Thor's Note: This fic was inspired by a picture of Z:Amber's. She's an
incredible artist, and her site has TONS of beautiful Draco pictures. Go
there if you haven't yet! www.giniroi-drayko.net
Warning: Some Draco abuse...suicidal thoughts/actions...don't worry, nobody actually dies. I'm too wimpy for that. huddles in happy world with Sirius, devoutly ignoring the end of the-book-which-shall-not-be-named Oh, and be warned about Krum's accent. It's badly done, as in sometimes I do it, and sometimes I don't. 'Cause. It's REALLY annoying.
Disclaimer: Hairy Pothead and all of his ickle friends belong to J.R.R. Drawling, I just like to play with them because I luuuuuuurve them so much, oh yes I does.
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Father is out of place in Karkaroff's office like a diamond placed on top of an ice-cream sundae, the room slowly melting away as if aware of the comparison and unhappy with the conclusion drawn. Father knows it too, smiling smugly as Karkaroff shuffles and reshuffles the piles of paper on his desk and clears his throat and starts too many sentences, finishing none.
"Ah, excellent! Draco's arrived."
"Thank you, Headmaster. If you could just give us a moment alone..."
"Ah, right, yes, well I'll just leave the two of you alone—take as long as you need, I'll just go, uh—"
"That would be splendid, Karkaroff."
My father hasn't visited Durmstrang before. Parental visits aren't allowed, letters are contraband; two birthday presents the maximum allowed, holidays observed with a few words spoken over dinner and an extra glass of wine. A sparse existence, precise; I've come to enjoy it. Father wears his elaborate robes with embroidery on the edges, black on black; hair ridiculously long and tied back with a ribbon, as is mine.
He seems so soft, his cheeks round with a touch of pink; the gloves tucked into his pocket are fancy, thin, useless. Father hasn't lived in the eternal cold of Durmstrang, hidden away on a vast snow-covered plain with fleeting sunlight that can blind you with its glare. Father is warm and soft, but his darkness runs deeper than mine ever will—mine has been burned out by sunlit snow and cold, lip-numbing kisses.
"It's good to see you, Father." Breaking the silence because it's easier than waiting for him to do it, in the cold without enough food I've learned to compromise.
"I don't have time for pleasantries, Draco. I have some...unpleasant news. Narcissa passed away two days ago. You'll be coming home with me, and transferring to Hogwarts in order to be closer to home."
I don't know how he expects me to respond. I don't know how I want me to respond,. Mother—tall, thin, pale, coughing up blood after dinner and wearing long sleeved summer dresses to cover the needle marks in her arms. Mother—who fell in love with the white muggle powder that she bought from mudbloods while Daddy was busy on Knockturn Alley. Mother, who used to sing me to sleep and read me stories and apologize for father and fly with me on her good days—gone.
"Oh. When are we leaving?" He approves.
"I must get back to the ministry now, and take care of the legal aspect of things. Her will has to be sorted out, the funeral prepared for...there's no reason for you to come until Friday evening." Two days to leave my life of four years
"May I bring a guest to the funeral?"
"Who?"
"Viktor."
His smirk is gone. His eyes narrow, and his fingers tighten on his cane. "I am going to pretend you did not ask that, Draco, for your sake. I won't give you another warning: if you mention him or any of your other 'friends' ever again, in any way—" He presses his lips together the way he does when dangerously angry.
Mother used to do impressions of him, the sunlight glaring off of her hair that she dyed to please him, pressing her lips together and waving about an imaginary cane. She could soften his moods by slipping one of her hands over his and smiling. She always wore gloves, the first pair of white silk ones he bought her, and others that varied on that basic theme. Lace on the edges, tiny white pearls sewn on. Father didn't like the slight rough feel to her hands and so she soaked them, lotioned them daily; used the softest soaps she could find—he would still get angry when she didn't wear the gloves.
"There's nothing going on between me and Viktor! And even if there were, I see no reason why you shouldn't trust me to be discreet—more discreet than you are, anyway, bringing your whores into the Manor and keeping them over for breakfast!"
He's never hit me that hard before, the cane into my side because he likes to keep his distance from unpleasant things like blood and pain and bruises on my ribs that stay for weeks. "You have two days. The funeral is Saturday morning; you will get fitted for your Hogwarts robes Saturday night. Sunday is yours to do with as you wish until dinner; I'm having Severus over, and you are expected to attend. You'll take the knight bus back to school with him. He will be keeping me updated about your conduct. Don't push me any farther, Draco. You don't need any more scars."
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The first thing I noticed about Viktor—once I got over his height and bushy eyebrows and that ridiculous accent were his eyes. Dark and broody, with worry lines at the corners and speckles of warm gold, like dark beer. I would like to drink Viktor, drink him like fiery liquid going through my veins, like maybe I have been drinking Viktor all this time, intoxicated with his broom wax scent and slow, deliberate laugh.
His nose has been broken since the summer I saw him play in the quidditch championships, when he got hit in the face with a bludger. It's flat in the middle, and the end quirks a bit to the left—it's a long nose, a grand nose—it reminds me of sphinxes and Egypt and sand, which brings heat and Cleopatra to mind. Not that Cleopatra is relevant in the least. It just makes me think of her.
Krum is the only person I know besides my father who can stay quiet longer than I can. He thinks it's funny, watching me wait for him to break the silence, to ask about my day or to discuss plans for the evening—it's taken me months to get over the taboo of speaking to someone of lower class than I without them starting the conversation. Damn Krum, damn him and the twitch on his lips and the way he knows how infuriated I am at him and he laughs, slowly and deliberately before standing up and brushing his bangs out of his eyes.
"You should get your hair cut before your next game." He nods at me. "Who're you playing next week?" He shrugs. "Bastard."
"Yes." He steps to me and pulls me closer, my head barely coming up to his shoulder. He is warm like I'm not; warm like Egypt and sphinxes and his broken nose. "Fly with me?" I shake my head into his chest and pull myself closer to him. I try to envelope myself in his long, dark robes even as they sting my face and maybe I can blame his robes for my tears.
