Well guys, first of all : it's been a while, haven't it? I'm sorry for completely forgetting this translation! I'll try to be up to date with the author's publication by the end of September - it's currently at 20 chapters, you still have 13 to read before being up to date! I might try to publish once a week but then again I better not make any promises because... yeah.

I hope you enjoy this new chapter and that you'll be keen to read the following ones!

Trash Polaroid - Chapter 7

~ Trahison - Vitalic ~

Five twenty in the morning. Wasted laughters filling the whole street. Holding one another, the teenage group leaves the club. Their bent and staggering figure is lit by the weak sunlight rays of dawn.

Astoria is staggering on her high heels, her bun fighting to remain still as hard as it can at the top of her blonde messy hair. She's clinging on Theodore's arm, himself lost between his left and his right. He falls heavily on the sidewalk, even though he only wanted to sit down, and holds clumsily the road pole to help himself. Millicent is clinging to it too, as she's wearing her fishnet panty hose full of holes, her ruined mascara, her top showing nearly all her bra. She stutters something about a car, then a man, then a thief… ah, no, a chauffeur. She shakes her phone up in the air, unable to stand still on her two legs. Can someone call Gilles? Hey, guys? Hey? I need someone to call my driver!

Blaise is the last to leave the club. He seems a little less wasted than the others but still not really sober. He leans against the wall before sliding towards the ground, his eyes mid-closed. Millicent calls out for him. Hey! Zabini! Blaise doesn't answer. He's only sliding down. His back against the wall, he goes down, down, down… terminus. As soon as he's sitting, his stomach reacts in his body and urges him to bent a little before vomiting tonight's endless vodka shots. He then put his head up, bring back his knees against him and let his elbows rest on them, while taking his head in his hands. His brain is upside down. Freaking nausea.

Millicent doesn't care about that.

She's still calling him. Blaise, oh-oh! She staggers, swears, manages more or less to keep her balance. Blaise! She throws her smartphone at him, and orders: call my driver. The phone lands at the feet of Blaise, facing the ground. When the young man takes it, the screen is broken. A clear diagonal crack. That's not enough to prevent him from selecting the repertory and lazily swipe his thumb until letter G. He gets the wrong person five times in a row thanks to his blurred vision but the sixth is the one and, with some sort of unknown miracle, he manages to create a comprehensible sentence with subject, verb and complement when Gilles finally answer.

Packed up in the back of the saloon some twenty minutes later, the four teenagers were looking at the landscape by the tainted glass with vitreous eyes and a lethargic state. Theodore ends up sleeping on Blaise knees and the latter kicks him out as he can when he reaches his building. Without saying thanks or bye to anyone, the brown headed leaves the vehicle and walks towards the entry door, dragging his feet and uncertainly walking. And he turns his head. God only knows why but he turns his head. And he sees him.

His father.

Billions of images slide in his mind in half a second, as if he had just crossed path with death. The teenager opens his eyes widely, his heart beating fast and the alcohol effects disappearing in a blink. And he's there, a few meters across from him. His father is there. He's going to cross the road, his hands in his pockets. He's gotten a bit old, sure, but Blaise could swear it on his life: it was him. Not a doubt. His face, his stature, his features, all were similar to those on the photography Blaise always had on him.

Thus, without thinking, the métis follows him.

He's walking towards the sidewalk. His steps are more and more urging. He's running now. His heart is beating in his chest so hard it's hurting him badly. But that's faith. That's faith after waiting. There, the pedestrian traffic light turns green. And Blaise is still running until his out of breath. He's able to grasp his father's sleeve right before he crosses the road and shouts, breathlessly:

- Dad!

The man turns back. And Blaise lets his grip go loose. Immediately. His face goes blank. It's not in father. Looking closer, there's nothing that looks alike. No similarities. Not the eyes, not the mouth, nor even the shape of the nose. Nothing. And the man marks this by looking at him bewildered before going away, closing his lips. Completely crazy, Blaise hears his mutter.

And it's resounding in his skull. It's echoing.

Completely crazy.

Completely crazy, this poor Blaise.

