But he was out of his mind and for a moment it felt slightly empty without the little fingers pushing deeper and deeper into his thoughts and making a mess of the careful filing that would all have to be fixed later that night. Still once that was done he couldn't just move onto the next stage, having the indignity of having to share a ceremony with another youth beside him, as though he were just as worthy, but there was no time in wars to give anyone something alone. The person beside him could have been his best friend, his worst enemy or someone he had never met but he hated them then for stealing his day, his glory and his Lords attention. He couldn't decide whether to despise them as a poverty stricken idiot or be jealous about the fact that they may have had the foresight to wear a thick hooded travelling cloak, no delicate material to be ruined and they wouldn't be feeling the chill of the stone below soaking through their clothes, through their blood and hitting their bones.

When that was over too (was he in his head for much longer than his unknown companion's? Or did it just seem like that but mental tricks couldn't have created that much difference could they? The Dark Lord couldn't have doubted his own loyalty but accepted this thick-cloaked beggar's so quickly could he?) they could finally stand again and he could hear his bones creaking and prayed that no one else could, he was not supposed to be an old man, he was fresh out of school and schoolchildren's bones did not creak. He had to fight to not lever himself up with his hand but that would have been a weakness and those that showed weakness had it writhed out of them despite the fact that crucio was such a crass shade of red. But that wasn't what they were standing for. He pulled back the sleeve of his robe and exposed the paper white of his underarm and it was amazing how such a little action could make one feel so terribly vulnerable but, of course, that was what his Lord was aiming for. There was a strange light in the acid eyes of the man about to mark him, own him and he was glad he wasn't in his mind anymore because he really didn't need to hear how that light just set shivers across his neck and how he figured that his Lord may get off on power a little more than a normal person would. Luckily that thought didn't stick around for very long because Morsmordre was black and when it hit him the rest of the world went black and it burnt and it burnt like cold vodka spilling down his throat but that was a pleasant burnt and this was just all consuming and the vodka had just been the start and his flesh could have been melting and he might have screamed. That was the worst part, his Lord might have seen him scream but there was nothing he could do about it now, only look down at what had once been a flawless white canvas and stroke the brand, tame it, and wait for his companion to be finished and hopefully that too would take much less time on the one beside him because he just wanted to go home. But even once he heard the other scream (it was definitely male, not too far away from him in age and thank God he screamed too because if he hadn't then he would have just had to burrow into one of the crumbling lines in the wall, scrambling though as though he were looking for coal) it still wasn't time to leave. They had to hear a speech about how they were to fight for blood purity and the conservation of blood power and it was just like a meal with his father again. But his father was dead. And he had to listen to this one because it was such a compelling person telling it (not that his father wasn't a very attractive man, he was reputed for it but things like that in ones father tends to be missed, although at least he looked enough like him to also be reputedly very handsome but this was silly because he wasn't thinking about the Dark Lord in terms of attractive) and he had always believed it so there was nothing to contend. And he was focusing and he was focusing and he was not thinking about that little shine in the corner of the room that he couldn't quite see without taking his eyes off his Lord and how it might be a pretty diamond because this was dangerously serious and if he wanted to survive in the system he had just placed himself into he had better be damned alert and be ready to crush others to get on top and he couldn't do that if he couldn't even focus on one thing. Yet eventually they were allowed to go with a final word to make him proud and he could only wonder if that meant that when they went into the battles they had to get dirty like he almost did today which would have been a shame because he didn't like getting dirty. Or dust, he didn't like dust so it was very stupid of him to have thought to have clambered into a hole in the wall that he carved out with his own fingertips, finger stumps by the end of it, his pure blood in a thin film over raggedly torn skin and muscle and scraped bone. He wouldn't have liked that at all, physicality was so crass.

