Disclaimer: JKR owns the characters and names, I own nothing.
A Migraine curls around the brain like the lovingly poisonous caress of a snake.
The thin tail clamped with razor sharp needles to the lower neck and upper spine from which the snake flattens into a wide blanket along the back of the skull before curling into the centre of the brain. The poisonous tongue laps lazily at the back of the eyeballs, tickling them with a slowly shredding poison that seeps into the temples.
The snake is happy, flexing it's many muscles just enough to pull the fleshy contours of the skull in opposing directions. Tiny electrical currents try to attack the foreign being, the bodies feeble attempt at defence, but they only serve to send oddly random bouts of pain shooting directly into the brain. And when the eyeballs swivel in their sockets to fast the snake fears loosing it's treats and sinks it sharpened teeth into the relenting jellies with all the humming pleasure of a babe with candy.
Once again the body tries to reclaim it's control by pulling sharply on the optical cord; small hands protrude from the spine and tug at the cords while screaming "Mine! Let go!", the sound echoes off the skull, the tender veins only retain their grip on the now reddening jellies by thin strands of muscle. For all the bodies efforts the snake will only release it's hold when the eyeballs have remained still long enough to ensure their departure is thwarted. The teeth pull slowly back and the serpentine tongue returns to lapping at the now slightly swollen treats, ever ready to strike again should they think of moving too fast.
The hands, so far away from the pain yet so familiar with it, itch to remove the serpent. Fingers twitch in their need to rip hair and scalp away and dive their nails into the bloody mass. They dream of breaking through bone and sharp shards of skull to pry the snake form the head. Even if the bloody remains of the skull would lead to death, a hollow of red soaked hair and shiny pink brain exposed to the light, the pain would be gone for an instant! An instant in which the snake is gone seems almost worth the finality of death. But few people ever let their hands have their way, some making it as far as pulling lewdly at their hair. The soft tugging stretches the taught muscles connecting the scalp to the skull and allowing some minute relief.
Like all predators perfectly aware of their invulnerability, the snake will only leave when it's ready and no amount of pain killers or hair tugging will do any good.
Draco understood all this, lying on his back in his empty mansion. He knew no magic could cure this kind of pain. He was slytherin after all, he would never dream of chasing away the serpent curled around his brain and sharing it's awful pain with him. It seemed only fitting that the loss of his father would be greeted with a serpent in his head. A creature sent by Lucius to look after him perhaps? But that was nonsense. Draco knew his father would never send him pain, and more importantly he knew this was just a really bad headache.
For all his romanticising; pain was pain, and the loss of ones father to a pack of self righteous Aurors hardly meant all his experiences would be tainted with that loss. He would simply have to deal with it.
He was a man now after all.
So his father was locked away in the bowels of Azkaban, no doubt shackled by rusting chains to a grease blackened floor while the dry screams of the suffering surround him. Long strands of silken hair probably as caked with grease and dead skin as a corpses head that still grows hair after decomposition has set in. What was once a finely chiselled check now sunken to hollows, so the faint outline of teeth can be seen through the dirt encrusted skin. Eyes crusted thick with dust and oils that will never be whipped away with freshly scented water again, they where probably swollen and red with infection, so unused to such conditions as they had always been. Finely manicured hands now thin and long, nails gone from a vampirish tapering to the disgusting brown talons of a hag, their only wear the chilling scrape along the cold stone floor.
What did that mean to Draco? Apart from the empty pain that wailed deep in his chest and threatened to split his entire being in two? A hollow somewhere near his diaphragm that sucked sobs from him late at night when he imagined his fathers pain. There was nothing he could do. He would just have to deal with it. But he should be dealing with it in France.
His mother had left immediately, begging Draco to go with her. "Mon petit! We must leave! It's not safe for us 'ere anymore! Please, Draco! Leave the house, I would not wish to loose you too!" Her thick accent almost swallowing the English syllables in her rush. But he assured her he would be fine. He would meet her in a week at his grandmeres. He would not be chased out of his own country by the snivelling Gryffindor 'heroes'. Once their belongings where packed and floed along, he would close the house and the house elves would all be slaughtered to ensure they held their tongues. And then he would join her. Everything would be fine.
