Vonne: As promised, a longer and faster chapter update. I had a bit more free time this weekend, so I was more than happy to finish up this chapter as soon as possible and update 'Cellar Door'. Unfortunately, I used the majority of my free time on this so, I don't have time to respond to everyone this time. I'm so sorry, once again. Still, I love and appreciate all of your reviews. I read every single one of them, I promise. I hope you all enjoy chapter twenty, in which Malfoy goes on a little bit of a trip...
And, of course, thank you to: Lively McBrighten, Malfoy Lover, MCLanna, Psychic City, LeCandeh, Corey Fitzwilliam, Luckie29, Forbiddenluv, Isabella120, Sarah, Starlight Sanctuary, and Caddy Cassandra, who reviewed every single chapter in a day! Thank you so much for motivating me. Lord knows I needed it this wekk.
Oh, one last thing for all of you wondering, this chapter's title is taken from The Beatles' song, 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'...
"Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes."
Chapter Twenty
With Diamonds
Draco Malfoy must have been drugged... must have been, because rooms didn't spin in the ways in which they were then and voices certainly didn't whisper from nowhere.
Though he was lying curled on his side, he could feel his eyes flutter backwards every so often as a trickle of wetness cascaded down his cheek in the most disgustingly pathetic fashion. He was still in the closet, in the darkness, bound and unmoving, fuzzy and numb. And they were coming out from every angle, the whispers, soothing and horrible and unwelcome in his ear as he flinched back, head spinning, unable to do anything but merely lie there and listen. But Crabbe had only left him moments ago- or had it been hours?- and now the Nothingness was starting to creep in and Draco was beginning to feel like a void in the middle of all that emptiness.
Then he heard his father say, "stand up straight, son, just stand up straight," and the scene around him morphed, no longer a dingy old coat closet, but instead the lovely hallways of the Manor. And he was walking down them as if he hadn't been cuffed ever, his father's hand gentle yet protective on his shoulder, repeating over and over again that it was in his best intentions to keep his back straight, straight like a board, like a statue, like a proud and loyal follower of their all-powerful Lord. Keep straight, spoke when spoken to, nod and tell him the truth, that "you've been waiting for this moment for a very long time because... well, because you have been, haven't you, Draco?"
He was being moved through the home on fast-feet, mind still racing because he had been last and where were Crabbe and Goyle? He hadn't seen either of them come out of the room, but he had not much time to think about that because then he was standing in front of the massive doors and his aunt was there, lovely in the doorframe, a great big smile across her face with her head cocked downwards and her eyes pitched up, saying, "ah, Draco, been waiting all night for you...". And then he was in and the banging behind him was the shut of the doors and the emptiness at his back was the absence of his father's hand at his shoulder because Lucius had been called to stand in his place among the others with his mother... pretty, perfect Narcissa, with her eyes all filled with tears. But they were happy tears then, weren't they? Because she was proud; she'd told him that she'd been so very proud.
And then the Dark Lord said his name beyond the strips of shadow, his eyes skin a decaying gray, with his own wand extended. He spoke in series of long sentences and a language in which Malfoy couldn't understand, all the while his fingers clasped around Draco's arm in a dominating manner that made half-moon snapes in his his flesh. Then finally he asked in a voice that was hight-pitched and horrible, "do you, son of Lucius Malfoy, willingly take the Mark of your Lord as a promise of your universal honor, loyalty, and your soul?"
His mother's sobs hardened and his father squeezed her shoulder tightly. Behind him he felt a breath, and the warmth told him it was Fenrir's, and he was certain he hadn't felt the man creep up on him in order to get so close. But Draco said, "I do," and then the wand was lowered to his skin where, instantly, he felt as if he'd been stabbed there with a knife. So when the pressure set out, his knees gave in, and he sagged in the dirty arms that were clutching him around the waist and shoulders, arm held outward so forcefully by the long nails of Voldemort that he could only cry out painfully. Still, the rush of it all was blinding and he found himself digging into Greyback's skin, eyes half-opened, submerged under a growing cloud of deep blackness.
Then he was under, under, under, vaguely aware that they were laughing at him, saying, "my, Lucius, does Draco sure look sick..."
