Part Thirteen : Steel
"I look forward to your spending the weekend down at the cottage next month; the autumn leaves are lovely. Your excellent marks in school come as no surprise, and I'm sure you'll make a capital Auror. I know your parents would agree. I was just in New York on business and recalled our trip there, what was it, over year ago? Strange how time flies so quickly. Just as many pigeons there as before."
Potter looks up at me, eyes creasing in annoyance. "Dear god, does it ever end? This has got to be the fourth page."
"Third," I correct.
"Well, it's all scribble anyway."
"One would think you wrote in neat little legible lines, as impossible as you are at deciphering this scrawl. Give it here, I'll read it."
"No, I'll do it." He skims over the pages, flipping irritably to the fourth, and finally crows, "Ah hah. 'Sentiments about such allegiances are best left unwritten, Draco. However, let it be said that the Malfoys have always valued revenge. Ah, but you knew that. Do write back.'" Potter raises an eyebrow at me. "Then he dithers on for a few more paragraphs about the weather and your father's greatness and other things like that. Oh, look. His wife is pregnant."
"He doesn't have a wife," I say, lying back on my bed and crushing a few rolls of parchment as I do so. "At least, not that I remember. He was always on after my mother."
"What is it with your family and infidelity?" Potter demands, rolling his eyes.
"Is that suspicion I detect?"
He snorts. "Right. I know all about your mad liaisons with Mulligan and Mulligan while I was gone last year."
"Ah, you didn't hear about the little affair with Jason Handel? He's quite the popular one, you know."
"Don't flatter yourself. Come on, we'll be late for History." He yanks his bag from where it lies, drooping, in the shadows of his bed. I follow him out the door and wonder why he always looks away after a moment or so. And he never laughs. Only smiles, faintly, and that is as reluctant and slow as bending bars of metal.
I am still stuffing the wad of parchment in my pockets while we cross the grounds. A few of the older boys are swooping above us, enjoying the crisp autumn afternoon and its air currents on their broomsticks. "So anyway," I tell him hesitantly. (His eyes are as sharp as blades and as cool as they have always been of late. He only nodded when told he was on probation for having missed so much of school, only shrugged when lectured and warned he would have to make it all up. But they let him back in, their beloved Boy Who Lived.) "I can probably get the location out of him next month when I visit. It would have been sooner, only none of them trust me."
Cool eyes sweep over my skin like the air whipping past us. "Should they?"
Shrug. "I'm a spy, and I know I'm a spy. They're guessing I'm a spy. Preston won't, though; he's always been a trusting fool. Old family friend, too."
"Who's quite liberal with his words."
"He likes to keep me updated. He's been sending me letters since, oh, fifth year. They're interesting. Sometimes."
We are not actually late, making our leisurely way into the heated building and its classrooms. A few new students hurry past us with the impression they will be punished if late. If they have Kimball, they probably will be. "So, an old family friend, huh?"
I nod.
"Would you kill him?"
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"I'm just being curious, Malfoy."
And it has been such a long time since he was truly curious about anything. "If I had to," I say, carefully. "He is a Death Eater. As we've established."
He looks almost amused. "War equals necessity, Malfoy. People have to die." When I don't answer, he shoulders his bag more carefully and frowns. "They do."
"I know." We are at the door of the classroom, and Professor Engle is eyeing us with the suspicion that we do not have our homework completed to the best level possible. "And," quietly, "they have."
Some days I wish he would react. Honestly, Engle gets more of a rise out of him than I do. "True," is all he says, before he slumps into his seat with me sliding in beside him. (Is it so much to ask, wanting a reaction? Is it so much to demand, hoping for a moment of meltdown or malleability, at least something besides the cold bars that taste like bitter iron?) "Would you kill your father, then? If you had to?"
"He's dead, Potter."
"If he wasn't."
I open my mouth to answer, though what answer is forthcoming I'm not sure, then watch his eyes snap suddenly towards the front of the classroom. "Shh," is the only warning he need whisper, as Engle calls the class to order.
"Your homework," he snaps, cracking his knuckles. It is a habit he has, among randomly throwing books in the middle of class. Not as if there's a chance we're on the verge of drifting off, not in this class. "If it isn't sixteen inches, I'll incinerate them all."
His voice is, and always has been, steel that wraps around your brain. It reminds me of Potter's. (Barbed wire tasting like blood and rusted iron on your tongue. Bitter. Poisonous. Addicting.)
I tear a bit of parchment and carefully take out my quill and ink on the pretense of taking notes. Potter carries my scroll towards our professor at the front of the class, ignoring the others that jostle with him.
If I had to, yes, yes I would.
He is not startled when he returns, only mildly curious. I watch the play of shadows over his cheeks. He writes beneath my script, messy handwriting as irregular as ever, and slides it surreptitiously under my elbow.
Had to? And what qualifies as such necessity?
I frown, quickly jotting down a quote on the blackboard. Engle is roaring about mercantilism, import bans, and our general incompetence at everything.
What the hell, Potter? He's already dead. It doesn't merit discussion.
