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Looking back I clearly see
What it is that's killing me
Through the eyes of one I know
I see a vision once let go
I had it all
"Open Your Eyes" by Alter Bridge
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Chapter 20: The Mark
By Callisto Callispi
Peter Pettigrew escaped through the dark forests as if the teeth of Satan nipped at his heels. He felt it in his bones. The very air rumbled with what seemed like power. Oh god, it was happening.
"The shadows breathe their life into me . . ."
Winter wind sheared the forest like knives. The tears dropping down Peter's cheeks froze as he stumbled through the forest. There was no way. No way at all.
"And I, Lord of the Dark, born from the blood of Salazar Slytherin, am ready . . ."
The moon shone like a bright white bulb tonight. The half-lit world was more frightening than the black of darkness. Vague, fantastic figures that waltzed the waltz of night peopled the world then evanesced right before Peter's eyes. The thorny branches of evergreen melted into robes of the deepest black. The shrill whistle of the wind laughed at him with its terrible humor.
"I, of Salazar Slytherin's blood, am ready. Ready to stand . . ."
And Peter remembered how the Dark Lord stood, despite his shaking knees, with hardly any support from his reed-like arms, and cackled in the solitary dome of darkness.
"I have regained my strength, the strength thieved from me, and I am ready."
Peter saw it all flashing through his mind like a nightmare. But the nightmare was very real. He flew in the air, foot caught on an uprooted branch, and slammed his nose into the snowy ground. Metallic blood from his bitten tongue sweetened the caverns of his bitter mouth. He remembered.
"I am ready. The Second Coming. And I am ready."
Peter wept desolately, blood dripping from his lips. And in the midst of the reddening snow, he would have done anything to find the courage to slay himself.
"The Second Coming . . ."
The war was starting all over again. And this time, the Dark Lord would not fail.
"Blood will soak the countryside of England and poison the waters of the sea . . ."
And Peter knew very well that the Dark Lord did not waste his words. Very well, indeed.
The corridors were like mazes. Hermione ran, guided only by instinct. She could neither smell nor feel. She could only hear. His moans tremored in her head like thousands of droning bees.
Where are you? she wondered. Where are you, Draco Malfoy?
The silence of the darkness was so loud. It shattered her senses as she ran, chest compressing, heart screaming for air, brain insisting that she slow her pace.
And she finally saw him.
It was more by instinct than sight. The black cloak thrown about his figure melted him into the dark, shadowed floor, as if the demons were trying to drag him to hell. She would not have that -- he wasn't going anywhere, especially hell; not without her permission. Hermione ran up to him and flipped him over in her arms.
She groaned when she saw his face. Her heart paused momentarily in her chest as her eyes roamed over the paleness of his almost-blue skin. Sweat glistened on his forehead, making him seem like a polished marble doll rather than a human being. Was he alive?
"Malfoy?" she whispered, shaking him fiercely so that his head lolled about in her arms. "Malfoy! Wake up!"
Why wasn't he waking up?
Panic and horror clutched her heart. He was dead. There was no doubt about it. No one could be so pale, so ghostly without being dead. Was she too late? But he seemed fine just a few hours ago --
"Uhn . . . "
Hermione's eyes widened. Was that groan from . . . him? "Malfoy!" she hissed. "Malfoy! Wake up! Please, wake up!"
And by some miracle, his pale lashes fluttered open. Hermione felt like screaming out in sheer relief but restrained herself. Oh god, she was so scared that she held a dead man in her arms. She was so scared that she would never be able to call him names ever again. She was so scared --
Dazed, pale eyes scrutinized her face. Hermione felt her throat close, for she was unable to say anything for the longest time.
"Who -- are --"
"It's me," she whispered, her lips quivering as she attempted a half smile. "Remember?"
"Granger . . . ?"
"Yes."
His face twisted in pain. Hermione's smile slipped from her lips. What was wrong with him?
"Fuck," he cursed quietly, trying to sit up. Hermione tried to support him. Her arm grazed his shoulder blades. He spasmed in pain. A broken moan slipped past his lips.
A wave of deja vu washed over her. She remembered . . . something was wrong with his back. That day when she found herself in the forest with Draco's blood smearing her uniform. She tried to fix his shoulder. He refused. That night in the library, right before their first kiss. He collapsed against her, moaning in pain, arching up when her hands grazed his shoulder blades. She remembered when she stole glances at him in the Great Hall, in classrooms . . . she remembered how his hands would always travel up his shoulder. That grimace was not due to boredom or anger -- it was a grimace of pain.
