Title: Death Dormant
Summary: Draco and Harry are haunted by what seems to be their former lives. Will these phantoms of the past gain control or can Harry and Draco stop them from truly manifesting and something horrible from happening?
Warning: There is a slight mention of rape in this chapter, so if that really turns you off, don't read it.
Author's Note: I received only two reviews from my prologue, and while this makes me very put-down I realize it was a prologue and made no mention of any Harry Potter characters. This chapter I hope with get more reviews, as I tend to get into action early on. Thank You's are at the bottom.
Disclaimer: Voldemort made me do it.
Chapter One
To Be A Heir
A beautiful, ethereal boy of seventeen, though he had a look of agelessness around him, leaned lazily against the cold stone side of an arch. His lean, lithe body exuded a catlike agility and grace, befitting one of his social standings. His skin was pale and fair, glowing with seductive moonlight. White, wispy hair adorned his head like a silver crown, fluttering around his shoulders from the slight cool breeze of nightfall. His robe, plain black, was also stitched with real silver thread and other precious embroideries. One could tell even from a distance than his clothes were expensive and only fit for the excessively wealthy and old families. The boy was without a doubt and aristocrat, even though his face was bowed and his hair was flowing freely, obscuring his features. A palpable scent of fear and desperation wafted off the lonely boy.
Draco pressed his shoulder blades and lower back more firmly against the resisting stone, grinding his bones against the hard rock. The cold seeped into him, numbing his pain, inside and out. He was glaring with a mix of hatred and fear in his stormy gray eyes at his palm. In his hands was nestled the inanimate object of his loathing: a slightly tarnished silver ring. It was, Draco had known when he had opened the manila envelope brought to him this morning by owl and had fallen out with a clang, the Malfoy signet ring. Cold and heavy, the red stone underneath the Malfoy crest, a Sylvus [1], almost seemed to glow with a sinister, seductive beat. It was large, but Draco knew that once he slipped it on his left hand's middle finger the ring would shrink down to fit him snugly. It would never, ever come off unless the bearer died or cast the secret spell that would separate the ring forever from his or her hand. The ring, after thus, could never be returned and would only fit and display its powers on the heir's hand. When the heir put it on their finger, which sooner or later they always did, they would automatically become ruler of the Malfoy legacy and head of the Family.
It all made Draco sick to his stomach, and as he looked at the ring he thought of his father, who was either dead or had completely lost hope, because only then would a Malfoy ever pass on the ring.
Draco suddenly swore at the hand that Fate had dealt him. But Fate had already shown that she despised him. Damn his father for not living! Draco knew in his gut that his father was dead. Lucius had been too proud to lose his mind, no matter how awful the stories made Azkaban seem.
Draco did not want to put the ring on.
It wasn't that he didn't have loyalty or pride. No, he just knew what burdens would be placed upon him if he slipped that innocent looking piece of jewelry onto his finger, and more burdens were something he did not need. He saw clearly in his mind a memory of last year, only a month before the dreaded Ministry of Magic raid and the subsequent capture of his father, when he had been called home. He remembered feeling slightly queasy to the stomach and gnawing on his lips and nails so much they were bloody and raw. He remembered what his father had made him do.
Draco licked his lips in fearful anticipation as the family hawk owl, Madrid, a noble creature, flapped his large wings and flew away. The cream envelope in his slightly shaking hands was un-creased and decorated only in the fanciful lettering of a name: Dracaenas. Draco knew the handwriting; he saw it every time he read a letter from home. It was strong, yet perfect, and spoke of power and strength.
His father had written him.
Draco had been expecting a letter, but was not prepared for what he read when he carefully opened up the folded paper.
My Dear Dracaenas,
You will come home on Sunday for a brief visit with your mother and I. We have important family matters to discuss. I have already spoken to your Headmaster about it, and all the details have been set.
Your Father
Draco had an innate sense of foreboding. What were the family matters his father wrote of? Were they family matters or Family matters? -- There was a difference. Why had his father mentioned his mother? Father rarely ever mentioned mother in his letters. And speaking to the old coot? Why? Questions like these raced through Draco's head that day, and the next. By the time Sunday came he was sick with worry.
