Untouchable

Hello everyone...! This is my new Fanfiction. But for this one...I fully intend to write and finish, so if you're interested, you can expect relatively regular updates! I even have a plan! It's almost unheard of I know...

Don't expect miracles here: I am afraid this is no masterpiece. I am writing only because I have a small Dramione obsession at the moment, and because I want to get writing again...after far to long. Its a nice simple cliché with some psychological disaster thrown in for good measure!

Many thanks to my lovely BETA k_leigh7692 over at Hawthorne and Vine. (If you've yet to check out that site, head over, I'm posting there too.)

Mistakes are still my own. Especially about the rating. I went T for language and potentially distressing themes, but let me know if I judged wrong. If you think I am right, I must warn you that it may go up. Sorry!

I own nothing of J K Rowling's. If I did, Harry Potter would be a lot darker...and with a lot of Dramione...

Chapter One- Blood

They're seated around a table. There is no theatre in their faces so you don't know why you're here. You don't know what they want.

Don't worry, they haven't noticed yet. If you step back now, away from the flicker of the candlelight, you'll go unnoticed.

Careful! Don't step too fast, or too slow.

Press yourself into the dark panelling. Feel the smooth comfort of wood against your hands, the slight smudge of recent polish.

Slide further along. The man will look to you now, but vigilance keeps many a hungry wolf from the innocent door. So don't meet his eyes. Don't. Don't move an inch.

There. You're fine. He's looked away again.

Remember to breathe. Shallow breaths, not too loud, not too deep. Merge them with the others in the room.

Relax. For this moment you're just about alright. Smell the bee's wax, and the perfumed musk of a century's worth of minutes. Hours. Days.

Now observe. After all, that's why you're here.

The woman seated to the left of him is his wife. The crest of this family is burnt not only into her pale, fragile skin, but onto the essence of her soul. It is difficult for her to remember what it was like, before, when she did not belong here.

Watch how she shields herself: she thinks her thoughts are safe. See how her eyes examine the cracks etched into the mahogany surface in front of her, how her shoulders bend to hide her ghostly expression.

Will those shoulders crack do you think, with her World's weight upon them?

There's someone coming.

Listen.

What are those footsteps? A woman's do you think? They have certainty but they hesitate.

A boy's maybe?

Get back I say. Don't get too curious. Do you want to be seen?

These people are dangerous. Their name holds an ancient power which is still yet to be broken. Remember that they walked when the Dark Lord fell, and still they go untouched.

Untarnished.

Do you feel the sickening dry strain of fear against your throat? If you don't, you should. You are not safe.

It was a boy. Or rather, a man.

Examine the polite expression on his face as he bows slightly to his mother: the look of calculated distain shot to the man he always addresses as 'father' as he sits, and then, suddenly, inexplicably, looks straight at you.

Shit.

She breathes; closes her eyes and reaches slowly, tentatively up to meet with faulty fingers the damage to her cheek. The blood caresses and slowly crawls along her skin. A single drop detaches itself from the rest.

And falls.

She follows its lethargic progress until it splays across the floor: a signature for this, another scar she has endured.

She wonders at their audacity. This insult will not go without notice. Do they not know who she is?

In disbelief she shakes her head.

The beloved of Harry Potter are not treated in such a manner.

Part of her rebels against such arrogance.

But it will, her traitorous consciousness whispers. The insult will once again be ignored.

A single sob tears out of her.

She knows it's true. Were it Ginny or Ron, those responsible would be slaughtered without mercy. But they at least are half-way to respectable. Betrayal is little less bitter when the blood at least is pure.

And as for Potter himself? Well his father was tolerable at least, and his mother as a woman, can easily be ignored.

They don't know how she suffers, the other two of the Golden Trio. Mudblood is the tamest of whispers on a pungent tongue.

The world is hazy. She tries to focus on something. Anything.

Ron, she must think of him. She loves him doesn't she? In vain she tries to focus on a feeling she knows isn't really there.

With a choked cry she pounds her fist into the bricks behind her.

Where did it go?

She was so certain it was there. So certain that she could love him, did love him.

The devil on her shoulder heckles.

It wasn't for love that she married him, was it? It wasn't for love at all.

The bile rises in her throat but she forces it down.

She is hideous, disgusting. What is this psychological trick which binds the ideals she'd hoped to hold so dear, and keeps them away? How did she end this way, so twisted, so dirty?