When he thrashed in Greyback's hands, he wasn't even certain that his body had done it. Either way, he couldn't help it though the shock that ran through his every limb made him fuzzy and numb and delirious. He hadn't even registered the feeling of opaque haziness, but only remembered hearing fractions of their conversation; things like, "Draco... not breathing... hold him still," and the sounds of his mother screaming. He didn't remember how he'd ended up on the floor next, but he had, and then Greyback wasn't holding on to him anymore and then there was nothing, nothing, nothing.
For then the candle light in the hallway was suddenly blown out to his world, leaving him in the dark of the office, dreaming again until he couldn't feel a single thing anymore, not even his arm. But the moment was only short lived because when he opened his eyes, he was back in the closet where Crabbe had left him, woozy and aching and blinking out the wetness that pooled bitterly down his cheeks. And he breathed in the stale, dusty coat space, twisting his hands in his bindings and whimpering as his wrists scraped against the edges, cutting deep within himself and extracting more blood from his sliced flesh.
Hissing, Draco drew away, momentarily distracted by the thought of Crabbe and the occasional thuds he heard coming from the rooms upstairs, Crabbe's demanding voice, and a slam of shaky dresser drawers. He wondered how long it had been then, his sense of time muddled by his heavy head, and tried to sit up before the voice of a woman weighed him down. But her tone was soothing, like silk, and he shuddered within himself as the sound of her faint syllables rushed through his ears, nothing more than a soft whisper that soothed cooed and comforted him.
Then it was his mother who he heard say, "its over now, Draco, love, its all over now," but she was nowhere to be seen except behind the mess of his memories, but that version of her was so clear now, perched on the side of her grand king mattress, hand in his hair and eyes sopping wet. There was a tug in his chest and he gasped, feeling pulled within himself as the cuffs on his limbs tightened and his head flew back, bam, against the harsh wooden floorboards. But then he wasn't in the closet anymore at all, but instead his parents' soft, comfortable bed where, upon his curled up torso, had rest a collection of fine sheets and blankets. And a wet washcloth rest on his head and there she was, his beautiful mother, spare hand on his cheek, cupping it, saying, "its over, I promise, its over, its over, its over..."
And what she meant was the Branding Ceremony and the process of acquiring his Dark Mark; and she was right because he was reliving the moment in her bed with the bowl next to him and the pain in his left forearm strong, but faded nonetheless. She winced as he leaned over the plastic bowl, back arching as he clamored clumsily towards it, dispelling the contents of his stomach within the thing before resting his chin against the edges and blinking in the sight of his own bile that sat there, taunting and ruthless before him.
But then Severus Snape was at the closed door, just as he'd remembered, with his face blank as a slate and his mouth screwed shut and, back then, his demeanor had really just pissed Draco off. So, looking over the edge of his stupid plastic barf-bowl, Malfoy squared his gray eyes up at him, looking back towards the potions professor with a face of sickly green, and said to him with the most bitterness he could muster, "what the bloody hell are you gawking at?" But Snape said nothing and Draco's stomach churned again and he was back into the bowl, heaving out yesterday evening's dinner, and the Master Bedroom spun and then he was back there, on the floor of the closet, eyes half opened and dazed and drugged, and drugged, and drugged...
He tried to think of the alternative, that what was happening to him really wasn't and that this was all a dream. He tried to think of himself back in his bed, still successfully planning with Granger, Vincent Crabbe none the wiser. Then he tried to think of the impossible, that the Death Eaters hadn't been called at all and that any moment he'd wake up in his bed, under his covers with his wand and his health and the promise of, at least, a couple more months to live of the rest of his life. Nonetheless, he tried to suppress a sob and figure out what he'd been given, feeling almost foreign to the odd sense of depravity he'd felt in his core, the every-so-often tug of reality that pulled at his navel. But before it had been too long, Malfoy's innards gave a shift and he was drowning again, suppressed by the feeling of the voices, vibrating through out him, Hermione's every so often saying, "in this together?" though he was certain that, very soon, there wouldn't be that much of him left.