"There is something you are not telling me." He does not ask what it is, why I haven't told him about it yet or why I can't let go. He stands and holds me and rocks me back and forth like this is all he will ever have to do.
"Yes." I pull back, and do not wipe away my tears. "It's mother. She passed away yesterday." She died, she's dead pale and laughing, long sleeves and summer sun she's dead. "I'm leaving Friday night, and I won't be back. Father's transferring me to Hogwarts." Viktor turns away from me, staring at the wall in silence for too long.
"You vill like it there. Is not so cold." I raise an eyebrow and fix a cold expression on my face like it's all I can do and maybe it is.
"Is that all you have to say? It's not so cold? After all—after everything—it's not so cold—" He shakes his head, slowly like he does everything except fly. He sighs his frustration before grabbing my arm and walking further down the hall. He thinks better when he's moving.
"You think—truly, you think is possible I vill not miss you? Vhen it is cold and I do not have you vith me, near me—not to have you to come to all of my games and tell me I did not do so good as I did last game—to help vith my vork in the classes I miss for extra practice and the meetings...I do not think it vill happen that I could not miss you. It is only that—that I cannot think how much I vill miss you." He stops in front of a window, one overlooking the quidditch pitch. "If I think, truly, about you not being here then I vill not be able to let you go."
He pulls me to him again, crushing me against his chest and I let myself relax in his strength. "You must do this?" I nod into him.
"I can't disobey my father. Not yet."
"Vhen do you leave?"
"The end of the week. Two more days here—then the funeral and shopping for new robes, and I'll take the Knight Bus to Hogwarts."
He is silent and so am I, standing together in a deserted hall. My breath beads on his coat and his is a cloud of grey moisture around us. It will be warmer at Hogwarts, I tell myself. Already I am starting to feel my veins go cold, as Viktor leads me to his room—an envious single suite that he tried to turn down when Karkaroff first offered it to him. He lays us down on the bed and we start to say goodbye.
He is a beautiful flier, my dark crooked man. His hands are steady and quick, though sometimes they hover unsurely, unsteady now by my cheek. He touches me like he did the first time we made love—gently, slowly, reverently. As if I am easily broken and he loves me for it. I take off his clothes and he takes off mine and I like to steal his shirts and wear them during the day—too big, too rough, smelling like his favorite brand of clove cigarettes and wax.
"Ah—this bruise, Draco...it is looking bad. Your father?"
"Yes."
He kisses me on my eyelids, like he is putting me to sleep, touches my back like I am dreaming and he doesn't want to wake me. His tears fall into my hair like he will never be able to say 'I love you' and it's killing him.
I trace his eyebrows with long, pale fingers covered with thin glass-shard scars. His eyebrows are dark and bushy and he never told me that he was ashamed of them until he told me he wasn't anymore. I kiss the tip of his nose and the middle where it's flat and crooked, and run my fingers down it, savoring its upside-down question mark shape like my fingertips hold the answers and this is the only way I'll ever be able to say goodbye.
We spend the next morning together in his room. He shouldn't miss anymore classes than he already does due to quidditch, but he didn't leave when his alarm went off and for that I kissed him long and hard like he likes me to, and he kissed me back, long and hard like I like him to.
He casts a healing spell on my bruise when I have my back turned. "What are you, my nanny? I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself—"
"I fix bruise on ribs, yes? Not the ribs themselves, how skinny they are and I count them all..." His fingers tickle along my skin, warm and scratchy. "You should be eating more."
"You're just saying that because you want more of that cake I made last time I had kitchen duty."
"Okay, maybe little bit. At Hogwarts, never vill you have to make your own meals. House elves there are, huge meals on long tables. You vill miss cooking, I think, but not say so." I sigh and curl against Viktor's side.
"Yes, probably. Cooking is not proper masculine Malfoy conduct. Tell me more about Hogwarts anyway, please?"
"Hah! You say I am like mother, but you are more like child, I think. Fine, it is—ah, how to say...storytime, yes? Hogwarts is huge castle, like Durmstrang in colour, grey stone. But tall, reaching up towards sky with towers vearing little tower-hats, coming to a point vith flags on top." His voice, slow and pondering weaves a cradle of accented images in my mind, dark and gold and smooth.
"Their quidditch field—oh, is vonderful. Rafters high in the air, the hoops shine so bright sometimes you don't vant to look at them. The grass is green, soft, vould not be so bad to fall on as ground here. I did not get to fly there, on the pitch with a team and all of the balls, the announcer voice echoing. Maybe you vill, yes?
"Four houses of Hogwarts, with very long names—let's see if I shall remember them all. Gryffs-indoors, that is the school of Herm-own-ninny and Harry and Ron. They can be good friends to you. Then there is the opposite house in school—with four houses in just one castle, must be very big castle, yes?"
I elbow him in retaliation. "No more punning for you, you horrid Bulgarian lummox, it makes my head hurt."
"Oh, I know better. Is just you are jealous, that is all! But more vith story. There is also house of huffing-puffer, vhich has very nice but not very...smart, serious...just very...nice. Also is Raven's Claw, vhich you vould like, I think. Alvays very serious and studying and making me study when I have tests and copying notes to make sure I don't fail in class, even veekends and days off—"
"—What is this, a story or a private crusade against me?"
"Oh, does not matter. Can be both. And then is fourth house, the house of the snake."
"Slytherin."
"Yes, that is the name—you already know this story, vhy am I telling it you?"
"My father went to Slytherin. Every Malfoy has, as long as the school's existed. One of the first families to attend, invited personally by Salazar Slytherin himself." If I'm not sorted into Slytherin, I'll be disowned. "Keep talking, Viktor. Tell me what it's like inside."
"Oh, didn't go in very much. Stayed in Karkaroff's big ship, the one vith the mildew and ghoul. This is vhat I know: they have Great Hall, vhich in they have meals, three times a day in there all together. Is not like here, vhere can just go to kitchens and make self some food. The sky in room—no, the ceiling in the room—is like a sky. Has clouds, and storms, stars and the sun—beautiful. You vill like it. Both of you so beautiful..."