She needed to see. She needed to see what was wrong with him.
"Come on," Hermione said quietly, trying to force him up to his feet. He fumbled but made a grand effort to stand. "We need to get you out of this hallway before someone sees you."
They were a clumsy, noisy duo. He fumbled every other step and hissed whenever something merely grazed his shoulder blades. By some miracle, the two weren't caught by anything living or dead (Hermione shivered when she thought of what Peeves would do if he did indeed catch them). After what felt like an eternity, Hermione paused in front of the Gryffindor portrait and whispered the password.
The Fat Lady blearily opened her eyes, her hair an explosion of pink curlers, and swung open without a second glance. Hermione grunted quietly as Draco's knees gave out and he tripped. Her back slammed against the wall under his sudden weight. With a large gasp of air, Draco then slid down to the floor on his stomach and lied there, writhing in pain.
"I am dying," he whispered hoarsely in the darkened Gryffindor common room.
Hermione swung his good arm around her shoulders and pulled him up none-too-gently while hissing passionately, "Don't be ridiculous." Her eyes roamed nervously about the commons, hoping that none of the students decided to have a tryst in the shadows somewhere that night.
By the time that they stumbled into the room, Draco's breathing was discouragingly shallow. Tears of pain pricked her eyes as he trembled. The arm around her shoulder dug increasingly painfully into her muscle with each step.
"Just a little farther," she gasped out as his legs gave out under him more frequently. She breathed out in relief as she approached the door to her room and opened it.
Salvation, finally. And damn, did her shoulder ache.
Shoulder.
Hermione's grimace was a wry one. Draco collapsed onto her bed, his breathing ragged. Shoulders bothered everyone now, didn't they?
"Malfoy?" Hermione whispered. His eyes were closed, and he did not move a muscle. "Malfoy?" she said in a louder voice. Still, no answer. Hermione's heart pounded as her fingers grazed his collarbone. She called his name once more, more loudly than the previous times, and when she received no response, she moved him gently onto his stomach while peeling his suffocating sweat-dampened shirt from his body. And while she was just about to pull the blankets over him, she gasped.
A smudge of black, on his shoulder blade. Breath expelled, eyes wide, Hermione appraised this sooty black mark, courting the possibility that perhaps this was the source of all his pain. Hermione's eyes narrowed. No, it couldn't be! The shadows were merely playing a trick on her eyes. Why would Draco, with his stiff and conventional views, ever mar his skin with some sort of . . . of a tattoo?
With a shaking hand, she placed her fingertips on the black mark. She sucked in her breath, pulling back as quickly as a flash of lightning when she figured out that the mark was not the result of a tattoo. It was burnt skin. Burnt skin!
"Someone branded you," Hermione whispered, voice choking with horror. Her eyes shifted from the mark to his pained face. Even in his sleep, Draco seemed to undergo some sort of torture. "Someone branded you as if you were their property!"
And though Hermione wished to inspect that mark more closely under the light of her lamp, Draco shifted and lied on his back. He still slept. Hermione bit the inside of her lip. What was he hiding from her? And . . . did she want to know?
She rose silently from the bed side and fetched a wet and dry towel, and a chair. She placed the chair next to Draco and cleaned the perspiration from his face, trying not to stare down at his bare chest. And unknowing to her, the newly revived Dark Lord Voldemort lurched forward and collapsed in a black heap onto the marble ground, his steady flow of strength suddenly sapped.
Lucius Malfoy was a vision indeed. Lacking all of his characteristic control, he paced in front of the fireplace, his walking so frenzied that the burgundy rug under him faded into the hue of bruised lilac. Confusion and doubt rankled in his mind, like incessant bickering between two children.
"Tell her!" "No, don't!" "Tell her! Tell your wife! Tell your son!" "Shut UP! Do you want to die? Do you want to scream under his 'Crucio'?!"
Narcissa watched her husband from the doorway, heart thumping harder with each and every curse that dripped from his lips. Not for the first time in her life, she was frightened. She closed her eyes, leaned against the wall, and wondered if life was worth living. It seemed so promising, life, when her eyes first met with Lucius's. And she was fond if him still, no doubt about that. Lord, she was terribly fond of her husband.