Still, with his short seconds with a clearer head, Draco wondered how, exactly, he'd ever ended up in such a situation- despite the fact that he was almost one-hundred percent positive that the majority of is situation had been Harry bloody Potter's fault. He, Draco Malfoy, was never supposed to have been the unsuccessful one, the kink in the long line of perfect Malfoy blood. And he could hardly believe it himself, practically awaiting his death sentence, hearing a collection of voices as he watched the scene of his pitiful life flashing, quite literally, before his very eyes. In the back of his subconscious he heard Snape tell him, "I have to protect you, Draco," but he didn't want protecting, not then, because this was his mission; the Dark Lord had put this on him.
But then that whole thing with Dumbledore happened and Lord Voldemort had been kind enough to give him a second chance. Enter Hermione Jean Granger, next, held up with the support of two strapping Death Eaters, her brown hair a fluffy frizz of a mess as they carried her through the Manor and down the stairs to the Cellar where she'd spent what had seemed like an absolute eternity. Then he couldn't get her out of his head because she was absolutely fucking everywhere...
Nonetheless, Crabbe was saying over and over again, "you really do like her, don't you?" and Malfoy told himself no, he didn't, he didn't because he couldn't, just couldn't. He certainly wasn't supposed to feel anything but contempt for those that weren't pure-blooded, but something about Hermione was different and it disgusted him while intriguing him all at the same time until nothing made him certain at all anymore.
Yet the closet was once again morphing and, with a helpless cry, he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror by himself, shirtless and panting, gray eyes scanning his reflexion for something, something, anything... but he couldn't find it. And this was the day he had stood after a shower in a trace, the night after his Branding Ceremony, shock of blond hair cast over his face, looking frantically for who he was certain he was supposed to become... big-time Death Eater, redeemer of his family name, his father's son. Though then he'd seen nothing by his own figure, so pale and shivering, body tainted by the ugly Mark on his skin, something that he should have been proud of but instead, didn't know what he felt. This was the first time that the thing had started hurting, too, twisting and churning on his skin so much so that he'd backed himself up in a corner and placed his other palm on it, eyes clenched shut, teeth hard on his lower lip, breathing, breathing, breathing, until he wasn't sure that he could breathe much anymore.
But it wasn't over until Snape found him, forcing open the bathroom door to find him sopping wet on the tile against the wall, lower body covered by the cloth of too-short pyjamas, face twisted shut in an array of pain as if he were about the claw the Mark clear off his arm at any given moment. He'd given him a potion then, shoved it in his hands and watched Draco clamor for it, pouring it down his throat and leaning back against the bathtub to catch his breath, eyes sparkling at the ceiling so much so that he'd looked almost exhausted, ready to sleep within the seconds. And it had been so much more different than the time that the thing had bothered him in school, making him sputter from his common rooms in the dead of the night, stumbling through the halls to his professor's dimly lit office to ask for it again, one more time, just to make it stop because please, please, he needed it, please.
Snape hadn't given it to him and then Draco had to learn to deal with it, sick with the pressure of the curse when he'd whisk away from his classes to stagger out into the hallway and stumble away to be sick in the boys' room. That had been when he'd heard Myrtle crying, when he'd found her in the girls' room, and when he'd spoken to her about everything, just before it had all come down to it. Then he'd let the Death Eaters in and, despite Myrtle's support, he still hadn't been able to do it. And dammit, that made him sick, just thinking about it because here he was, trapped in one great big nightmare. End final scene of his tragic and miserable existence. Fade out. Curtains close. Credits, credits, credits.
He wondered how he could have possibly been so stupid, letting his guard down in front of Vincent fucking Crabbe, for fuck's sake. He shuddered as he thought about the nights he'd spent unaware of Crabbe standing there, wand outstretched as he waited for Malfoy to breath his last breath of consciousness for the night before diving into his very mind. Terrified, Malfoy wondered what other things he'd seen, wondered if he'd explored the dreams in which he couldn't even remember himself, wondered if he's seen his fantasies of Hermione in the shower, her clothes clinging curiously to her figure, her hair weighed down significantly by the water pressure... If Crabbe had seen his actual 'torture' sessions with Granger, well then, he was definitely screwed. Thus, he considered the notion of Crabbe overlooking each time carefully, watching Malfoy loose himself over the open bust on Hermione's torn shirt, feeling weak and stupid, so stupid, as if he'd never seen a girl's open blouse before.