Somewhere she'd thought that his pure blood would surely protect her. She had thought the Weasley name would take her anywhere.

But what use is the name of a traitor in a world still ruled by dynasties dedicated to the preservation of magical exclusivity?

What a joke.

Her name was useless enough on its own despite the defeat of the Dark Lord. Why should another have made a difference?

The walls are still in place. Still she can do nothing.

She is useless. Despite everything, she is useless.

She thinks of her job at the Department of Medical Research. When she'd started, after the euphoria of Voldemort's defeat, she had thought that it would be wonderful. That she'd help people, countless people as time went on. She'd thought that, by now, five years later, she would be climbing progressively through the ranks to responsibility.

Instead, she'd spent years watching those who joined later than her, who aren't nearly as good as her, take promotion. Just because of their blood and their money.

And their names.

She pounds her fists into the wall again and again as the tears finally escape and blood seeps crisply into the cracks in the stone in front of her.

This is pointless.

She's worthless.

It would be better for everyone if she were dead.

"Sit," Lucious said.

His wife moved her eyes from the table to her son as he took a seat as far away from them as possible.

"What do you want?" Draco asked, his voice low, clearly tired.

It had been five years now, Narcissa realised. Five years since the war had ended.

The Malfoy's had walked away, name unhurt, of course. For a moment, she'd believed that they'd somehow gotten away with it. Even at the Hogsmeade Trials there hadn't been the slightest suggestion that even her husband should be brought before the jury.

It seemed that fate would punish them in a different manner by toying with her only son.

Instead of taking him completely with a judgement which would have had at least finality on its side, Lady Fortuna slowly tortured her instead. The agonising sentence? To watch her only son shrivel into something so utterly broken.

She hoped Lucius knew what he was doing.

"Well?" Draco asked.

"We think, that five years is enough time to be embarrassed for. The war," his father said, "Is over."

Draco laughed a bitterly.

"You think they have forgotten?" he demanded. "Do you think," his voice was mocking, "That our name is clear?"

"Your father receives no trouble," Narcissa said softly.

Her son's eyes were etched with pain.

"My father was not the one who tried to murder Hogwart's most beloved Head Master, the one who bullied and fought for years with the so called Golden Trio. My father was not of a generation too young to be considered pray to such archaic customs. And if he had been, he at least would not have been so foolish as to fall so easily."

"I think," Lucius softly replied, "you over-estimate their influence. The ancient families still rule Draco. They have not fallen." His son's eyes mocked him, but still he continued. "Which brings me around to our request."

"Which is?" Draco asked, sarcasm and boredom entwining in his words.

Lucius Malfoy took a deep breath. And then stepped bravely, into a pit full of vipers.

"Your mother and I think you should marry."

She laughed for the first time in weeks.

And then felt terrible. So terrible that she stumbled into the bathroom and threw up several times into the toilet.

Today she had served Ron breakfast in bed.

With the divorce papers.

Her trunks and a cab were already waiting at the front door, and last week she had separated her assets, purchasing for herself in advance a small flat in Diagon Alley.

She pulled the flush and leaned against the wall heavily. Slowly ran her tongue around her mouth in disgust at the taste of the bile before closing her eyes.

Absently, she wondered how long it would take for Ron to come battering on her door, demanding an explanation.

She ought to figure out what she was going to say.

Sorry maybe? No. That wouldn't work. Besides, she didn't want to have to lie, and she doubted the answer would satisfy him enough to get him to leave her alone.

He would want to know what had bought it on. And she couldn't bluff it.

Unless she just told the truth. Not the whole truth of course.

Maybe just pointing out a few of the flaws she hated in him.

Rude. Repulsive, fat, terrible sex, dirty.

She went through to the hall to find her toothbrush from her trunk.

Boring maybe? That would hurt. But then, he'd just throw that one right back at her and he'd be right.

Fuck, she needed to get a life.

She tried to remember the last time she actually went out and failed miserably. She hadn't even been shopping for months, let alone anything else. Ron was more the type who wanted to sit at home, eat popcorn and watch a movie.

She smiled at the prospect of not having to cook for him, and then laughed. She wouldn't be surprised if he'd managed to burn the house down in less than a day after she'd left.

Let him suffer. Who gave a damn?

Absentmindedly she squeezed toothpaste onto her brush and then realised another positive thing about being estranged from her husband.

