A/N:

F#ck, (yeah I do auto-censored myself, I hate cursing!) I don't think no-one would really care or even notice, still I'd like to say that I'll be gone for a couple of days and won't be able to post any new chapter until I return from my...let's call it "forced time-break?"...if I ever happen to make it alive!

The thing here is that I need to re-evaluate a lot of things in my life... otherwise I think I'll lose my marbles for real. I've been re-reading some of the next chapter drafts and I've scared myself about how dark, sick & twisted my thoughts have turned...I guess I'll need to start them from scratch or maybe just put a warning to the reader...despite I've listed this fic for MATURE (& HARDLY INFLUENCED) AUDIENCE ONLY... I bet there are still one or two innocent & pure souls reading it (you're now doomed...booo!) and I don't want to be the reason of their existential breakdowns ...Thanks for making the stats of this fic skyrocket...still so few scarce reviews...don't be shy I won't get mad if you tell me that my writing sucks! I already know that!! (actually I LOVE it as if it were my baby...a very retarded and stupid one...still part of me). English is not my mother language and this is my best shot at it...I guess I've improved a little since I write the first part (Forever May Not Be Long Enough) about 3 years ago (but posted early this year)...thank god I don't live from writing and I got a job to pay the bills...whatever... I don't want to turn this fic in some kind of auto-biography of my fucked up life...wait a minute...isn't that exactly the main reason to start writing a fan-fic in the fist place?! LOL ...I can't help feeling Draco's (this one, not JKR canon) character like my alter ego at times...hell...most of the time...always!!

#Once the truth is revealed, events will snowball beyond your control.#

Divinne

CHAPTER VII

"You got no right
To keep me waiting here
You got no right
To keep the pain in here
That holds the crown.

And if I fall apart on the outside
You really don't believe me
And if I take it to the brink
And if I fall apart on the outside
You really don't believe me
You would have barely seen me breathe."

(VELVET REVOLVER - "You Got No Right")

As Draco walked slowly through the deserted corridors that night after talking with Snape, he was mentally gathering information of the environment that surrounded him. Not even those slight sounds were taken for granted by the meticulous Slytherin.

He'd been away only for about two months, why did the school looked so different then? Taking into account that it was a short gap of time that passed by, why did the smells, lighting and sights that inflicted upon his senses felt completely odd and new to him? He didn't quite know why he was gathering inside him those impressions or why all of the sudden that overwhelming amount of sensory information was starting to set off alarm bells inside his mind for unknown reasons.

Maybe all those previous memories were blocked by a defence mechanism of his unconscious or maybe he just didn't want to experience the unease familiarity and unpleasant state of déjà vu that meant going back to Hogwarts. But this new sensations, triggered by a sense of constant alert with the surrounding, indicated something else, something disturbing. The muscles in his sculpted face contracted: the environment was rejecting his presence with the same levelled force as Draco's hatred for being stuck in there. Luckily, that building tension would be over soon after he succeeded with his plan and be miles away from the Castle with Luna in his arms.

Draco's slender and tall built body headed straight to the west side of the Castle, more precisely to Ravenclaw's Tower. The dim light of his wand was casting eerie shadows as he passed by. The soft waves of this cloak rhythmically followed the Slytherin's elegant and feline way of walking.

"You are to be congratulated on the vigilance with which you keep the watch assigned to you."The painting of Phineas Nigellus Black greeted with a snobbish gentleman manner.

Draco managed a tight nod as he passed by but didn't stop. Still the blond wondered why his painting was hanged in that solitary hall when, as former headmaster of Hogwarts, would have to be decorating Dumbledore's office along with the rest of the other headmasters' paintings. He narrowed his cold amethyst blue eyes, reminding himself why Phineas was considered the least popular headmaster by the rest of the Houses at Hogwarts.

"He was pure-blood, Slytherin, headmaster, wealthy rich and he got power: all this together is just unacceptable in this school, right? The so called 'Unity of the Four Houses' is nothing but a sick joke!" Draco said to himself, his tense and joyless facial expression imprisoned his most dark feelings and emotions tight under control.