But when he paced about like an angry tiger, forever tight-lipped about nearly everything that ruled his life, how could she feel completely at ease as his wife and life companion?
The footsteps stopped. Narcissa's eyes opened automatically, sensing something amiss.
Then the hand in the shadows lunged.
"Mmm! Mphh!" she squealed, the cries never leaving her mouth. The hand that covered her mouth painfully snapped her body backward into the hard chest of a man. She felt the unmistakable point of a wand caressing her side with its unforgiving ruthlessness.
"Narcissa?" the man behind her breathed.
Before she knew it, she was stumbling on her feet as her captor relinquished his hold on her. She whirled and faced him, whispering, "Lucius!"
The shock on his face melted into concern. Then quickly it hardened back into its characteristic snarl. "What were you doing here?" he hissed, seeming more and more menacing as shadows manipulated his features so that he looked more like a skeleton than a man.
"I -- I --" she began, the words unwilling to leave her lips.
However Lucius, short of temper this evening, strode up to her with predatory ease and pushed her against the wall. Narcissa cried out in surprise, for her husband hardly ever handled her so physically. "What the hell were you doing, Narcissa?" he demanded. "Were you spying on me?"
"Lucius! Unhand me!" she nearly screamed, and surprisingly Lucius did as he was told. He stepped back from his wife, eyes wide and hands shaking. Narcissa forced the dread and fear down her throat, and when she was confident that her voice would not quiver, she spoke again. "Lucius . . ."
"Shh," Lucius said with surprising gentleness, placing his index finger on his lips. He looked so shaken. "Narcissa . . ."
Narcissa stepped closer, heart trembling and breath quivering, despite her best efforts to maintain her calm. How was she supposed to know that her husband did not wish to hear or speak? For instead of providing an explanation, he pulled her abruptly into his arms and crushed her lips with his.
"Narcissa," he breathed out between his kisses.
Goose bumps trailed along her skin as his fingers brushed against the nape of her neck. Was this her cool, detached husband? The one she screamed at for selling his soul to Voldemort? The one that left her alone in the night as he ravaged other women, just to place more distance between her and himself? Her arms moved up tentatively, and her fingertips grazed the silk of his shirt. She stopped there, not daring to go any farther.
A single tear trickled down her cheek. Lucius pulled away for a quick moment, and the look on his face made heat sting the back of her eyes. He was frightened.
"Narcissa?" he asked quietly, his lips grazing hers as he spoke.
She looked down, wishing she could embrace her husband but not being able to (they've grown so apart, it was frightening) and closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at him.
He tilted her chin up with his finger. She still averted her gaze from his.
"Narcissa . . . please don't hate me more than you do now."
She closed her eyes, struggling not to fall into an unconscious heap.
"I've committed so many . . . sins . . . so many wrongs against you and against . . . Draco."
She did not contradict him. For once, Lucius spoke the ugly truth about himself.
"Forgive me."
And with a feather-brush of a kiss upon her cold lips, he whisked away into the shadows. Narcissa, though her heart begged to hold him to her, did not follow him. Lucius did, after all, belong in darkness. Lucius knew that too.
His knees were shaking. The prospect of duty and love tore up his insides. Was it so much to ask that he could just have both things? That he could remain loyal to his lord and keep his wife at his side?
"Forgive me," he whispered once more as he flung the doors open and stood in the blizzard. The image of his son, at just the tender age of five, smiling and outstretching his arms in a gesture that demanded he be picked up flooded Lucius's mind. He saw himself staring at the boy then turning away abruptly and leaving Draco alone in the vast garden. Pain pierced Lucius's heart. He fell on knees in the snow and screamed out curses against the howling wind.
What he wouldn't have given to be able to pick up his five-year-old son.
But he was always there, the dark shadow that stained his life. Voldemort was always there. And Lucius had no choice but to listen.
Hermione sat down next to Draco, quietly watching his chest fall up and down. She neither frowned nor smiled. She merely stared at his face, feeling what little self control she maintained slip slowly away through her fingers like water. Her hands trembled to the extent that it scared her. She gripped the sides of the chair so harshly that her knuckles turned white.
"Mal -- Draco," Hermione whispered.
He remained sleeping.