But the squealing voices of a dozen elves begging for mercy had implanted a snake of a migraine in his head. The bloody remains painted the kitchen red; they wouldn't dare to run against his orders even as he pulled their oversized ears across a chopping board and used a knife one of them had sharpened by hand to slice through their surprisingly tender necks. He threw their heads in the magical disposal unit, their torsoes only just small enough to follow as well, except for a few of the larger elves which had to be cut into smaller pieces.
He wasn't sure if he should clean the blood from the walls or not. It was a ritual amongst the Malfoys to leave the signs of major events in the manor. Perhaps in generations, when the Malfoys returned to the island nation they would threaten their new house elves with the tradition begun by great grandpa Draco. The house elf mutilator.
There was a crashing sound from the floor below him. Draco sat up abruptly, the snake in his head attempted to clamp it's teeth down once again, but the rocketing movements as he shot from horizontal to vertical made it's sharp points spiral around in his skull, slicing the sides of his brain and the backs of his eyes in a myriad of tiny lines. Surely the snake was swelling and would soon explode from the back of his skull… perhaps it was time to give in and take a pain killing potion. Something to dull his thoughts if not the pain.
The sound again, metal pots scurrying across a marble floor. Had he left a house elf alive? Perhaps curled in a cupboard of plates dreading it's doom as the sounds of it's friends slaughter closed in?
Draco heaved himself out of the room and towards the stairs. At the foot of the stairs was a lone saucepan which looked surreal in the decadent foyer.
"Hello?" He called out cautiously. "Who's there?"
Images of swarming Aurors filled his mind. The ones who'd finally taken his father where swamped in crimson cloaks. Giant wings where made of the material as they ran at him, doves bathed in the blood of his friends. How ironic he'd thought it, that the bringers of death where dressed in the colour of life, as if the warmth of life had stained their uniforms as surely as the flow of blood.
Draco let out a startled scream as a hand closed on his upper arm and he found himself turned to face the dull brown eyes of Mundungus. The man with the disgusting sandpaper tongue. A tongue which currently reeked of whiskey with an almost turpentine potency.
"Well, 'ello, 'ello! What 'ave we got 'ere?" The man drawled as he dulled Draco closer with a brutal tug. A cruel smiled curled his dried and skin toned lips to reveal a mismatched collection of yellowed teeth and white gums.
Draco moved with all the speed of the truly panicked and pointed his wand at the mans middle while trying to pull his arm free. "You won't be the first to go piece by piece into the disposal unit today if you don't let go of me right now"
The mans eyes flickered to the wand and lost a small portion of their gleam before returning questioningly to Draco's face. "Not the first?" He asked in an almost impressed tone. Just as Draco opened his mouth to reply the man suddenly gave Draco a sharp push backwards. His feet went into a mockery of a dance, trying to right themselves before one wrong movement sent him flying down the stairs with a shocked expression. The blunt edges of the stairs crushed into his body as if trying to grind him to powder, his hands grappling with the edges tyring desperately to get a hold on anything. But everything was moving much too fast.
Draco landed finally at the bottom of the foyer, his wand forgotten as he lay panting and pained all over. Forgetting about the snake in his head, he lay with one arm painfully pinned beneath himself and legs in a terrible tangle. His body was heavy and reluctant to move. What if it hurt more in any other position? Better to stay as still as possible.
"Whoopsy Daisy!" Came the gleeful lark from above. "Look what I dids! Oh well, lets get you up to bed to rest shall we? I'm sure you've had a hard day, what with being all alone in this god awful place an all."
The last place Draco wanted to be with Mundungus Fletcher was in his bedroom. Thankful for the wards that would secret away his destination Draco popped out of sight and hopefully to France, The only room still furnished was his own, and he'd rather sacrifice those belongings then himself to the Griffindoor hordes.