Just when the blond was turning down the corridor, he caught sight of Terry Boot: the Ravenclaw's prefect. The tall brunette was leaning against the Common Room's door, playing alone with his self-shuffling cards. Draco had beaten him many times in the past when they happened to come across during rounds and the Slytherin wanted to shake off his boredom, taking advantage of Terry's gambling addiction. The blond had already amassed a vast collection of Terry's most precious possessions. No surprise in that for Draco was an excellent strategist, what made him an unbeatable player.

Draco clenched his teeth with annoyance; he certainly didn't want to come across Terry and his non-stop boring chats and he wasn't at all amused to beat him at any game whatsoever, no matter what the Ravenclaw's boy placed at stake. He had to gain access to the door at any cost. The blond smirked in silence for he had come up with some pretty good ideas: the problem was to choose which one wouldn't leave that many permanent sequels on Terry's physical condition.

"What the hell, he deserves what's coming for him." Draco said to himself, ready to strike.

But a menacingly sound of rattling chains being dragged over the harsh stone floor caught the attention of Draco. He turned round, walking towards The Bloody Baron instead.

"Absence diminishes minor passions and inflames great ones, as the wind douses a candle and fans a fire." The ghost said, breaking the reining silence without looking at the blond but fully aware of his intentions as he made circles around him with his face fixed on the walls. "What do these Ravenclaw's ladies have that made us Slytherins go mad?"

"It's a curse I'm afraid." Draco replied with lacking enthusiasm, and added "You're here for the Gray Lady, right?"

"I haven't seen her for weeks, her absence inflames and excites my yearning for her…and she knows it, still she keeps avoiding me." The ghost seemed to look down within himself, trying to ease his agony.

Draco swallowed hard, pushing away those unwelcoming feelings trying to shut up his heart.

"I was madly in loved and she denied me, that's why I killed her and then I put an end with my life. Why go on living is she wasn't by my side?" The Baron lamented, as he lifted between his hands the penance chains that imprisoned him.

"Still if you save them, women end up hating you! Where's justice in all this?" Draco rolled his eyes, cursing under his breath.

"There is no justice, not for men like us." The ghost sentenced with a hollow voice.

Draco sighed and rested his back against the wall, crossing his arms with frustration "I need that entrance cleared, could you distract that git while I manage to get inside?"

But when the blond turned round to check on the ghost, The Bloody Baron had already vanished in the air, materializing a few inches behind Terry, catching him by surprise while he dissuaded the prefect to follow him, probably leading the boy into a nasty ruse.

Ravenclaw's Common Room had a very unique feature that made it stand out from the other three for it didn't use a password. In order to gain entrance into it, each student had to answer correctly to the riddle formulated by the eagle-shaped door's knob.

Draco walked straight at it and tilted his head to one side, staring at the bird who feigned being fast asleep. He then got close and whistle loudly into the bird's ears.

"May I ask who are you and what do you want?" Not at all what Draco expected the little and lectured bird would ask, no matter how rude had been the awakening for as a guardian, it should be alert at all times.

"My name is Draco Malfoy, I'm Slytherin's prefect and I want to step inside." He frowned, probably the silvery animal made that question on purpose to find out who Draco was.

"A Slytherin?" The eagle asked with a worried tone.

Was it something about the green and gray combination of colors in his uniform the cause of the small creature's distress?

"Aren't you supposed to ask me a riddle so I can get inside?" Draco crossed his arms, waiting for the bird to cut the act and get to the point.

"Not one, but five riddles must a student from Slytherin answer correctly in order to step inside, those are my rules." The high pitch voice of the eagle echoed on the walls.

"So if members of my House are supposed to answer four more riddles than the rest, I take that you consider us, Slytherins, the best students of the school. I like that!" Draco teased, smirking in an evil and dark way.

"What cannot be seen but only heard, and will not speak until spoken to?" The bird asked at once.

"The echo." Draco replied without letting it finish the last word.

"What three letters make a man of a boy?"

"Age." Another correct rocket answer provided by the blond.

"What has roots as nobody sees, is taller than trees, up, up, it goes, and yet never grows?" The eagle asked with an annoyed tone at the agile minded Slytherin.

