Kaleidoscope, by Tara Anne
November 2011
One
Let me tell you a tale, my children. It is one of magic, war, an unforeseen inheritance, and—as all good tales are sure to include—a forbidden, knotted love. An affair of devotion and eventual complacency that blooms into worship, if you will, as both are utterly powerless to resist the diadem of fate's great spider web.
Shall I tell you the struggles they encountered, and the battles they fought and won among themselves-and others? Ah, ah, keep those hasty words within your throat yet. Let me warn you, for it is rather lengthy. However, it is a tale with meaning beyond its initial worth; you might not see it, but it is there. Just search for it and you shall discover it.
Now, where was I? Do you agree, my child? Yes? Alright then ...
Ah! Here, we shall begin. Allow me to set the stage: a boy, flaxen-haired and lithe, is awaiting his father, who is set upon shipping his son back to Great Britain. Impatiently, the son picks at the rough stone walls; as it is late January, it is still bitterly hoary, and he huddles away from the wintry wind. …Yes, yes, that is it…
... Draco runs his hands across the smooth charcoal walls of Durmstrang. He shivers in the wake of a frigid wind. The frost scrubs his cheeks raw, painting them with nature's rouge. His breath blooms out in front of him, forming great white roses and Blonde lace; he burrows his hands further into his heavy cloak, wishing dearly for spring. Unfortunately, he doesn't control the weather. If he did, it would always be warm and sunny and dry and eternally summer. Sunrises would always color the mornings, and stars would always freckle the night sky.
Hands shoved in his pockets, he sighs.
Ivy curled alongside the stone walls, delving and digging its way, eroding the concrete. Tiny, pale flowers dotted the withered branches. They make half-hearted snaps at his fingers when he draws close, their strength long sapped by Siberian cold; razor-sharp canines glistening with toxins are exposed, and then once more concealed beneath their feathery petals.
In a few more moments, his father will arrive, and then he'll be sent away to Hogwarts. Draco frowns, recalling how, if he had not failed to complete his father's task, he would have attended Hogwarts. However, though he did fail, he was grateful to his father in the end. After all, Durmstrang had made him strong, preparing him for (as his dear, half-crazed aunt claims) the Dark Lord's return. But he doesn't think that's true—his father's glad to be freed from his Lord. No one, not even some mighty 'Dark Lord' can escape death.
Sighing, Draco rolls his shoulders. His back has been aching lately. Perhaps he pulled a muscle in Quidditch, or someone hexed him. It's been known to happen. Lazily, he leans against a dry patch in the cement wall, rubbing against the rough surface to generate friction. Let them look for him, find him; this is much nicer than lumbering around like some drunken fool.
He exhales heavily, reaching an arm around to itch his back. No, no. If anything, Draco thinks, his father sent him here so that he wouldn't become some bleeding ponce, arrogant and weak, like a zvezdá, or a Mudblood. But he doesn't have to worry about those sorts around here. They never last long.
He wonders why his father is calling him home now, when he's half-way into his sixth year and oh-so-close to the Hols. It's a disquieting prospect, a concept that has him shivering with possibilities.
Is his mother ill? She's always been susceptible to maladies since he had been born. Always taking her potions on the dot, hoping they'll take away her sorrow like a good bottle of vodka: one for her magic, which decreases every year; two for her seemingly hale appearance; another to keep her immune system high; occasional vials full of odorous black, for pain and cramps.
Draco remembers that one best. He was young, maybe five or six, seven at most. Having sipped at the tar-like substance in imitation, he was pleasantly surprised to find that this medicine tasted of honey and spun sugar and hibiscus tea, like candied rose petals.
When his mother had discovered him dopy, surrounded by tinkling glass vials and the stink of rotting fruit, a scream had torn from her throat. She had left to Floo Severus, leaving him alone in a twisting, rippling field of flowers and color.
The raindrop that plops on his nose stops his thoughts. Then, the glacial squall begins to rain down from the muddy clouds, pelting him with hale and ice. Draco almost feels icicles, dangling like charms and beads, off his hair and nose. He burrows his face into his scarf, pulling his collar up to his chin. He wants his father to hurry. How much time has passed? Five, ten minutes? Draco can't say that he's awfully surprised; his father has become notorious for protractions, and more so within the past year.
He wants a smoke, badly. Worry has made him jittery, and he can't sit still; it feels like he's laid in a meadow of stinging nettle and poison ivy. When he apparatus home—that is, if his father ever manage to arrive—he's taking a soothing bath of crushed mint, juniper berries, and yellow dock. Maybe he'll apply one of Severus's salves, too. They always do the job.