A Migraine curls around the brain like the lovingly poisonous caress of a snake.
The thin tail clamped with razor sharp needles to the lower neck and upper spine from which the snake flattens into a wide blanket along the back of the skull before curling into the centre of the brain. The poisonous tongue laps lazily at the back of the eyeballs, tickling them with a slowly shredding poison that seeps into the temples.
The snake is happy, flexing it's many muscles just enough to pull the fleshy contours of the skull in opposing directions. Tiny electrical currents try to attack the foreign being, the bodies feeble attempt at defence, but they only serve to send oddly random bouts of pain shooting directly into the brain. And when the eyeballs swivel in their sockets to fast the snake fears loosing it's treats and sinks it sharpened teeth into the relenting jellies with all the humming pleasure of a babe with candy.
Once again the body tries to reclaim it's control by pulling sharply on the optical cord; small hands protrude from the spine and tug at the cords while screaming "Mine! Let go!", the sound echoes off the skull, the tender veins only retain their grip on the now reddening jellies by thin strands of muscle. For all the bodies efforts the snake will only release it's hold when the eyeballs have remained still long enough to ensure their departure is thwarted. The teeth pull slowly back and the serpentine tongue returns to lapping at the now slightly swollen treats, ever ready to strike again should they think of moving too fast.
The hands, so far away from the pain yet so familiar with it, itch to remove the serpent. Fingers twitch in their need to rip hair and scalp away and dive their nails into the bloody mass. They dream of breaking through bone and sharp shards of skull to pry the snake form the head. Even if the bloody remains of the skull would lead to death, a hollow of red soaked hair and shiny pink brain exposed to the light, the pain would be gone for an instant! An instant in which the snake is gone seems almost worth the finality of death. But few people ever let their hands have their way, some making it as far as pulling lewdly at their hair. The soft tugging stretches the taught muscles connecting the scalp to the skull and allowing some minute relief.
Like all predators perfectly aware of their invulnerability, the snake will only leave when it's ready and no amount of pain killers or hair tugging will do any good.
Draco understood all this, lying on his back in his empty mansion. He knew no magic could cure this kind of pain. He was slytherin after all, he would never dream of chasing away the serpent curled around his brain and sharing it's awful pain with him. It seemed only fitting that the loss of his father would be greeted with a serpent in his head. A creature sent by Lucius to look after him perhaps? But that was nonsense. Draco knew his father would never send him pain, and more importantly he knew this was just a really bad headache.
For all his romanticising; pain was pain, and the loss of ones father to a pack of self righteous Aurors hardly meant all his experiences would be tainted with that loss. He would simply have to deal with it.
He was a man now after all.
So his father was locked away in the bowels of Azkaban, no doubt shackled by rusting chains to a grease blackened floor while the dry screams of the suffering surround him. Long strands of silken hair probably as caked with grease and dead skin as a corpses head that still grows hair after decomposition has set in. What was once a finely chiselled check now sunken to hollows, so the faint outline of teeth can be seen through the dirt encrusted skin. Eyes crusted thick with dust and oils that will never be whipped away with freshly scented water again, they where probably swollen and red with infection, so unused to such conditions as they had always been. Finely manicured hands now thin and long, nails gone from a vampirish tapering to the disgusting brown talons of a hag, their only wear the chilling scrape along the cold stone floor.
What did that mean to Draco? Apart from the empty pain that wailed deep in his chest and threatened to split his entire being in two? A hollow somewhere near his diaphragm that sucked sobs from him late at night when he imagined his fathers pain. There was nothing he could do. He would just have to deal with it. But he should be dealing with it in France.
His mother had left immediately, begging Draco to go with her. "Mon petit! We must leave! It's not safe for us 'ere anymore! Please, Draco! Leave the house, I would not wish to loose you too!" Her thick accent almost swallowing the English syllables in her rush. But he assured her he would be fine. He would meet her in a week at his grandmeres. He would not be chased out of his own country by the snivelling Gryffindor 'heroes'. Once their belongings where packed and floed along, he would close the house and the house elves would all be slaughtered to ensure they held their tongues. And then he would join her. Everything would be fine.
