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+ Infest: A Harry Potter Song Fic by Canarde +
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+ Chapter Four: Dead Cell +
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Author's Note: I really dislike how this turned out, so I'll probably rewrite it sometime. I had to finish it to get on with the other chapters, because I really have been wanting to write Chapter Five (my favorite song on the Infest album). But this will do for the time being ... unless the reviews are phenomenal, and then perhaps I'll leave it.
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"Born with no soul, lack of control,
Cut from the mold of the anti-social,
Plug them in and turn them on,
Process the data, make yourself the bomb.
What is your target, what is your reason?
Do you have emotions, is your heart freezing?
Seizing this opportunity to speak.
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"Believe what is the root of the word,
Out comes lie when it's cut into thirds.
I don't believe what my eyes behold, no;
I don't believe what my ears are told, no;
Seizing this opportunity to speak.
I'm saying something."
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Draco Malfoy sat in a corner of the Slytherin common room, a random text open in his lap. But he wasn't reading the words in the book, nor was he writing on the roll of parchment he had on the table beside his green leather armchair. He wasn't worrying about the end of term exams, only a week away, or the dark-haired, pug-nosed girl crossing the room toward him, her eyes shining with admiration.
He was thinking about a boy with dark hair and crimson eyes; he was thinking about Lord Voldemort. Or, more accurately, Draco was thinking about a boy called Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Slytherin Heir and former student at Hogwarts, and was so lost in thought that he did not hear the pug-nosed girl approaching.
Her cold hands slipped over his eyes, and he jumped; she murmured, "Guess who?" into his ear and he relaxed fractionally.
"Pansy," he said flatly. "Go away. I'm reading our Potions lesson, and - "
"You can't be reading the Potions lesson." She plucked the book from his hands, her tone of voice disbelieving and matter-of-fact, and closed it with a sick thud of its dusty covers.
"What?" he said, reaching out for his book, "Of course I am. Give it here, Pansy, I - "
"Draco, this - " She held out the text, showing him the cover. "This is your Divination book." Draco snatched the book from her and cast a dark glare at her in the flickering silver firelight.
"I said I was reading the Divination lesson," he said sharply. "Leave me alone."
One cold finger trailed slowly over his neck and cheek as the girl leaned close, her voice a dull purr as she breathed, "You're so cute when you're angry."
Livid, Draco collected his things quickly and swept past Pansy, who had an odd, bemused look on her face; he ignored the greetings from his inherited goons as he entered the room and dropped the lot into the open trunk at the foot of his bed. Then he turned to the goons, who watched him with the same bemused look in their dense faces as Pansy had worn.
And suddenly he noticed the handsome face of Blaise Zabini, who was watching the scene with an amused expression lighting his dark eyes. Zabini was very British; he was tall and lanky and had dark eyes and swore a lot. He nipped the cigarettes from his mother's purse and drank liquor stolen from his father's locked cabinet because his father was usually too drunk to care or even notice it had gone missing.
Draco scowled at him and stalked out of the dormitory.
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He was skipping stones over the lake. Each stone was flat and selected specially, and the inky water drank them up thirstily into its fathomless depths. Despite the ripples and splashes from the stones, the world was silent; even the wind tousling his usually perfect hair made no noise.
"What on earth was that all about, Malfoy?" He glanced over his shoulder, appearing less startled than he was, to see the dark, lanky figure of Zabini silhouetted against the flickering torchlight from the castle and its picture-perfect windows.
"What was what about?" He lobbed another stone across the lake, and it skipped twice before sinking below the gently lapping waves.
Zabini sauntered over and took a stone from him, imitating his action lucidly. His stone was more successful, disappearing into the black of the lake.
Then Zabini looked at him, his dark eyes scrutinizing and harsh, before saying, "Your father has you on Voldemort's list, you know. You'll be the first of us to be Marked."
Draco shuddered and shrugged, taking up another stone and letting it sail over the lake. Zabini grabbed his hand as he chose another stone, his fingers pressing the pale flesh, his eyes penetrating his muddled thoughts.
"You don't want to be, do you?" Draco tried to shrug him off, but Zabini's hand held fast.
"Don't want to be what?"
"Marked."
