"When I first met you, Lucius, I met the real you."
* * * *
The harsh, grating laugh reverberates in my flushed ears. It isn't really harsh and grating, though. It is soft, gentle, pure, carefree. But it sounds harsh and grating to me. It is meant to sound that way to me.
It is my trademark to have red hair. Not that dark brownish red, but the light, orange, fiery red that looks ginger in the sunlight. My mother's mother has it. My father's father has it. My mother has it. My father has it. My sister has it. My brother has it. I have it. Just like I have my brother's robes and wand.
You don't have it. You have long delicate white hair brushing your shoulders gently in a caress. You have silk, pristine black robes that billow in the wind and contrast your perfect pale skin. You have this sweet scent that never overpowers the senses, but seems to fill every room you're in. You have a soft, gentle, pure, carefree laugh that pierces my heart; a white-hot iron feather that melts my skin aside.
Evil is always beautiful.
You tell me my face is redder than my hair, and I don't doubt you. My pale, freckled, thin skin gets the better of me, showing my emotions in their tumultuous dance under the surface. Your face shows no such emotion. Just carefree laughter. At my expense.
You don't have to think that you're better than me, because it wouldn't be possible for you to think otherwise. That I am a person with emotions just as powerful as your own would never enter your mind. I would never enter your mind. Unless I am a plaything for your amusement.
Which I am. For now.
How I hate you.
* * * *
"One day, though, it all changed, Lucius. You became... nice. Caring. Everyone told me it was a plot so you could hurt me more, but I believed that there was good in every person. That you weren't really evil.
"I was wrong."
* * * *
Frost plays gently against the windowpanes, creating little pieces of van Gogh and Picasso, white beside the orange-brown of the walls. I breathe in the sharp, cold air, and breathe it out white. I shiver, the skin on my fingers, ears and toes prickling. The heating spells are weaker this deep in the castle, and the air, slightly thicker from a thin coating of dust, is cool. It's not like many people come down here.
The stone floor still gives away the echo of footsteps, though, so I can hear you approaching. I don't know how I'm so certain that it's you, but I am.
Suddenly the footsteps stop, still a reasonable distance away, and your smooth tenor, flowing over the white steam coming out from your mouth, washes over me.
"Aren't you a bit cold there, by yourself?" You ask, gently. I know you're just preparing to humiliate me again. At least you're alone this time.
"I'm fine, Malfoy." I respond, not caring about the contempt that sharpens the words as I spit them out.
"I'm serious, Arthur."--You had never called me anything but Weasley before--"There's a little room down here that I keep warm for when I need to be alone. You're welcome to join me."
I turn, ready to snap out some harsh insult, when something stops me. It's your hair. Long, delicate, soft, perfect, but not right now. It's... frizzy. Static electricity making some strands stick out as though you were a child who had rubbed one too many balloons against your head.
And your robes, still silk, but with a crease down the middle, as though you just folded them instead of immaculately caring for them like normal.
And your smell, that Malfoy scent which seems to fill every room you're in, is gone, as though you didn't care enough to spend the hours preparing it like you usually do.
"Well?" You say. Your voice is still as smooth as a harp, but it no longer has the drawl that had been there for the past six years. It no longer has the tone that declares that you're better than everyone else.
The prickling of my skin travels across my face and further up my arms and legs. The warnings of frostbite.
I hear myself say "thank you."
* * * *
"You earned my trust so you could betray it, Lucius. You earned my heart so you could break it. You worked for months to make me love you. And I did. Anything for your sadistic pleasure. You're not human; you're a dark creature, and it's in your nature to kill. You can't do anything else."
* * * *
As soon as I walk in, I feel the warmth of the air in the room blow against me, masochistically warming my cold skin. It's not too hot, though; it's like a gentle spring day with fresh air, as though a soft rain had just left, leaving the world in full bloom.
You obviously spend a lot of time here.
"Why don't I make it a little more comfortable, okay?" You say in your smooth tenor again, those pale lips breaking into a friendly smile. A friendly smile. I didn't think you were capable of those. Maybe there were a lot of things about you that I had wrong.