When he got to the manor, and went into his father's study, where the house elves had said he was, he hardly recognized his father.
Lucius Malfoy was a very well groomed man, and took pride in his appearance. Hardly a day went by when he wasn't impeccable. Yet, this man sitting at his father's desk, in his father's clothes yet not his father's clothes resembled his father just a bit, but no more.
This man's hair was tussled, like it hadn't been combed or maybe just perfunctionally. He was old, at least older than Draco's father, and his faced was lined with wrinkles. He had a worn, world-weary look about him, and his shoulders slumped as if he carried a great weight. His clothes were wrinkled but not too noticeably, and he had his head in his hands, a sign of weakness.
The man sighed and croaked, "Hello, Dracaenas."
That was when Draco realized this man was his father and not an imposter.
He was shocked. How had this happened? What was wrong? What?
"Father, what's wrong?" Draco cried, stumbling to the desk.
His father leveled him with a glare, and Draco straightened.
"I think it is time you receive the Dark Lord's blessing," his father said, his voice strange. Draco heard it like a curse. He hadn't really thought about receiving the Mark. He knew he would have to some day, but it had always been some day to him, not that day, and it had seemed almost like a faraway dream. Now that time had come and Draco didn't know what to feel. Except fear. Fear like a coursing poison running through his veins, pumping in his heart, filling him with like an unknown drug that made his nerves tingle and his mind fog over.
"Father?" Draco ventured, his voice squeaking like a young boy', but he didn't care. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't. His father would not do this to him. He was only 15!
How wrong he was.
His father made him, in the end. [2] It hurt, like his self had been taken over, and his soul was blackened. Draco then knew why his father had been so sad that day, as silken scaly hands roamed his virgin body and fingers were everywhere, and it hurtburnedinvaded like before but different, and Draco found a place in his mind where he couldn't feel anything, not a thing, like a cool tundra of soothing white snow, where everything was clean and pristine, and he laughed and played like a little child. And when the others came, later, he went back to that place. And whenever he felt dirty and ruined and cold, oh so cold, he imagined his mother in that place with him, where they ran in the grass, or flew in the sky or built snowmen.
Draco never again saw that worn, world-weary interior that his father so carefully painted over, and he wished that he could find the paints his father used.
Before, when Draco remembered that last year, he would feel a burning sensation fill his throat, and his teeth would ache, but this time nothing happened. He just stared numbly at the ground and his expensive leather shoes, and called the cold into him. His eyes flicked to the ring in his palm, and thought differently about his earlier conviction. He owed it to his father to put on the ring. After all, his father had just given him the means to conquer everyone in his path. And perhaps, just perhaps, the snake-like hands would leave him alone, and his arm wouldn't burn at least once a month, and he wouldn't have to make up anymore unconvincing excuses, and everyone would just leave him alone to be in that wonderful, cool place of his.
He slid the silver band onto his finger and it tightened and it hurt, so much more than his marking. Where was his cold place? It had been there just a moment ago. But now there was a blackness eating at the sides of his vision, and his glimpsed the cold stone floor and his body collapsed and it was empty, but for a whispering voice.
Ahhhh. I'm free.
1-Sylvus: A winged serpent, cousin of the modern dragon. Looks greatly like a snake with wings, only the Sylvus is longer than two dragons from head to tail, and wider than two regular houses. The Sylvus can also be found in Norse mythology, where one was mistaken for the World Serpent, a serpent that is coiled around the world and will rise when the world ends.
2-This part was drastically cut from the original because it was very graphic, with blood and gore and rape, lots of it. If you wish to read the NC-17 version of this part, I will be putting it up on adultfanfiction.net soon, I am verisimilitude, or you can just email me.
Thanks You's:
Ash of Mine: Yes! – Harry will be possessed by 'Death'. Theo? Cruel? Ah – you haven't seen what I have in plan for him. XD
Peter James: When I first read your review, I was blown away at your grammar. Are you really that young?