"How romantic. Comparing me to a ceiling. I am overcome with emotion." He elbows me, rolling over and pinning my hands to my sides.
"Never will you believe me—how beautiful you are!"
"Disfigured, ugly, skinny, pale--"
"No! Do not speak against yourself this way!" His hands tighten and I gasp, surprised.
"Viktor! That hurts!"
"I hurt you, you ask me to stop, yes? You make me—vhat do you say to your father? He hits you, he tells you lies about how you see yourself in mirrors—vhat do you say to him!"
"Stop, Viktor, please..." I don't move as he releases me and runs a hand through his hair.
"I am sorry. You do not need this now."
"No. Not now. Later, Viktor. Once I'm seventeen and have my Hogwarts diploma. Then, Viktor, then we can take this hatred and use it." So many times, I've given this speech. Convinced myself I'll make it end when I have independent legal standing. Viktor never looks me in the eye.
"My father hates you," I tell him as the afternoon fades away behind his closed curtains. "You're not his kind of beautiful. You aren't from an old wizarding family, but you're your still rich and powerful. You're a much better seeker than I will ever be—you're male and fucking his only heir. And you slouch. He would despise you."
"Yes. Vill you fly vith me now?" I once accused Viktor of having a one- track mind. He replied by telling me that there were no tracks in quidditch. It took me a long time to tell when he was joking and when he was being serious.
He says nothing when I put on his shirt before we leave. Viktor bought a two-person broom for our two-month anniversary. Sometimes, Viktor will go for days without talking.
I pull my hair back into a ponytail before we take off, with the obligatory glare at Viktor. "I like it long" was all he had to say to keep me from cutting it, but I still act mad. I am a Malfoy, after all. I am a Malfoy.
He gets on first, and I sit behind him. "Vhere to?"
"Anywhere." And we're off. I love flying with Viktor. I love to wrap myself around his back and feel his muscles bunching through his jacket as he swings us upside down and then back up again. This it where Viktor lives, here in the air where talking is pointless and control and letting go are equally essential and sometimes I wish I were air that he could fly through, sometimes I worry that I am too solid for Viktor. I am too graceful on the ground.
He slows down and I realize this is how he is going to say goodbye to me. His curves are long and seem like they're never going to end, the air surrounding us like a thick blanket. I hold on tighter to him as his curves get slower, longer, until we are descending in a straight line. This is his goodbye, I realize, as I kiss his neck in thanks. This is goodbye.
"I vant to give you a present," he says as we dismount. My teeth are chattering and I have to feel for my nose to make sure it's still attached. "Come vith me." We stop at the broom shed and he pauses before setting the two-seater back onto its special rack. "I do not think that I shall use this again. Not until—the year after the year after this one."
The year after the year after this one. When Viktor will be firmly settled on his quidditch team, and I will be old enough to legally fight back against my father. "You know you can use it with one of the others if you want to, Vik. You don't have to wait for me."
"I know. I vill take things and people as they come and so vill you. But I vill not fly vith them, I do not think. This is just you and me, this vas—is—ours. Next time I see you, maybe ve vill fly again together. Not until then. Now—your present." He casts another warming charm on me and I curse at his thick Bulgarian hide while pulling my coat tighter around myself.
"Where is this present?"
"In the room. I vas going to give it to you next weekend." Our three-month anniversary. "It vill do just as good now."
The halls get quiet as we walk through them. Up four floors, to the top floor where the living quarters are. The teachers wouldn't put up with the wind coming in through the windows, so the first three floors are teachers' quarters, classrooms, and the eating hall. The few friends I have stop us to wish me farewell. They're merely acquaintances; little more than hangers- on and bodyguards, really. I have had little use for them since Krum and I made our relationship official. Karkaroff took care of any further problems I might have had. He cannot afford to have Viktor unhappy
"Vik?" The windows in our room are covered in frost even in the middle of the day. "What do you think would happen if I jumped out the window? Or maybe off the roof—I want to do it right, after all. Do you think I'd survive—maybe be paralyzed? Hit my head and go crazy. Maybe I'd splatter on the walls, like paint. I haven't painted since—you know, Viktor—I don't think I've ever painted."
My breath fogs the window as I lean my face against it. My fingers caress the lock and suddenly it's all I can see, all I can feel. The metal through my gloves is more alluring than it should be, I think. Alluring, and cold.
"Draco." I know, Viktor, I know I should step back and smile and warm my fingers on your skin and forget about windows and painting and not having to see my father tomorrow night.
He steps behind me and slowly unwraps my scarf, trailing the expensive cloth through his fingers before dropping it on the floor. He slides his callused hands under my hat and drops it behind him. In front of me the snow dances its freedom and all that's separating me from it is a thin pane of glass and a cold lock that my fingers keep circling around and around and around like that will get the job done.
"I don't know," I tell the escape I cannot find. "Can I do this? I don't think I can do this, Viktor." He places his hands on top of mine and slowly waits for me to let my arms drop to my sides. "I can't do this."
He turns me around and takes my coat off and I realize he must have undressed while I was staring out the window. My hands seem so small in his, I muse. Pale and weak. He is what my father wanted for an heir. Someone strong, someone who can take control of the people around him.
His eyes are darker than usual. His eyes are dark and I'm shivering again and I've finally gotten warm. The wind howls outside and I am inside, inside with Viktor. "Are you here now?" His fingers crawl their way to the scar on my face and I try to turn away. "No. Don't turn away from me. Don't be ashamed." But I am.
Viktor didn't always used to be here. Standing in front of me, strong enough to catch me before I jump. He was the first one to find me afterwards, though. He was out practicing on the field when he heard the glass break and someone screaming and one of the guys he was practicing with said he almost got to me in time to catch me before I hit the ground.
I landed on a piece of glass that cut my face from above my eyebrow to my lip. The nurse said I was lucky not to lose an eye. She left me the scar. It's light brown—dark against my skin like Viktor against me. Tall, thin, dark Viktor who almost caught me but didn't.