Completely crazy, saying his father everywhere.

The métis turns his heels in slow-motion. He goes back to his building. His pace is robotic.

Completely crazy.

He swipe his pass on the machine.

Completely demented.

Lift's button.

Disturbed.

Eleventh floor.

Lost.

Key in the lock. No lights turned on. Blaise closes the door behind him. Leans against it. Closes his eyes.

Completely alone.

...

Bellatrix might be Draco's craziest aunt, but in the midst of her madness still resides some truthful sayings. The blond remembered a particular sentence she had said. Even though he was quite small when she had told him - five or six, no more - it remained engraved in his memory. She had came in his room, right before he went to sleep, and Draco had shivered when seeing her shadow at the doorstep. She had walked towards him, her pure demented smile on her lips, before sitting down on the border of his bed, crossing her legs.

- What's this? she had asked him as she designated from her claw-like finger the cuddly toy he was holding against his chest.

- My teddybear, Draco had answered while holding harder on it. It prevents me from having nightmares.

Bellatrix had then let a disagreeable high pitched laughter before referring to the perfect circle the lunar orbit was forming in the black night.

- Do you see that, Draco? That's the full moon. And with her all the monsters sleeping under your bed, all the ghosts marauding in the hallways are waking up. You believe that it's your poor little cuddly toy that's going to protect you from them? She had then bent closer towards him and Draco could have almost felt all the coldness that was emanating from her body. No one escapes from the full moon, my dear. No one.

No one escapes from the full moon.

How many truths was that sentence holding? There was no year when Draco escaped that phenomenon. When the lunar orbit was at its peek and shined its most in the dark sky, Draco would always sleep terribly. Atrociously bad, even. If he were to have nightmares any other nights, this particular one, his nightmares would go even further than the degree of fear his body and mind could humanly support. And if he had troubles falling asleep usually, this night, insomnia was definitely waiting for him.

And it was the case for that full moon too.

Draco tried to turn and turn again in his bed, to put off his bedsheets, to take off his shirt, to take a shower; in vain. Thus, his hair still wait, his cigarette pack in the pocket of his pyjama bottom, the blond left his bedroom.

He lit his cigarette in the stairs and sat down to smoke all the stalk until he reached the butt. Rushing down the stairs to throw it in one of the bins in the hall, the young man frowned as he saw a ray of light coming from the kitchen. After dropping the remaining orange bit of his cigarette in the first bin he came across, the blond walked towards that room silently.

It most surely was his mother. She had taken the habit of drinking in the middle of the night when sleep was no longer answering her call - which was more and more frequent. However Draco wasn't expecting at all to see the amateur photograph sitting on one of the stool in the room, a fuming cup before her, her eyes locked on the bay window. Feeling someone in her back, the young girl slowly turned her head and raised her eyebrows when she saw the only child of the house.

Their visual exchange last a few seconds only before Draco split it by taking a new cigarette he plucked in between his lips. The journey to the bay window was used to lit it and he took his first sip as he opened the window. And there, a foot in the kitchen, the other outside, his back leaning against the wall between the two rooms, he breathed out the grey smoke in the black night. One sip, second sip. At the third, he authorised himself a little glance towards the dining table and involuntarily crossed the amber eyes of her neighbour who was watching him.

- Insomnia? she then asked him.

Draco lifted his cigarette to his mouth before nodding while rejecting the nicotine halo in the fresh outside air.

- Me too, she told him while holding up her cup to take a sip. No one escapes from the full moon.

Malfoy almost choked with his smoke.

He entered a violent coughing series which made him tear up a bit, and he had to hold the stone wall, bent over, to catch his breath. When he was able to stand up, the first thing he saw was a glass full of fresh water held right before him. The next thing was the face of his neighbour, screwing up her eyes in a worried feature. Her eyes. Draco had almost forgotten about the strange orange they were tainted of.

He grabbed the glass, emptied it in one go, before giving it back to her without a thanks or anything. However, he was dying to ask her something.

- What did you say, right before? he asked her, his voice still a bit shaken.

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

- When?

- There. Right now. You said something about the moon.

