Playing With Fire (01-Prologue)
AN: Yeah, I know, Dementor Effect... Please don't hurt me... This is the start of something I hope I'll finish. I'd love any comments you want to leave!
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
"I don't like this place, Harry."
Harry Potter groaned, hiding his face with one hand. The dark, stone hallway they were trudging down groaned along with him: their voices echoing along the dark and dank passageway into nothingness.
"I am so sick of hearing that, Ron!" He whined, turning to his- very tall and very red- best friend.
"Well…" Ron shifted his weight.
"No, no! Let me guess," Harry rolled his eyes. "You 'just don't'." Harry raised his eyebrows, looking up and over his glasses in an expectant way.
Ron huffed, quietly. "It's impossible to secure," He said, defiantly, thrusting his chin out and tucking his hands into his pockets.
"Everywhere is impossible to secure," Harry countered, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Some more so than others."
"We're only here for a week."
"A week? You said a night!"
"When did I say that?"
"Last night!"
"Oh… well I lied."
"Harry! You just can't- you lied-you trick- how could you do that?" Ron demanded- hands abandoning his jeans pockets and flapping about wildly, skinning his knuckles on the rough stone walls and not noticing.
Harry huffed this time, a good deal more loudly than Ron had, and set his jaw. "Don't be such a girl, Ron. It's not like we're moving in, we're just staying here while Hermione and I check the books for R.A.B."
"R.A.B.? You're putting your life in danger to look for that blasted-"
"Our lives in danger, and yes, Ron, I am!"
"HARRY!"
"STOP SHOUTING AT ME!"
"NO! YOU DON'T LISTEN TO ME OTHERWISE!"
"WHAT THE HELL IS IT THEN?"
"I CAN'T SECURE THIS PLACE, HARRY! NOT IN ONE NIGHT, NOT IN A FORTNIGHT!"
"THEN DON'T!"
"DON'T? ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING?"
"RON!"
"HARRY, I CAN'T PROTECT YOU HERE!" Cobalt eyes blazed. Ron's breathing was heavy, and his hands had momentarily stilled on Harry's shoulders, trying to impress on his friend the severity of the situation.
Harry stared at Ron's feet. Silent.
"Harry…Harry, I can't make you safe here." Ron shook the slighter boy a little, begging him. They'd both grown in the year since they'd been away from Hogwarts. In ways that were noticeable (taller, broader shoulders, sharper features) and in some ways that weren't nearly so obvious.
"Ron," Harry said, looking up at his friend. Ron flinched. Green eyes bore into his own- unreadable. "Let go of me." He said. It wasn't a request. Gently, he pushed Ron's hands off his shoulders, and walked away. His footsteps echoed in the passageway. Echoed until they were gone.
Ron's eyes squeezed firmly shut. The air around him buzzed with intensity.
"Damn it!" He swore, uselessly punching at the nearest wall- breaking the skin on his knuckles- and stomping down the tunnel in his friend's wake. Every few steps he scanned the walls and glanced back over his shoulder. He couldn't help it.
Ron really didn't like this place.
The match made a familiar, and comforting, rasp as it pulled against the rough side of the box. The red tip burst into flame and Draco smiled a little, watching it slowly warp and stain the wood black. Just before the heat touched his fingertips, he blew out the light, and watched the smoke curl away in the dark night air. Flicking away the blackened remains, Draco took out another match and repeated the ritual- relishing the feeling. Draco had always loved playing with fire.
"Pyro," Zabini accused, joining his pale comrade on the balcony leading off of Draco's rooms. Leaning on his elbows, Blaise tilted over the side, and whistled softly. "Long way up. You never got scared as a child?"
Draco only raised an eyebrow, not bothering to look at Blaise. Flicking away a used match, he struck another, glaring into the flame. The moon was full tonight. The sky was unusually vivid out in the country, and Malfoy Manor was about as deep in the countryside as you could be. The thick woods that bordered the expansive property were great clumps of pitch on the horizon. It was a familiar horizon. One Draco was tired of.
"Why do you do that?" Blaise asked, nodding at the matchbox in Draco's hands.
"Do you want something, Zabini?" Draco snapped, snuffing the flame and shoving the matchbox into the pocket of his jacket.