Big shoulders, strong and proud now—hunched more often than not in the company of others. His torso is well-defined, and almost too long for his legs. The sharp bones of his hips press against the band of his pants. His chin is covered with dark stubble that stings my face as I press desperately into him.
Define me, I want to tell him. Touch every part of me, move your hands too harshly over every part that you see and know and make me feel, Viktor, make me feel like I'm really here and that I exist in this body and remind me that it's mine.
"You are so beautiful, Draco." I wince at the sound of our harsh breath echoing in the corners and his hands on my scars. "So pale and small, so strong." He is all angles and planes and unexpected round edges in his shoulders and knees and sharp hips digging into me. "So delicate, my Draco." He has a bruise on his back from a bludger and a burn from a curse gone awry tickling down his left rib cage. "Beautiful, you are mine."
"Yes."
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"You seem so young vhen you are sleeping. Makes me forget how—mature you are. How very dangerous you can be. Like snake, you are. A viper." He puts a cigarette in my mouth and lights it before I have to ask. "And here is your present." He presses it into my hand.
"Oh, wrapped this time, I see. We're getting very fancy in our old age." He blows a ring of smoke at me and sits back. Round, long, and squishy. "My, my, what could this be? Some new sex toy, mayhap?"
"Ah! Just open, already!"
A plush snake, green with button eyes, felt teeth flapping precariously next to a dark thread of a mouth. "I named it already. Iz Fido, yes? Very popular pet name, Fido." A muggle toy. Named Fido. It's at times like these that I realize how much I love Viktor. I launch myself at him, laughing, holding Fido in attack position.
"You great ruddy beast! Got me all excited—"
"Vhat, you don't like?" Smiling innocently at me with a smushed cigarette hanging from his lips. Fido takes the opportunity to hiss at him and bite his neck. I haven't had a stuffed animal since I was three, and Viktor knows the story, how I was told to throw them into the fire and did, how I cried afterwards and never received another 'childish distraction.'
"He's wonderful, Viktor. I love it. I love you, you silly Bulgarian man, I love you so much—"
"Yes, yes, I know. Even though you have no present for me but I gave one for you, still you love me! No one else, you know, vould put up with you." That gets him another Fido attack and a few wet sideways kisses, as we wrestle across the floor.
"Fuck! Oh, Merlin, what time is it? Oh bloody fucking Hades! I've got to be in Karkaroff's office ten minutes ago! Why didn't you wake me sooner, you useless waste of space—he can fly like the Devil but can't read a clock, that's Viktor Krum for you..."
I have my clothes on and cast a quick spell to get the rest into my suitcases, a quick reducio before I see Viktor laughing at me. "What? What's so funny? My father's going to skin me alive—"
"I change the clock, so that this vay you be ready in time and it take less time. I'm very considerate boyfriend, helping you out to get ready to leave. Have another ten minutes before they get the knives for the skinning."
"I swear to Salazar, Viktor, as soon as I'm done snogging you silly I'm going to curse your sorry arse into next year."
"Maybe you should. Next year I vill be on quidditch team, and free some times to come and see you."
The only light in the room is the sun's glare reflecting off the snow into the room, all the walls and the ceiling grey stone, the floor covered with a thin carpet. Viktor sits on the one chair in the room, not looking at me, his shoulders hunched and his hands folded in his lap. "How vill ve do this thing, Draco? Because I think ve must do it, ve must do it or—or I vould be empty all the time. You make me full, Draco, I don't know vhat I shall do vith you not here. How vill ve do this?"
One of my shoes is untied, the laces trailing behind me as I kneel before Viktor. "I'll send my letters to the edge of the quidditch pitch, like you and Granger do. Karkaroff won't know they're there, so he can't ban them. I'll see what I can do about getting to your weekend games, and maybe you could tell Karkaroff you have extra practices and come see me during that time...your coach, he's nice—maybe he can give you some time off without telling Karkaroff."
My hands circle his, my hands thin and white like Mother's gloves. His knuckles are big, the skin in between his fingers smooth and dry. Dark wiry hair on the backs, moving slightly with our breath. "Letters, and your games, and this summer—" The summer with Father watching my every move, without Mother to protect me and give me some room to breath. I hate the silence that falls in the room around my words. "We'll do the best we can."
He nods and stands, pulling me up with him. "I did not steal you more time than this, Draco. You must go now. You behave vell, yes? Say hello to Herm- own-ninny for me, and Harry and Ron, and do not be too rude to your father because you know already how that vill go and you do not need to find out again—"
"Are you going to tell me to wear clean underwear, too?"
"No, already I know you do not vear it and is pointless for the nothing you vear to be clean, yes? Now out vith you, out before I change my mind and never let you go." His lips are hard and warm and desperate, my arms wrapped around his waist and his circling my shoulders. Kissing farewell, kissing goodbye and I love you and I thought we would never end, please don't ever let me leave, Viktor...
The scar on my cheek stings as I step away breathless, grabbing my bags and he's standing up straight and his eyebrows, those wonderful dark eyebrows are drawn together. He grabs me again, his big knuckles and broom-handle grip dig into me and he shakes me, hard, unforgiving. "Vhatever, everything you do, do not forget I love you more than everything else. More than air and quidditch and ever flying again, I love you."
The silence fills the room and the space in between his fingers and Fido hanging out of my bag, his toes barefoot on the carpet and leaving Viktor hurts worse than Mother dying, Father living, hurts like I'm being punched in the stomach again, like my heart is being wrenched out of me as I step out of his grip, backwards to the door and can't cry, don't cry, Draco, Lucius would see it and he'd know what it meant and neither of you would escape him unscathed.
The door shuts cold and ordinary like it has so many times before, shuts and this is the last time I'll ever hear this door close between us. I walk to Karkaroff's office and tuck Fido further into my bag with a numbness that soothes the pain inside of me. Mother, Viktor; they hang empty inside me cold, Father's eyes proud as I walk in and make unapologetic eye contact.