The brunette's features immediately lightened up.

- Ah! No one escapes from the full moon?

- Yeah, he agreed, were did you hear that?

- Oh, that, it was a colleague of my dad who was pretty much… crazy, and who said that once when my parents invited her over for dinner a night of plain moon. I couldn't sleep at all that night. And none of the other plain moon nights, for all that matters.

- What was her name? Malfoy went on with the interrogation.

The high schooler shuddered. It went back to her secondary school memories, right, it was not that recent. And how come Draco was suddenly that interested in such a singular detail of her life when he had had no interest at all in her whole existence?

- I don't remember, she answered before a vague memory crossed her mind. Beatrice… Beli…

- Bellatrix?

- Ah, there, Bellatrix! remembered Hermione before frowning, curious. How would you know?

- It's my aunt.

The big amber eyes of the brunette opened wide.

- Your aunt?! she shouted, unable to retain a bewildered laughter.

- Yeah. My mom and her are sisters.

- Oh bloody hell, that's crazy! Hermione raised her eyebrows before lifting a hand to her mouth, charged as guilty. Errr, when I said that she was crazy, it's not exactly what I meant, it's only that, err, she, well, she was, er…

Draco couldn't help but let out a mocking smile which he hid by taking a sip of his cigarette. While looking at the brunette trying to explain her sayings, he breathed out the smoke in the air and interrupted her before she dig herself down too much:

- She's been in a psychiatric asylum for three years now. So, yeah, she's bonkers.

Hermione was surprised for a couple of seconds.

- In a… psychiatric hospital? But why?

Draco shrugged.

- Because she's insane. He held his cig to his lips and burnt the tip by taking a new sip : and because she entered here once in the middle of the night to stab us all to death.

He didn't know why he had felt the need to add that detail. Him, who hated talking about him, and even more of his family. But he did it. And Hermione almost dropped her mug.

- Stab? she repeated in a dumbfounded tone. Bloody hell that must have been traumatising!

- Not at all. It was hilarious. Draco inhaled another drag which he rejected in the air. She arrived with her knifes and she started throwing them at us, screaming to death, as if she were doing some kind of circus show. He tapped on his cigarette, letting the ashes fall. She missed my dad from a little, by the way. Too bad.

- You… started Hermione before interrupting herself. And starting once again: I could see that you're not really… soft, when it's about your father.

- Because he is with me, maybe? replied instantly Draco with abruptness.

- … I don't know. He's indeed a bit cold… a lot, even… but…

- But nothing. If he's giving himself a saint figure, it's only to have you ending up in his bed, declared Malfoy without caring to be cautious. And you, you have the naivety to fall head first in the trap. It's a bit sad, by the way, if you're asking my opinion.

- I didn't ask for it, actually, hissed coldly Hermione. And, truly, you have to keep low with those allusions completely uncalled for. I have absolutely no envy - and it's clearly reciprocal - of charming your father. I leave that job to her secretary. And I do believe that she's handling that job well, she couldn't help but add.

The photographer awaited a virulent reaction but, instead, all she got was a smirk on the side. Draco calmly exhaled the last drag of his cigarette, smashed the tip on the bricked wall and rejoined the kitchen as to stand right before Hermione. Not only did he dominate her with all his height, he also bent a little towards her, invading her vision field.

- Do you think you're bringing any news to me there? he asked in a tone both blasé and amused.

And by seeing him that close, Hermione suddenly realised something. Something crucial. His beauty.

It was a sudden constat, and most of all, out of context, seeing how they were, again, close to resume to the fists. But it invaded each of her thoughts and grew in her like a certitude, a universal truth.

Draco Malfoy was beautiful.

His peroxyde hair were beautiful. The way they were shuffled was beautiful. His blue-grey eyes were beautiful. His thin figure was making him beautiful. His expression, both disabused and aristocratic, his straight nose, his square jaw, his growing blonde beard, his lips. His lips. There was nothing to throw away. Everything seemed to have been drawn by God's hand itself.

This realisation made Hermione dizzy.