Finally Draco managed to release himself of Zabini's hold, and he turned away sharply, blinking rapidly against what he told himself were tears from the harsh wind. Zabini followed closely, ignoring all personal boundaries and social regards.
"You don't want to be like him, do you?"
"Voldemort?"
"No -- your father."
Draco pulled in a sharp breath, and his step quickened as he made his way over the frozen ground. Zabini was at his heel, so close that Draco could feel his breath on his neck. The blond boy stopped abruptly, turning so that his back was eternally to Zabini, who seemed to be reading his thoughts, he stopped so quickly.
"I would give anything to have a father who would get himself killed to see me be a part of something as great as this," said Zabini.
"Great? This is a terrible thing to want to be a part of." Draco caught sight of Zabini's uneven smile and his dark eyes glisten with tears before the tall boy blinked.
"But it would mean being a part of something, wouldn't it?"
Disgust was apparent in Draco's voice when he said, "Then you can take it."
"If I could, I would," Zabini spat. "A father, a vault full of Galleons at Gringotts; it's more than I've got at this point."
Draco muttered, "Load of bullshit," and stalked off toward the castle, his shadow shifting eerily in the torchlight. Zabini's pained expression melted instantly and was replaced with a cruel sneer that Draco didn't see.
"He's so spoiled he doesn't even realize his father might as well be the Dark Lord, and he doesn't use it to his advantage."
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It was a Hogsmeade weekend, and Draco was staying in his dormitory.
Crabbe and Goyle had gone off to the tiny wizarding village, as had Pansy and Zabini. On his bed, Draco's texts and rolls of parchment lay out, a quill and stoppered bottle of ink sitting prettily on his night table; but Draco was not with them. He was sitting on his dresser, which he had cleared by spilling everything onto the cold stone floor below, and staring through the high window.
A dry snow was flurrying through the grey skies and frozen earth, and delicate patterns of frost had been traced over the glass of the window in the night. Draco followed the swirls and creeping vines of white with his eyes, his breath fogging the glass slightly he leaned so close to the window.
The door creaked, and Draco snapped his gaze to the doorway.
"You're supposed to be in Hogsmeade."
Lanky Blaise Zabini leaned against the frame of the door, his penetrating gaze fixed, unblinking, on Draco. His eyes were red-rimmed and his skin pale as he slunk across the room to the dresser on which Draco sat.
"What they don't know can't possibly hurt them, can it?" He raised an eyebrow and said, "Come down here, Draco."
The blond boy hesitated a moment. No one had called him by his first name in years. To his mother he was, "Darling," to his father, "Son," and to everyone here at Hogwarts he was, "Malfoy." Just Malfoy. Nothing more.
Zabini's dark eyes were pleading, so he slid from the dresser in a single, flawless movement.
"Alright, now what's this -- "
He was caught up in Zabini's arms before he could realize it, his breath taken from his mouth by a pair of warm lips against his own. It was all so startling, all he could do was fall into Blaise Zabini and wonder how long it had been since he had last been wanted, though he understood quite well that he knew only a third of the truth about Zabini and even less about his motives.
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Zabini slipped through the corridors, past dungeons, and around corners. His dark hair was falling over his dark eyes, under which dark circles were beginning to form. And in his mind, dark thoughts formed of Dark Lords and dark places he could be great, including the dark bedroom of Draco Malfoy, who presently slept peacefully on through the dark night.
When he came to a dark corridor hidden by a dark tapestry, Zabini took it, and he slipped between dark shadows on his way to becoming the worst thing to have ever happened to the Dark Lord Voldemort, who regarded Zabini as just another dark student in the dark house of Hogwarts to be so easily manipulated to do his bidding.
But now that Zabini had the child of Voldemort's most respected Death Eater under his dark command, he would be respected greatly. If he was not, dark things would happen to the pale boy whose future had been darkened from his birth under a dark name.
As he slipped into the silvery moonlight, Zabini's dark thoughts took a sudden turn, and his face twisted into a dark grin; he was well on his way to becoming the next Tom Marvolo Riddle.
However, unlike Riddle, he would succeed in the end.
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Thank you.
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All characters used in this piece of fiction are property of J.K. Rowling and copyright Warner Brothers.
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Song lyrics are property of Papa Roach and copyright Viva La Cucaracha Music.
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Chapter Five coming soon to a fan fiction archive near you.