I disclaim
AN: K so I know I have another WIP going but I'd been kinda fooling around with this idea for a while and decided to give it a try but I promise promise promise I will update the other one. Promise lol. O and warning... theres some hint of rape in here but I figure you can all handle it as it's not real graphic. Flashbacks are in italics and the rest of the story will not alternate back and forth like this... just the prologue. ~Amy
Prologue:
Incarcerated lovesick fools
I wait for you to cut me loose
Now I send back letters from the wasteland home
Last slow dance to this romance on my own
May it takes two to tango
But boy it takes one to let go
~Letters from the Wasteland~ The Wallflowers~
It smelled like ashes. As did everything around him since he stumbled upon it. The scent of ashes pervaded his every sense, reeking from his clothes and hair, surrounding him like an aura of death and decay.
It was the only thing he smelled since it, the bland nothing smell that seemed obvious only to him.
Draco Malfoy turned his attention to the green landscape flashing by the train's window. He couldn't make out any distinct forms or distinguishable landmarks to clue him into their location, just an unbroken expanse of vegetation blurred into a solid wash of green as the train clattered past. But even the hypnotic view from the window was preferable to meeting the gaze of any other of the car's occupants.
Draco Malfoy was proud, Draco Malfoy was superior, Draco Malfoy was fucking unbreakable. But if he had to face any one of the dozen stolen glances paid him ranging from curious to terrified he might snap. And snapping was not an option at this point. Snapping was something you did in private; unless, of course, you were a Malfoy, in which case you were deemed genetically superior to such a release.
The noise in the car was kept to a dull mummer, barely to be distinguished above the general noise of the train. The overall mood was somber apart from a small cache of Slytherins huddled opposite him, their smiles and stifled laughter belying the sensitive nature of their outing. If not for the monochromatic outfits the casual observer might think them out on a pleasure outing. Which, Draco conceded, might not be entirely inaccurate.
The scenery he had forced himself to become so engrossed in was coming clear as the train began to slow. Destination reached.
Draco rose from his seat in one fluid motion, weaving his way to the door, eyes trained directly in front of him, seeming to notice nothing, his gaze fixed on points unknown, times and places beyond the crowded train car that stunk of ashes.
A solid mass struck his shoulder as a larger boy intentionally jostled him. Draco momentarily forgot his efforts to ignore his classmates and met Blaise Zambini's sneer...
... was shilling. An expression of devilish delight laced with obvious disgust, "And I half expected it to run blue. Slytherin's fallen prince."
Draco felt a liquid warmth trickle down his lip, probably dripping from his nose which has just gotten the worst in a collision with Gregory Goyle's fist. Goyle's expression was of silly satisfaction, dull eyes gloating at him. Draco bit back the barb springing to his tongue, forcing it back with one look at the hate radiating from Blaise Zambini's green eyes.
It was disconcerting how his ex-crony resembled the high and exulted Potter. Curl his hair and discard the glasses and Harry Potter could easily pass as the cold Slytherin. But it was exactly that, that set the pair so far apart. Blaise's cold calculating gaze channeling pure contempt while Potter seemed only capable of projecting a half hearted scorn.
Draco met the boy's flashing eyes, his pale skin mottled in bruises, a ravaged right hand cradled, useless, at his chest, blood oozing from his forehead, nose, and lip, but his expression was impassive, a defiant tilt to his head. Even battered and on his knees no one would dare to label Draco a casualty of this encounter any more than they would label the seven or so Slytherin seventh years as the victors.
Shortly before returning to Hogwarts for his seventh and final year Lucius Malfoy had proposed that Draco join him at one of his death eater meetings. Stancy Zambini was bringing Blaise and Crabbe was to join his father so it seemed only appropriate that Draco be at Lucius's side.
No
They had both known that it was coming. All summer tensions had been flaring as Lucius became increasingly aware of his son's shifting loyalties.
Are you coming Draco?
No. I can't– I won't do this.
And it was over. 17 years spent molding Draco for this life and it was all over with one little word. Draco left for school a week later and his father hadn't spoken to him since that night.
Malfoy's joined Dumbledore's brigade mates. Linking arms and brushing elbows with those Gryfindor pussies in their heroic quest to preserve all that is right and good in the world.
His arrival at school had met a less than enthusiastic greeting as he was subjected to abuse, both verbal and physical, by his house mates.
