I found this in hidden away in a bunch of really old stuff I've written, and I figured, hey, why the hell not post it? Even if it isn't my favorite.
Small warning, a little gory, and really angsty. Because, well, it's Draco. He's like an angst machine.
Enjoy!
(Rowling owns these characters.)
What was played on the piano in the Malfoy Manor depended highly on who was there.
When Lucius had guests over and wanted to flaunt his son's skills, Draco would sit down at the instrument silently, look of submissive modesty adorning his face (he knew that face all too well), and play all the classics he knew. Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi...Draco would even bend symphonies into piano melodies. He would bow slightly at the end his piece, take all the compliments and criticism with a politician's smile, and retreat to his room silently until he was called down.
When Draco's father had no guests over, and it was just the three Malfoys, Lucius would suggest that Draco go practice for an hour. The boy would always sit and stare at the keys (white and black white and black and everything was so clear) for half of that hour before preforming small, relatively unknown pieces. Sometimes he played things to please his father, other times things that he knew his mother would like. But sometimes, Draco would sit at the piano for the full hour, counting the keys over and over and over and over, before getting up and leaving, avoiding his father's condescending eyes.
When no one is in the house, when Draco is alone because his parents are off to some meeting, he plays. He plays songs that start beautiful and innocent. Then his pianissimo turns into piano turns into mezzo-piano tuns into mezzo-forte turns into forte turns into fortissimo until he is banging his fingers on the keys, hair disheveled, eyes staring straight ahead into nothing.
And when the keys break from his fortissimo, the wood splintering into his hands and his blood staining the ivory and his fingers, he doesn't flinch. Doesn't feel. All he knows is that melody needs to be played louder and louder, and he needs, to get, louder.
Practically every key is left red and ugly (except for those sharps and flats that were black and just couldn't get any uglier) when Draco gets up and rips the string of the highest note silently and blindly from the inside of the piano. He stays like that for a while, stabbing the highest note's key repeatedly (the thought that it is a C never crosses his mind), then grabs his wand and repairs everything to be just as perfect and spotless as before.
Draco knows the perfection is useless.
Let me know if i should dump this writing style, or work harder at it. Thanks!