But the squealing voices of a dozen elves begging for mercy had implanted a snake of a migraine in his head. The bloody remains painted the kitchen red; they wouldn't dare to run against his orders even as he pulled their oversized ears across a chopping board and used a knife one of them had sharpened by hand to slice through their surprisingly tender necks. He threw their heads in the magical disposal unit, their torsoes only just small enough to follow as well, except for a few of the larger elves which had to be cut into smaller pieces.
He wasn't sure if he should clean the blood from the walls or not. It was a ritual amongst the Malfoys to leave the signs of major events in the manor. Perhaps in generations, when the Malfoys returned to the island nation they would threaten their new house elves with the tradition begun by great grandpa Draco. The house elf mutilator.
There was a crashing sound from the floor below him. Draco sat up abruptly, the snake in his head attempted to clamp it's teeth down once again, but the rocketing movements as he shot from horizontal to vertical made it's sharp points spiral around in his skull, slicing the sides of his brain and the backs of his eyes in a myriad of tiny lines. Surely the snake was swelling and would soon explode from the back of his skull… perhaps it was time to give in and take a pain killing potion. Something to dull his thoughts if not the pain.
The sound again, metal pots scurrying across a marble floor. Had he left a house elf alive? Perhaps curled in a cupboard of plates dreading it's doom as the sounds of it's friends slaughter closed in?
Draco heaved himself out of the room and towards the stairs. At the foot of the stairs was a lone saucepan which looked surreal in the decadent foyer.
"Hello?" He called out cautiously. "Who's there?"
Images of swarming Aurors filled his mind. The ones who'd finally taken his father where swamped in crimson cloaks. Giant wings where made of the material as they ran at him, doves bathed in the blood of his friends. How ironic he'd thought it, that the bringers of death where dressed in the colour of life, as if the warmth of life had stained their uniforms as surely as the flow of blood.
Draco let out a startled scream as a hand closed on his upper arm and he found himself turned to face the dull brown eyes of Mundungus. The man with the disgusting sandpaper tongue. A tongue which currently reeked of whiskey with an almost turpentine potency.
"Well, 'ello, 'ello! What 'ave we got 'ere?" The man drawled as he dulled Draco closer with a brutal tug. A cruel smiled curled his dried and skin toned lips to reveal a mismatched collection of yellowed teeth and white gums.
Draco moved with all the speed of the truly panicked and pointed his wand at the mans middle while trying to pull his arm free. "You won't be the first to go piece by piece into the disposal unit today if you don't let go of me right now"
The mans eyes flickered to the wand and lost a small portion of their gleam before returning questioningly to Draco's face. "Not the first?" He asked in an almost impressed tone. Just as Draco opened his mouth to reply the man suddenly gave Draco a sharp push backwards. His feet went into a mockery of a dance, trying to right themselves before one wrong movement sent him flying down the stairs with a shocked expression. The blunt edges of the stairs crushed into his body as if trying to grind him to powder, his hands grappling with the edges tyring desperately to get a hold on anything. But everything was moving much too fast.
Draco landed finally at the bottom of the foyer, his wand forgotten as he lay panting and pained all over. Forgetting about the snake in his head, he lay with one arm painfully pinned beneath himself and legs in a terrible tangle. His body was heavy and reluctant to move. What if it hurt more in any other position? Better to stay as still as possible.
"Whoopsy Daisy!" Came the gleeful lark from above. "Look what I dids! Oh well, lets get you up to bed to rest shall we? I'm sure you've had a hard day, what with being all alone in this god awful place an all."
The last place Draco wanted to be with Mundungus Fletcher was in his bedroom. Thankful for the wards that would secret away his destination Draco popped out of sight and hopefully to France, The only room still furnished was his own, and he'd rather sacrifice those belongings then himself to the Griffindoor hordes.