(Green_Pig:- I've spent a lot of time on this, I was inspired to write a Draco fic by Static and his excellent story "Voices" which made me look at Draco in a completely new way! So far I am enjoying writing about this more than "An Orphan's Dreams" because AOD just takes too long to write as I made it far too descriptive to be continued easily…ahem, well I don't know how long this whole story is going to be but the first chapter is about 6 pages and I hope you enjoy reading it because I loved writing it and will do so for a long time. Thank you for listening to my pointless words, oh and do read the stories my friend I.C. Fire has written, they are very good and she'll probably kill me for saying this, but I think any Snape fans out there will like her fanfics "Shadows and Dust" and "Natural Veritaserum" very much… ^_~)
DISCLAIMER: Almost all characters and settings are copyright of J.K. Rowling, the brilliant person who created Harry Potter on that train ride the day she began writing one of the greatest children's novels in the world. ::Hats off to J.K!!!::
Power of the Dark Arts
Chapter One
Reflections and Refractions
Draco Malfoy regarded himself as one of those people others would have to always look to, always at his feet ready to do his bidding. When his father walked the world people stepped out of his way and did what they were told because he had status, of course the money and the far superior upbringing helped. Draco wanted his life to be like that but better; he wanted to inherit his father's wealth as soon as possible and find a nice woman to marry and then have his own fine son to learn how to be just like him. It was what his father, Lucius Malfoy, had always told him he wanted to do at his age. It ran in the family - wanting to grow rich and powerful in the world and squash those who rebelled against you. Yes, life was grand to him and soon it would become even grander for he had only one year left at Hogwarts and after his graduation he would inherit almost half their land and have a job in the Ministry. It was all sorted, his father had it figured out long before he was born: A fine son just like him to work in the Ministry and gain the respect and trust of the people. It was Lucius' dream to have Draco become the greatest wizard ever, maybe even run the Ministry right at the top in less than a few years and have his own son growing up under his strong arm.
Term was over, the holiday would start as soon as he got home. At this time of year, travelling back to King's Cross station Draco liked to just sit and look out the window and reflect on how well he had done the last year. He had embarrassed Potter and his two stupid friends at the Halloween ball with that ridiculous new curse he found the week before in the restricted section of the library. He was glad no one found out who performed it because it wasn't exactly bad, just very mean and a bit complicated to perform right without making it all go horribly wrong. When they walked about with the rest of their stupid Gryffindor friends he had quite masterly he thought, performed the curse that turned their heads into donkeys for three minutes and then afterwards made harmless bumble bees buzz out from their ears. Potter and Weasley were bright red and fuming at him, though he put on an innocent face that saved him from punishment that day. Hermione Granger was trying to hide her burning red face full of embarrassed tears inside her robes and all the while no one suspected him at all. The teachers were ordering everyone to forget about the incident and although no one answered or owned up they told the whole school off for letting whoever it was get away with such a trick, he had to admit though that during those few moments he was feeling very worried that someone would have found out and afterwards regretted doing it because feeling such dread was not an emotion he like to feel. Now though, he had to admit it was very funny.
The train rolled on, Crabbe and Goyle were asleep opposite him sitting next to each other with their arms folded across their chests and frowns on their faces, even when they slept they looked menacing and ready to fight. Draco despised having them around really but at least he had some bodyguards, that, most people his age couldn't say they had. It made him feel very privileged and proud of his wealth. If you weren't rich, what was the point in living?
He stretched out his arms above his head and yawned long. Less than an hour at most until the train was back at King's Cross station, then he could return to his fantastic home with all the luxuries he had missed at Hogwarts. No more silly little children getting in your way, no more Potter and the Weasleys to annoy him and no more Granger to out-do him in class. Since third year when she had struck him, he never really felt right and that had been worrying him ever since. When she came down the corridor on her own he'd remember that slap and feel incredible embarrassment welling up inside him, anger too, because she seemed to be more confident around him. Trying to make her cry had been steadily growing harder and really he only resorted to turning their heads into donkeys because he just had to do something to make them the subject of everyone's uncontrollable laughter. It seemed to have lowered her confidence anyway, which was a good thing no doubt.
He turned back to the window and blankly watched the trees and hills drift by, he stopped thinking about all that he had done to his enemies and tried not to think about his appalling exam results. When he'd get home he knew his father would be angry and his mother wouldn't stand in the way of Lucius' decisions, she'd just agree to whatever he said. No mother should act like that, if they were normal caring mothers. Maybe that was why he hated the Weasleys so much, aside from their lack of money and stupid common behaviour, maybe the reason why he dislike them so much was because at least they had a large family with two loving parents always there behind them. It was, just so unfair the whole thing. Why did he always have to act the way he did, why did his parents always put everyone's bad parenting down when theirs was worse, they never noticed him really, they never took the time to sit down and talk or go out on holiday somewhere to get to know each other. Always disappearing at night on some urgent business, always away and never at home to welcome him properly after being away for a year.