You walk to the centre of the room, and light a candle with your mahogany wand, and then you put down your wand and pick up the candle, walking across the room to light the rest of the candles with the one in your hand. Now that I never expected to see.
"There. That's better, isn't it?" You say, and smile, before realizing that I am still standing in the doorway, looking awkward.
Hastily, you wave me into a small pile of pillows, saying "why don't you make yourself comfortable?" I comply, still feeling wary, fearing that you're planning something to humiliate me like you always do. I haven't seen you for a week and a half before now. You're probably up to something big. I don't even know why I'm here, really.
You... plop down in the pillows beside me. Plop, as though you don't care about the way it comes off to me. As though you don't care about your appearance. As though you don't care about being a Malfoy.
You're not looking at me, though. You're looking towards the centre of the room. At the solitary candle. Suddenly, I feel as though I'm intruding on something private. Something that has never been seen by anyone else before.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" You ask softly, your smooth voice so low I can barely hear it. I follow your gaze to the centre of the room, where you had placed the candle that you had used to light all the others. "A solitary figure, dancing to the whim of the slightest breeze. In its core, it's vibrant yellow and orange, but at its edges, it darkens, blending into everything around it, the pillows, the walls, and the table. It blends into everything, tranquil, never fighting off any force applied against it, but just dancing with it. Don't you wish you could be that dancer? To always be you, but able to incorporate everything around you into your dance."
The first drip of wax slides down the white candle, staining the candleholder.
I don't belong here. This is something private. Something personal. Something so deeply emotional that it seems to reveal your heart. I start to stand up knowing that this is your place, and not mine.
Suddenly I feel your hand resting on my arm softly--a gentle request to sit down that I could shake off if I wanted to. "Please, stay." You whisper, and I sit back down before my mind even registers what was said.
We watch the flame dance, our breathing causing little air currents to push it this way and that.
"How long have you been coming here?" I ask.
"About two weeks."
"It only took you two weeks to make all of this?"
"Yes. I needed somewhere to be alone, and none of my usual places seemed to fit me any more."
"Why not, Lucius?"
"Because I had changed. I no longer seemed to fit with anything I had been before. And my father knew about all my old places. I didn't want him finding me like this."
"I thought you and your father were on good terms."
"We used to be, Arthur." A pause. "I don't think that we will be anymore, though. I'm staying here for the Christmas holidays. Before the school year's over, I'll be eighteen, and I won't have to listen to him ever again."
Another perl of wax drips down the candle slowly.
"What happened between you and your father?"
"I realized that I was living a lie. I don't think I had ever been at peace before, Arthur. I was playing out some script from before I was born. Some role to be a Malfoy and nothing else. To be the best. And that's not me. I wasn't happy. I was running like a machine, programmed a certain way, never thinking outside of the way I was told. Ordered around so often that the only way I knew how to deal with people was to order them." A pause. "Look at the candle. Can you see the way the flame flickers with our breathing? It never loses itself. But I can't obey my father without losing myself."
Arthur looks down at his hands. They're sitting motionless in his lap, half wanting to fiddle nervously, half wanting to become so still that they'd fade into the background. Finally his voice comes out as a squeak. "What does your father think?"
"I don't think he knows yet. I hope not. I convinced him that I should stay here for Christmas so that I could keep up with my studies and be ahead of the rest of the class. I'm not sure if he completely believed it. We do have a huge library at the Malfoy manor, and the restricted books are easier to get into than the ones here. But I don't care. I'm not going to take his orders about when I can do this and when I can do that and how I should sit and how I should eat, and whom I should talk to and, God!" Arthur jumps as the force of my voice reverberates around the room, mixing with the loud thwack of my fist against the stone by my side.
Tingling pain spreads up my arm. I shouldn't have lost control like that. I watch the skin of my hand slowly turning red.
"I'm sorry, Arthur. For everything. For treating you like that for so long, I..." I trail off, unsure of what to say. I can feel the emotions in the air. I'm not even supposed to have emotions. Other than greed.
"It's okay," he says softly, and I look up at him, and his eyes are shining with... something I've never seen before. Something soft, gentle, warm... compassionate. I feel myself drawn to those eyes, as though I want to burn their image into my memory... or maybe...