Severus always knows best. He cares for Draco, better than Draco's own father. Shit, his father cares only for Draco's appearance, the future Malfoy line, and his Slytherin nature. At least, that's what his father calls it.
From his pocket, he absently retrieves a pack. He shakes out a cig, lights it with practice, and pulls a deep, long drag.
Smoke curls as he exhales, sinuous and fleeting; it winds around his head in a bitter wreath, cool against his burning mouth. It is a filthy habit—a Muggle one, at that—and leaves him feeling faint and dizzy. It's soothing, though, leaving his throat and lungs burning wonderfully. 'The miracle drug', Adrian had dubbed it as he had pressed his own lit fag against Draco's fingers, urged him to take a puff.
"We can't have those virgin lungs returning all nice and clean to daddy, now can we?" he had said, smirking as Draco had taken his first puff, then screwed his face up, choking, forcing the cig back into Adrian's welcoming hands.
He had hated it, hated the taste and smell, but grown to adore the indolent high it grants him. Though magic had prevented his dependence, regularly cleansing his body of toxins and nicotine, he always felt magnetism towards cigarettes. Maybe it was the way the cherry end glowed and the way the smoke slithered in the air, or the seductive haze the nicotine provided. He didn't care. Not really. As long as he had a pack available at such times, he was fine.
The grass crunched on the other side of the wall, and Draco heard the vine-flowers hiss. Obscuring his face with his hair, he took another drag. His father would surely call him to his side, not retrieve Draco himself; Lucius was too proud for that, as all Malfoys were. Maybe, if his father is late, he will go see Adrian. He always has something soothing.
"Bratán," someone calls out. "What are you doing out here? It's fucking freezing, durák!"
Speak of the devil, and he will come, Draco thinks.
A hand pulls him, stumbling, to his feet and drags him across the courtyard. Draco fights for a few moments before giving in, feeling Adrian's wand poking the back of his neck; its edge is as keen as any dagger.
"Have you lost your mind? Your father will arrive at any moment, and yet here you are, smoking a cig and looking like a cat caught in the rain."
Draco twists, and lets the burning smoke pour against Adrian's golden skin. He smirks when Adrian opens his mouth to drink in the sinuous shapes; shaking his head once, he repeats the gesture. Again, the elder boy drinks in the smoke. Adrian's blue eyes are wickedly dark as he jauntily plucks the cigarette from Draco's lips. He ignores Draco's scowl.
"You're such a cock-tease," Adrian murmurs.
Draco just hums and walks away. He knows Adrian will pursue him. He always does. In a sing-song way, a drugged sort of way, he replies, "Even worse than a whore, am I? How the mighty have fallen."
"Stop being so bitter. If you weren't so consumed with your familial duties—"
"—then I wouldn't be a Malfoy." It's pure, simple logic, a syllogism: if a is this, and a is the same as b, then a and b are the same. "I shall be engaged within the year and follow in my father's footsteps; there is little time to fool around when machinations and decisions must be made."
"Draco, really!" Adrian sighs. "If only there were more women around here; I can't even remember the last time I saw a nymph that wasn't twice our age! I feel half-starved without a warm body and a tight hole!" He leers at Draco, exhaling. "Any chance for a quick exercise?"
Draco chuckles and itches at his shoulders. "Stop being melodramatic."
The older boy squints at the sky, tapping the ash from his cig. He wraps his cloak tighter against the brisk wind. In that moment, Adrian seems to have aged past his years: the white sky paints the crevices under his cheekbones and heavy eyebrows pitch and wraps his hair in a smoky gray film; he huffs and tosses the glowing cig to the frozen ground. Pulverizing it with his heel.
"You know," he whispers slowly, carefully, "I might just be forced to say that you are possibly one of the most egotistical, self-serving, conniving person I have so far met. But ... you're also intelligent." Adrian' eyes shoot up suddenly, and Draco follows his gaze. Two dark men covered in speckled furs, wands extended, converge on the pair. When Adrian speaks again, he is rushed.
"Do not let your father influence you, Draco. You have potential, and if you allow yourself to be poisoned further by his politics and upbringing, then you will lose your spark. Hold onto it. Trust yourself." Nodding farewell, he presses a small bottle into Draco's hands. Draco knows better than to examine it; it is probably some drug, or vodka.
Adrian leaves then, flipping the men the two fingers. One, a teacher, begins shouting, shooting stunning spells and hexes after him. Draco chuckles; trust Adrian to give him a bit of entertainment before his departure!
But the other man soon converges on him, and his laughter fades. Draco recognizes him: one of the Death Eaters under his father's power. Through ingrained habits, he bows to the man and greets him with a kiss.
"Draco," the man acknowledges. "Your father was otherwise preoccupied; I have come in his place."