They were such heartless people.
People were running about laughing and greeting their younger brothers and sisters, exchanging presents they bought at Hogsmeade and telling humorous stories about their last year to their parents. Owls hooted in their cages to other owls, cats purred and some fought for attention of their owners. A toad hopped between the legs of many closely followed by one Neville Longbottom apologising to everyone as he squeezed through the crowd. Above the sea of heads, steam from the Hogwarts express was blanketing the air and all Draco could see as he stepped down from the train onto the platform was happy people rushing about, jumping, laughing, walking away with their families through the barrier of platform 9 ¾ back to the Muggle world. Poor families – the commoners - always went through there because they couldn't afford the expense of reserving a handy Portkey home – like him.
Crabbe and Goyle as always stood either side of him wheeling their trunks down, handing Draco the handle of his own and nodded business-like at him before leaving and joining their parents further down the platform. The train whistled loud as a reminder to everyone to get all their belongings before it left in five minutes time, Draco strolled off with dignity past the crowd ignoring them all and getting to the Portkey booth at the farthest end of the platform, he didn't see Harry Potter or his friend Ron Weasley, Hermione had already left through the barrier to meet her Muggle parents and everyone else Draco couldn't care less about were either gone or ignoring him just as much as he was them.
The Portkey booth was probably no bigger than a small shed, inside, a middle aged man Draco had learned to be called Kandiks Hifflers – rather unusual name he thought – sat on his little stool before a desk piled high with forms and papers. Kandiks was tanned, from somewhere in the Mediterranean perhaps and had short black hair neatly cut. He always had something in his mouth, chewing a matchstick one day or a cigarette in it the other, but he didn't look silly, Draco thought he'd rather suit working in a high office building as the head boss, leaning back on a leather chair with his feet upon the desk, arms folded behind his head and with a cigar at the side of his mouth wearing that same old expression as if he was always ready to sell you something from the inside of his shabby old leather jacket. When Draco came in he sat bolt upright removing his feet from the desk – as Draco suspected where they might have been – and grinned widely at him.
"Where are you going then?"
"Oxford."
"Right away sir," Kandiks got up and pulled open a curtain to reveal a shelf with five cups sitting on top. They were uninteresting, cracked or chipped in places and had awful little designs painted on. "Oxford's this one." He pointed to the third cup from the left that was painted blue with three white daisies, next to it was a little card saying quite clearly:
Tap once with your index finger for Oxford, with your thumb for Aylesbury and with your little finger for Witney.
"I thought with Portkeys you touched them and they took you to one place only."
"It's a new system, the Ministry put them on every Portkey here so that you have more choice and room to put more Portkeys on one shelf. We have around ten now but hopefully by next year I'll have maybe twenty, prices will go down and then there'll be more people coming in for a shortcut home. Who knows, in five years time I'll have to get a bigger booth and actually bother to clean up. Maybe a little waiting room and the Portkeys behind shiny glass cases with proper labels on." Kandik's eyes started to glaze over and Draco decided to ask what he had been wondering for a while now.
"How long have you had this job, Mr Hifflers isn't it?"
"That's right, I come here at the end of the year and the beginning of a new one, showing people out and welcoming people back, I really don't sit here all my life you know. I have a job elsewhere – in a Muggle office building writing forms and replying to letters." Draco nodded.
"Very well, if that is what you want to do with your life Mr Hifflers, I will not bother to put forth my own opinion of the matter. Have you received an owl from my father yet?"
"Right here, he sent it about half an hour ago stating he's at the landing site now waiting for you. Just follow the instructions there and you can go." Without saying thank you at all, rather instead he nodded politely Draco reread the note, tapped the cup to Oxford once with his index finger and still holding on tightly to his trunk he was sucked in leaving the platform and Portkey booth behind him with Kandiks seating himself back down again and making a note on his papers for the record.
Draco was thrown forward onto the ground, he landed standing but the thrust made him stagger and topple over to lie on the dry clean cut grass. He was home. The Malfoy Mansion in Oxford was less than a mile away and standing by a bench was Lucius Malfoy waiting impatiently for him. Draco stood up brushing down his Hogwarts robes that he didn't change out of on the train. Most children dressed themselves in Muggle clothes before getting off so that they could go home without getting funny looks from the Muggles, but Draco and the rest of the Malfoys disliked Muggles a lot and refused to change into anything slightly Muggle. They were in a park surrounded by high trees and summer flowers blooming around, Draco walked to his father with his trunk feeling shaken smiling.