"I'm ready to leave now, Father." Goodbye, Viktor. I love you.
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me plus reviews equals more writing. It's as simple as that.
Warning: Some Draco abuse...suicidal thoughts/actions...don't worry, nobody actually dies. I'm too wimpy for that. huddles in happy world with Sirius, devoutly ignoring the end of the-book-which-shall-not-be-named Oh, and be warned about Krum's accent. It's badly done, as in sometimes I do it, and sometimes I don't. 'Cause. It's REALLY annoying.
Disclaimer: Hairy Pothead and all of his ickle friends belong to J.R.R. Drawling, I just like to play with them because I luuuuuuurve them so much, oh yes I does.
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Father is out of place in Karkaroff's office like a diamond placed on top of an ice-cream sundae, the room slowly melting away as if aware of the comparison and unhappy with the conclusion drawn. Father knows it too, smiling smugly as Karkaroff shuffles and reshuffles the piles of paper on his desk and clears his throat and starts too many sentences, finishing none.
"Ah, excellent! Draco's arrived."
"Thank you, Headmaster. If you could just give us a moment alone..."
"Ah, right, yes, well I'll just leave the two of you alone—take as long as you need, I'll just go, uh—"
"That would be splendid, Karkaroff."
My father hasn't visited Durmstrang before. Parental visits aren't allowed, letters are contraband; two birthday presents the maximum allowed, holidays observed with a few words spoken over dinner and an extra glass of wine. A sparse existence, precise; I've come to enjoy it. Father wears his elaborate robes with embroidery on the edges, black on black; hair ridiculously long and tied back with a ribbon, as is mine.
He seems so soft, his cheeks round with a touch of pink; the gloves tucked into his pocket are fancy, thin, useless. Father hasn't lived in the eternal cold of Durmstrang, hidden away on a vast snow-covered plain with fleeting sunlight that can blind you with its glare. Father is warm and soft, but his darkness runs deeper than mine ever will—mine has been burned out by sunlit snow and cold, lip-numbing kisses.
"It's good to see you, Father." Breaking the silence because it's easier than waiting for him to do it, in the cold without enough food I've learned to compromise.
"I don't have time for pleasantries, Draco. I have some...unpleasant news. Narcissa passed away two days ago. You'll be coming home with me, and transferring to Hogwarts in order to be closer to home."
I don't know how he expects me to respond. I don't know how I want me to respond,. Mother—tall, thin, pale, coughing up blood after dinner and wearing long sleeved summer dresses to cover the needle marks in her arms. Mother—who fell in love with the white muggle powder that she bought from mudbloods while Daddy was busy on Knockturn Alley. Mother, who used to sing me to sleep and read me stories and apologize for father and fly with me on her good days—gone.
"Oh. When are we leaving?" He approves.
"I must get back to the ministry now, and take care of the legal aspect of things. Her will has to be sorted out, the funeral prepared for...there's no reason for you to come until Friday evening." Two days to leave my life of four years
"May I bring a guest to the funeral?"
"Who?"
"Viktor."
His smirk is gone. His eyes narrow, and his fingers tighten on his cane. "I am going to pretend you did not ask that, Draco, for your sake. I won't give you another warning: if you mention him or any of your other 'friends' ever again, in any way—" He presses his lips together the way he does when dangerously angry.
Mother used to do impressions of him, the sunlight glaring off of her hair that she dyed to please him, pressing her lips together and waving about an imaginary cane. She could soften his moods by slipping one of her hands over his and smiling. She always wore gloves, the first pair of white silk ones he bought her, and others that varied on that basic theme. Lace on the edges, tiny white pearls sewn on. Father didn't like the slight rough feel to her hands and so she soaked them, lotioned them daily; used the softest soaps she could find—he would still get angry when she didn't wear the gloves.
"There's nothing going on between me and Viktor! And even if there were, I see no reason why you shouldn't trust me to be discreet—more discreet than you are, anyway, bringing your whores into the Manor and keeping them over for breakfast!"
He's never hit me that hard before, the cane into my side because he likes to keep his distance from unpleasant things like blood and pain and bruises on my ribs that stay for weeks. "You have two days. The funeral is Saturday morning; you will get fitted for your Hogwarts robes Saturday night. Sunday is yours to do with as you wish until dinner; I'm having Severus over, and you are expected to attend. You'll take the knight bus back to school with him. He will be keeping me updated about your conduct. Don't push me any farther, Draco. You don't need any more scars."
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The first thing I noticed about Viktor—once I got over his height and bushy eyebrows and that ridiculous accent were his eyes. Dark and broody, with worry lines at the corners and speckles of warm gold, like dark beer. I would like to drink Viktor, drink him like fiery liquid going through my veins, like maybe I have been drinking Viktor all this time, intoxicated with his broom wax scent and slow, deliberate laugh.
His nose has been broken since the summer I saw him play in the quidditch championships, when he got hit in the face with a bludger. It's flat in the middle, and the end quirks a bit to the left—it's a long nose, a grand nose—it reminds me of sphinxes and Egypt and sand, which brings heat and Cleopatra to mind. Not that Cleopatra is relevant in the least. It just makes me think of her.
Krum is the only person I know besides my father who can stay quiet longer than I can. He thinks it's funny, watching me wait for him to break the silence, to ask about my day or to discuss plans for the evening—it's taken me months to get over the taboo of speaking to someone of lower class than I without them starting the conversation. Damn Krum, damn him and the twitch on his lips and the way he knows how infuriated I am at him and he laughs, slowly and deliberately before standing up and brushing his bangs out of his eyes.
"You should get your hair cut before your next game." He nods at me. "Who're you playing next week?" He shrugs. "Bastard."
"Yes." He steps to me and pulls me closer, my head barely coming up to his shoulder. He is warm like I'm not; warm like Egypt and sphinxes and his broken nose. "Fly with me?" I shake my head into his chest and pull myself closer to him. I try to envelope myself in his long, dark robes even as they sting my face and maybe I can blame his robes for my tears.