"Well, well, well, someone's had a bad day," Blaise sneered. Friendship was a funny thing to both of them, which they knew, and they'd never quite realized how to go about it. Their own version seemed to pass, however. And in general, Blaise was satisfied if Draco never called him mate, and Draco was satisfied if Blaise never asked him what was wrong, no matter how thin or ill-tempered he became.
"Tonight." He said simply, still not looking at his friend, gazing outward to the woods. He concentrated on the owls, the crickets, and the faint human sounds that leaked out to the boys from inside the manor. He ignored the pounding of his heart.
Blaise said nothing. He followed Draco's gaze. There's only one kind of silence when you're around the Malfoys- the tense kind. The smothering, pressing in on your ears, ripping at you to say something, kind. Blaise was used to it. Blaise was in the habit of breaking it, too.
"So this will be the first time you've seen them since-"
"That's ridiculous," Draco snapped. "It has nothing to do with them." He spun around, leaning against the wrought iron rail with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Finally faced with a pair of stormy silver eyes, Blaise smirked. A little bit.
"What is this about then?"
"What this?"
"Please, Malfoy." Blaise rolled his eyes. Draco had always won his battles through word play; a fact that, once again, they both knew, and Blaise had long ago refused to play his game.
Draco huffed, and looked away. His head didn't droop (never did) and his shoulders weren't hunched (never were) but there was something glaringly subdued about him tonight. He was quieter than Blaise had ever seen him. More adult. It was a little frightening, and more than a bit unsettling.
"Tonight is My Turn." Draco said, voice carefully even. Blaise stiffened a little, involuntarily, noting the special emphasis on Draco's last words.
"I see," he said, quietly. Softly.
Draco snorted, spinning about again, violently, staring back out at the moon. "I doubt it." He snapped.
Blaise's temper flared. "If you will care to remember, Malfoy, I've already proved myself to Him. Successfully, I might add." It was a low dig, but he was Slytherin, after all.
Draco flinched, but said nothing. There was that damn silence again.
"You'll be fine, Draco… not like before. You'll be fine. You always are." Blaise shrugged, ignoring the scathing glance that Draco shot him. Ego bolstering was not usually Blaise's job, and he never claimed to be good at it. Another long moment stretched between them before Blaise sighed, acknowledging defeat, and pushed himself away from the rail. It was cold out here.
"Did I ever tell you about my seventeenth birthday?" Draco asked, his voice low. Blaise stopped in his tracks. He shot a questioning glance over his shoulder, but Draco wasn't looking at him.
"No," he said, finally, walking back to the railing. It wasn't like Draco to share things. He noticed, in fact, that his pale friend was very resolutely not looking at him as he continued.
"My father decided it was time for a heart-to-heart. The good ol' Becoming a Man Speech," Draco's laugh was harsh, and had nothing to do with humor. "My mother took me to Azkaban to see him," Blaise could see Draco's shoulders stiffen beneath his jacket. "He told her to wait a while, while he talked to me. At first, I thought it was a joke… but it wasn't. We talked. Well…" He paused. "Mostly, he talked. Told me a lot of things, Blaise, and one thing he told me, was about killing." Draco's hands clenched around the wrought iron. "You know what he said, Blaise? He said that there's a little bit inside of everyone- a little shadow- that can't take life. There's a shred of weakness in each of us that fears the ramifications of causing death. He told me that when you kill, that weakness inside of you dies. It just dies. He said that after the first time, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. He told me it's just that first time, when you've got to purge yourself of that fear. He said you've just got to stop thinking for a moment, and then it won't matter. He said you just have to kill it off." Draco stopped, breathing hard.
Now, Draco turned to face his friend, and there was something there, beneath and within Draco's eyes, that Blaise had never seen before. Hurt. Abuse. Need. Begging. Without saying a word, and for perhaps the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy was begging. For what, Blaise wasn't sure, but he thought... he thought it might be salvation. He might be begging for a savior.
"Do you think that's true, Blaise?"
Zabini thought back to His Turn. He watched his friend carefully. He studied the intensity of his gaze. Finally, in a voice that whispered mildly, and quietly, he said, "Yeah, Draco… It think that's true."
Draco turned away. Back to the moon, spreading shafts of piercing light. To the woods, so familiar. Vaguely, he reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the matchbox. He struck one. The flame consumed until it was spent, and he snuffed it out, and flicked it away into the dark oblivion beyond the edge of the balcony.
"Oh." He said.