Until now, she had always carefully dissociated the real life Draco from the muse she would immortalise on her photos. It had always been two distinct people, in her head. Because the real life Draco was execrable, disrespectful, cold and violent - whereas the muse, her, she was always inspiring, always there at the right time, ready to put herself in her best profile for the most perfect photograph. The muse was breathtaking. And, in that precise moment, Hermione was realising with dread that Draco, the real Draco, was too. She realised it fully.

When the thought finally stopped invading her mind and she finally came back to reality, the brunette realised that the concerned man had left the room awhile ago.

...

"You're on Blaise Zabini's phone, I'm not free right now so leave a message. Or don't leave any at all. I don't really care, to be honest. Biiip !"

Draco hung up, threw his phone somewhere and fell once again on his bed whilst sighing. Turning his head on the side, he saw "3:08am" flashing on his clock radio, making him swear.

Fucking full Moon.

Fucking Morpheus.

Fucking Blaise.

Eight time he tried to join him, that asshole. Why wasn't he answering? Surely he'd gone partying with the others. But wasn't he feeling his bloody phone vibrating in his pocket? If the métis took the time to pick up his phone, he could have at least told Draco the club address in which they were for he could have joined them. Because fighting against a sleepless night alone in his room wasn't the most of fun. Still, for now, the bastard wasn't answering.

Draco sighed for the countless time, covering his face with his hands.

He could still get drunk on his own to pass time. But what more pathetic than that? Or else, he could spend time on his computer. Or watch TV. But TV was boring him. And social networks were dead, in the dark of the night. Some crack, then? Yeah… but no. He didn't really want some right now. Moreover, even if he consumed some now, the day he'll find himself in real needs with his stock empty would be the worst day of his life.

Then, what should he do? What? What? Being at the same time deprived of sleep and without activity would drive him crazy.

The blond stood up in his bed and brought the tenth cigarette of the night to his lips. If everything went right, he would have a sore throat by the morning. Lighter, first drag, new sigh. His eyes, with rigs under them, fell on the pillow. And his hand moved it a few centimetres away to let appear what was under it. A picture. The picture. Draco picked it up and stared at it.

Bloody hell.

Each time his eyes looked at it, the same fountain of emotion that he felt earlier in the day was erupting in him. He felt everything intensely. The uninterested and absent stare of his mother made him feel empty, not real. And that void was over filled with the despair and the frustration of being ignored that could be read in his eyes, in the picture. It was as if he were able to perceive the trembling hands that were resting on the table. It was as if he could smell the tobacco that she was nonchalantly exhaling. And even the volute of smoke that was escaping from her lips were royally ignoring Draco, sliding mockingly under his nose before disappearing beneath their heads.

He could feel all that. He could feel each elements of that picture as if the scene was replaying before his eyes. As if everything, from the cup of tea he was holding to the thin gold chain his mother had around her neck, were alive. It was frightening. And the most frightening was to think that this stranger of a few days had painted a portrayal of the family space as cruel as it was real.

Draco help up his head and stared by the window. He had not closed the shutter and, apart from the grey circle that the moon formed, it was pitch dark to the point that he could see himself on the glass as if he were looking in a mirror. And his reflection was pensive. His reflection was asking himself a question. The same question that was tormenting him each time he looked at the picture.

And what if that girl had other pictures in stock? What if the photographs he saw earlier were only a few out of a future series? A series holding multiples pictures each one more truthful than the other? Draco died to know. It's why he decided to go verify by himself, to be sure.

Draco stood up from his bed, took the sweater in which was a dose crack that Pansy, in her extreme and rare sympathy, had accepted to give him, and got out of his room whilst slipping it on. The light still turned on in the hallway told him the brunette was still in the kitchen - perfect. He was only going to be in there for a minute, anyway. He was only going to get in the lab, take a look at the remaining pictures and get out. Nothing more. This project in mind, the high schooler opened the lab door and entered the photography sanctuary.