"A mountain." He rolled his eyes, looking bored.

"I am a box with no corner or side. I hold a golden treasure inside. What am I?"

"An egg." He replied, yawning.

"It doesn't bark, it doesn't bite but still don't let you in a house. What is it?"

"A lock."

Shortly after providing the last correct answer, Draco felt as if an invisible wall of ice collapsed over him, with millions of frozen cut fractals smearing through all his insides.

"Yuck!" Draco jerked his body violently.

He raised his wand in the air and looked around, feeling uneasily disoriented for a second with that unwelcoming sensation. It was a feeling of complete emptiness and bottom nothingness: it was a sign that a ghost had passed right through his body, but where was it?

"Show yourself!"

A sharp distorted moaning resounded on the walls around him, but soon it stopped leaving a faint echo behind.

"Stop and speak to me, I won't hurt you." Draco pocketed the wand for he knew with whom he was dealing with, it was Ravenclaw's ghost: the Gray Lady.

"No one has been able to bring his promises to fulfilment because fate's darkness clouds the perception." Replied a soft and sad female voice as it got closer, still invisible to his eyes.

"I've said that I won't hurt you because you can't die twice, right?" He smirked maliciously.

Draco felt a freezing cold finger slowly tracing his cheek; he took a step back, shivering from such unpleasant physical interaction.

A blurred halo materialized in front of him, the incredible pale see-through projection of her ghost stared at him intensely, leaning even closer. Draco held his breath as the Gray Lady stared at her reflection in the sheer vastness of his amethyst blue eyes while breathing heavily for a while before disappearing behind a statue.

"Wait." He hissed as an unnatural icy fog escape through his open mouth, what had just happened to him?

Draco blinked a few times, he was not thinking clearly, indeed could not think at all. He felt like he had been thrown into a bottomless ice cold abyss and pulled out all of a sudden. He couldn't stop wondering what had the ghost done to him and why. He needed answers. He turned round and pointed his wand towards the statue.

"Dissendium!"

The statue slowly began to move, revealing its secret passage. He rushed inside, following her trail.

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It was pitch-black inside; it seemed to be a cold windowless place. Draco felt a bit disoriented as his eyes got adjusted to the darkness, he light coming from his wand hardly managed to light a small portion of what seemed to be not a room, but an endless cave. His footsteps echoed on the stone floor. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the strange sensation that was tickling still all over his body. He had never felt this cold before.

"You knew I'd follow you, what is it that you want to show me?" He shrugged, wrapping his arms tight around his body.

"I'm glad to have come across someone of your sort, you are a handsome and talented young man, and you are pursued by many for either your good and bad doings. You appear to be dangerous, without flaws or weaknesses. But we ghosts can see beyond: you've got many defects and vices. You are warming a snake on your bosom, and it is a snake that warms you." Her voice echoed on the icy walls.

"I take it that you're fully aware I'm a Slytherin, no need to use an allegory to point that out."

Draco considered unfair the fact of being dragged along an ancient hatred of hers towards Slytherin. He had nothing to do with the fact that The Bloody Baron killed her: Helena Ravenclaw, daughter of Rowena, founder of the Ravenclaw's House. He knew he made the wrong turn when he didn't contradict the Sorting Hat and followed Lucius' wishes. Draco's heart whished to choose Ravenclaw instead, but he was having second thoughts about that too, it didn't seem to be a good second choice either. He concluded that Hogwarts had been never a place for him.

"It was you, the ice cold presence I felt the moment I've entered the Castle." The blond paused, his breathing was unsteady, carefully evaluating her intentions inside his head. "It was you the one who called Peeves?!"

He looked like we was about to snap but he couldn't quite bring himself to do so for be felt again the unpleasant icy sensation numbing his senses. She was standing in front of him, just a couple of inches away from his face, caressing the back of his neck with those unnatural and chilly fingers of her.

"Quit touching me, I don't like it!" Draco jerked his body frantically once more, this time he started swearing under his breath.