If there was one thing that annoyed her about Ron more than anything else it was his insistence that everything be done by magic. If she wanted to clean her teeth with a helping of Colgate and a brush, why was that any of his concern? Why was she not allowed a washing machine? Washing clothes with magic took so much time and effort, and it wasn't like he ever volunteered to do it.

With a new resolve she decided that the first thing she would do tomorrow was buy one. Muggle or not, it did the job.

Fuck him.

She spat the paste into the sink and washed her mouth out with water. Then balanced her brush on the edge of the bowl and walked out into her new front room.

She'd unpack the books first. And then she'd whip up some pasta and go to bed early.

She laughed.

So this was what freedom felt like. She'd almost forgotten.

He tossed his robes across the back of the chair and unbuttoned his waist coat slightly. Kicking of his shoes he sat slowly, wrapping his fingers around his cuff-links and slowly easing them out.

The evening had gone on far too long for his liking.

And this whole charade was just shit.

He watched his mother sit down opposite him and consider him with a look he didn't like.

With a certain dread he waited for her to speak.

"Is there not anyone Draco?"

He shook his head.

"They bore me," he said. "If I have to spend the rest my life unwillingly shacked to any one of those little bloody fluttering, fake bitches, I think I'd rather kill myself now and save the years of boredom and irritation."

His mother's eyes reprimanded him.

"Sorry," he said, "but I can't do it."

"But Draco we've been at this for months. There has to be somebody who looks at least slightly reasonable. What about Astoria, she's still available?"

Draco laughed bitterly and ran his fingers through the river of gold on his head. "And there's a reason for that Mother. She's the worst of the lot."

"But her family and connections are excellent..."

Draco sighed. "Don't use Father's arguments,' he said. "I won't listen. If I'm being forced into matrimony, I'd at least like to be tied to someone I actually like." He narrowed his eyes. "Don't say you've talked to the Greengrass family? That's the third evening in a row you've mentioned her."

"I haven't no." His mother's voice was soft.

He swore violently. "How many times do I have to tell him," he seethed. "I will not, under any circumstance, marry who he wants me to unless I fully endorse his suggestion, and unless I am the one who talks to the girl's parents. Don't you know how embarrassing it is? It makes me look entirely incapable."

"Perhaps he thinks you are," Narcissa said cautiously. "After all, you've done nothing to prove otherwise for the past five years."

He bristled.

She sighed and shook her head. "If you're not careful Draco, your guilt will swallow you whole. The past can't be changed by anyone for any amount of trying, including by you."

For a long while he was silent. His hands considered his links with undue adoration. For a moment he looked utterly vulnerable. "I know," he said as he looked up to meet her eyes with his own empty ones. "But that doesn't stop me from wanting to try."

Narcissa shook her head again and stood slowly with tears invading the corners of her eyes. "Oh, Draco. We only want you to be happy."

"Then why are you forcing me to marry?"

"We're not forcing you. We just think you need someone in your life. We just," she paused, reconsidering her words. "We've tried everything. And we just think that maybe this might be the thing that helps. I want my son back Draco, whatever the cost."

"You don't think," he whispered, his voice was a silver knife through cold, hard ice, "that this might make it worse? I don't want any of them."

"It doesn't have to be one of them," his mother said slowly. "It can be anyone you like." For a moment she teetered, on a precipice of indecision. "Even a half-blood, if that is what it takes."

Her son looked at her in shock which turned quickly to disdain as he gathered his vulnerability and cloaked himself instead in steel-like poise. "I don't think Father would approve."

Narcissa smiled tightly. "Your father would agree to anything at the moment."

Draco scoffed.

"He would," she insisted quietly. "Can't you see that he adores you?"

In exasperation, he shook his head. "More like he hates me."

"Draco, at the moment, I doubt your father would care if you married a muggle, so long as it made you happy. He's as desperate as I am."

"Mother," he said, "you are deluded."

"Oh for heaven's sake Draco," she said, raising her voice for the first time in years, "stop being a fool and open your eyes."

He stared at her in shock before he recovered with a vengeance.

"They are open," he hissed. "It's yours that seem to be having trouble seeing." He shot her a look that only a Malfoy could manage, sweeping from the room.

Narcissa closed her eyes in exasperation and let the tears slip from beneath her lashes. A sob tore from her, her hand fluttering to her lips as if to repress it before she collapsed into the cushions behind her once more.

She was losing her son completely and there seemed that there was nothing that she could do about it.

Hmm.

Review please...? x