Draco woke up in agony. 'Blast, why did I have to fall asleep again?' He was lying by the side of the swimming pool in the shade, or at least it had been in the shade when he fell asleep. The sun had moved on in the summer sky and he was now well and truly burned to a crisp. This was the third time in as many days that he'd been sunburnt. His was always careful not to tan; his skin took to the sun like a phoenix took to trees. One minute everything was fine but before you know it whoosh – ashes.
Slowly, grunting with each spasm of pain he got up and headed indoors. He made a beeline, albeit a slow one to the nearest bathroom and the ointment cabinet. After a couple of agonising moments he found the bottle he was searching for he took it out and read the label:
"Harloks Burn Potion"
"Relieves burns of all kinds from candles to dragons."
"Puts the Fire Out!!!"
Not bothering to re-read the directions he opened the bottle and began to splash the contents of the bottle over his chest and arms, sighing loudly with relief as the potion cooled his skin. He gave the potion five minutes to work its magic, long enough for his skin to return to its previous alabaster hue before heading upstairs to take a shower. Twenty minutes of blissful cool water later he entered his bedroom, pulled a fresh shirt from his wardrobe and looked out the window at the early evening sky. It was crystal clear, not a single cloud marred the endless blue. The sun hung over the distant hills, almost smirking at him from the sky, inviting him outside once more.
"No way, not again, you won't get me twice in one day." He growled under his breath. There was no way he was going out there to get burned again, his skin itched badly enough as it was. He would just have to amuse himself inside the house. Oh well so he would have to sit inside and do nothing, big deal!!
Thus far, with the exception of his attraction to the more painful side of the sun, the summer was going exactly as he had planned. His days were spent reading or dozing by the pool, half-heartedly trying to work up the motivation to do his homework. But the fact was that there remained eight weeks of summer break in which to do his assignments and the odds of him even looking at his books before the last week were so small as to be non-existent. He finished buttoning his shirt and settled into his chair by the window. He picked up the book he had been reading before he got toasted and thumbed to the page he last remembered reading. It was a surprisingly enjoyable book despite it having been written by a muggle. Draco had been wary of buying it but the wizard in Flourish and Blott's had assured him that it was really a very fine piece of muggle fiction. Against his better judgement he had bought the thing and started to read it. He had been surprised at just how much imagination this particular muggle had possessed. Three hundred pages in and he could hardly put 'The Lord of the Rings' down.
Hours past as he read, the sky outside grew steadily darker as evening and then night crept in. His room got colder until, shivering he realised how late it had become. Where was Jenkins? Shouldn't he have interrupted him hours ago with his dinner? Then the dim recollection struck him, Jenkins wasn't there, he had taken a day off to visit his sister or something. Draco barely remembered the conversation from the previous evening. 'Bugger! I'll have to fend for myself so.' Still that shouldn't be too difficult. He picked his wand up from his desk and waved it over an empty portion of his desk. Out of nowhere a plate piled high with sweets and cakes appeared. 'I do learn some things in that school after all.' Draco smiled to himself and turned to light the fire. He extended his arm and took aim at the hearth when he caught sight of a dark shadow standing by the fireplace. He was not alone!!
He was paralysed, unable to manage as much as a stammer. He could now clearly make out the dark shape of someone standing not ten feet away, looking at him. Before he could shake himself out of his stupor, the figure spoke.
"Well? You've seen me. What are you going to do? Close your eyes and hope I disappear?" The voice was calm and cold; it rattled in the back of Draco's head and sent a shiver down his spine. After a few moments, when Draco didn't answer, he spoke again. "If my memory serves me, you can talk Draco. I am certain that your father educated you in basic manners. But if the simple courtesy of saying hello is beyond you, at least you could light the fire. That is why you turned round in the first place isn't it? It is rather cold in here." Again, Draco didn't answer, by now thoughts were racing through his head, he thought he could guess the identity of his visitor and he was fighting hard not to scream for his life. After a moment, the figure sighed and moved. A small gesture, barely noticeable in the gloom, he raised his arm and waved his hand at the fireplace. In an instant the hearth was alive with flame, light and heat from the flames flooded into the room illuminating the stranger. At first he was merely an outline, a silhouette lit from the rear. Draco couldn't see his face until he turned to gaze into the dancing flames he had conjured. To Draco's surprise and relief it was not the face he had imagined, not the face of the one he dreaded one day seeing.
The stranger was a boy. He couldn't be more than a year or two older than Draco. He was average height, at least a hand span shorter than Draco. He was thin with a pale face and short dark hair. He was dressed all in black with a heavy black hooded cloak covering him down to the ground. For a moment he gazed into the fire, seemingly lost in thought. It occurred to Draco that he had seen the boy before, he just couldn't place where. He turned to look at Draco again.