Our lips brush as I realize that he's moved closer to me as well. My lips open, and his tongue slides across my lower lip softly, leaving a light trail of warm saliva. My arms reach out, and gently wrap around his body as I feel him do the same to me, bringing our bodies closer together, the heat trapped between our bodies spreading downward into my groin. My tongue meets his, savouring the soft warmth of his mouth.
We fall back against the pillows together, our bodies pressed together gently as we kiss.
I didn't think anything like this existed. Sex was supposed to be each person trying to achieve their own climax.
But Arthur is trying to make me enjoy it. As though he gets pleasure out of my pleasure.
And, strangely enough, I find myself pleasuring him. And enjoying it.
* * * *
"Over that Christmas holiday, I thought I had fallen in love with you, Weasley. I thought that you were my soul mate, or some other harlequin term like that.
"I soon learned the truth about love."
* * * *
I try to suppress the butterflies in my stomach. I really shouldn't be this nervous. We've been together for a while now. Everyone thinks we're just friends, of course. For now. Today, that's going to change.
I know, I know. It's foolish, rash and goes against everything my mind is telling me about respectability, that you have to put on the right face for others, no matter what's going on underneath--ideally, there shouldn't even be an underneath.
The excuses are running through my mind, screaming at me.
But, for once, I don't think I care. That's what you've taught me, Arthur. To just forget everything, and go with what you want. No need to be the best, to succeed, to overpower... but to be yourself.
And that's why I'm going to do this for you.
* * * *
"You make me sick, Weasley. You and your family. All you do is try and come up with pathetic excuses for your failures."
* * * *
I look over at the small black box on the table warily, as though at any moment it could jump up and attack me. It seems to hold my eyes with some arcane power. But it's not magical. It's a muggle object. I know how fascinated you are with muggles. Can't quite seem to do well in muggle studies, though. Their methods are so alien to you that you don't understand them.
But I think that's part of the fascination for you. They're so different, yet so similar. So many different views and ideas, and lives... and yet the same blood and emotions run through each of our hearts.
Your words, I know. Maybe you have something of the poet in you. The idealist. And it's rubbed off on me, hasn't it?
I suddenly realize that my fingers are stroking the velvety lid of the black box, and jerk them back, my heart now pounding in my chest, my breathing ragged.
Slowly, my breathing calms, and my heart along with it. I try to turn away, to focus on the charms that I'm supposed to be learning, to think of anything but the box.
It's a pretty simple charm that I'm learning; it's supposed to remove all friction from a surface. Charms usually are easy, once you understand the mechanics of them.
I place a bronze knut on the table lightly, and grab my wand. If the spell works, a little push should make it slide across the table, and onto the floor.
I point my wand, and prepare to say the words. I sit there for a moment, trying to remember what the words are, but nothing comes to me. My wand starts slipping out of my sweat-slicked hand, and I grab it tighter, feeling the smooth grain of the wood against my skin. My heart begins a drumroll, preparing the audience for the one moment of truth.
And I sit there, staring at the coin, my mind blank except for the migraine that's starting to form in the back of my head.
Suddenly words come to me, and I nearly shout them out, not even really knowing what they are.
A halting breath escapes my mouth, and I drop my wand on the table, trying to ignore the cramp in my hand that the tight grip gave me.
I hesitantly move my hand towards the coin, and push it gently. It doesn't budge.
I push harder, and my finger bends slightly, giving way before the coin, which doesn't move.
I curse loudly, failing to relieve the stress and exhaustion I feel. The coin is stuck to the table by a piece of black velvet.
I grab my wand, and turn around in my chair, deciding to review my charms from earlier this year. Something easy is what I need now.
"Accrio notebook!" I yell, louder than I intended, and the velvet black box flies into my hand, then falls to the floor with a clatter as I drop it from shock.
I look down at it for a few seconds as it comes to a final halt on the ground. I need to do this. I can't put it off any more. I pick the box up off the floor, and walk out the unusually heavy door of the room. You'll be getting out of your Muggle Studies class soon, and I can go meet you when it's over.