Because he had, of course, though it had only been once. And he didn't exactly know why he'd thought of it, but he did, the very first time he had ever kissed a girl; and he was fifteen and far less troubled, but so damn sure of himself, when Pansy had found him alone in the common room and told him exactly what she'd thought of him. Back then, he'd thought he'd liked her too, because that's how it was supposed to be- Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy. So he'd kissed her on the emerald green couch and she'd unbuttoned his pants, but he didn't feel fireworks like he'd expected, only a sick, twisting urge of panic as her hands reached over his body and she'd seemed so much more experienced than he did.
Though he hadn't had much time with her then, only putting his hands on her face and kissing her before he was harder than he'd expected and Goyle had thundered in through the door, cutting them off accidentally. But if Pansy had noticed his quick excitement then she hadn't said anything because in his sixth year she'd tried again, pulling him forcefully into a broom closet after their night class and pressing his back against the shelves to ask if he had been thinking about her and then her voice was loud and unmistakable in his ears. There on the closet floor he'd heard her, voice sweet and breathy, lashes batting slightly, so that she could whisper up close, "I've been thinking about you all summer, Draco. All bloody summer..."
When she'd ran her hands through his hair he'd started where he'd left off a whole year ago, moaning desperately back into her mouth, though this time he was certain he'd only done so because he had to. Sixteen and he'd only kissed a girl once, but he hadn't had time for girls now anymore, not with everything going on back at home; so Pansy's surprise was really pleasant for him and he'd loved it because, really, he just needed some attention, some comfort, some closeness...
And that was when he'd placed his hands at her buttons, undoing them one by one as Pansy stared into his eyes, short black hair strewn against her flushed face. He'd pulled off her shirt and fumbled with her bra before she had to do it for him, shedding the green thing to the ground before pressing her bare chest up on him and letting him place his head on her shoulder, holding her momentarily as if the rest of his problems had faded, faded, faded away.
"I heard that," Pansy had said between kisses, "you've been Marked," and then Draco stiffened, slack against the closet shelves. Pansy, though, only looked up, eyes peering through her bangs, and she was asking if she could see it, just once... "the Dark Mark, I just want to look at it."
But Draco didn't know what to do, but he'd known that he'd needed this, this feeling with another being, so he'd stood still and numb as she rolled up the sleeves of his robes. Then she revealed his Marked flesh in the light, fingers tracing the air over it, teeth balanced on her bottom lip, hands in his hair as she kissed him lower, lower, lower, until she sucked his neck. Still, for a moment everything was fine and nice, but then the thing started hurting all over and, instead of being strong, Malfoy fell limp and he curled within himself, despite the warmth of Pansy, to hug his torso and let out a frustrated and angry cry. The Dark Mark had hurt him again.
He hadn't been surprised when Pansy had panicked, buttoning up her shirt and mumbling, "sorry, I'm so, so sorry," before whisking herself out of the broom closet and shutting the thing behind her to leave Draco there alone, head reeling from the pain, shirt open and fly unzipped, sixteen years old with the sexual experience of a bloody child.
When the room morphed around him again and, despite himself, he was back in reality, he found that he was hoarsely breathing, so bloody ashamed of himself that he thought that he might have been sick there all over again. He was certain even Crabbe had been through that memory, perhaps thousands of times, and fucking hell, he was so stupid, stupid, stupid...
A couple days ago, Draco was no where near this sort of mess. He was sleeping in his own bed, worried only that the idea of something this fucking awful could have happened. He reversed backwards to the time that he'd first seen Hermione, bloody and bleeding, and he'd told himself that killing her would come to him eventually. He wished then that he'd been able to do it, for his sake and for hers. Because now everything had turned into a mess and he wasn't sure how he was going to get himself out of it this time because this time he knew it to be the end. He would be just another corpse, the last to the Malfoy line. They'd send him in pieces up the stairs and place him in front of the bedroom door that he'd shared with Crabbe and Goyle, waiting to be buried into the dirt. He wondered for the millionth time over the past year if there really had been a Heaven and a Hell, thinking that he'd probably be damned to the latter, knowing his luck. Then an achy sob emitted from his throat because he didn't want to go to Hell, he'd already spent a year in Hell and this was it, the Manor, Voldemort, the Devil on earth.