He had been everything to that pathetic gaggle of maggots, their fucking messiah with the most handsome face to grace Hogwarts' esteemed halls since his father had attended. He had been the best. The shit. And all it had taken was a few whispered words between Goyle's junior and senior, a scrap of gossip passed to Pansy Parkinson by her mother, an innocent little slip of Mrs. Zambini's tongue over the summer hols and he was revealed as a traitor to his once admirers.
So far the harassment had been confined to the Slytherin dungeon as his old cohorts were hesitant to reveal to the rest of the school how they had been betrayed by the very leader of their posse. His friends hassled him in private while the rest of the school, unaware of his shift in loyalties, continued to antagonize and ridicule him as a death eater in public.
In short, Draco Malfoy had been reduced to a pariah, his popularity plummeting as the rest of his privileged life was shot to hell. He had been forced to renounce his appointment of head boy to keep himself from becoming an easy target for the death eaters sure to be gunning for one of their own, turned traitor.
It wasn't that Draco had come to some sudden epiphany and saw the error of his ways. It was seeing his mother's battered body and broken spirit, side effects of the lifestyle he was offered. It was seeing his future stretching out before him, a life of glorified servitude to some revered lord who had failed several times over. Draco wasn't stupid and, weighing his options logically, he saw his direction with a weary surity.
No.
"Fuck you puss," Blaise sneered, spitting in Draco's face before landing a solid punch on his jaw, Blaise's first physical assault that night. The blow floored the weakened blonde and Draco felt fresh blood run from his face to the cold stone floor of the Slytherin common room, Pansy's obnoxious laughter tearing through his wavering consciousness.
"Get the hell out of here Malfoy." someone said, one of the females, though he couldn't identify which. Draco collected himself and managed a snort of laughter. As if he was planning on hanging around.
The Slytherin dungeon had once been his domain. He lorded over it in all it's flagstoned glory. But now, as an outcast, he could commiserate with the complaints of the girls from other houses who would moan over its dampness and cold when he dragged them in during one of their nightly rendevous's. Draco threw his once fan club a haughty glare before stumbling out into the hall...
... was sparsely furnished. The Hogwarts students filed down the hall with its mood lighting and poorly done landscapes, the untrained eye would label masterpieces. The hall opened into a marginally better lit waiting room. The waiting room had folding chairs lining it's wallpapered extremes, extra seating to complement the functionally uncomfortable arm chairs scattered through the room. Dumbledore had obviously contacted them in advance so they could provide for the large party.
A sardonic smile crept on Draco's face, this was anything but. In fact some ritualistic torture with a side of sodomy would be preferable to the macabre little party.
Draco noted the line forming at the back of the room and went to stand with his peers. With them, but still distant, as McGonagle handed a single rose to each student. There were some, of course, who were already seated who had brought their own floral offerings, from Lavender Brown's pricey arrangement of white roses to Neville Longbottom's handpicked bouquet. Draco stared at Neville's wilting flowers, inching forward as the line progressed. Daises and tulips drooped on their stems, looking almost as forlorn as the boy who held them.
"Mr. Malfoy?" Draco was at the front of the line, Professor McGonagle examining him with a mix of suspicion and worry as Draco took the rose she extended to him. The roses were nothing more than a sad attempt to keep up appearances. Had to have every student follow the general protocol of such a gathering. What the students did with their roses wasn't their concern, they had done their part and the distribution had been a brief distraction.
Draco lowered himself into a lonely chair at the head of the room where he had no one neighboring him but could observe the various clusters of people around him.
There was Neville, seated alone with his dying flowers and several seats away sat a group of Gryfindor girls. Lavender Brown, Parvati Patel, and Andora Wood, a 6th year and Quidditch star Oliver Wood's baby sister were seated in a row but the normally dizzy trio were eerily sobered, each seemingly lost in her own thoughts.
Next to them were their male equivalents Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas, and Fox Slater, a Ravenclaw. Seamus slid down several chairs, his usually pleasantly amused features gaunt and strained as he wrapped Lavender in a one armed hug. Lavender looked sick for several seconds before she buried her face in the crook of Seamus's shoulder, her blonde hair falling to obscure what Draco was sure to be a fresh bout of tears.
Padma Patel crossed the room to her twin, carbon copies in matching black dresses, and knelt at her feet, resting her head in Parvati's lap.
The chairs lined opposite him where occupied by assorted Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff 7th years, possibly interacting on a social basis for the first time in their 7 year stint at Hogwarts. The intelligent, cynical Ravenclaws and bumbling, amiable Hufflepuffs who came only because the entire 7th year was required to. They looked uncomfortable, the heavy atmosphere in the room only amplifying the fact that they shouldn't really be there. This didn't really involve them and seeing Lavender and Seamus crying on each others shoulders made them feel like intruders.