"Whatever I want to do, I will be able to for I have already achieved a great deal to test my abilities." Her see-though glass eyes looked at him without blinking, there was a tint of satisfaction on her pale complexion.

"Whatever, I'm leaving." He shot back with an evasive manner walking towards the exit.

"Draco Malfoy, you've got a lot to learn about yourself, that's why I've stopped you before from leaving the Castle and called Peeves." She leaned back, granting Draco the distance he was demanding earlier.

"You can't hold me in here, just watch me leave the school grounds for good and never return!" He shoved his arms on the air, shaking off his frustration.

"You're free to go, free to be selfish or selfless, nasty or nice, serious...or frivolous." She was provoking him, in a desperate attempt to keep him there a little longer.

And it worked miracles for he stopped all of a sudden and turned back to face the ghost with fire in his eyes.

"I perfectly know that freedom of choice is a two-edged sword for just on the other side of liberation sits uncertainty and danger. Well, that's the price to pay for staying alive. Certainly you wouldn't understand that!" He was growing agitated as he spoke forcefully.

"You're always expecting too much from others, the same way you keep pushing yourself to be perfect in everything you do, you're wrong in that." She remained still, waiting to study his reaction with an intense interest.

"I won't play your game, Grey Lady." He rolled his eyes, he wasn't going to keep wasting his time with her.

"It's much better to make up the rules of the games you play as you go along than to be forced to play those games by other's rules: rules that don't seem to serve you and make no sense to you, right?" Her ethereal voice sounded threatening.

"Lady, you don't know me at all." He pulled up the cloak around his frozen neck, shrugging.

"What kind of game is being a spouse or a lover? To what extent are lovers supposed to submerge their own interests or desires to serve the interests or desires of their partners? At what point does devotion turn into subjugation?"

The ghost was leading him to her intended path, despite the fact that Draco was not going to be an easy pray to catch: she found the challenge tempting enough to give a try at least.

"If I happen to find out that you've messed with Luna's head, I'll make you pay for that. There are worse things than death, you know?!" He threatened with a harsh and fierce look in his amethyst blue eyes.

"I know what you're capable of doing and what's inside the viper's nest of your heart. You've already taken care to wreck and tear up what was left of her innocence." She said with an empty whisper.

"I'm a Slytherin, yes, but I'm not like The Bloody Baron. I'd never kill the woman I love!" He started to choke, barely daring to breathe for the air was frozen and it felt like piercing daggers inside his lungs.

"Are you sure about that? Just take a look in the mirror in front of you, go ahead." The ghost encouraged him with a suggesting voice.

Draco could barely see what was in front of him; he raised his wand and called out. "Lumos Solem!"

The blinding sunlight that erupted from his wand illuminated the whole place, reflecting the rainbow colours on the fractal crystal rocks of the cave. Draco, startled by it, blinked a few times, unable to move. He was standing in front of a large wall bevelled mirror. Inscribed across the top of the ornate golden frame was the following text: "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi". He recognized it from a book he read when he was in first year: this was the Mirror of Erised, a magic mirror.

"I show not your face but your heart's desire…"He said to himself reading backwards the letters of the inscription as he rearranged the spaces in between.

Draco looked uncertain, despite the fact he got questions concerning him and Luna he was not at all convinced to step in front of it and confront his deepest desires. Still, he always wanted to know what would happen if he could suddenly see what was truly inside him, without any censorship or self-control, to experience the rawness of his heart, it was a tempting offer indeed.

He glanced nervously over his shoulder, feeling the ghost slender icy fingers clenching it. He was starting to feel very tired, tired of her, tired of that killing coldness surrounding him. His body wouldn't fight the numbness of her harsh cold presence any longer: he had to get away from there soon.

"Look!" She extended her slender and long arm pointing towards the mirror, straight at Draco's reflection.

He opened wide his eyes, as he tried to recognize himself in it. His reflection looked back at him with an undisturbed and strangely amused smirk curling his velvety pale lips. From behind his reflection appeared the blurred image of Narcissa Black, his mother, holding him tight as she rested her cheek on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

"Mother?" He hesitated for a moment, feeling his insides twist with angst.