"In this together, aren't we, Draco?" Her voice, Hermione's fucking voice. It echoed so trustingly throughout the closet and into his head and, if he had been able to move his hands, he would have covered his ears just to block her out. He wanted to tell her that he'd tried, but now it was just her, though he wasn't sure how long that one would even last. He wanted to tell her to shut up, shut up, shut up, because he couldn't bloody take it anymore. He just wanted it to all be over with so that he didn't have to wait, not here, not now, not ever.
This time when the room shifted and his eyes fluttered backwards, Draco saw the view of the Forbidden Forrest where, directly above it in the clouds, sat the ugly, swirling Mark. The Mark of the Beast.
Bellatrix had casted it only moments after he had failed to kill Albus Dumbledore, saved only by Snape, who had appeared out of nowhere to do the bloody job for him. Then they were running (in his aunt's case, skipping) and everyone was happy, except him. Really, he was anything but happy. He couldn't even find Snape, who he'd just seen a short while ago, and now Bellatrix's hand was at the back of his neck and she was cackling like a cliche, over and over and over. He hadn't done it, of course, he hadn't killed Dumbledore, but he felt like he really had, despite being certain that the Dark Lord wouldn't see it that way. But even as he carried himself through the brush he had felt himself grow weaker. And then he thought that he hadn't done it because he couldn't do it, which terrified and infuriated him, because he, Draco Malfoy, was supposed to be able to do things like that. He was supposed to be able to kill people like that.
Nonetheless, Draco wasn't even certain that he could kill at all; and then Dumbledore's voice rattled through his head, helpless on the closet floor, saying, "years ago, I knew a boy, who made all the wrong choices. Please, let me help you." Draco had heard the same lines over and over again in his dreams ever since. When he glanced at the Prophet and saw pictures of his old Headmaster, he heard them, too. And he was certain he'd never be able to escape them, trapped and confined to the ways in which he'd ignored the man there in the Astronomy Tower.
Still, then he'd said, "I don't want your help! Don't you understand? I have to do this! I have to kill you! Or he's going to kill me...". But he hadn't died. He'd just been a little bit banged up. And it was Dumbledore who had ended up six feet deep. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Draco Malfoy threw up the contents of his stomach into the closet space next to him; he didn't know why, but he did. He'd gone home to receive a collection of Crucios and tortures, but in the end, he'd lived and back then he'd been foolish enough to believe that Voldemort had kept him alive because he had seen something in him... something special and promising. It wasn't until later, of course, that he'd learned that his life had only been spared by Severus Snape, that Voldemort had wanted him dead for his misdeed all along, and that he was lucky to have even seen another day.
And since then, he'd played his cards right. Until now, of course, because this was a big, fucking misstep. He'd backtracked by millions, was standing now in the fucking gutter. He tried to think of a collection of more bloody euphemisms, but ended up coming short. Either way he'd put it, he was fucked. Still, Hermione's soft voice asked, "in this together, aren't we, Draco?"
Though this time he told her, "shut up, shut up, shut up, shutup, shutup shutupshutupshutupshutup!"
But still, he could not rid himself of her. Everything... her scent, her eyes, her hair, her voice... it blended together and taunted and tormented him and now he was certain that he'd been doing so for a while, subconsciously. Then when the sleeve of a hanging clock brushed his arm, his eyes saw instead the fingers of Hermione's soft hand. Though he knew that she hadn't been anything more than a figment of his own fucked up imagination, she was there then, too, sitting over him looking pretty, her eyes dancing over the long and sweaty figure that was his writhing torso.
Yet she wasn't saying anything but Crabbe's own words, singing, "do you really like me, Draco?" and her eyes were pleading, waiting, silent for an answer. He tried to kick her, even knowing that she was not really there, but couldn't. Despite nothing more that a hallucination, Draco still didn't want to hurt her and he hated himself for it. So, instead, he watched her through a mask of growing tears, shocks of tiny bouts of electricity running through him, caused by whatever potion Crabbe really had given him, and it hurt.