"There is something you are not telling me." He does not ask what it is, why I haven't told him about it yet or why I can't let go. He stands and holds me and rocks me back and forth like this is all he will ever have to do.
"Yes." I pull back, and do not wipe away my tears. "It's mother. She passed away yesterday." She died, she's dead pale and laughing, long sleeves and summer sun she's dead. "I'm leaving Friday night, and I won't be back. Father's transferring me to Hogwarts." Viktor turns away from me, staring at the wall in silence for too long.
"You vill like it there. Is not so cold." I raise an eyebrow and fix a cold expression on my face like it's all I can do and maybe it is.
"Is that all you have to say? It's not so cold? After all—after everything—it's not so cold—" He shakes his head, slowly like he does everything except fly. He sighs his frustration before grabbing my arm and walking further down the hall. He thinks better when he's moving.
"You think—truly, you think is possible I vill not miss you? Vhen it is cold and I do not have you vith me, near me—not to have you to come to all of my games and tell me I did not do so good as I did last game—to help vith my vork in the classes I miss for extra practice and the meetings...I do not think it vill happen that I could not miss you. It is only that—that I cannot think how much I vill miss you." He stops in front of a window, one overlooking the quidditch pitch. "If I think, truly, about you not being here then I vill not be able to let you go."
He pulls me to him again, crushing me against his chest and I let myself relax in his strength. "You must do this?" I nod into him.
"I can't disobey my father. Not yet."
"Vhen do you leave?"
"The end of the week. Two more days here—then the funeral and shopping for new robes, and I'll take the Knight Bus to Hogwarts."
He is silent and so am I, standing together in a deserted hall. My breath beads on his coat and his is a cloud of grey moisture around us. It will be warmer at Hogwarts, I tell myself. Already I am starting to feel my veins go cold, as Viktor leads me to his room—an envious single suite that he tried to turn down when Karkaroff first offered it to him. He lays us down on the bed and we start to say goodbye.
He is a beautiful flier, my dark crooked man. His hands are steady and quick, though sometimes they hover unsurely, unsteady now by my cheek. He touches me like he did the first time we made love—gently, slowly, reverently. As if I am easily broken and he loves me for it. I take off his clothes and he takes off mine and I like to steal his shirts and wear them during the day—too big, too rough, smelling like his favorite brand of clove cigarettes and wax.
"Ah—this bruise, Draco...it is looking bad. Your father?"
"Yes."
He kisses me on my eyelids, like he is putting me to sleep, touches my back like I am dreaming and he doesn't want to wake me. His tears fall into my hair like he will never be able to say 'I love you' and it's killing him.
I trace his eyebrows with long, pale fingers covered with thin glass-shard scars. His eyebrows are dark and bushy and he never told me that he was ashamed of them until he told me he wasn't anymore. I kiss the tip of his nose and the middle where it's flat and crooked, and run my fingers down it, savoring its upside-down question mark shape like my fingertips hold the answers and this is the only way I'll ever be able to say goodbye.
We spend the next morning together in his room. He shouldn't miss anymore classes than he already does due to quidditch, but he didn't leave when his alarm went off and for that I kissed him long and hard like he likes me to, and he kissed me back, long and hard like I like him to.
He casts a healing spell on my bruise when I have my back turned. "What are you, my nanny? I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself—"
"I fix bruise on ribs, yes? Not the ribs themselves, how skinny they are and I count them all..." His fingers tickle along my skin, warm and scratchy. "You should be eating more."
"You're just saying that because you want more of that cake I made last time I had kitchen duty."
"Okay, maybe little bit. At Hogwarts, never vill you have to make your own meals. House elves there are, huge meals on long tables. You vill miss cooking, I think, but not say so." I sigh and curl against Viktor's side.
"Yes, probably. Cooking is not proper masculine Malfoy conduct. Tell me more about Hogwarts anyway, please?"
"Hah! You say I am like mother, but you are more like child, I think. Fine, it is—ah, how to say...storytime, yes? Hogwarts is huge castle, like Durmstrang in colour, grey stone. But tall, reaching up towards sky with towers vearing little tower-hats, coming to a point vith flags on top." His voice, slow and pondering weaves a cradle of accented images in my mind, dark and gold and smooth.
"Their quidditch field—oh, is vonderful. Rafters high in the air, the hoops shine so bright sometimes you don't vant to look at them. The grass is green, soft, vould not be so bad to fall on as ground here. I did not get to fly there, on the pitch with a team and all of the balls, the announcer voice echoing. Maybe you vill, yes?
"Four houses of Hogwarts, with very long names—let's see if I shall remember them all. Gryffs-indoors, that is the school of Herm-own-ninny and Harry and Ron. They can be good friends to you. Then there is the opposite house in school—with four houses in just one castle, must be very big castle, yes?"
I elbow him in retaliation. "No more punning for you, you horrid Bulgarian lummox, it makes my head hurt."
"Oh, I know better. Is just you are jealous, that is all! But more vith story. There is also house of huffing-puffer, vhich has very nice but not very...smart, serious...just very...nice. Also is Raven's Claw, vhich you vould like, I think. Alvays very serious and studying and making me study when I have tests and copying notes to make sure I don't fail in class, even veekends and days off—"
"—What is this, a story or a private crusade against me?"
"Oh, does not matter. Can be both. And then is fourth house, the house of the snake."
"Slytherin."
"Yes, that is the name—you already know this story, vhy am I telling it you?"
"My father went to Slytherin. Every Malfoy has, as long as the school's existed. One of the first families to attend, invited personally by Salazar Slytherin himself." If I'm not sorted into Slytherin, I'll be disowned. "Keep talking, Viktor. Tell me what it's like inside."
"Oh, didn't go in very much. Stayed in Karkaroff's big ship, the one vith the mildew and ghoul. This is vhat I know: they have Great Hall, vhich in they have meals, three times a day in there all together. Is not like here, vhere can just go to kitchens and make self some food. The sky in room—no, the ceiling in the room—is like a sky. Has clouds, and storms, stars and the sun—beautiful. You vill like it. Both of you so beautiful..."