Her hands acted on a will of her own. Tentatively, she grazed his fingertips with her own. And courage rushed through her. She placed her hand over his and placed her forehead on top both their hands, breathing deeply. Why was it so hard sometimes? Why was loving so hard? Why was trying to force away the love so hard?
"Draco?" Hermione whispered out again. She didn't know why. Perhaps it was because she would never call him that again. "Draco. Draco Malfoy."
He did not stir. Hermione felt her heart throb. She was torn with the two desires to wake him up and to let him go on sleeping.
"Draco . . ."
How beautiful he looked under the soft glow of the moonlight. Just like Endymion.
"Draco, I -- I --"
And who was his Selene? Some prissy Slytherin bitch with that horrible black mark burning on her forearm? Who would claim Draco? Hermione squeezed her eyes shut.
"Draco Malfoy. Draco, I love --"
But then he shifted ever so slightly. Hermione opened her eyes, her heart fluttering like mad at that slight movement. But he did not wake. Hermione sighed, rubbing her eyes. What a coward she was. She couldn't even speak to him in his sleep.
Hermione grazed her fingertips over his bare shoulders and down to his back. She saw it. It was what Draco hid from her. She only had a glimpse of it, something black and marring, but Hermione had a feeling that she did not want to know. Ignorance was bliss.
That jolt struck her like lightning once more as she sat there in silence. The realization came to her that she and Draco would probably never be alone together again. Not so very personally, anyway. Hermione knew Draco was destined for great things. Terrible things. And her? Hermione grimaced. She would stand against him in the impending war against Voldemort. But for now, for now, they were just two people. Draco and Hermione. Two people unable to be with each other except for in the dead of night, except for in an almost-empty wing of the huge castle, except for in secret.
"Draco," Hermione murmured, stroking his soft blond hair. He furrowed his brows slightly and turned his body to the middle of bed. Hermione held her hand back, watching as he slumbered. Then, Hermione walked over to the other side of the bed and sat down there, staring into the darkness. What she was about to do was madness.
"I'm going to sleep with you tonight, Draco," Hermione whispered. It was not at all a sexual comment -- she did not feel the heat that she felt when they first kissed in the library. No, this heat was like a wave, not a tingle of electricity. How had this poisoned romance blossomed so flagrantly?
Without further delay, she pushed the covers aside and lied down deep within the bed. Her body felt cold. She needed his warmth. She needed Draco. Quietly, she turned to him and breathed in his scent. He faced her fully now, half of his face shadowed into a dusty black and the other half of his face gleaming like porcelain under the moon. She wanted to bring him back. She wanted to bring him to her, to her light.
And she inched closer and closer to him until their stomachs touched. Then, surprisingly, Draco's arms drew her closer. Hermione stifled a gasp, looking up to find him still sleeping.
And so they lied there for hours, Hermione falling asleep warm in Draco's embrace only minutes after. And it was the most easiest sleep in years. That was because she released all of her frustrations for that moment. She released her hold on everything, even life, for he held onto her. And Hermione knew that he would never let her go. Ever.
X
It was like being branded again. What was he? Livestock? Draco was almost insulted, though this was hardly the time to be pouting.
Draco slept uneasily for the first few hours. He felt a tingle in the back of his mind, a little nagging voice. That mark is fatal, it whispered almost inaudibly. Then it would disappear for weeks until the next time that he seriously doubled over from pain.
It was making his body weak. It was killing off his immune system and sapping the vigor right out of his muscles. Heat pooled in his heart, threatening to boil his organs in his own heated blood. That was what it was. Self-mutilation, if he had anything to say about it.
Eventually peace settled his body and drove off the throb of the mark. For that moment, of course, but even the shortest time of relief felt like bliss. The attacks were steadily increasing, and this truly frightened Draco.
He woke up in darkness, only to find that he couldn't move easily. His feet were tangled in blankets that did not feel like his blankets. He shifted his head and felt strands of soft hair against his chest. His heart skipped a beat. Well that certainly wasn't his hair.
He pulled away slightly and squinted, struggling to see who he held in his arms so tightly. His heart skipped a beat as he glimpsed a nose that was very familiar to him. Further down, he noted the dark pink lips and slightly rounded chin.
It couldn't be . . . Hermione?!
He immediately looked down to find his chest bare, then looked further down and breathed out deeply to see that he still had his pants on.
