Vicious Cycles Make You Laugh
(sunlight and shadows)

"Do you believe in second chances? In forgiveness?" The eager eyed boy looked up at his father desperately, waiting for his answer. Because his answer was the only one, his opinion was the only one that mattered.

"There are no second chances for us," his father answered coldly. "We do not need them, for we do not make mistakes."

The boy was less convinced. Certainly he had made his share of mistakes. He knew that his father's words were true, in a sense, though. For them, mistakes could be lethal.

. … .

I shook away the memories of a life once-lived (a life I could never return to) and focused on the corridors I found myself wandering. This place, it seemed, served even more purposes than predicted. For not only was it a hospital and a prison, it was also a labyrinth. I moved like a ghost – I was certainly pale enough and possibly even dead enough – as I navigated my way through the halls, wishing looking searching for an escape.

An ear splitting sound broke through the silence; I froze in place. It was close, but it seemed miles and miles away. I slowed my steps and my breathing as I pressed forward and reached a corner. I rounded it cautiously, but obviously it wasn't careful enough. Because then I was crashing into someone, and I knew that it was all over, and that I would be locked into a cage even more guarded than the one that I had just broken free of.

. … .

Some dreams are too good to be real. Some dreams are too good to even be dreamed.

It had been three years. Three fucking years dreaming of the day that I would see those emerald eyes that plagued my dreams. But I had never fathomed it happening like this. Not here. Not now.

(some dreams come true in the least expected way.)

Pansy Parkinson looked at me as though I was a stranger. I felt a knife being driven through my chest. Frozen. I was frozen, and I didn't think I would ever be able to move again. Her haunting face and tantalizing body were shackles, and whether she loved it or hated it or wanted it, I was her prisoner. Even now, when she was a stranger looking at me like I was stranger, I was her prisoner.

"Draco." My name fell from her lips softly, murmured like midnight exchanges between lovers. A shiver rushed up my spine.

All I said – all I could say was this: "Yeah."

Not brilliant, but I never claimed to be a poet.

Pansy stared openly for another minute, and then she seemed to fall back into herself and remember the circumstances we found ourselves under. There were a million things I wanted to say/ask/do to her. I pushed them all aside. I was too close to freedom to let it slip away now.

Pansy extended her arm to hand me a fragile box of the deepest burgundy velvet. Our fingers brushed lightly as she did. I opened it up and lovingly extracted the sleek hawthorn-and-unicorn wand I thought I'd lost for…forever. Now… the voice within me whispered. Now was the time. Darkness was practically radiating from me. Pansy's eyes were wide as she watched me, watched the seduced expression slide onto my mouth.

And the voice within me sighed in ecstasy. Welcome home.

There was no dramatic break-out scene. I was almost disappointed at the easiness of it.

. … .

The sun was blindingly bright, an utter contradiction to the magic moving through me now. And the thoughts – oh, the thoughts, all of death and blood and glory and her. Always the one thing to get in the way. I could feel her presence as she followed me like she always had. I longed to know what she was thinkingfeelingwanting. I let myself believe that I crossed her mind from time to time.

I scowled at the barren landscape around me. I needed a plan. Planning had never been my strong point – I always dove headfirst into orders. After all, I'd been bred to follow without question or self-preservation.

Finally I swallowed my pride and turned to face Pansy. She was too desirable for her own good. But no, I was getting distracted. "Well, I fear this is where my brilliance runs out," I muttered. "So I hope that you've thought ahead to this point."

Pansy looked as though she was biting off some snippy remark. As though after all this time separated, she was still scared of displeasing me. Scared of me. "I suppose we could try to Apparate. We're pretty far out; they might not have wards up here."

It was so blatantly obvious. Simplicity had never been my thing – I tended to lean towards the extravagant… It was nothing more than another decadence, drilled into me from birth. Pureblood equals power equals privilege equals more power.

"Alright," I replied. "Take my hand."

Pansy slipped her slender fingers into my own. Her mere touch awoke ancient feelings and memories in me. Memories I knew should stay buried deepdeepdeep inside. My eyes closed and I filled my mind up with a single image, a picture so vivid that I could feel myself being there.

Then I was moving through space and time and all the unreachable places in between and I ceased to exist for but a moment. I was existence, the very essence of it.

When my feet touched the ground once again, I breathed a sigh of relief. Considering it was my first time Apparating in over three years (three fucking years), I had done pretty damn well.

Pansy let out a tiny laugh, letting an easy smile slide onto her face. "We're free," she whispered hoarsely, wonder and amazement and existence in her voice and her eyes, tiny whispers leaking into her smile. "We're actually free."

I flashed a smile of my own before pausing to take in the environment around me. It was much the same as the picture I'd created in my mind- thick bushes of the darkest green and cobblestone paths and the wrought-iron gate that locked out the rest of the world.

Malfoy Manor.

. … .

"It looks the same," Pansy murmured, staring up at its looming vastness.

"Some things never change," I groused. Pansy nodded curtly.

I reached down to take her hand once again, longing the comfort it provided me. All around me I felt the ghosts of my past, their claws raking at me, trying to drag me with them into the black abyss. They would tear me apart if they could, for I had failed as a Malfoy. My one and only duty was to serve and protect the Dark Lord. Despite the fact that I had barely even played a role, he was dead, and so I had failed. Now the Malfoy name that had been built up and up over years and years, our perfectpureblood was tainted, not with bad blood but with a shame we could never escape. In a thousand years, people would look at a Malfoy and… and know. We had sold our souls and the souls of our heirs for years and years and years to come – all in the name of the Dark Lord. We could not succeed even at that. Blackness would forever be woven into our history.

Some things never change.