There are quite a few fellow Slytherins coming down with me for their next class. For the first time I feel nervous around them. They wouldn't like the me that I've discovered. It's bad enough for them that I'm friends with a Griffindor. When they know that I'm in love with a male one, and willing to change everything that I've worked for to be with him, how will they react?
I can hear the voice in my head that my father put there. The one that makes sure everyone sees the smile, the charity, the perfection... yes, that plan that makes me the respectable surface, and nothing more. The mind forged manacles that imprison me.
Someone opens the portal out of the Slytherin dungeons, and I walk out, concentrating only on the chaotic world of my head, until you appear in front of me, and a smile appears on your face, and I know that you're glad to see me, as though my presence were somehow... divine.
And the smile creeps across my face, because you have the same effect on me.
"Hey, Lucius, class got out early, so I came down to look for you."
I smile wider, hiding the nerves that threaten to consume me.
"I got a little something for you, Arthur" I say, utterly failing to hide my nerves.
Suddenly I can feel all the Slytherins around me, their attention rapt on us. I want so much to be away, to put on the face I always do. But I need to do this. For the first time, I will claim my life as mine.
I reach into my pocket, and grab the velvet black box with slick fingers, and offer it to you. A quizzical look in your eyes, you open the box, your eyes suddenly widening with amazement, with wonder, with the love I know you have for me.
I hear mutters coming from all around me, but I don't care.
Your eyes meet mine, and then fall back to the box as you pull the object out. It is a pale gold ring, with a deep red stone, like your hair, only darker. Darker so that, in contrast, others can see you the way I do: my light. I have an identical one in my pocket for my finger, to show my devotion to you.
You hold the ring in your hand, letting the deep red sparkle in the dim light.
For the first time, I think, I realize how beautiful you are. I never realized it before. You are... beautiful. I think I always confused beauty with perfection: that golden tan, that unblemished skin, that sculpted body. But you're more beautiful than that. You're... raw. Your beauty is that of a man who has endured, who has seen the world, and worked hard for what he's done... and when you smile, it shows that the world is there for all of us, that you can go through it all and come out beautiful. That you can get your hands dirty, and enjoy it. That life can be raw and powerful and happy all at the same time.
I've fallen in love with your smile, and my heart flutters to know that I've made your smile bigger.
I can feel the glare of the other Slytherins as you hold the ring in your fingers, and then slip it on. A look I can't quite identify sweeps into your eyes, and then a lump swells in my throat.
Your arms wrap themselves around your stomach, and your eyes lock into mine searching, questioning.
I wonder if they can see my fear.
It starts on your nose, I think. That's where I see it first, at least--a little white puss leaking out the side of your nose. Suddenly it bursts across your face, and then all along your visible skin: huge, slimy boils, leaking rancid yellowish goo. I wonder if you can even see past them; they're so large they seem to block your eyes.
But it doesn't stop there. You were holding onto your stomach for a reason. You double over, and a stream of vomit erupts onto the ground, splashing in a small circle, mixing with the yellow liquid that lands beside it.
It is then that the laughter erupts. To see you so beneath them; to see you completely degraded before their eyes; to see themselves as so above you, the Slytherins are overjoyed. Their laughter could drown out a train.
But it does not drown out your next words before you run down the hall, crystal beads of water mixing with the foul yellow puss that covers your face as the tears fall down your cheeks.
"I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you!" The words are slurred and wet with spittle; they cut into me like a hatchet, and my spirit falls in the middle of the forest, and does not make a sound.
* * * *
"My father was the one who cursed it, you know. Parents have all these legal rights over their children, and my father was no exception. He was able to get into my things and prepare it for you.
"At the time, all I wanted was for you to understand that I was innocent. That I loved you. I wanted you to listen to me, and forgive me, and then hold me tight in those warm arms of yours, and kiss me ever so gently, as though you cared about me more than anything, would do anything for me... and... you'd look at me with those soft eyes of yours, and I'd fall into them, knowing that you would never look at anyone else the same way, and...
"You didn't even hear me out. You didn't listen to me for one second. You turned your back on me and walked away.
"I was weak, but now I am strong. My father was right; there are two types of people in this world. Those who use others, and those who are used. The masters and the slaves.