The drowsiness that blurred his mind cleared slowly. As he lied there, warm and content, little reels of visions flickered in his mind. Draco remembered the dark chamber, the one with the skull and the snake. He remembered the candle that flickered out while Voldemort's lackeys performed their ceremony. He remembered how that hellish fire smothered the blackened air with its kisses of poison. He remembered everything about the place where he chose this cursed fate of intolerable fevers and an uncertain future.
He truly did believe the mark was fatal.
But what could he do about it?
Panic should have risen in his chest. He should have been pacing (just like his father when he was anxious -- the two were more alike than they themselves knew) and cursing and thinking. Instead, he remained in the bed, comforted by the mere presence of one girl. Of one muggle-born.
Were bloodlines truly worth all of this madness?
His gaze flickered down. Gingerly, he stroked her hair and tightened his hold on her. Even when he said good-bye to her, she still watched from afar. And when he would fall, she ran up to him and protected him. Whenever he was with her, the mark didn't burn as badly. It hardly ever burned it all.
Draco loosened his hold when she squirmed. His eyes softened as her lashes fluttered open.
She seemed bewildered regarding where she was. And with whom. Catching his silver eyes, she pulled back slightly.
"Is . . . is this a dream?" she murmured. Sleep sweetened her voice.
Draco smiled obligingly. "It's whatever you wish it to be."
She seemed to ponder this until sleep finally won her over. She murmured something that Draco couldn't catch and sighed. Draco stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb and hummed a quiet little tune with his lips against her forehead.
Draco left Hermione at the first sign of dawn, regarding with slight amusement her Head Girl room. What a way to set an example for her peers, using the privilege of privacy to sleep with someone from a rival-house. He left after placing a single red rose on the pillow where he slept and stole out into the empty castle, mind wide-awake and giddy.
He didn't even notice that from the shadows Ronald Weasley watched his exit from Hermione's room. Ron had been restless after that fitful conversation with Hermione the night before and woke up early to retrieve two cups of hot chocolate from the kitchens -- one for him and one for Hermione to sip on while he made an attempt to patch things up.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I really didn't mean . . . what I said yesterday. Please, let's remain friends, all right? I'd -- I'd be more than happy to keep our relationship the way it is."
Then she would smile, perhaps ruefully, but would accept his apologies. "Sure, Ron. It's what I've wanted. This hot chocolate is delicious, by the way . . ."
Ron smashed the two cups into the ashy fireplace, breath trembling with anger.
He would have tried to make her happy, tried to gently dissuade Hermione's attraction toward Draco Malfoy. Though jealousy claimed a significant portion of his recent attitude, he had learned things -- things that no one was supposed to know . . . about Draco Malfoy.
How dare she?! How could Hermione ever . . . spend the night with Draco Malfoy?! Ron collapsed onto the soft couch, burying his forehead into his hands. Oh god. How had she changed? What horrifying curse did Malfoy put on her to make her submit so easily to his will?
That fucking asshole. That FUCKING asshole!
All rational thought fled Ron's mind, and yet, he removed his hands calmly from his face. Malfoy thought he won. Malfoy thought that he and Hermione were . . . Ron couldn't even finish the thought. But Ron had a trump card up his sleeve. The trump card that would unravel everything between the two.
So deep within the ranks of Voldemort Draco Malfoy was.
Ron nodded slightly, eyes hard and face utterly expressionless. Now all he had to do was to wait for Hermione to wake up.
Warmth all but cooled from the hot chocolate. What remained was nothing but mud-colored sugar water splattered over the unforgiving black mantle.
It was conceived in the similar way that the Red Widow had been born: a drink filled with larvae eggs that eagerly fed on blood and attached itself to the brain. They were magical parasites.
The night when Hermione slept with Draco by her side, those larvae grew and grew until they maintained control, even for a brief moment. That brief moment was all that they needed in order to carry out Voldemort's orders.
That night, a student was put to sleep.
Forever.
And more and more larvae hatch, chattering in voices that made their host wonder if (he, she, it) were mad.
Not yet. But the host will be.
Mad.
The larvae are hatching.
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End Notes: Hehe. Can you tell that I'm a Lucius and Narcissa shipper? Hah, I'm so sorry for the wait. This chapter was a major B-I-T-C-H to write. Such fluff, such angst. And there's more to come, folks. I'll give you two guesses to who the host is. ;-) Cheers for now! And review please! Show some loooove.