Then the fake Hermione of his imagination was reaching into her stomach, pulling out globs of wet, sticky flesh and frowning when the fountain of crimson red blood came pouring out and Malfoy screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. And she was saying, "look, my blood's not filthy at all, Draco. I don't see any mud or dirt or worms or bugs or flees or ticks or flies or spiders..."
But Draco, writhing Draco, he sobbed and recoiled away from her, eyes pressed shut to block out the view of Hermione altogether. Still, she kept repeating it like a cycle and Draco could almost physically feeling the warmth of her blood as it hypothetically pooled around his shrinking torso, soaking into his sweater and his hair... his clean, blond hair... making him guilty, painting him red. He couldn't do this, couldn't take it anymore. And he knew that the Death Eaters were coming for him, coming to get him. At any given moment, they'd be there, wands drawn, smiles spread, all too excited for the moment that they could end the life of the boy that couldn't end Dumbledore's. He wished he'd done it, then, wished he'd killed the man. Just so he didn't have to face this. Just so he didn't have to wait for it.
Cast in the closet, Draco heard himself crying before he could even prevent it. And then he was yelling, "please, Crabbe, please, let me out, let me out, Crabbe, please! Please! Please!" But he heard nothing but the floorboards creaking above him, and the occasional scatter of feet. He'd never be let out. What had been done and been done. They were coming, they were coming, they were coming.
When his hysterical Hermione leaned down and pressed her lips on him, he knew that his life had been one, sick joke. Because there he was in the broom closet again, pinned to the floor by a beautiful woman who wasn't Pansy, but Hermione Jean Granger, who he wasn't supposed to be kissing at all, not even in a hallucination. With his wrists bound he couldn't grab her face like he had Parkinson's, but he wouldn't have even if he had the ability. Instead, he bit out a muffled cry underneath her, Dark Mark burning as if it were on fire. She didn't ask to see the Mark, like Pansy had. Instead her hands were in his hair, running up and down his neck frantically, tongue exploring desperately the space just between his lips.
Between breaths she said his name, soft and passionate as she continued to kiss him, only kiss him, for he was doomed by the reminder of his night in that fucking closet back at Hogwarts; held mockingly in a life that was far too filled up with death, and War, and plague, to include anything happy, like women. Still, he imagined that this was as close as he was going to get... because he was going to die soon anyway... and he wasn't even enjoying it. Rather, he panicked as she prodded and grabbed at him, humiliated and hurting and only really just semi-conscious. Though Hermione didn't seem to notice and instead pulled her lips down to his ear, lashes batting up against the nape of his neck as she whispered something that, at first, he couldn't even make out anyway.
Then he heard her. She was saying, "what if I really liked you too?" and Draco lost it, struggling so hard against the bindings that now he was drawing real blood that was his own blood. And Hermione, all the while, just kept on saying it. "What if I really liked you, too, Draco? What if I did? What if I did? What if I did?"
Malfoy gave one last struggle and Hermione hit the wall, back arching against the closet, eyes spilling over with tears. She was clutching her stomach and her mouth was turned downwards into an overwhelming frown and she looked at him as if he'd killed her just before her eyes rolled back and her body sagged and she fell from her position onto the ground next to him. She wasn't breathing anymore, but instead still, her flesh gray as if it had been rotting for months... just like the Muggle girls, just like them. And then he was sharing the closet space with a dead Hermione, whose corpse lie next to his trembling one, eyes opened in sad accusation, hair sprawled out like a pillow, despite the red trail of blood that sprung from the leak that marked at the edge of her very skull.
But this hallucination did not disappear and Malfoy was shaking, despite the tightening of his cuffs. Though then everything was going black all over again and things in the closet vanished in the darkness, everything but Hermione who looked back at him with big, brown eyes, fingers outstretched in a dead-spider form, overturned and pathetic. He felt the surge of his own senses fading, like sleep paralysis, and succumbed to it, far too tired to fight against it anyway. Thus, when the large pull of blackness came to greet him, he allowed himself to be tugged back under.
Then finally it was nothing but the Nothingness, as if a large clawed cane popped out from the side of his 'stage' and gave him the hook.