To the left of that crowd was Luna Lovegood, sitting removed form the group and, as was her habit, appearing a million miles away, lost in her own world. Resting on her lap was a bunch of violet flowers with wispy leaves he couldn't identify. Near her were the Creevey brothers, the younger there obviously for emotional support as Colin sat hunched in his chair, hiccupping sobs shaking his diminutive frame.
Dean Thomas's long time girlfriend, Brynn Masters, a Ravenclaw, sat far removed from her shell shocked boyfriend, blue eyes trained unseeing on his shoes from across the room. Next to her, a comforting hand on her arm, sat American recruit, Aidan Pierce. Not exactly kosher behavior given Master's near married status with Dean but trust the American to try to benefit from the situation.
The final group in the room was the Slytherin 7th years who were to blame for his bandaged right hand. They had rearranged their chairs in a circle, their voices, the only ones raised above a whisper or muffled sob. With the exception of Aidan, who transferred midway through 5th year, and himself, the whole of Slytherin house sat in an isolated gang. Pansy had wove her rose in her limp hair while Goyle bit the head off his, opening his mouth to reveal the decapitated top of the flower to paroxysms of laughter form his house mates. They were the only members of the room, with the exception of possibly Luna and Neville who weren't sneaking curious glances Draco's direction.
Oh it had been days since it and he had heard the rumors. Had Draco Malfoy lost it? Was this his doing? He was well aware of Andie Wood's subtle side glances and Fox and Padma's suspicious examination of his various cuts and bruises...
... would need little attention. All the teachers were made aware of Draco's situation and rendered their respective services to him. In the week they had been back in school, Madame Pomfrey had been called upon the most.
Draco mentally assessed his condition, bloody nose... not broken, he asserted after feeling it gingerly, busted lip... again, ravaged right hand... had been held briefly in the Slytherin fireplace by Crabbe, in addition to the medley of assorted cuts, scrapes, and bruises decorating him that he had already taken into consideration.
Apart from the hand, nothing too noteworthy and all of it would be easily remedied by the school's doting mediwitch. Maybe Madame Pomfrey could be charmed into letting him sleep there again tonight. There was no returning to his bedroom and, nice as the weather was, he didn't fancy chancing a solo camping trip.
Draco saw Mrs. Norris, Flitch's mangey old cat, sauntering down the hall and he paused, bending down to greet her. Draco had always been a cat person, had both admired and identified with their independence.
He reached out, petting her awkwardly with his left hand. Claws shot out, catching his lower arm and dragging bloody furrows along the back of his hand. Draco cradled what had once been the sole part of his anatomy to go unscathed as Mrs. Norris cleaned off her paws, methodically working to fix the disheveled fur her had mussed with his awkward pat.
"Don't bother unless I can do it right eh? Draco asked with a smile, quickly scratching her behind the ears and retreating before she could finish the job on his arm. His fingers came away wet, the tips stained red. Blood? He knew the color, the consistency, he had seen enough of his own spilled this past week.
Draco shot Mrs. Norris a confused stare and she blinked sleepily before getting up and continuing down the hall, rust colored pawprints marking her retreat.
This wasn't his blood, not this time, but blood it was, tracked up and down the hall by delicate feline steps. Draco briefly forgot his own blood, flowing freely from his nose and the growing numbness in his right hand as he followed Mrs. Norris's morbid trail of blood...
... dripped onto the perfectly creased leg of his pants. The red instantly disappeared on the black background on his slacks, several more drops falling to be absorbed in his black dress shirt.
Draco looked to his left hand from which blood was dripping between his fingers. Red trickled down the knuckles of his clenched fist. He dropped the rose to examine the line of neat puncture marks its thorns had inflicted on his palm. He hadn't realized he was gripping it that tightly, his enforced token of sentimentality. Draco wiped his hand absently on the leg of his pants, ignoring Padma's involuntary gasp and quick aversion of her eyes.
The room's attention was soon drawn from Draco's self mutilation to the door that opened close to his right, from it stepping the four people they were all dreading seeing. Every pair of eyes was fixed on the small group as even the Slytherin's fell silent. Potter and the two Weasley kids had been transported on an earlier train and given time to pay their respects before their classmates arrived. It was Dumbledore hovering behind them that reminded them off the severity of the situation.
