Fallen Angel, Risen Demon
With a curious smirk he reached down with long, graceful fingers to pluck the object off the stone floor of the classroom. He fingered the spine of the book idly, examining it minutely.
The book was nothing like he had ever seen before. The cover was cloth or something like it, a thick weave that was coarse against his fingertips but somehow oddly comforting. It was a dark navy blue, stained dark in some places and lightened almost to an off-white in others. Faded words were emobossed on the front, the last remnants of gold glittering from them idly as if in tribute to a lost age of prosperity.
He peered at the intently, squinting his eyes to try and discern the writing, but could come up with nothing. With a defeated sigh he opened the book, flipping through the yellowing pages, not even bothering to skim but just watching the words flash by with mild interest.
The words were in an odd style, each letter precise and accurate. With a start he realised that all of the were the same, no difference between them. It was as if something inhuman, some inexplicable entity had created the book.
"What is this?" he asked himself, rubbing his fingertips over the ink, fingernails skimming over the pages silently. Shocked, he paused and felt the cover of the book again to assure himself that his nerves were still working.
Amazed, he ran over the words again. There was no slight indention such as a quill would leave behind, no blots or words scratched through hastily.
His eyes lit up with sudden anticipation. Quickly he flipped back to the very beginning. The book spun out of his hands. Cursing, he picked it up. He was used to the heavier, more substantial feel of parchment, not this intangible fluff so thin he could barely turn the pages.
He finally managed to open it, noticing with despair that the first several pages had been ripped out and despite his best efforts he could not possibly conceive of what might be contained with in them, precious gems lost to him forever.
Fighting the heaviness of depresing loss, he smoothed a crinkled page down with one hand, reading the words on the page aloud as if they were all that mattered in the world.
"Chapter One. It was a bright cold da-"
"What the bloody hell are you doing, Malfoy?" asked a clearly enraged voice.
He spun around to face a furious Harry Potter standing just inside the entrance to the room, green eyes narrowed in abhorrence and disgust and nostrils flaring in anger. The heavy book fell from his grasp and clattered to the floor, but he did not notice.
After blinking a few times he regained his legendary composure, drawing himself up to his full height (much taller than Potter) and sneering with disdain. "I'm reading, of course. I wouldn't expect you to be able to, of course, but it's really not that hard for those of us with intelligence."
Potter rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Give me back my book, now, Malfoy," he demanded, holding one callused palm out before him.
"Like you could own something like this Potter, you and your stupid Gryffindor innocence." His tongue was condenscending and patronizing, a mockery of pleasant speech.
"Just because I'm a Gryffindor doesn't mean I'm innocent," Harry replied obtusely, seething with rage. Without another word he stormed forward and snatched the book from Draco's feet, whirling around and exiting dramatically.
"Potter?" Draco asked no one after a moment. "Reading that? Impossible."
But doubt still lingered in his mind, along with the unanswered challenge.
Almost forgetting himself he stopped himself from slamming the heavy volume down angrily onto the table. It would not do to ruin his reputation or to be yelled at by Madame Pince.
Still, he admitted to himself, his search was not progressing as well as he had expected.
Obtaining a pass for the Restricted Section was the most obvious thing to do, of course. As he was a seventh year and involved in several of the more difficult N.E.W.T. classes, he could have asked any of his professors for it and had his request granted. Well, except for McGonagall. She seemed to think that the Restricted Section should be banned. Obviously there was no useful information in there.
Snorting silently to himself in derision of the Head of Gryffindor he reached for another heavy tome, this one the same worn navy that Potter's had been.
Days of searching had lead him no closer to the answer than he had been before the discovery that there was a question that needed answering. His pass, a limited one as always, was almost used up. Even Professor Snape would grow suspicious if Draco asked for two passes in a week, blind as he might be to the less than honourable actions of his Slytherins.
"Mr. Malfoy, you have been in here for long enough. Though I admire your dedication to your schoolwork, I have better things to do than monitor your access to this section."
Madame Pince spoke in her clipped tones per usual, but with an additional added sting. That Granger girl must be pestering her about something again, he decided suddenly.
Biting back the retort that he could have read any of these books at home and likely more, he instead settled for a more polite (and less likely to bring himself to the attention of the Aurors) response. "Yes, madame. Please, accept my apologies. I have not been able to find the article that I was looking for and this lack of knowledge distresses me. I thought that surely they library would have it somewhere, but I suppose I was mistaken."
Draco smirked inwardly as the librarian's ips pinched together tightly in a firm gaze, but her eyes held a spark of light that someone was interested in her dry world of parchment and dust.
All I had to do was appeal to her pride, he thought with a mock-humble shug. Really, it's too easy.
"There is nothing that the Hogwarts library does not contain, Mr. Malfoy. Perhaps you would like some assistance?"
It couldn't hurt. If Potter was reading it, it can't be anything to terrible.
"I greatly appreciate your offer of help, madame, and would be delighted to have someone as capable as yourself to assist me." He kept to the formal language that she always used (likely the result of far too many monotonous books) and added a hint of flattery. More than likely she had a secret passion for romantic mush that she would rather die than admit. He had always been a good judge of character, at least as far as instinctively knowing how to manipulate another went.
"What was the book about, Mr. Malfoy?"
"Oh, I am not certain. I did not get a good look at it, but a mere glance was enough to intrigue me. It had a rather odd navy cover, but the unusual thing was that it certainly was not written by a quill. I've never seen such a monstrosity before."
"Books are certainly not monsters," she replied stiffly, drawing up and sniffing disdainfully.
"I did not mean to indicate that they were," he lied smoothly, slight smile granting nothing of his true thoughts, "only that I feel handwriting your work gives it a much more personal touch."
"I certainly agree," Madame Pince all but gushed, flushing with the thought that another shared her passion. "It's a shame that the Muggles had to go and ruin that."
Harry drew up against a wall in a corridor long abandoned. He clutched the book tightly to his chest, trying to forget, trying to remember.
If he'd read any of it, if he began to understand...
"He won't," he assured himself fiercely. "He can't."
But that didn't stop him from feeling vulnerable, from wishing that he would stop dropping all these outward signs.
"I'm such a damn fool," he spat bitterly. "Carrying it around with me as if no one would know. No one can know. They won't like it. Won't like me."
He wondered when he'd become so paranoid. "Long time ago," he decided finally. "'snot important, anyway. Doesn't matter."
But what if...?
He almost smacked his head against the wall in frustration, mad at his stupidity, angry at his own ineptitude.
"I know why I'm obsessed," he whispered, so quietly that he himself was hardly able to hear. "He's like me. So much like me. He can't win. It's too big. Too bad."
He stopped himself, gazing upwards to the god he did not believe in with haunted eyes. "But is it evil?"
"Muggles?" he hissed, making no effort to conceal his disgust, "what do they have to do with this?"
The librarian started in surprised, unconciously taking a step backwards as his eyes flamed in anger. She regained control of herself, impartial mask slipping into place and haughty tone invading her voice once more.
"It's obviously a Muggle book, Mr. Malfoy. All others are hand-written."
"But what would-?"
He stopped himself quickly, noting the searching gaze of the other. "Well, then where are they?"
Madame Pince nodded in satisfaction. "Our Muggle Literature Section is one of the most extensive in the magical world, containing-" Draco ignored the rest of what she was saying, strutting off behind her as she led him to an area of the library he had never bothered to enter before.