The next answer is quick. Humor me.
If Dumbledore asked, then.
He studies it for a beat before bending his body over the parchment. I follow the motion of his quill with my eyes, watch it dart across the page and watch the ink cool. Part of the m has smeared when he passes it to me.
If it was a matter of his life or someone else, then what? Someone like, say, Ron?
For Weasley? Ha. Of course not.
He frowns. Not upset, though, perhaps simply puzzled. You forget, Potter, I am not and never will be you.
"So therefore, the Enlightenment was in fact but an outgrowth of our own recently enlightened culture, and sparked controversy within the magical world. It can be claimed that-" Wham! He slams the 3,592 page textbook down and we all cringe. "Randolph, if you would kindly focus on the lesson at hand? Yes, yes, thank you ever so much for your time. As I was saying, there is still much debate over whether or not we are to blame for the Muggles today. If we created the monster that turned to terrorize its creator."
So, you of the famed Slytherin ambition. Who would you trade your father's life for? Because you know he would have traded yours.
I write, simply, as if hellhounds snap rusted jaws at the heels of my mind, Yours. Otherwise, I don't know.
"Tell me, Jean," Engle hisses, advancing on the French boy staring morosely at his book. "I wonder, do you think that Warrick the Wise did the," mockingly, "enlightened thing to do when he shared these stunning new thoughts with his Muggle companions? Should he have collaborated on invention ideas? Should he have stoked the allure of the scientific while messing in magical troubles of his own? Should he have torn down the gods, Jean? Should he have?" Careful now, his booming voice a whisper. "Should he have burned at the stake, burned in that magical fire?"
How about Engle? Would you trade for his life?
I jerk my head to look at Potter, for traces of sarcasm, but he is the epitome of attention. Jean is studying his book with the same sort of burning diligence.
"Anyone?" Engle challenges, gaze sweeping up and down the rows. "Since Jean seems speechless today - ah, Christa. Yes?"
"Prometheus gave fire to mortals," she says, wiry glasses perched on her nose, and the expression on Engle's face is that of a lion about to pounce on unsuspecting prey.
"At what price?" he roars. "At what price? Shall we find our eyes robbed daily from us? Should the magical world be food for Muggle scavenger birds? Are you out of your mind? Are you suicidal?"
Potter, I write, the cries of carrion birds in my ears. (Follow him, with your hungers for withering flesh. Follow him, for green springs from where he steps, and it is not grass.) What games are you playing now? And then, as an afterthought, I write very carefully, so precisely it might be type, And were your parents also alive, would you kill them?
I watch his face while he reads it, watch it grow pale. So he does react to me after all. "-can't mean you support these bigoted ideals," a girl is heatedly crying. Her name is Lisa, or Lee, or something similar. She reminds me of Fiona, almost, but she is a nobody, a Mudblood, who stomped in with her righteous Muggle dreams; people of that nature fail to impress me. "Surely you don't believe in that Pureblood rubbish?"
"The point that your mind is trying so desperately to miss," Engle says sharply, "is that my opinion does not matter. Why should the thoughts of the likes of me influence you?" He slams his fist on the desk, unexpectedly. The windows rattle. "You, your minds! You! I want your opinions!"
Potter will not look at me.
"Sir Malfoy," Engle drawls. "We haven't heard from you of late. Do tell us your esteemed opinion. A hypothetical question - we all know of the war, the struggle with You-Know-Who." Eyes flick to Potter, and mine follow. (Yes. Direct your death painted gaze away from me, or trap me in its walls.) "Say that he attacked the Muggles openly. Would you vote to aid them, even if it meant sharing our secrets? Our magic?"
"No." And now, now he looks at me, now! With his eyes searing bruises onto my face. "And invite certain persecution, resentment? No. There is a reason the likes of Warrick were burned alive."
"Yes, because the likes of you pull the strings," mutters the girl whose name might be Lisa.
"You would kill who knows how many Muggles because you're scared of being called names?" Potter speaks out, and I know he speaks to me. "You'd let them die."
"Us or them!" I hiss.
"Bu-" Lisa begins. Potter angrily cuts her off.
"No wonder the Malfoys are such an old name. They're cowards."
"Don't talk to me about death, Potter! Don't you dare! Don't you even try to tell me about sacrifice and death and necessity. Don't, Potter, because I know you know-"
"What do I know?" he shoots back. "What do I know, Malfoy? That people die and we can't do anything about it but let them? That sometimes necessity outweighs the care we feel for people, and that's something I had to learn? Something you taught me, Malfoy? Something you showed me with your condescension and your constant reminders of Cedric! That's right, you showed me death, and you showed me that freedom comes before everything else. It's never better in the bloody cage, b-"
"BOYS!" Engle's voice thunders through the classroom. (Eyes like a hawk, hooked nose, voice as sharp as talons as they latch onto us.) "If you cannot conduct yourselves civilly, get out. You add to the lesson, or you leave my room."
Potter rises in a rustle of fabric and paper and tanned limbs. His look tells me to follow, and we stomp from the room with the echo of the slamming door.