"That's better…but it is perhaps a little dark." He gestured again, a sweep of his hand and all the candles in the room sprang to life. Their glow added to the fire made the room seem all the warmer. Draco's eyes surveyed the room, searching for any more uninvited guests before returning to the stranger and to his eyes. Draco had always prided himself on his eyes, steel grey, they showed power, strength. His father had encouraged him to use his eyes, 'a cold stare, properly mastered can break even the strongest will'. Lucius could certainly break wills with a stare, Draco had seen it all his life and been on the receiving end more than once, but as yet hadn't mastered the skill. But nothing, no look Lucius had ever given him prepared him for what he saw in this boy's eyes.
It wasn't as if the stranger looked like he was trying to scare him. Everything about him seemed relaxed. The way he stood, the casual way he moved, even the expression on his face. If Draco were asked to put a word to it, he would say that the stranger looked bored. But his eyes were another thing altogether. They were icy blue and shone like mirrors. They were a contradiction of every other aspect of him. If he was peaceful, they were in chaos. If he was calm, they were rage. If he was safe, they were lethal. His gaze drilled right into Draco's soul. He couldn't bear to hold his eyes for more than a moment. He looked away and stared at the floor.
"Well? Are you going to use that? Or is it that you just enjoy pointing it at people?" The voice snapped Draco out of whatever spell the eyes had put him under. He remembered who he was, where he was. With a sudden boldness he stood, kicking his chair over in the process. He levelled his wand at the stranger's chest and summoned all his will to force himself to stare once again into those eyes.
"W…Who are you?" His voice faltered at first but he managed to sound reasonably sure of himself by the end of the question.
"Ah, so he does speak. Excellent I was beginning to think id need to get you a quill and parchment." His voice was still the same and yet, somehow it wasn't. There was a melody to it that Draco couldn't capture. Something that fascinated him, made him forget all about what he was doing. The stranger turned and walked slowly back to the fire. He picked up a poker and began to stoke the flames. The noise and light from the newly enraged fire brought Draco once again back to reality.
"I said who are you? I demand to know what you're doing in my house." The stranger sighed and stood up, dropping the poker with a loud clash of metal on stone.
"Weak…weak…defiant and weak. The slightest thing derails him. We cannot begin this way. I see we must do this the hard way." He turned and looked at Draco again. Draco felt as if he would collapse, it was as if every bone in his body had turned to jelly. When he spoke his voice had changed again, this time the melody colder, it felt like a wave of ice slamming into Draco's mind. "Still with the wand? Do you know how it works? Yes? Well then use it Malfoy. Use it now or put it down." He stepped forward, advancing on Draco.
"S…Stu…Stupif…" was all he managed to say, his voice wouldn't cooperate with what was left of his will. The spell never left his wand, instead there was a blinding flash of red light. Draco felt the impact below his sternum, the world spun, he felt his wand fly from his grasp. A second impact, this time across his back knocked the wind out of him. He heard a thud and suddenly he was lying face down on the floor. He hadn't felt himself hit the floor but here he was, bathed in pain. His skin was on fire, his ears rang, his eyes stung and his insides were frozen solid. He couldn't move, he prayed that he would pass out. The world spun again, now he was lying on his back looking up. He saw the strangers face swim into focus above him. He was standing over him with a wand, Draco's own wand in his hand. He spoke for what seemed like forever but through the ringing in his ears all Draco could make out was:
"Yes, it will be much harder this way."
There was a flash of white light and Draco knew no more.
---------------------------------
He awoke with his face resting on something hard. He took a moment to try to guess where he was, did that really happen? The pain in his chest and across his back told him that something definitely had. He raised his head and sat up. Slowly, he was very dizzy, he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the sky, he was looking out of a large window at the countryside. It was early in the morning by the look of the sky. Come to think of it, the view was familiar. He widened his vision, drawing back from the window to look at the room he was in. He recognised it instantly. This was his fathers study, he had been asleep with his head on Lucius' desk. Draco's wand lay on the centre of the desk, a few inches from where his head had lain a few moments ago. He reached out and picked it up. Was it real? Did it really happen?
He looked down, pulling his shirt open to look at his chest. Just below his heart there was a large, ugly looking bruise, evidence of whatever it was the stranger had hit him with.
"So, you're awake then." The voice from behind him startled him. He jumped to his feet, grabbing the edge of the desk to keep him upright and turned around. There he was, his strange visitor was standing with his back to him at one of the larger bookshelves that lined the walls of the study. He didn't seem to care much about Draco, the comment had been passed off with an uninterested air. He seemed far too engrossed in the books on the upper shelves. This time, Draco remembered his voice.
"Who are you? What do you want with me?" There was no point in even trying to keep the waver out of his voice. The stranger paused for a moment before turning to face him. His eyes were different this time. They lacked the cold fire of the previous night.
