/Let the record play/
The lights were dramatically dim at the club. Red and silver everywhere, the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Red and silver, the satin and the leather belts that whirled around on the dance floor.
The pulse of the music beat a slow addictive rhythm. Under Draco's skin, under his ears, along his neck. The pulse carried something toxic about it. Sinful.
Draco tugged on his tie. It was light silk under his fingers. The silk, instead of cooling him down it made him hotter. If he weren't a Malfoy his cheeks would be lightly flushed right now. It was the smell of the drink that was getting to him.
This was his first time in a club. The sounds, the sights made him feel shaky and reckless and he flung the tie onto the floor and kept walking. He didn't care if someone tripped on it. Everyone here was trash. His tie was probably worth more than all the gold chains he saw jangling on the wrists, flashing from the necks of the muggles here. Every indication of their class made his sneer curl a little deeper. Made his disgust rise a little more. Trash.
The smell of drink lured him down to sit.
"A gin and vodka."
Draco named the drink someone else had just ordered. Watching the scene, revolting, lurid, before him. Unable to stop judging. His judgement was his armor.
If he didn't hate every single person around him he would be vulnerable.
In his pearl white silk shirt and his fitted slacks the former Death Eater looked like a glowing angel. Stares were all coming his way. Some apprehensive, some awed, some lustful and desirous.
Deep inside he felt defenseless. His shirt was so thin. He watched the girl on the stool next to him rake her manicured nails down some guy's chest. If she turned around and did that to him his shirt could just rip.
An angel with a delicate face sitting all alone. A single layer of soft cloth between someone else's hand and his body. The looks he was getting showed that the people here knew it too.
He had been sulky earlier. He didn't want to go out. But Astoria had forced him. She had stood over him with the coldest look. She was so skinny. Yes, she had issues too. Didn't all Slytherins. But even though her bones showed through her skin she was stronger than he was now.
He had been sitting on the couch from France by the fireplace. Watching the burnt out logs. The smoke curling up listlessly. He had been there since morning and now, through the curtains, the red light of sundown was coming through. He couldn't be bothered to move. There wasn't anything left for him anywhere. Nowhere if he got up and walked through the other rooms of Astoria's chateau. Which he now had to live in now that the Manor had been burned down. Nowhere outside without the same looks of disgust he used to give to others. But now they gave it to him. Him, the prodigious heir to the Malfoy line.
He scowled. The fact that Astoria was beautiful made it even worse. The power he'd once had over her was slipping. On one corner of the club was Draco, the blond Angel, and at the other corner of the club was Astoria. The brunette Devil. He couldn't see Astoria but he knew she was there.
The dancers were moving to that corner like something drew them in. Their movements getting ecstatic. Their hip sways more pronounced. They had a look of sharpened and almost wild anticipation on their faces. Astoria was that kind of woman that made others want to dance for her.
Yes, once she'd been in love. Draco still had the little music box she gave him for their first anniversary. When he opened it up, a soft tune came out. When he first got it he used to play it alone in his room, sitting on the side of the bed, and the music made him relax. Felt almost, for the first time, in these times alone in his room, like someone loved him.
The memory of the music box overlapped with the thumping, grinding hardcore rhythms in the club.
Suddenly the fakeness of everything hit him.
"Malfoy?"
Fine. If Astoria was having fun, he should too.
He turned around and grin. Weasley's eyes widened comically. But Draco couldn't even laugh at him.
With that predatory grin, the angel had just shed his wings.
Tonight, he was going to have fun.