Ron halted in the doorway while Harry and Ginny went to take seats near Dean and Slater, Potter's normally lively green eyes appeared empty. The youngest Weasley seemed to be supporting him, her creamy complexion blotchy, dark circle beneath her blue eyes making her look infinitely older than her 16 years. Potter had the look of a walking corpse, the only animation the shuffling step of his feet.
As the pair passed, Potter raised his head in a barely perceptible nod in Draco's direction. Draco answered with the hint of a smile. The one person in the room who had any reason to suspect him was his sole vote of support. Ginny shot him a watery smile and Draco felt his respect for Hogwart's power couple grow. A bond was formed between two sworn enemies in that briefest interaction, Potter expressing some twisted gratitude towards Draco, as if sensing, the nature of his change while everyone else remained baffled.
"What the FUCK are you all looking at?!" Draco's head snapped back to Ron, his black attire rumpled, red hair in disarray, blue eyes wild. The class's self proclaimed class clown looked around the room, not seeming to process his surroundings.
"What the fuck.." he began again but his voice cracked and he slumped to the ground with an almost animal cry of pain.
As Harry sank into a chair, elbows on his knees, head hung, his body was wracked with sobs. Assured of Harry's position Ginny ran over to collect Ron in a protective embrace. Everyone in the room looked away, desperately trying to find a neutral ground as Ron's wails of loss filled the area.
"It'll be ok" Ginny choked, the younger girl kissing her brother's forehead and smoothing his fiery hair with her shaking hands.
"No!" Ron screamed, knocking her hands away. "It will never be ok because she's fucking gone! Forever." he spat. "For-fucking-ever!"
Ginny sat back on her haunches and dropped her face into her hands, her own heartbroken tears finally spilling over. For the first time in his history at the school, Draco saw Dumbledore looking helpless, as if this was something beyond his power to right.
It was Snape who took charge, he and McGonagle the two professors supervising the trip. He scooped Ginny up, effortlessly depositing her next to Potter, whose grief only intensified with his girlfriend's presence.
"Pierce, Fletchly," Snape snapped, motioning over the two boys who immediately came to help him transport Ron from the room, all 6 foot 3 of him curled into a pathetic ball.
Ron's removal elicited various reactions from the student body. The Slytherins unsurprisingly broke into inappropriate hysterics, several even getting up to reenact the scene.
The group of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws alternated between nervous laughter and uncomfortable silence and Brynn got up, dashing over to Dean who had finally cracked and had tears streaming down his still stoic face.
Lavender had straddled Seamus's lap and the pair made a quick retreat to the "bathroom". To each his own, Draco conceded, supposing they were looking for a physical as well as emotional release.
Parvati and Padma were identical pictures of sorrow and Andie, Ron's on-again, off-again, love interest followed Snape into the hall, shrugging off Fox's efforts to stop her. The only one who appeared unfazed was Luna, whose hands still rested delicately on her unidentifiable flowers.
And Draco... well Draco felt sick. The apple he had forced down that morning revisiting him in an acidic rush. Draco pushed himself from the chair, his rose sitting forgotten on the seat he vacated.
"Don't tell me to calm down!" Justin Finch-Fletchly sat huddled against one wall as Aidan and Snape attempted to sedate the apparently still volatile Weasley boy, Andie looking on tearfully.
Draco stumbled blindly past the group and into the sterile loo, noting thankfully that Lavender and Seamus had chosen the female bathroom. He slammed the door to the nearest stall falling to his knees and retching...
...at the sight that lay in front of him. He took in the scene and immediately backtracked around the corner and sank to his knees, the gruesome sight seared on his retinas and refusing to disappear. The overall smell of death overwhelmed him, the metallic tang of blood that he could almost taste laced inexorably with the distinctive smell of sweat and sex. Sex?
Draco heaved violently, hands and forehead both pressed against the cool stone wall. Several minutes of dry retching and Draco was finally able to stumble to his feet. He once more turned the corner, this time steeling himself for what he knew to be there.
It was no less disturbing the second time and Draco felt his knees weakening under him. Blood ran in miniature rivers through the cracks in the stone floor, the walls both near and far splattered crimson with the same medium. Books were scattered across the hall, spines broken, ripped pages soaking up blood.
The smell was nearly overpowering here, and coupled with the visual impact Draco felt his legs buckle under him, his knees landing wetly in a rivulet of blood. He wrenched his eyes from the floor, his mouth dry, hands trembling as he looked to the source of the gore.