"How romantic. Comparing me to a ceiling. I am overcome with emotion." He elbows me, rolling over and pinning my hands to my sides.
"Never will you believe me—how beautiful you are!"
"Disfigured, ugly, skinny, pale--"
"No! Do not speak against yourself this way!" His hands tighten and I gasp, surprised.
"Viktor! That hurts!"
"I hurt you, you ask me to stop, yes? You make me—vhat do you say to your father? He hits you, he tells you lies about how you see yourself in mirrors—vhat do you say to him!"
"Stop, Viktor, please..." I don't move as he releases me and runs a hand through his hair.
"I am sorry. You do not need this now."
"No. Not now. Later, Viktor. Once I'm seventeen and have my Hogwarts diploma. Then, Viktor, then we can take this hatred and use it." So many times, I've given this speech. Convinced myself I'll make it end when I have independent legal standing. Viktor never looks me in the eye.
"My father hates you," I tell him as the afternoon fades away behind his closed curtains. "You're not his kind of beautiful. You aren't from an old wizarding family, but you're your still rich and powerful. You're a much better seeker than I will ever be—you're male and fucking his only heir. And you slouch. He would despise you."
"Yes. Vill you fly vith me now?" I once accused Viktor of having a one- track mind. He replied by telling me that there were no tracks in quidditch. It took me a long time to tell when he was joking and when he was being serious.
He says nothing when I put on his shirt before we leave. Viktor bought a two-person broom for our two-month anniversary. Sometimes, Viktor will go for days without talking.
I pull my hair back into a ponytail before we take off, with the obligatory glare at Viktor. "I like it long" was all he had to say to keep me from cutting it, but I still act mad. I am a Malfoy, after all. I am a Malfoy.
He gets on first, and I sit behind him. "Vhere to?"
"Anywhere." And we're off. I love flying with Viktor. I love to wrap myself around his back and feel his muscles bunching through his jacket as he swings us upside down and then back up again. This it where Viktor lives, here in the air where talking is pointless and control and letting go are equally essential and sometimes I wish I were air that he could fly through, sometimes I worry that I am too solid for Viktor. I am too graceful on the ground.
He slows down and I realize this is how he is going to say goodbye to me. His curves are long and seem like they're never going to end, the air surrounding us like a thick blanket. I hold on tighter to him as his curves get slower, longer, until we are descending in a straight line. This is his goodbye, I realize, as I kiss his neck in thanks. This is goodbye.
"I vant to give you a present," he says as we dismount. My teeth are chattering and I have to feel for my nose to make sure it's still attached. "Come vith me." We stop at the broom shed and he pauses before setting the two-seater back onto its special rack. "I do not think that I shall use this again. Not until—the year after the year after this one."
The year after the year after this one. When Viktor will be firmly settled on his quidditch team, and I will be old enough to legally fight back against my father. "You know you can use it with one of the others if you want to, Vik. You don't have to wait for me."
"I know. I vill take things and people as they come and so vill you. But I vill not fly vith them, I do not think. This is just you and me, this vas—is—ours. Next time I see you, maybe ve vill fly again together. Not until then. Now—your present." He casts another warming charm on me and I curse at his thick Bulgarian hide while pulling my coat tighter around myself.
"Where is this present?"
"In the room. I vas going to give it to you next weekend." Our three-month anniversary. "It vill do just as good now."
The halls get quiet as we walk through them. Up four floors, to the top floor where the living quarters are. The teachers wouldn't put up with the wind coming in through the windows, so the first three floors are teachers' quarters, classrooms, and the eating hall. The few friends I have stop us to wish me farewell. They're merely acquaintances; little more than hangers- on and bodyguards, really. I have had little use for them since Krum and I made our relationship official. Karkaroff took care of any further problems I might have had. He cannot afford to have Viktor unhappy
"Vik?" The windows in our room are covered in frost even in the middle of the day. "What do you think would happen if I jumped out the window? Or maybe off the roof—I want to do it right, after all. Do you think I'd survive—maybe be paralyzed? Hit my head and go crazy. Maybe I'd splatter on the walls, like paint. I haven't painted since—you know, Viktor—I don't think I've ever painted."
My breath fogs the window as I lean my face against it. My fingers caress the lock and suddenly it's all I can see, all I can feel. The metal through my gloves is more alluring than it should be, I think. Alluring, and cold.
"Draco." I know, Viktor, I know I should step back and smile and warm my fingers on your skin and forget about windows and painting and not having to see my father tomorrow night.
He steps behind me and slowly unwraps my scarf, trailing the expensive cloth through his fingers before dropping it on the floor. He slides his callused hands under my hat and drops it behind him. In front of me the snow dances its freedom and all that's separating me from it is a thin pane of glass and a cold lock that my fingers keep circling around and around and around like that will get the job done.
"I don't know," I tell the escape I cannot find. "Can I do this? I don't think I can do this, Viktor." He places his hands on top of mine and slowly waits for me to let my arms drop to my sides. "I can't do this."
He turns me around and takes my coat off and I realize he must have undressed while I was staring out the window. My hands seem so small in his, I muse. Pale and weak. He is what my father wanted for an heir. Someone strong, someone who can take control of the people around him.
His eyes are darker than usual. His eyes are dark and I'm shivering again and I've finally gotten warm. The wind howls outside and I am inside, inside with Viktor. "Are you here now?" His fingers crawl their way to the scar on my face and I try to turn away. "No. Don't turn away from me. Don't be ashamed." But I am.
Viktor didn't always used to be here. Standing in front of me, strong enough to catch me before I jump. He was the first one to find me afterwards, though. He was out practicing on the field when he heard the glass break and someone screaming and one of the guys he was practicing with said he almost got to me in time to catch me before I hit the ground.
I landed on a piece of glass that cut my face from above my eyebrow to my lip. The nurse said I was lucky not to lose an eye. She left me the scar. It's light brown—dark against my skin like Viktor against me. Tall, thin, dark Viktor who almost caught me but didn't.