Nothing had changed since the last time he had entered. Nothing apart the fact that the pictures he had seen a few hours ago were now removed from the clothes line. But maybe she had put them somewhere else. Draco looked behind his back, opened slightly the door to hear if anyone was stepping towards the room and started his search. First shelf. Nothing more than zoom lens. They were by dozens. All of that for his dad? Draco picked one and observed it under all its sides. There were a myriad of numbers and letters all around it. Complete nonsense in his eyes. All he knew was that these things were heavier than he had thought.

Putting the object back in its place, Malfoy attacked the second shelf. This time, there was cameras before his eyes. Old ones, sophisticated ones, digital ones, voluminous ones. The blond had never in his life seen as many of them in such a small space. Once again, he couldn't resist holding some of them, staring at them, weighting them, bringing them to his eyes - and his inspection was supposed to last less than a minute, really - before putting them back on the shelf. And he then remembered why he had come - the pictures, Draco, the pictures.

The third shelf was full of utensils of all shapes. Films, brushes, clothes line, ropes, trays, pieces of cloth, thermometers, chronometers, papers, bottles of chemical products. Draco took interest in the first one he fell on and opened the bottle to smell it. Five grimaces and a coughing fit later, he had his confirmation: that thing was toxic like nothing else. What did it serve for? Was his dad torturing people with it? Draco looked at the bottle's label to have his answer.

- It's a developer.

Malfoy brought his hand to his heart as he closed his eyes. Fucking he... he almost had an attack. Behind him, the tenant of the place was before the door and seemed like she was observing his little excursion in the lab for a small time already. Malfoy didn't even see her coming.

- What ? He barked.

- What you're holding, she told him while designating the little bottle he had in his hand. It's a developer.

The blond looked down on the bottle and raised an eyebrow, wanting to look disdainful.

- And ?

- And that's what enables the picture to be developed on the paper.

Draco remained still, his eyes staring at the label of what was apparently called a developer. His dad had never taught him all that. When he raised his head, he saw his interlocutor giving him a rather weird look. Which made him frown.

- What ?

Hermione moistened her lips before asking:

- If you want... I can show you how we develop a picture.

It was a white flag that she was waving at him. She wanted them to make truce. To stop this little verbal and physical war. She was clearly seeing that the animosity he had for her has started, for an obscure reason, to settle down juste like she was realising that an interest for photography was starting to rise in him. Hadn't he stole pictures from her a little while ago? If he did, it wasn't to play with them but because he really was fond of them. He even told her so. Or, at least, she had been able to understand it in the middle of his sentences. And now, what was he doing in this room if he wasn't interest in the universe of Nikon's? He had seen the light and had entered the room, was that it? She had spent a whole minute looking at him without him knowing on the step of the door, when she came back from the kitchen, and she was so close that anyone could have felt her presence in their back. Him no. Why? Because he had been so absorbed by what was under his eyes that he hadn't taken notice of what happened around him.

- It's really simple, she pursued, taking advantage of the fact that he wasn't answering to start her tutorial. First of all, you need a film. I mean, a picture. Then, wait a second...

She took her traditional camera that she had left by the sink and put Draco in shot. It changed something as, for the first time since she came in her, she wasn't photographing him without him knowing. He was there, right before her, his eyes on the lens, apparently cooperating. Hermione was quite surprised, if not completely astonished. For the first time, he wasn't jumping to her throat as she immortalised him with her camera. Sure, he still had his still and closed expression on his face but he wasn't jumping on her to strangle her, like he did last time. It was already a small victory.

Moreover the picture, if her development was a success, would really look interesting. The red light diffused by the lightbulb in the room was covering Draco's whole silhouette and, even if the picture would end up being in black and white, the game of shades and lights on the final product was really promising.

- There, said Hermione. Now, you have to get the film roll. She was enumerating her actions as she did them. You have to unroll it really slowly because at the first shock it's the whole film that's done for. Well here, because the picture is new, we won't need to unroll everything. The negative is right there, you only need to cut it. Can you give me the scissors on the shelf, please?

And when the pair of scissors appeared before her eyes, Hermione really wondered if a charm had been thrown at her neighbour for he was that compliant. Because, honestly, she had expected him to tell her off by saying something like "go take you things yourself, I'm not your maid" with a very disdainful and very typical of him tone. But that he would oblige...? It didn't even cross her mind. Then, he really wanted her to show him how to develop a picture? He was really interest in that? That the girl which his father was supposedly going to put in his bed was adding to his knowledge wasn't disturbing him?