"I think we both know where you fall now, Weasley."
* * * *
The harsh, grating laugh reverberates in my flushed ears. It isn't really harsh and grating, though. It is soft, gentle, pure, carefree. But it sounds harsh and grating to me. It is meant to sound that way to me.
It is my trademark to have red hair. Not that dark brownish red, but the light, orange, fiery red that looks ginger in the sunlight. My mother's mother has it. My father's father has it. My mother has it. My father has it. My sister has it. My brother has it. I have it. Just like I have my brother's robes and wand.
You don't have it. You have long delicate white hair brushing your shoulders gently in a caress. You have silk, pristine black robes that billow in the wind and contrast your perfect pale skin. You have this sweet scent that never overpowers the senses, but seems to fill every room you're in. You have a soft, gentle, pure, carefree laugh that pierces my heart; a white-hot iron feather that melts my skin aside.
Evil is always beautiful.
You tell me my face is redder than my hair, and I don't doubt you. My pale, freckled, thin skin gets the better of me, showing my emotions in their tumultuous dance under the surface. Your face shows no such emotion. Just carefree laughter. At my expense.
You don't have to think that you're better than me, because it wouldn't be possible for you to think otherwise. That I am a person with emotions just as powerful as your own would never enter your mind. I would never enter your mind. Unless I am a plaything for your amusement.
Which I am. For now.
How I hate you.
* * * *
"One day, though, it all changed, Lucius. You became... nice. Caring. Everyone told me it was a plot so you could hurt me more, but I believed that there was good in every person. That you weren't really evil.
"I was wrong."
* * * *
Frost plays gently against the windowpanes, creating little pieces of van Gogh and Picasso, white beside the orange-brown of the walls. I breathe in the sharp, cold air, and breathe it out white. I shiver, the skin on my fingers, ears and toes prickling. The heating spells are weaker this deep in the castle, and the air, slightly thicker from a thin coating of dust, is cool. It's not like many people come down here.
The stone floor still gives away the echo of footsteps, though, so I can hear you approaching. I don't know how I'm so certain that it's you, but I am.
Suddenly the footsteps stop, still a reasonable distance away, and your smooth tenor, flowing over the white steam coming out from your mouth, washes over me.
"Aren't you a bit cold there, by yourself?" You ask, gently. I know you're just preparing to humiliate me again. At least you're alone this time.
"I'm fine, Malfoy." I respond, not caring about the contempt that sharpens the words as I spit them out.
"I'm serious, Arthur."--You had never called me anything but Weasley before--"There's a little room down here that I keep warm for when I need to be alone. You're welcome to join me."
I turn, ready to snap out some harsh insult, when something stops me. It's your hair. Long, delicate, soft, perfect, but not right now. It's... frizzy. Static electricity making some strands stick out as though you were a child who had rubbed one too many balloons against your head.
And your robes, still silk, but with a crease down the middle, as though you just folded them instead of immaculately caring for them like normal.
And your smell, that Malfoy scent which seems to fill every room you're in, is gone, as though you didn't care enough to spend the hours preparing it like you usually do.
"Well?" You say. Your voice is still as smooth as a harp, but it no longer has the drawl that had been there for the past six years. It no longer has the tone that declares that you're better than everyone else.
The prickling of my skin travels across my face and further up my arms and legs. The warnings of frostbite.
I hear myself say "thank you."
* * * *
"You earned my trust so you could betray it, Lucius. You earned my heart so you could break it. You worked for months to make me love you. And I did. Anything for your sadistic pleasure. You're not human; you're a dark creature, and it's in your nature to kill. You can't do anything else."
* * * *
As soon as I walk in, I feel the warmth of the air in the room blow against me, masochistically warming my cold skin. It's not too hot, though; it's like a gentle spring day with fresh air, as though a soft rain had just left, leaving the world in full bloom.
You obviously spend a lot of time here.
"Why don't I make it a little more comfortable, okay?" You say in your smooth tenor again, those pale lips breaking into a friendly smile. A friendly smile. I didn't think you were capable of those. Maybe there were a lot of things about you that I had wrong.