Big shoulders, strong and proud now—hunched more often than not in the company of others. His torso is well-defined, and almost too long for his legs. The sharp bones of his hips press against the band of his pants. His chin is covered with dark stubble that stings my face as I press desperately into him.
Define me, I want to tell him. Touch every part of me, move your hands too harshly over every part that you see and know and make me feel, Viktor, make me feel like I'm really here and that I exist in this body and remind me that it's mine.
"You are so beautiful, Draco." I wince at the sound of our harsh breath echoing in the corners and his hands on my scars. "So pale and small, so strong." He is all angles and planes and unexpected round edges in his shoulders and knees and sharp hips digging into me. "So delicate, my Draco." He has a bruise on his back from a bludger and a burn from a curse gone awry tickling down his left rib cage. "Beautiful, you are mine."
"Yes."
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"You seem so young vhen you are sleeping. Makes me forget how—mature you are. How very dangerous you can be. Like snake, you are. A viper." He puts a cigarette in my mouth and lights it before I have to ask. "And here is your present." He presses it into my hand.
"Oh, wrapped this time, I see. We're getting very fancy in our old age." He blows a ring of smoke at me and sits back. Round, long, and squishy. "My, my, what could this be? Some new sex toy, mayhap?"
"Ah! Just open, already!"
A plush snake, green with button eyes, felt teeth flapping precariously next to a dark thread of a mouth. "I named it already. Iz Fido, yes? Very popular pet name, Fido." A muggle toy. Named Fido. It's at times like these that I realize how much I love Viktor. I launch myself at him, laughing, holding Fido in attack position.
"You great ruddy beast! Got me all excited—"
"Vhat, you don't like?" Smiling innocently at me with a smushed cigarette hanging from his lips. Fido takes the opportunity to hiss at him and bite his neck. I haven't had a stuffed animal since I was three, and Viktor knows the story, how I was told to throw them into the fire and did, how I cried afterwards and never received another 'childish distraction.'
"He's wonderful, Viktor. I love it. I love you, you silly Bulgarian man, I love you so much—"
"Yes, yes, I know. Even though you have no present for me but I gave one for you, still you love me! No one else, you know, vould put up with you." That gets him another Fido attack and a few wet sideways kisses, as we wrestle across the floor.
"Fuck! Oh, Merlin, what time is it? Oh bloody fucking Hades! I've got to be in Karkaroff's office ten minutes ago! Why didn't you wake me sooner, you useless waste of space—he can fly like the Devil but can't read a clock, that's Viktor Krum for you..."
I have my clothes on and cast a quick spell to get the rest into my suitcases, a quick reducio before I see Viktor laughing at me. "What? What's so funny? My father's going to skin me alive—"
"I change the clock, so that this vay you be ready in time and it take less time. I'm very considerate boyfriend, helping you out to get ready to leave. Have another ten minutes before they get the knives for the skinning."
"I swear to Salazar, Viktor, as soon as I'm done snogging you silly I'm going to curse your sorry arse into next year."
"Maybe you should. Next year I vill be on quidditch team, and free some times to come and see you."
The only light in the room is the sun's glare reflecting off the snow into the room, all the walls and the ceiling grey stone, the floor covered with a thin carpet. Viktor sits on the one chair in the room, not looking at me, his shoulders hunched and his hands folded in his lap. "How vill ve do this thing, Draco? Because I think ve must do it, ve must do it or—or I vould be empty all the time. You make me full, Draco, I don't know vhat I shall do vith you not here. How vill ve do this?"
One of my shoes is untied, the laces trailing behind me as I kneel before Viktor. "I'll send my letters to the edge of the quidditch pitch, like you and Granger do. Karkaroff won't know they're there, so he can't ban them. I'll see what I can do about getting to your weekend games, and maybe you could tell Karkaroff you have extra practices and come see me during that time...your coach, he's nice—maybe he can give you some time off without telling Karkaroff."
My hands circle his, my hands thin and white like Mother's gloves. His knuckles are big, the skin in between his fingers smooth and dry. Dark wiry hair on the backs, moving slightly with our breath. "Letters, and your games, and this summer—" The summer with Father watching my every move, without Mother to protect me and give me some room to breath. I hate the silence that falls in the room around my words. "We'll do the best we can."
He nods and stands, pulling me up with him. "I did not steal you more time than this, Draco. You must go now. You behave vell, yes? Say hello to Herm- own-ninny for me, and Harry and Ron, and do not be too rude to your father because you know already how that vill go and you do not need to find out again—"
"Are you going to tell me to wear clean underwear, too?"
"No, already I know you do not vear it and is pointless for the nothing you vear to be clean, yes? Now out vith you, out before I change my mind and never let you go." His lips are hard and warm and desperate, my arms wrapped around his waist and his circling my shoulders. Kissing farewell, kissing goodbye and I love you and I thought we would never end, please don't ever let me leave, Viktor...
The scar on my cheek stings as I step away breathless, grabbing my bags and he's standing up straight and his eyebrows, those wonderful dark eyebrows are drawn together. He grabs me again, his big knuckles and broom-handle grip dig into me and he shakes me, hard, unforgiving. "Vhatever, everything you do, do not forget I love you more than everything else. More than air and quidditch and ever flying again, I love you."
The silence fills the room and the space in between his fingers and Fido hanging out of my bag, his toes barefoot on the carpet and leaving Viktor hurts worse than Mother dying, Father living, hurts like I'm being punched in the stomach again, like my heart is being wrenched out of me as I step out of his grip, backwards to the door and can't cry, don't cry, Draco, Lucius would see it and he'd know what it meant and neither of you would escape him unscathed.
The door shuts cold and ordinary like it has so many times before, shuts and this is the last time I'll ever hear this door close between us. I walk to Karkaroff's office and tuck Fido further into my bag with a numbness that soothes the pain inside of me. Mother, Viktor; they hang empty inside me cold, Father's eyes proud as I walk in and make unapologetic eye contact.
"I'm ready to leave now, Father." Goodbye, Viktor. I love you.
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