Fade in, fade out, gone, gone, gone.
"Get up."
Rain, blackness, thunder, and a cold hard kick in his ribs. A terrible and hoarse gasp pushed through Draco's lungs and then he felt the explosion of the way that the leather boot was in his ribs, sending stars in his eyes and bile in his throat. Then he blinked his vision into clarity, revealing the shadowy outline of Vincent Crabbe who shook with tremors and moved his hands uneasily over Malfoy's front, seizing his blue collar and hauling him from the ground within the instant. He let the blond's lifeless legs stand crooked against the floor and dragged him restlessly through the frame of the closet door, pushing him with a stumble into the gray light of the living room. He stole a glance in the mirror at the right and smoothed across his short hair, spotting away a smudge of his own crimson blood before mumbling, "fuck, fuck, fuck," and clearing it off with his thumb.
Draco Malfoy wondered what Crabbe had been so anxious about before he spotted Gregory Goyle at the bottom of the staircase avoiding his eye contact. The boy's hands were in his pockets and his wand was just barely visible underneath the cast of the rain clouds outdoors that peeked just ever so casually through the white billowing curtains. Nonetheless, his face was devoid of any proper color and his posture was slack, an odd sort of redness to his eyes that made him look sleepy in the strangest sort of sense. He said not a word but instead kept his chin pressed down at his chest and Malfoy noticed that he was no longer dressed in his pyjamas, but instead a deep black suit, one that matched Crabbe's, and that the collar of the turtle neck underneath wrapped up to his jaw and looked as if it were strangling him. He jumped, startled at Crabbe in the corner, and then continued in his staring contest with the soles of his polished leather shoes, nothing more than a deep void in the entrance of the house.
"Christ, Goyle, would you stand up straight, for fuck's sake?" Crabbe hissed and Goyle immediately stiffened, back straight, arms stiff, eyes forward. Malfoy saw his adam's apple bob up and down in his gigantic throat. Every so often, his eyes would flutter up and make contact with the front door and the windows near it, waiting for something... waiting for someone. And Malfoy's stature wavered. With his hands bound tightly at his wrists he could only stare up dazed, though now he was one-hundred percent certain he'd been drugged. Fucking Crabbe. He'd kill him, he'd kill him... oh God, he was going to be sick.
And what was this all about, anyway? He'd been asleep again when he'd been whisked back out of the closet; and he'd been so much safer in there, in the darkness. But now nothing was secure anymore because now he only saw the floor and his bare feet and darkness, nothing but charcoal, charcoal, charcoal.
There was a slight moment of simplicity and then Malfoy succumbed to the wooziness. On his feet he stood swaying, but then Crabbe was back in his face and his shaky fingers were holding up Dracos slumped shoulders and in a voice that was unsteady and uncontrolled he swore in a tone that rattled. "Fuck... shit... he's drooling all over himself." Was he? If he had, he certainly hadn't noticed but then the snap in Draco's legs made him slip and he was on the floor before he knew it, head against the ground that was just so soft, soft, soft...
"W-What's the matter with h-him?" Goyle croaked, his voice raised with the onset of sheer, brutal panic. "What d-did you give him, Crabbe?"
"I dunno," mumbled Draco's poisoner frantically, his body shaking as his eyes kept glancing to the door and back again. "I found it in Professor Snape's potion cabinet... I thought it was a Reviving Potion...". Then his voice faded out and Draco knew now that none of them had even the slightest clue as to what they were doing. Not even Crabbe, who had tried to hard to pull off the illusion of experience, had known. It was all an act, a great, big act. And now he'd just about sold Draco out to the Devil and he was certain that even he hadn't expected something this big, this drastic, this unreal. Still, Draco lie on the floor in a haze and Crabbe uneasy, which was strange, because he was trying to calm Goyle, too. And all the while the world just kept on spinning, spinning, spinning... so much so that Draco was happy to have been on the ground, blinking out tears as if he were lying there for dear life.