Home was very different now because the house elves never treated him like they used to, before he became man of the house. It was good that they now fully respected him and didn't baby him like they used to (dirty creatures, always putting their clubbed fingers on him) but it was still a little disconcerting and it made him feel old. But it was probably for the best because that balanced it out for when he felt very young when he stood at the bottom on the stairs and looked up to his parents wing that was always dark but perfectly shining and tidy and silent and eventually he had to hurry on to his room where he would feel just his own age again when sliding into bed next to Pansy. But age didn't really matter anymore, in order to be allowed the honour of joining his Lord's ranks he had to kill some muggles and mudbloods, simple Avada Kedarva's, more elaborate showing off, some of them had been very young, younger than he could remember being himself, not that that really meant anything, he had problems remembering yesterday sometimes and when he thought back to Hogwarts the walls seem faded with dust and choked cobwebs. Some of them had been as old as the hill, they were difficult on the elaborate deaths because their bodies were so ready to just die they would try to slip away at the first look of his wand, he had to keep them alive and awake and feeling everything he did to them. It was difficult to keep track. And he would marry Pansy one day because that is what it said on the old parchment that lay in his father's old office, the same parchment as the one in her father's desk, the same one that lay in the Goblin's offices of magical contracts because they were destined to be together from the day he was born, pushed out of his mothers womb into her tiny arms. But one day they will have children and they will be smaller than the children he killed but they will have the chance to grow up and grow old in a world where Purebloods reigned and the power of magic was held safe in their fingers. It was a good match, the Malfoys and the Parkinsons had not merged for 200 years and they were both older than any of the ministerial systems that lay on the ground of their country like ink, like sickness.

She lay silent in the sheets as though she were a mere shadow of herself, a ghost with eyes that only saw into the future that they would make, not the troubles that lay before her. But he knew it was ridiculous because not only was she awake, never sleeping until he was holding her in his arms, but she had one of the clearest visions he could find anymore. In a nation in war and not only could she see the present but she could tie it in with a likely future and plot and plan and keep everything so organised it made the room lie perfectly still in shame for almost being mussed. It made him painfully aware of how unorganised his mind was left after the invasion, the sheets of white filing paper strewn around, covering up lies like dead bodies on a war field coated in snow. It made it all beautiful. Lying next to him was the woman that would bear his children and she would ensure that those children would be conceived, be born and raised perfectly, she would ensure that they had a future. He wasn't even married to her yet but there were velvet ropes holding them both together and it was hard to tell who had put them there but he was warm and comfortable and the feel of her skin warming his still chilled chest was enough to drive away the image of his Lord's mermaid purse cheekbones. She smelt like the opiates he had enjoyed in his summer holidays back when years could be split so simply, though he knew she would never touch the stuff, they would have destroyed her control, would have ruined the carefully structured order. And she was lying against him waiting for something and she wouldn't move or acknowledge him until she got it, they both knew that he would tell her after a moment, it was always after a moment, there was something g lost in those seconds when they lay against each other as though the other wasn't quite real, quite animate.

"It's done." And the whisper was all that was needed for a touch of necromancy and she turned to face him and the moon's light gave him only the grey scale to see her in but it was enough to see her mischievous quirk of what should have been petal pink lips and her sculpted eyebrow rise.

"What is done?" she asked innocently, stroking the top of his arm, trying to coax it into rolling over and though they were not married yet they had loved each other throughout their lives, even through other little flings on both sides and they had said until they died and she would have drank anything she had trained him to give her. His arm rolled over and even grey scale allowed it the magnificence it deserved, as though he had been born into his anaemically white skin simply for the purpose of giving the greatest contrast possible to the mark.

"You must have been a bad boy to have to be branded like this." And he loved it when she bit her lip like that and he could almost taste the blood blushing up against the surface and he could take all he needed to keep him sane and tied to her.

"Yes, you'd better watch out, someone like me is dangerous."

And they lay together in the dark, still and silent once again, waiting for the other to fall asleep first, always, and trying to not worry about anything else that was going on in the outside world, the little problems the elves stored up for a time they thought it was appropriate to tell the master of the house, the new list of dead. But she normally didn't press her face closer into his collarbone and sigh as though the bricks of the ministry had fallen upon her lungs, she normally didn't reach up until the insides of a petal brushed his earlobe and make sure she had his full and rapt attention. She didn't normally whisper into his ear, as quiet as though she were afraid that the walls might be listening to them, ready to report back to whomever walls might work for, whisper that she had seen the famed Harry Potter again that day. Normally she would just sling her arms loosely around him, allow her to be held equally loosely and fall into only a minimally guarded sleep.

AN: Please review! If you read it you must have some kind of faint opinion!!