You walk to the centre of the room, and light a candle with your mahogany wand, and then you put down your wand and pick up the candle, walking across the room to light the rest of the candles with the one in your hand. Now that I never expected to see.
"There. That's better, isn't it?" You say, and smile, before realizing that I am still standing in the doorway, looking awkward.
Hastily, you wave me into a small pile of pillows, saying "why don't you make yourself comfortable?" I comply, still feeling wary, fearing that you're planning something to humiliate me like you always do. I haven't seen you for a week and a half before now. You're probably up to something big. I don't even know why I'm here, really.
You... plop down in the pillows beside me. Plop, as though you don't care about the way it comes off to me. As though you don't care about your appearance. As though you don't care about being a Malfoy.
You're not looking at me, though. You're looking towards the centre of the room. At the solitary candle. Suddenly, I feel as though I'm intruding on something private. Something that has never been seen by anyone else before.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" You ask softly, your smooth voice so low I can barely hear it. I follow your gaze to the centre of the room, where you had placed the candle that you had used to light all the others. "A solitary figure, dancing to the whim of the slightest breeze. In its core, it's vibrant yellow and orange, but at its edges, it darkens, blending into everything around it, the pillows, the walls, and the table. It blends into everything, tranquil, never fighting off any force applied against it, but just dancing with it. Don't you wish you could be that dancer? To always be you, but able to incorporate everything around you into your dance."
The first drip of wax slides down the white candle, staining the candleholder.
I don't belong here. This is something private. Something personal. Something so deeply emotional that it seems to reveal your heart. I start to stand up knowing that this is your place, and not mine.
Suddenly I feel your hand resting on my arm softly--a gentle request to sit down that I could shake off if I wanted to. "Please, stay." You whisper, and I sit back down before my mind even registers what was said.
We watch the flame dance, our breathing causing little air currents to push it this way and that.
"How long have you been coming here?" I ask.
"About two weeks."
"It only took you two weeks to make all of this?"
"Yes. I needed somewhere to be alone, and none of my usual places seemed to fit me any more."
"Why not, Lucius?"
"Because I had changed. I no longer seemed to fit with anything I had been before. And my father knew about all my old places. I didn't want him finding me like this."
"I thought you and your father were on good terms."
"We used to be, Arthur." A pause. "I don't think that we will be anymore, though. I'm staying here for the Christmas holidays. Before the school year's over, I'll be eighteen, and I won't have to listen to him ever again."
Another perl of wax drips down the candle slowly.
"What happened between you and your father?"
"I realized that I was living a lie. I don't think I had ever been at peace before, Arthur. I was playing out some script from before I was born. Some role to be a Malfoy and nothing else. To be the best. And that's not me. I wasn't happy. I was running like a machine, programmed a certain way, never thinking outside of the way I was told. Ordered around so often that the only way I knew how to deal with people was to order them." A pause. "Look at the candle. Can you see the way the flame flickers with our breathing? It never loses itself. But I can't obey my father without losing myself."
Arthur looks down at his hands. They're sitting motionless in his lap, half wanting to fiddle nervously, half wanting to become so still that they'd fade into the background. Finally his voice comes out as a squeak. "What does your father think?"
"I don't think he knows yet. I hope not. I convinced him that I should stay here for Christmas so that I could keep up with my studies and be ahead of the rest of the class. I'm not sure if he completely believed it. We do have a huge library at the Malfoy manor, and the restricted books are easier to get into than the ones here. But I don't care. I'm not going to take his orders about when I can do this and when I can do that and how I should sit and how I should eat, and whom I should talk to and, God!" Arthur jumps as the force of my voice reverberates around the room, mixing with the loud thwack of my fist against the stone by my side.
Tingling pain spreads up my arm. I shouldn't have lost control like that. I watch the skin of my hand slowly turning red.
"I'm sorry, Arthur. For everything. For treating you like that for so long, I..." I trail off, unsure of what to say. I can feel the emotions in the air. I'm not even supposed to have emotions. Other than greed.
"It's okay," he says softly, and I look up at him, and his eyes are shining with... something I've never seen before. Something soft, gentle, warm... compassionate. I feel myself drawn to those eyes, as though I want to burn their image into my memory... or maybe...