"Hello Father, how are you?"
"Welcome home Draco, now come with me."
"Just a moment, I've got to get the Portkey." He turned round to pick up the cup that should have come with him. It wasn't there.
"The Ministry's new system." Lucius explained behind him. "You only have to tap the Portkeys at the platform and you are automatically sent here, no waiting for specific times, no hanging around and when you arrive the things stays where you left off. All nice and neat. How did you get here then?"
"An old blue mug. The shelf was full of them back there." He laughed turning back and walking away beside Lucius. "This is much better than the old system!" He said. "When did they come up with it?"
"I did." Lucius said rather smugly.
"Well done!"
"I said it was time we got them sorted out; far too much trouble at times and I've apparently saved the Ministry a lot of time and money – I've been promoted and have another pay rise though I do not really need it." Lucius loved talking about his success and Draco loved hearing about it – another thing to boast about at school, another way to make fun of the Weasleys.
They walked through the wood avoiding all the Muggles that visited the park and came to a quiet country track. Lucius and Draco then saw…
… Nothing. It was the Malfoy Mansion, there in the far off distance away from Oxford in some hills sat their home. Invisible to Muggles and to them as well, but they knew it was there and they performed a few spells – the Quick-zip spell that made them move long distances in only a few strides and the Invisibility spell so that no one would see them. In less than a minute they were home, feeling as tired as if they'd walked from one side of the road to the other and back again maybe three or four times. The mansion was large, windows glistened because they had been cleaned so much by the servants, the garden was cut neatly and three gardeners were bent over pulling out the weeds and replanting Rose bushes and other sweet smelling pretty flowers. At the door were stone steps centuries old and stone Gargoyles hung from the roof making the whole place look like an old cathedral. There were statues of past wizards and witches, family pets; owls, dogs, cats, there were some other animals like one of a dragon sitting up on its hind legs looking menacing and noble. The paths were laid with smooth gravel, clean and neat, distributed evenly amongst the borders. The gardeners had spent quite a lot of time over the years making the whole place look like something most other people would be incredibly jealous of. It was after all, the Malfoy way to boast about their wealth.
When they made it to the doors, Draco put his hand on his fathers to stop him from opening the doors.
"Before we go in," He said cautiously. "Where are Darklis and Cecilia?"
"Waiting inside with your mother, I do not see why you should be so worried about them meeting you."
"Father I hardly know them," Draco protested. "Children are not what I would say… who I like to hang around with." Lucius sighed accepting this answer and pulled on the door, Draco entered first and Lucius followed.
All at once when he was inside the great hall dogs howled and barked on the other side of a door to the lounge. His mother Narcissa opened it and as two great big Mastiffs charged out barking and wagging their tails, she was followed by two young girls of about ten, both with blonde-white hair and sparkling silver eyes. Draco had to drop his trunk and greet the two dogs as they jumped and whimpered for attention.
"Hello, hello, yes I missed you guys!" He looked up at the two girls. "And I missed you too." He said with rather more force. They smiled and all three came to him arms outstretched to welcome him back, Lucius walked in and waited for them to finish.
"Welcome home Draco, I've missed my boy." Narcissa said kissing him on the cheek.
"Well I missed you too." When he said that it sounded like a lie to him, there was some love for her after all because she was his mother and the woman that bore him, raised him and cared for him deep down. Probably. The two girls were his younger twin sisters – Cecelia and Darklis – and they both had their arms firmly wrapped around his waist, they were only ten and because in the last six years he had only seen them for six weeks every year he didn't really know them that well. When he started going to Hogwarts at eleven they were only five and weren't really someone he could talk to. Now though they were older and could say more intelligent things. Maybe this summer holiday he could try and build up a relationship with his sisters.
"Will you show us some spells Draco?" One of the two said excitedly.
"Which one are you again?"
"I'm Cecelia, you can tell because I wear this necklace with the silver serpent in it. See?" It was a small round black stone, in certain light you could see it edged in blue and shaped like a backwards 'S' in the middle was a silver serpent, slowly twisting as if alive in its prison. Darklis had the same necklace except that the serpent was ivory white and stayed perfectly still.
"Very nice. Did mother get you those?" They looked surprised.
"No, you did. When we were three." Draco suddenly remembered.
"Ah yes I remember. I was… nine then wasn't I? I got them for you because you're so identical and it's so hard to tell the difference between you two. I see you like them still." They both nodded happily then turned and gave their father a big hug.
"Hello Father, anything good happen at work today?"