Sure he was preoccupied. Draco bets that his father was already between the legs of one of his mistresses. Thanks Merlin his mother was blind to the fact; it would hurt her so to know of the many long adulterous nights. She always has been a delicate thing, never quite hardened to the Malfoy lifestyle.
"And how is my father, sir?" Always be subservient to those more powerful and those of unknown rank. It was a rule.
The man shrugs. "Same as always, I suppose. The new Prime Minister dotes on him."
Draco makes a noncommittal noise. The man's eyes piece through him and Draco feels all edgy and shivery under their intense gaze. He trembles. A beat passes; the eyes drift away.
A bronze key passes into his hand. Not two seconds later, a hook takes hold of his innards as he Portkeys to the Manor. In a whirl of movement, he catches only the vague shapes and colors of his school, knowing that he shall never see it again. And then he is dumped onto the ground, slushy with a recent rain … and he is home.
-0-
The Manor is just how he remembers it: a fine, imposing place cultured with tokens of Dark Magic. Draco's heart thrums at the taint of blood magic and sex magic and death, blood pooling in his head. He feels woozy.
His Aunt Bella greets them at the gate. She presses bloody fingertips to the cold iron, and with a groan, the gateway creaks open. Her dark eyes glint with lunacy and bloodlust, and old gore cakes her hair and splatters her robes. Draco eyes the clues timidly. He has never enjoyed messy torture; humiliation is his forte, and clean, swift kills. Durmstrang was filled with heedless idiots and political torrents who had taught him to heed such things.
She bows low to the man. "Master, Lucius is in the drawing room with the others. They have been arranged as you requested."
The man nods once. His sharp eyes quicken.
"I will no longer require such accommodations; the dungeon will do, though." He gestures to his side and Aunt Bella scurries over to him like a housebroken pet. Immediately, Draco reevaluates the man and accommodates his stance: he drops his shoulders submissively, lowers his eyes to the ground, and follows in the man's wake.
His aura is strongly restrained, and Draco can scarcely taste its flavor. The man carries himself in such a manner, though, that hints of intoxicating power and supremacy. It is utterly alluring. If the Dark Lord walked with half as much authority as this man, it is no wonder how he managed to woo others to his cause.
"Tell me, Draco, are there many in Durmstrang dedicated to The Cause?" The man's voice jolts Draco from his thoughts. Flushing, he quickly responds.
"Yes, sir. The majority of the student body supports our ideals; some wish to join, and others are willing to help discreetly with finances and war needs. Very few have not been raised with similar ideals. They embrace our beliefs, though not openly."
The man nods. "Have you courted those promising?"
"Yes." It is easy enough—a dropped word here, a sign of feigned kindness there. His father taught him well.
"Now, tell me," the man hisses, leaning forward. "How dedicated are you to us? To me? Would you do anything I asked of you?"
Licking his lips, Draco prepares his answer. His Aunt Bellatrix watches him greedily from the floor, waiting, waiting. Her hand travels up the man's leg, up his thigh; almost absentmindedly, the man bats it away. She titters.
"Sir, from the time I knew the differences between the filth and true wizards and witches, I have been fully devoted to The Cause. I would do anything asked of me, no matter the price."
The man's eyes widen. "Good, very good. I must say that I am rather … pleased with you, Draco. Your father told me that you had been raised properly, and it is a sight to see. Durmstrang has treated you well."
The man reaches down, yanking Aunt Bella up by her long hair. He breathes a kiss across her lips, whispering his sibilant words. "Go. Fetch Lucius and tell him that I have approved. I shall return at moonrise."
A sigh, from the man. His eyes glitter fiercely in the firelight, and their intensity sends shivers down Draco's spine. He holds out his hand, palm up, to Draco. "Child," he says slowly, "would that you be ready, I would have you."
"I am ready, sir."
"Are you prepared to be Marked, to become a part of the Death Eaters, ready to serve the Dark Lord upon his return?"
"Yes." There was not a heartbeat pause before his response.
The man leaned back into his chair, appraising Draco. His gaze lights a fire within Draco's belly, and Draco resisted the urge to squirm in revulsion—or was it to bow forward and kiss the man's fingers, his wrist, and worship as though in prayer? He did not know.
Turning, the man waves a hand, and the door opened. "Leave me," he says, and bowing—ignoring the sudden chill in his veins—Draco complies.
His aunt was on the other side of the door, and when he emerged, she kisses his cheeks quickly, a bite to the sweetness. "All will be well, Draco. Just follow the Master and all shall be well," she breathes. And then, giggling, she turns towards the dungeons, where Muggles lay helpless, ready for the games of the depraved.