He could have slept there forever, but then the whole entire universe shifted and Goyle's face fell and his large body was shaking and Crabbe was still and stiff and steady. Then the footsteps started and the howls of laughter echoed throughout the yard in the front; someone was skipping and yelling and laughing and a high-pitched giggle was whistled there like the wind. But now not even Crabbe looked ready and, even from his spot on the floor, Draco could see the ways in which he was perspiring. Thick and fleshy, his fingers ran like spiders up and down one another in glitchy vibrant motions that made his entire body look weak and fearful and faded.
Then a voice like nails sounded out even through the cracks of the doors, and for a moment Malfoy thought that the very ground had broken through. "Dracooo, oh, Dracooo!"
When the door burst open he saw her clouded in blackness, hair coiled around her face. She peered through the living room with eyes like daggers and her hands were held out in front of her as if she were ready to embrace her nephew into her arms openly. Bellatrix Lestrange was standing there in the doorframe greedily, her full and lovely lips twisted up into an elegant and horrible smile. But Malfoy could even see her through the haziness that blocked his vision and everything in his very core screamed out because no, no, no, this couldn't be happening, it couldn't.
And behind her stood her own lot and they peered through the shaded living room with equally stretched smiles and outwardly pointed wands. Yaxley, Macnair, Travers, Rowle, Nott, Karkaroff, Rookwood, Dolohov, Avery, Crabbe and Goyle, the Carrows, even Pettigrew. Gray eyes searched for the snake-like man someplace in the wreckage, but to no avail. He wasn't there, wasn't there, wasn't there... but Draco wondered how long his absence would remain a factor. "Draco..."
She tilted her head and her long black hair flowed over her shoulder, running down to the cracks of the floorboards and he saw it spread like a puddle, creeping slowly, slowly, slowly. When she glided forward she didn't seem to notice the pools of thick blackness that she'd stepped in, so Malfoy thought that it had just been part of his hallucination. But Bellatrix and the other Death Eaters weren't, because this was real... this was real... this was real. And she was standing there before Crabbe then, feet just there in front of Malfoy's nose. Yet he watched her from the ground with haziness in his eyes as his aunt leaned forward and cupped Crabbe's fat face with the curl of her wiry, white palm.
"Well done, Vincent," she cooed and Crabbe flinched, terrified and captivated. Bellatrix Lestrange was really very beautiful, of course. "You've made the Dark Lord... so proud."
Nonetheless, there were big, hefty arms gripping Malfoy around the waist and he was hoisted from the ground into them before he could even register that it had been Augustus Rookwood, whose hands were intertwined with his hair, pulling there ruthlessly. And his Dark Mark was burning intensely, so much so that he couldn't stop himself from moaning painfully into Rookwood's shoulder. For then, with his watery gray eyes, he scanned the open living room for the sign of his father, his mother, or Severus Snape. He saw none of them.
However, what he did see was the marble floor and the way that it was moving beneath him, Rookwood's feet pacing one over the other over the other over the other until he was being led down the hall, into the darkness, away from the living room completely. The others were following him, too, eyes scanning Draco all over until he could barely watch them back anymore... the thickness of the fog was just too much and his eyes sagged, lidded heavily by eyelids that felt as if they were pushed down by weights.
His aunt Bellatrix was tutting him, her face only inches from his as he was carried away by Rookwood. She was saying, "Vincent tells us you've been misbehaving during our leave," and there was something characteristically sadistic in her smile that made Malfoy shiver all over. "You know what happens to little boys that misbehave, don't you, Draco?" Malfoy saw the swinging strands of his blond hair dangle before him above the ground. His bound arms hurt like Hell and he was barely away of the potato-sack way in which he was being carried around Rookwood's shoulders, eyes blinking down at the heaving part of his clothed chest.
Malfoy wished for his father and for Snape, who he'd never yell at for staring at him again. Severus, his sanctuary, his father, his protector. He wondered if they'd even been told, if they'd been allowed to come. And he fell dizzily back against Rookwood as the man hoisted him up further before making one last and sudden stop. Then before he knew it, Rookwood stood steady there in front of the end of the hallway.
He saw the living room no more, but instead the small Cellar door, there at the bold, bitter end... His turn, his turn, his turn. When the door creaked open and he felt the first plunge of Rookwood lowering him down into the Cellar, he finally lost the battle with his consciousness and went back under, out like a light, just like that.
Vonne: You know what to do!