Our lips brush as I realize that he's moved closer to me as well. My lips open, and his tongue slides across my lower lip softly, leaving a light trail of warm saliva. My arms reach out, and gently wrap around his body as I feel him do the same to me, bringing our bodies closer together, the heat trapped between our bodies spreading downward into my groin. My tongue meets his, savouring the soft warmth of his mouth.
We fall back against the pillows together, our bodies pressed together gently as we kiss.
I didn't think anything like this existed. Sex was supposed to be each person trying to achieve their own climax.
But Arthur is trying to make me enjoy it. As though he gets pleasure out of my pleasure.
And, strangely enough, I find myself pleasuring him. And enjoying it.
* * * *
"Over that Christmas holiday, I thought I had fallen in love with you, Weasley. I thought that you were my soul mate, or some other harlequin term like that.
"I soon learned the truth about love."
* * * *
I try to suppress the butterflies in my stomach. I really shouldn't be this nervous. We've been together for a while now. Everyone thinks we're just friends, of course. For now. Today, that's going to change.
I know, I know. It's foolish, rash and goes against everything my mind is telling me about respectability, that you have to put on the right face for others, no matter what's going on underneath--ideally, there shouldn't even be an underneath.
The excuses are running through my mind, screaming at me.
But, for once, I don't think I care. That's what you've taught me, Arthur. To just forget everything, and go with what you want. No need to be the best, to succeed, to overpower... but to be yourself.
And that's why I'm going to do this for you.
* * * *
"You make me sick, Weasley. You and your family. All you do is try and come up with pathetic excuses for your failures."
* * * *
I look over at the small black box on the table warily, as though at any moment it could jump up and attack me. It seems to hold my eyes with some arcane power. But it's not magical. It's a muggle object. I know how fascinated you are with muggles. Can't quite seem to do well in muggle studies, though. Their methods are so alien to you that you don't understand them.
But I think that's part of the fascination for you. They're so different, yet so similar. So many different views and ideas, and lives... and yet the same blood and emotions run through each of our hearts.
Your words, I know. Maybe you have something of the poet in you. The idealist. And it's rubbed off on me, hasn't it?
I suddenly realize that my fingers are stroking the velvety lid of the black box, and jerk them back, my heart now pounding in my chest, my breathing ragged.
Slowly, my breathing calms, and my heart along with it. I try to turn away, to focus on the charms that I'm supposed to be learning, to think of anything but the box.
It's a pretty simple charm that I'm learning; it's supposed to remove all friction from a surface. Charms usually are easy, once you understand the mechanics of them.
I place a bronze knut on the table lightly, and grab my wand. If the spell works, a little push should make it slide across the table, and onto the floor.
I point my wand, and prepare to say the words. I sit there for a moment, trying to remember what the words are, but nothing comes to me. My wand starts slipping out of my sweat-slicked hand, and I grab it tighter, feeling the smooth grain of the wood against my skin. My heart begins a drumroll, preparing the audience for the one moment of truth.
And I sit there, staring at the coin, my mind blank except for the migraine that's starting to form in the back of my head.
Suddenly words come to me, and I nearly shout them out, not even really knowing what they are.
A halting breath escapes my mouth, and I drop my wand on the table, trying to ignore the cramp in my hand that the tight grip gave me.
I hesitantly move my hand towards the coin, and push it gently. It doesn't budge.
I push harder, and my finger bends slightly, giving way before the coin, which doesn't move.
I curse loudly, failing to relieve the stress and exhaustion I feel. The coin is stuck to the table by a piece of black velvet.
I grab my wand, and turn around in my chair, deciding to review my charms from earlier this year. Something easy is what I need now.
"Accrio notebook!" I yell, louder than I intended, and the velvet black box flies into my hand, then falls to the floor with a clatter as I drop it from shock.
I look down at it for a few seconds as it comes to a final halt on the ground. I need to do this. I can't put it off any more. I pick the box up off the floor, and walk out the unusually heavy door of the room. You'll be getting out of your Muggle Studies class soon, and I can go meet you when it's over.