My breath is knocked half a world away as I find my back stinging against the wall and his hand on my throat. "You have no right to talk about my parents," he growls, and his voice is as heavy as clattering chains.
"And you have the right to ask about mine? 'Would you kill your mother? If you hadn't sat and watched her wither to smoke, would you douse the flame anyway? What about your father, would you kill him too? Would you like it?' Well, I think I do have a right to ask, Potter. Would you hold your wand to your father's throat and whisper the words? Would you push those flashes of green at your mother? Would you let me, would you stand there mute as I-"
"Shut up," he hisses, but there is no need, as his hand wraps like iron around my throat. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
(Vise of steel encircling me, not crushing, but there. Like a handcuff, a chain, shackling me. But it is you who is bound, isn't that right, Potter? Tied to me, because I'm your cage.)
He releases me slowly, staring at me as if he does not know me, as if I am a ghost. (Fitting, Potter, is it not? I do haunt you, though I am not yet dead. You've buried me in the depths of your eyes and when I breathe, it is only your green.) "Malfoy," he says softly, one hand reaching to brush my cheek before he steps back and I lean heavily against the wall.
"I'm sorry," I tell him. It is the wrong thing to say.
"Malfoy," he says again, harsher. A grating mutter. "I want you to kill something."
"Excuse me? Are you out of your mind, Potter?"
His eyes dart past me, over the shut classroom door, down the empty hall. At last they alight on a tiny speck and brighten. Jerking out his wand, he whispers, "Stupefy!" and the creature pauses in mid-flight and drops to the ground. I watch him kneel to look and I reluctantly crouch at his side.
"You are crazy. Honestl-"
"Say it," he cuts me off, voice like ringing blades. (On guard, Potter. Ah, but you always are.) "Say it! You know you want to! Say the words."
Stubbornly, "I won't."
"It's a bloody fly. I don't think its death will weigh on your conscience forever."
"No."
"Malfoy!"
"I won't do it." Our robes brushing together, I wait in the silence until he turns to look at me. "What are you playing at? We're skipping out on History, kneeling on the floor, staring at a stunned fly. I think you've lost your mind."
"Does it matter?" Bitter laughter. "I'm still their savior."
(Theirs. Theirs, and mine, in such a strangely different way it's almost black and white. Hang your head down on your gilded cross and whisper to me, because there is blood on your lips that I crave to taste. It is not enough to shine down on me like you do the rest of them; I want your tears, your sweat, your toil, your blood. And it is not yours to give, is it? You are owned by the world.)
He looks down, into the tiles scuffed and faded with the passing of many dirty feet. When he looks back up at me, I can feel my insides clench like the sound of a lock clicking open.
"Say it," he whispers, more of a plea than a command. "Please."
"Why?"
Shiver. "I need you to."
Shiver. "I can't."
He reaches in my pocket, withdraws my wand, and presses it into my curled fingers. He is so warm, as if the sun has passed over the rest of us and burnt its image onto his skin alone. The heat thrums through his bones, while cold steals mine. "Kill the fly, Malfoy."
I step on it.
Voices that have echoed in my ears for too long, voices that haunt my dreams and even my waking hours. Father, in the library, with approving laughter over his shoulder. And I was but a child. Fiona and David, their words but snaps of steel traps, clicking into place. Potter.
Avada Kedavra, they all whisper to me, and my tongue refuses them.
"Malfoy," he growls, torn between irritation and laughter. "You bastard."
I shrug.
"You did that just to spite me." Then, looking at me, "No, you didn't. You did it because you didn't want to. Why the hell not? It's a fly."
"It's the principle."
His grip is steel around my wrist as he grabs me and drags me to my feet. "Is it? That's funny, coming from you. Malfoy." My name is spoken with purpose, intently, as he faces me and pulls my wand - with his hand covering mine - to the base of his throat. Green locks around monochrome gray and swallows it, drowns it in color. "You know," he whispers. "You're the only one I'd let do this."
Sharply, "Why? Because I'm a coward, like the rest of my family, as you said? Because you know I'll never say the words?"
The smallest, careful smile plays across his lips. "Because you're you."
At that moment, the door flies open and the others pour out of the room, giving us brief glances before hurrying off down the hall. Lisa stops by us as Potter releases my hand and I withdraw, clutching her books. "We're supposed to read pages two forty two through five hundred," she offers, and hurries off with the rest.
"Thanks, Lee," Potter calls out after her. He turns to me with his unreadable gaze, nods once as if recognizing something about me neither of us wishes to say, and turns back to the laughing and jostling students.
I walk beside him, but there are bars of steel between us. (If I reach through them they may clamp to my skin, steel traps and rusted bitterness. I do not know if it is to keep me out or keep him in. Is it his cage, then, or mine?)
The silence drapes around us like so much haunting smoke, and I wonder if I am the coward for not trying to reach out. Is survival so important?
"Hurry up," he calls to me, having pulled ahead. Frowning, "Aren't you hungry?"
So I follow him, as I always
do, with the remnants of death clamoring around my soul and stuck to the
bottom of my shoe.