Draco's eyes soared so he narrowed them, watching the images through his eyelids. His mother was gone from sight: it was Lucius Malfoy now by his side, flashing a proud smile as he hugged him in a tender fatherly manner. He saw himself hugging his father back, flashing an overwhelming happiness on his silk face as he stared from over his father's shoulder at a headstone with an inscription that read: HARRY POTTER R.I.P. Then he saw Voldemort approaching both men, strangely pleased to step into that unusual family scene. The all-black figure handled Lucius his unnatural sick pale flesh hand for a tight grip and then expected Draco to copy the gesture and reached out for his hand, clenching his fingers around Draco's hand in a possessive grip.

The images of the both men blurred and mingled into one, it was Luna now by his side, with a timid smile on her pink button flower lips. He saw him approaching her, encircling her fragile and soft pearl neck in between his hands, caressing her earlobes with fascination as he kissed her with passion, devouring her mouth, lost in her pearl eyes as he started to surround tighter his slender and long fingers around her flesh, choking her slowly, draining her energy until she dropped dead on the floor.

"NO!" He shouted, emptying his lungs all of a sudden, feeling ice cold stabbings as he breathed in again.

"You've realized that your feelings for her are the ones holding you back from becoming what you truly desire. You'll only achieve that supremacy if you let go of your passions. You know that emotions are obstacles in the way to the final goal: she is obstructing you from becoming perfect and flawless. She is making you weak, and that's unacceptable!"

"How could you possible know all that? Nevermind that you can see beyond, you can't possible know what I saw in that mirror, you can't enter my mind or my heart!"

Unexpectedly, the place went pitch-black again. He blinked hard, his eyes hurt way too much to keep them opened. Still he didn't need his eyes to feel the Gray Lady approaching him once more.

"I can because you let me, Draco Malfoy. That part of hers inside you is making you fall apart and if you don't stop that it will consume you entirely. The same is happening to her." She hissed with a thread of voice.

Draco couldn't see a damn thing again, not even her face that was just a couple of inches from his face. He grabbed his wand and waved it frantically in the air.

"Lumos!" He tried to look around through his eyelids, trying to find the way out as he run towards what he considered was the way from which he came.

He could distinguish a pale white light getting smaller as he ran towards it. The blond covered his face inside the hood and wrapped the cloak tight around his body as he jumped through the narrow hole, just in time before it closed behind him.

"Whooo!" Terry exclaimed as he watched Draco's slender figure coming right from the other side of the wall, flying through the air.

Draco touched ground with splendid and acutely grace on his two feet. As the Slytherin strengthen up, untangling the cloak from around his slender body, he pulled out his hood and tried to focus his eyes on the figure in front of him, for everything looked a bit blurred and out of focus. Soon he realized that the Ravenclaw's prefect was staring back at him with a dislocated open jaw.

"Malfoy….Draco Malfoy?!"

"Yes, it's me." Without much interest, Draco glanced at him.

"Oh man….just look at you…."

Terry frowned nervously, as he tried to gather strength to pull the words together and speak up.

"What is it with this people that all of the sudden they act like a total freaks when they see me?" Draco said to himself.

"Malfoy, you look as if you've either been recently out of a hypothermic shock or slowly entering into one as we speak!"

Terry couldn't stop staring back at Draco with his stupid mesmerized eyes: the blond's lips looked a sick shade of blue, there were dark hollow circles under his amethyst blue eyes and his slim body frame was standing a bit unsteady.

"Boot...you know what?" Draco hissed after coughing, softly lifting his wand towards him.

"No, what?" He said, as his knees started to shake.

"Confundo!" Draco paused, managing a tired smirk for his chopped lips hurt badly. "This is a dream. You're lazy and irresponsible git and you happen to dozed of during one of your rounds. You've never saw me tonight. Okay?"

"I must have dozed of during one of my rounds for I'm a lazy and irresponsible git. I never saw Draco Malfoy tonight, it's just a dream…"

The puzzled boy repeated staring at the nothingness as Draco walked slowly towards the dungeons, barely able to stop trembling from the shivers of his frozen body, longing for a long warm bath the moment he arrived at his dorm.

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