"No everything's fine." He looked up to his wife. "That new Portkey system works wonderfully! Draco's home three hours earlier than usual; it's three O'clock." Things proceeded as they usually did with the assembly of all the servants to welcome Draco home; they all formed a big group in the hall and rather reluctantly Draco noticed, they all said 'Welcome home Master' as one in the same tone of voice – like they were not really happy to see him back or to welcome any Malfoy. Afterwards Draco changed from his slightly shorter Hogwarts robes into a clean pair of silver and green dress robes for dinner with his whole family, he was wearing the outfit he had picked last year for the welcoming dinner this year and felt very posh and grand in it. Before going down to dinner he had admired himself in the mirror and thought about how much that stupid Weasley would never be able to afford such a thing. Being rich was probably one of the greatest things anyone could ever be in this world.
Everything, except for perhaps his rather disappointing parents, in Draco's life was perfect.
Then he enjoyed a very large dinner and couldn't help but automatically ignore his younger siblings who ate in perfect unison. He looked at what they really looked like for the first time in his life that night; two perfect little girls with shimmering white hair that was styled in very pretty curls that hung around their shoulders, their eyes were even more brightly silver than Draco's or their parents and they have fair skin with hardly one freckle ruining their delicate faces. They looked like dolls. Finally the two necklaces rested on their chests on top of beautiful silk robes of silver and white, they could have been about to get married by the way they were dressed! He felt proud of his two sisters for the first time in years and as he sunk right into the holiday he began to allow conversations with them when they were around, then slowly he started looking for them and by the third week he was quite happy to spend every moment with them.
One quiet afternoon near the end of August, the three were spending time in the garden on benches below a Honeysuckle covered Arbour. Draco was writing revision notes on a piece of parchment and half listening to his sisters who were asking him questions about magic spells and wild beasts.
"Have you ever been chased by a monster Draco?"
"Did you go into the Forbidden forest at night sometimes?" He nodded absentmindedly and muttered yes or no answers.
"Really? What was it like?"
"Did you see any dragons?"
"Were there giants?"
"And Centaurs, I heard there's a whole herd or something living in there!"
"There are." Draco mumbled remembering his first year when he had that detention with Harry Potter. The memory made him shiver.
"Have you seen them?"
"Spoke to them?"
"Do they let you ride on them?"
"Have you rode on one?"
"What kind of names do they have?"
"Do they bite?" Draco's head snapped up and stared at Darklis in bewilderment.
"You what? What kind of a question is that?"
"You're not talking to us! Stop working and talk!"
"I can't, I have to do my homework…" He mumbled turning back to his books and making more notes. Darklis and Cecilia exchanged identical looks and both thinking the same thing leaned forward to lie on the grass resting their heads in their hands. They did it slowly and perfectly together, wearing expressions of sad lost children and stared at Draco like that until slowly his eyes looked up and narrowed at them.
"I can't play with you today – I have my N.E.W.T.'s next year and I have to study." They pouted their lips and batted their eyelashes.
"No." They didn't move.
"Go away, you've coped without me for six years now go and do it again for one more day." He said waving his hand at them to dismiss them. "You heard me – shoo!" Reluctantly they both got up and frowning at him left the Arbour.
"You're so boring!"
"Big Brothers are so dull!"
"We don't want to stay with you anyway!"
"Yes we're going back to our rooms!" When they were gone Draco stopped writing and leaned back against the tangled plant wishing he didn't have to work so much. School was only three more weeks away and soon he would be walking from it to start his life at the Ministry with that job his father had sorted years ago for him. He smiled and closed his eyes. The sun was still warm and made everywhere a comfortable place to possibly sleep in, so he folded his arms behind his head and lay back to take that opportunity right now.
Watching his thoughts playing in his head, thinking of a song and running it through in his mind savouring the peace, he felt the air around him thicken and the sun grow colder. He opened one eye a tiny bit to see why there was such an unwelcome change and before he could properly open them or register who he was looking at, something hit him between the eyes. A spell - he realised that a fraction of a second before the lights went out.
Up to that moment, Draco had thought his life was perfect in almost every way.
It was about to change forever.
Dark Serpent,
Take me in your embrace,
Hold me,
Secure my body in your grasp,
Have my heart.
You are my future,
There is no past,
Show me your soul and I'll give you mine.
You are my master,
My life,
And Death.
(Green_Pig:- The next chapter will not be put up until I have completed writing chapter 4 and I have enough reviews to believe that someone out there does care for me. I'm writing chapter 3 at the moment and I do know what will happen in chapter 4 so it shouldn't be too long for chapter 2 to be up. Anyhoo, chapter 2 is called: 'The Darkest Curse' hope you look forward to it cuz it's about 8 pages long. ::!!HOORAY FOR THE HARRY POTTER MOVIE!!::)