- And, you take these bloody scissors or not? he said impatiently after a while.

Hermione jumped a little, getting out of her thoughts.

- Yes, yes, she hurriedly took the pair. So, what was I saying...

- We have to cut the negative.

The brunette raised her head to him, clearly impressed.

- Exactly... she was going to do it before changing her mind and showing him the film roll and the scissors. You want to do it?

Draco nonchalantly raised his shoulders but accepted what was offered to him. Hermione even remarked that he was holding the roll with a carefulness that was almost delicacy. The business done, he put the utensils back in the hands of the photographer and she walked towards a big machine that looked like a projector.

- Now, you have to put the negative in the enlarger for it to enlarge, in fact, the picture and project it on our support, in other words, the photo paper. The paper has to be scrupulously chosen, by the way, she added as she took a rectangular paper on the shelf near the enlarger. Depending on its composition, the light will be more or less absorbed and the result will take this or that color. Here I chose a paper with a bit of thickness for the colours to impregnate to the maximum and the final results to be, despite being in black and white, really intense. Err well, where was I? Yes! We have to put the negative in the enlarger. You put it right there... just like that. Then, you turn on the small light and you adjust the zoom lens until the image is a perfect copy of the piece of film roll. She then raised her head. Everything clear until here?

Draco nodded, hands in his pocket, and Hermione thus continued her explanation. However, from this point on, the high schooler stopped listening. Or, more like. He was listening to one thing only. Her voice.

She had a soft voice. He couldn't take this quality from her, despite not liking her a single bit. She had the type of voice that could calm an enraged people by a simple sentence. Ever since he was a kid, Draco has been put at ease by this type of vocal tessiture. The only primary school teacher whom he remembered had marked him because of that particular trait. When his mother still cared about his existence, she would speak in the same tone when she was reading him a bedtime story. With a low tone, a single thread of voice escaping from her lips, articulating precisely each words, the consonants rolling on her palate. A caressing and reassuring melody. That reassuring that he never waited until the end of the story to close one eye, then the other, from the heavier and heavier weight of his eyelids, and he slowly drifted to the limbs of sleep...

- Draco?

The blond woke up jumping. Facing him, Hermione was plunging the picture they were developing in a tray full of a colourless liquid. But her eyes were fixated on him. And her lips curved in a little smile.

- You're tired? She guessed.

Malfoy mechanically passed his hand in his hair and let it slide on the nape of his neck, leaving it here.

- Yeah. A bit, he admitted. You're making me sleepy.

Hermione immediately lost her smile and her expression straightened up, which didn't escape from Draco's stare who understood that she had wrongly comprehended him. By "you're making me sleepy", the blond meant that her voice was like a lullaby for him and that she had managed the exploit of making him sleepy on a full moon's night.

Two compliments in one. Malfoy was more and more surprised in himself every day. And he today found himself wanting to justify himself before someone he wasn't even supposed to consider.

- I mean, it's your way of talking that puts me to sleep, he reformulated before realising it sounded even worse than before. I mean, your voice. There's something. It makes me want to sleep. But not in the way where… fuck it, he capitulated, angry at himself for not finding the right word.

Hermione silently followed him with her eyes as he walked brusquely towards the exit, like that, on a sudden impulse. A side of his jumper in cashmere got stuck on the angular side of the table and he nervously pulled for it to get off, not remarking that the jolts had made something fall down from the pocket. And even before the brunette could tell her, he had already left the room. The photographer turned over the picture that was soaking in the tray before walking towards the place where the unidentified object that fell from Draco's sweater was. The tamed light didn't help her distinguishing it, and she had to squat down and pick up what seemed to be a small plastic sachet in which was some grams of powder. Intrigued, Hermione brought the plastic square close to the big lightbulb to have a better look at it. The powder was white. And the face of the brunette slowly turned white too, progressively, when she realised what she had in her hands was nothing more than cocaine.