There are quite a few fellow Slytherins coming down with me for their next class. For the first time I feel nervous around them. They wouldn't like the me that I've discovered. It's bad enough for them that I'm friends with a Griffindor. When they know that I'm in love with a male one, and willing to change everything that I've worked for to be with him, how will they react?
I can hear the voice in my head that my father put there. The one that makes sure everyone sees the smile, the charity, the perfection... yes, that plan that makes me the respectable surface, and nothing more. The mind forged manacles that imprison me.
Someone opens the portal out of the Slytherin dungeons, and I walk out, concentrating only on the chaotic world of my head, until you appear in front of me, and a smile appears on your face, and I know that you're glad to see me, as though my presence were somehow... divine.
And the smile creeps across my face, because you have the same effect on me.
"Hey, Lucius, class got out early, so I came down to look for you."
I smile wider, hiding the nerves that threaten to consume me.
"I got a little something for you, Arthur" I say, utterly failing to hide my nerves.
Suddenly I can feel all the Slytherins around me, their attention rapt on us. I want so much to be away, to put on the face I always do. But I need to do this. For the first time, I will claim my life as mine.
I reach into my pocket, and grab the velvet black box with slick fingers, and offer it to you. A quizzical look in your eyes, you open the box, your eyes suddenly widening with amazement, with wonder, with the love I know you have for me.
I hear mutters coming from all around me, but I don't care.
Your eyes meet mine, and then fall back to the box as you pull the object out. It is a pale gold ring, with a deep red stone, like your hair, only darker. Darker so that, in contrast, others can see you the way I do: my light. I have an identical one in my pocket for my finger, to show my devotion to you.
You hold the ring in your hand, letting the deep red sparkle in the dim light.
For the first time, I think, I realize how beautiful you are. I never realized it before. You are... beautiful. I think I always confused beauty with perfection: that golden tan, that unblemished skin, that sculpted body. But you're more beautiful than that. You're... raw. Your beauty is that of a man who has endured, who has seen the world, and worked hard for what he's done... and when you smile, it shows that the world is there for all of us, that you can go through it all and come out beautiful. That you can get your hands dirty, and enjoy it. That life can be raw and powerful and happy all at the same time.
I've fallen in love with your smile, and my heart flutters to know that I've made your smile bigger.
I can feel the glare of the other Slytherins as you hold the ring in your fingers, and then slip it on. A look I can't quite identify sweeps into your eyes, and then a lump swells in my throat.
Your arms wrap themselves around your stomach, and your eyes lock into mine searching, questioning.
I wonder if they can see my fear.
It starts on your nose, I think. That's where I see it first, at least--a little white puss leaking out the side of your nose. Suddenly it bursts across your face, and then all along your visible skin: huge, slimy boils, leaking rancid yellowish goo. I wonder if you can even see past them; they're so large they seem to block your eyes.
But it doesn't stop there. You were holding onto your stomach for a reason. You double over, and a stream of vomit erupts onto the ground, splashing in a small circle, mixing with the yellow liquid that lands beside it.
It is then that the laughter erupts. To see you so beneath them; to see you completely degraded before their eyes; to see themselves as so above you, the Slytherins are overjoyed. Their laughter could drown out a train.
But it does not drown out your next words before you run down the hall, crystal beads of water mixing with the foul yellow puss that covers your face as the tears fall down your cheeks.
"I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you!" The words are slurred and wet with spittle; they cut into me like a hatchet, and my spirit falls in the middle of the forest, and does not make a sound.
* * * *
"My father was the one who cursed it, you know. Parents have all these legal rights over their children, and my father was no exception. He was able to get into my things and prepare it for you.
"At the time, all I wanted was for you to understand that I was innocent. That I loved you. I wanted you to listen to me, and forgive me, and then hold me tight in those warm arms of yours, and kiss me ever so gently, as though you cared about me more than anything, would do anything for me... and... you'd look at me with those soft eyes of yours, and I'd fall into them, knowing that you would never look at anyone else the same way, and...
"You didn't even hear me out. You didn't listen to me for one second. You turned your back on me and walked away.
"I was weak, but now I am strong. My father was right; there are two types of people in this world. Those who use others, and those who are used. The masters and the slaves.
"I think we both know where you fall now, Weasley."