"What do I want with you? A good question, but we'll get to that. There are a few other things we need to cover before we do. As for who I am… well I must admit I am rather insulted, if not altogether surprised that you don't remember me. We have met before you and I. On at least two separate occasions if I am not mistaken."
The voice was different too. It was quieter somehow. It lacked the melodious qualities that it had before. It reminded Draco of a thousand other voices he had heard over the course of his life. Each one was different but they were all the same, they all reeked of wealth, the kind of wealth that allowed for children to spend hours learning the correct way to speak, the right way to act, the proper way to think. The face was still familiar, in this light, without the shock and terror he had felt earlier, Draco had time to think, to place the voice and the face and dredge up the name.
"Etean! Your name is Robert Etean. I met you at some party or other, in France last summer."
"Very good, I had started to believe you were some kind of idiot. I am glad to be proven wrong. But to be precise, we met at a banquet which my father arranged last summer to celebrate my sixteenth birthday."
"That's right, I remember now." Draco remembered the party. The Etean family were possibly the richest and most influential wizarding family in Europe. The head of the family, known as Lord Etean even had a permanent seat on the French Ministry's Administrative Committee. Rumour had it, according to Lucius anyway, that no new law or legislation could get enough of the Committee's support to pass unless Lord Etean backed it. Lucius had dragged Draco to that party to meet with and be seen by 'all the right people'. He could still see his mother's face when the invitation had arrived. Robert Etean was the only child of Lord Etean, his birthday party had been 'the party of the year' according to his mother. Draco hadn't really met Robert at the party, they had said the obligatory hello when he had arrived and that was about it. Draco had spent most of the party in one of the side passages with a pretty young French witch named… he couldn't remember so she can't have been important, fun, but not important. None of this explained why Robert Etean was here now or what he wanted. "It was a good party."
"Don't lie." Etean chuckled, turning back to the bookshelf. "You are really bad at it. You hated that party, maybe even more than I did. You were forced to attend by your parents who saw it as a chance for social advancement blah blah blah. I was forced to be there because it was what was expected of me. Still at least you managed to amuse yourself as I recall. As for me, I was bored to tears the entire night."
"It was your birthday party!"
"I know what it was, I was there after all. But answer me this, would you choose to have a birthday party full of stuffy old wizards all of whom were too caught up in their own importance to see past their nose. Would you choose to paint a smile on your face and spend the evening having the same conversation over and over again with everyone…Oh yes, it's a great occasion…the 15th Lord Etean you'll be…a huge responsibility you know…if ever you need advice, remember me…" he paused and shook his head. "Every single one of them offered to give me advice, every single one – your father included by the way, wanted to be a friend to the next Lord Etean. None of them even knew me! That night was about one thing and one thing only…power. My father's power to be more exact, and how one day it would pass to me. They all had the same goal. Whenever two people pass a cup of water between them, there is a chance that a few drops will spill out. Every single wizard at that party and at every other party before or since was jockeying to be close enough to catch some of those drops. Ah finally, here it is." He reached up and selected a volume from the dusty shelf. He opened it and began to flick through the pages.
"You would be surprised," he continued, turning and walking slowly towards Draco, his attention fully on the book, "how consumed and fixated people, especially wizards can get when it comes to power. Who has it, how to get it, how to keep it and so forth. You see it everywhere, particularly if you have ever sat in on any political meetings." He paused again and visibly shuddered before continuing. "Politics should be banned. Politicians – servants of the people indeed. Servants of themselves is more like it. Most if not all have absolutely no interest in anyone else's needs. They just like to talk, and talk and talk in the stupid belief that anyone is even remotely interested in hearing a thing they are saying. They argue, quibble and squabble like chickens over some boring law or other and think that they are important for it, that they are powerful. The funny thing is, not a single one of them has the slightest notion of what real power is like or has the strength or wisdom needed to acquire it." He continued past Draco to stand behind the desk. He closed the book and held it behind its back.
"Tell me Draco, do you know what real power is?" Draco stared blankly at him for a couple of seconds before he even began to think of an answer. Apparently Robert wasn't actually waiting for an answer. After a moments pause he straightened up and brought one of his hands around from behind his back. He raised it in the air and slowly made a fist. "This," he said, "is real power. Not much to look at I grant you. Just a fist, just one fist in the air. What is it really? What can it do? But you see, it's my fist. I know what it is and I know what it means, I know what it has done and what it can do. I know that I am holding it in the air and I know that you are incapable of changing any of those facts. Nothing you can say or do can change what I know about this fist and that, Draco is real is power – knowledge. Can you see that?"
