Warnings: SLASH. You don't know what it is? Then I seriously doubt that you want to be here.

A/N: I am using a Japanese version of word to write this, so I've been having issues with boxes. However, I *think* that they have now been fixed. :crosses fingers:

Couplings: H/D, D/Blaise, potentially R/Hr. No, sorry people, this is not a fic where the entire wizarding population is queer.

Spoilers: Potentially everything. Just cause I don't have the supplement books yet means nothing.

Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine except for the story. Nothing. The story- is fully conceived and waiting to be written. The characters- I borrow.

Chapter Two: A Subtle Shade of Hatred

Or, The Moon

"Regarding the latest batch of rumors- the ones which claim that the Silver is proof of close ties between the Veela and my family: nothing could be further from, or closer to, the truth."

- Demetrius Malfoy, 1097 A.D.

***

To those not knowing any better, Draco Malfoy's eyes were nothing more or less than that, in spite of their rare shade. Even his detractors (numerous as they were) would admit, only under pressure of course, that the color was slightly unusual. However, they were always quick to add that pretty eyes do not a git unmake.

Draco Malfoy's eyes were most noteworthy when he was caught up in some rare emotion; the light grey darkening almost to pitch, silver rings detailing the boundaries of his irises and offsetting the paleness of his lips, his hair. Yet other than their unique color there was nothing obviously different or special about them- certainly their charm did not begin to compare to the shades of Avada Kedavra that rested in Harry Potter's eyes. There were even those who argued that the Weasley blue was a harder to come by hue than Malfoy's marbled stare. Then again, one can rarely expect much of the ignorant.

To those who did know better, the color of Malfoy's eyes was the stuff of legends- real-life legends. Truthfully, those of high wizarding ancestry would at times become so invested in his eye color that he could hardly claim it as his own. But more than anything else, his eyes marked him as a Malfoy- stripped him of individuality and forced him in line behind his forebears. The color even had its own name among the wizarding elite: Malfoy Silver. The Silver's Rumor Mill churned in cycles: each time a child was born in the Malfoy clan the rumors would crackle up into life until the child had been revealed, then sputter into faded embers until the birth of the next Malfoy.

This pattern had endured without change for longer than the oldest witch or wizard could remember, and through the years had become worn and familiar, finally transforming into something ritualistic, almost sacred. The birth of a new Malfoy would be proudly announced and the privileged few would wait, tongues searching out dusty myths to pass the time until the child had been revealed. The unveiling itself was always the same- the same for every young Malfoy and the same for the audience; a tradition stretching in an unbroken line that cast hundreds of years. Stepping out into some ornate ballroom, or perhaps standing unseen and almost overlooked in the shadows cast by an oversized candelabra, the Malfoy child would look up and out into the morass of waiting eyes. The passage of time interrupted, even something as natural as breathing became blasphemy. Like the quiet that pervades a religious service, scattered silence would ripple over everyone present in clusters and waves until it sat unbroken- a thick blanket that, for a few infinite seconds, displaced air and thought. Yet despite the pressure of expectations unaired, the weight of a lineage unbroken, there was never any fear or hesitation as the small, tilted, narrow, long, huge, wide, unmistakably Malfoy eyes stared luminously back at their audience. And that was that. Air and thought restored, the legend upheld, people's attention would turn, gnat-like, to other gossip and affairs.

As far as anyone could tell, the Malfoy Silver had been and would be around forever, but only if one defined 'forever' as lasting until the last Malfoy took his final breath. It was a shade that could not be altered by time, genetics, or the personal persuasions and preferences of the individual Malfoy. Nothing could change the hue of a Malfoy's eyes, no magic could reproduce it, and no true Malfoy was born without it. One had only to look at Malfoy Manor's portrait collection to be sure of this; although the Malfoys had mixed with wizards and witches from all places and cultures (provided the pedigrees matched Malfoy standards, of course) there was not a single Malfoy whose eyes did not glow silver from behind masks of chocolate, bronze, yellow, or pale pale white. The halls of Malfoy Manor were said to be cluttered with those ancestral portraits, all of them griping, laughing, pouting, and posturing, lighting blackened corridors and rooms with the reflection of their gazes. Somehow the faded magic of their eyes overcame the limitations imposed by brush and paint. To those unused to it, the experience could be more than a bit unsettling.

If it was to be considered a puzzle, the final piece to the Malfoy legend was that no one outside of the Malfoy family knew when or how the Silver came into existence; it was even sometimes breathed about that the Malfoys themselves did not know. Whatever the Malfoys did know about it was kept close; closer than what took place behind the closed gates of Malfoy Manor, closer than their politics, and certainly closer than their friends. However, there was one thing that had not been kept close, at least not well: as prolific as the Malfoy clan had once been, at the time of our story there were only two people alive who could claim to be true Malfoys.

***

The whole thing began with Blaise Zabini, all of the sheets in Slytherin's sixth year boys' dormitory, and the key to the Quidditch storage shed. Although most of Slytherin house would later argue that the real feuding started when Bulstrode the Buffalo (Millicent Bulstrode's unfortunate, if appropriate, nickname since her first year, grafted permanently to her sizable self by her loving dorm-mates) assumed control, the real culprit was never fingered, her name never mentioned in any way other than rueful admiration. After all, she had somehow managed to filch those keys, undetected, from Hooch. It had been the act of a true Slytherin. Not to mention the fact that she had actually managed to get one increasingly reclusive Draco Malfoy to agree to the caper. And while Blaise took great care to puff out her chest when complimented, lips curving slightly as her brilliance was acknowledged, inside. . . inside she raged.

A carefully constructed plan is much like a well crafted potion: slightly unstable fingers, the twitch of a wrist, even too heavy a breath could cause failure in a seemingly perfect enterprise. In this case, Blaise supposed that Bulstrode had been the mistake, as perfect for the main role as she had seemed to be during Blaise