She was slumped against the wall as if she had fallen there from being pinned against the cold stone. Her wand lay broken several feet away, surrounded by clumps of auburn hair, forcefully ripped from her scalp. Her uniform Hogwarts robes were torn, the skirt she had been wearing under them lay near her wand, the careful pleats in disarray.
He felt another wave of nausea slam into him at the sight of her ridiculously sexy little panties twisted around one ankle, the crime blindingly obvious. Draco had never felt more throughly dirty in his 17 years of life even as the only child of a high ranking death eater.
Draco finally forced himself to look at the girl's face, even obscured by the auburn hair which had fallen from her tidy braids he recognized her. This time he did throw up again, his lean frame shuddering as he stumbled to his feet.
Even in death her refined features remained almost obscenely pretty. Laying violated on the stone floor, amber eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling was...
... Hermione Granger. Draco returned to his seat in the waiting room once more as Dumbledore ushered the Patel sisters, Luna, and Neville into the room Potter and crew had recently exited.
Hermione Granger. Point 18, Times New Roman on a 3 by 12 slip of tagboard tacked next to the door of the room. So impersonal, just like the showy bouquets the funeral home arranged in each of their four waiting rooms in case the deceased didn't receive anything better.
It was a closed casket viewing and Draco knew there wouldn't be a funeral. Granger's parents had opted for cremation, a decision Draco himself would've made.
"Mr. Malfoy?" this time it was Dumbledore, the suspicion and accusation absent as it differed from McGonagle's earlier summoning.
The girls had left the viewing room and Draco assumed he was being allowed to join Neville. He rose slowly to his feet, rose in hand, and entered the smaller adjoining room.
The door clicked shut behind him and Draco was left alone with Neville and the corpse of a girl he never really got the chance to know.
He hadn't hated her. He had hated her ambition, her innocense, her smarts. Hated her courage and loyalty, her choice in friends. Hated that she was the only one who could be considered true competition for him academically. Hated that she always had a witty retort to his insults. Hated that banter with her was the most fun he had with any of his peers. Hated that when she smiled her dimples flashed. Hated that she was the one straight girl in the entire school he didn't have panting after him. Hated that all that was stolen from her and the rest of the world after 17 short years and hated that he had to be the one to discover it. He hated the idea of her but didn't know her enough to hate her.
Neville stood next to the mahogany casket, his flowers hanging limply at his side, his boyish features looking older and sadder than Draco thought possible for the accident prone Longbottom.
Draco took a spot at his side, dwarfing Neville by nearly 8 inches. Neville looked at his wilted tulips and wiped angrily at his eyes. "These aren't good enough." he muttered sadly, gesturing to Padma and Parvati's matching clusters of carnations and roses and Luna's small but exotic violet flowers.
Draco took Neville's heartfelt assortment and picked out some of the more sorry looking flowers and rearranging the remaining daisies to cover the sparse patches. He silently handed the bouquet back to Neville who shot him a surprised but grateful smile though it got nowhere close to his melancholy brown eyes. His handpicked floral arrangement joined the others on the lid of the coffin.
"Was..." Neville began, having to clear his throat and sniff before beginning again, "Was it bad?" Draco knew exactly what he was asking. The details of Granger's murder had been kept very hush-hush, and the rape, unspoken. Draco was the only student to view the gory crime scene, the only one who knew the state of the body presumably enclosed in the coffin.
Neville adored Granger and Draco knew exactly what he wanted to hear and similarly knew what he need to hear as well. Unable to vocalize the true horror that befell Gryfindor's princess, he managed a slight nod.
Neville shuddered at his side, revulsion and fury shooting through him. Draco had noticed the way the black polo shirt hung on the once chubby boy, noticed the weight that had dropped from his face, Longbottom was not taking her death well at all.
"Alright?" he asked the once recipient of so many of his cruel jokes.
"No," Neville replied honestly. "But I'm not going to hurt myself if that's what you're asking." A ghost of a smile appeared on Draco's lips and the two boys turned to leave the room. Both knew this wasn't where Hermione really lay. This was her ashes sitting in an urn, laying in a coffin to give some illusion of being. Neither was fooled and so neither lingered over what was nothing more than a sham to help impressionable young students cope.
The pair left the room and Draco noticed he still held his rose in his blood encrusted left hand. He raised the flower, breathing in deeply. It smelled like ashes.
~~~
Wow wow wow... that was possibly the longest chapter I have ever written in my entire life. The next ones'll be a little more on the humorous side maybe and probably not quite as long. Please please please review...... please *pout*.
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