"Right…power yeah…" Draco had absolutely no idea what Etean meant. So it was his fist and he knew about it, so what? It still didn't explain what the hell was going on, why this guy was here or why he had nearly jinxed him into the next world last night. Draco was tired of the lecture, he wanted some answers. The pain in his chest signalled him that he did not want to piss this guy off, but this had gone on long enough.
"Fascinating as this topic is, I fail to see the point of it. It really doesn't answer my question does it? I didn't ask for a lecture, I have my father to give me those. So how about a nice simple answer. What are you doing here? What do you want with me?" Robert lowered his fist to his side.
"Oh you have your father for lectures do you? My apologies, I have been misinformed. I was under the impression that your father was indisposed at the moment, seeing as he is in prison and all that."
"Well I…I meant…you know what I meant, and you're avoiding the question."
"Correct I am. As I said, there are other things we need to discuss before I can answer those questions. But as you seem to be incapable of having a decent, interesting adult conversation, I guess we can skip ahead a bit. The reason for the talk of power is quite complicated. But to make it simple, I am here to make you an offer."
"Offer? What kind of offer."
"I am here representing…well let us just say that I represent some people, people who understand the true nature of power and what it really means. It is these people that want to make you the offer. An opportunity if you will, a chance for you to gain some real power, the kind of power that would mean you could do virtually anything you wanted. I can see you still don't know what I am talking about. Let me try to clarify.
"Do you know what I did to you last night? No? I am not surprised. In simplest terms I decided that you should be hurt, that you should be rendered unconscious and so it was. How? Because I knew I could do it, I had the power. That's all it took, knowledge. That knowledge gave me the power to hurt you. I didn't need a spell or a wand to do it, all I needed was the power. That's what's on offer here Draco. That power, the kind of power that allowed me to walk into your home, into your very room without your knowledge. The kind of power that allowed me to render you unconscious with a thought. The kind of power which means that even now I could still kill you on a whim. Does that interest you?"
Draco could tell by the smile that had appeared on Etean's face that he knew all to well that it did. But in all honesty, who wouldn't be interested in that sort of power. If it was real that is. Draco opened his mouth to respond but Etean cut him off by raising his hand.
"Don't, you don't know nearly enough to have anything of value to say. It's enough for now that the offer has been made. You should think about all I have said today. If, after you have thought, you are ready to know more then we can continue." He brought his other arm from behind his back, the one that still held the book. He placed the leather bound volume on the desk and flipped through it until it lay open at a specific page. He reached inside his robes and drew out an envelope which he placed on top of the book.
"I will leave you now. If I may suggest you read this, it really is a very fine book, surprisingly accurate given the subject matter. While you read remember what I have said about the true nature of power and remember also that while it may hide, or change appearance, true power never really disappears." He placed a finger on the envelope. "After you are finished reading, this will tell you where to find me, if you choose to. If you don't come, it won't really matter to me. You are under no obligations in this matter. Know that above all, no one will force you in this. You are free to decide for yourself if you wish to gain from this encounter or continue as before." He straightened up and took a step back from the desk. "Farewell Draco Malfoy, I have the feeling we shall meet again." He disapparated with the faintest popping sound.
After he was gone, Draco stood in silence for a long while. He shut his eyes, then covered them with his hand, trying to stop his head from spinning. He didn't know how long he stood there listening to the sound of his own breath, until, as if someone had suddenly slapped him, he marched around to the other side of the desk. He picked up the envelope and looked at the page that lay open beneath it:
"Charon III – 926 A.M. to 0 P.E."
Of course he knew the name; he had studied it in school. Charon was the last of the rulers of the Great Magical Empire. He had presided over the last days of the empire as it fell into chaos. He scanned the first paragraph of the text. He picked up the book and looked at the title:
"From Lite to Dark, the Komplete Historie of The Great Magikal Empyre"
"Volume X – end of the Lite"
It was just one of the countless boring historical texts his father had bought for show, he doubted if Lucius had ever so much as opened it before let alone read it. So what was so important about this book? He set it down and turned his attention to the envelope. He opened it and emptied the contents onto the desk. It wasn't much, just a single slip of parchment. He unfolded:
"La Chateau De Nuit, 15 rue de la Chapeau, Paris"
An address of an inn or a pub by the sounds of it. In Paris? What? Was he supposed to just drop everything and head off to Paris? For what? Even if he did go, what was he supposed to do when he got there? Walk into this Chateau de Nuit and ask for Etean? He shook his head and sat down, prompting a fresh surge of pain from his injured back. He grimaced until it subsided. His eyes fell back to the book, he just stared at it. He could almost feel Etean's eyes staring back at him from the page, watching him.
He sighed, it was a mystery. He had always hated mysteries. Worse was he had always felt compelled by them. He reached out and pulled the book to him and started to read. It was the only place for him to start.