Title: Dance with the Devil
Author Name: Shy Unicorn
Rating:M
Genre: Romance/Friendship
Main Character(s): Astoria Greengrass and Draco Malfoy
Ship(s): Astoria/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa, Narcissa/OC, Lucius/OC
Summary: Four years after Voldemort is vanquished Astoria Greengrass starts working for 'Witch Weekly' magazine as a feature writer. Her very first job is to interview Draco Malfoy who has just made his first million galleons without the aid of his rich parents. What happens when they meet?
Author's Note (A/N):So, this chapter comes with all the warnings. It's dark from the word go and ends in some M rated hotness. Enjoy!
Dance with the Devil
Chapter Thirteen: Chamomile and Motherwort
I am Draco but I'm also standing opposite him, about four years old. It doesn't strike me as odd that Other Draco's hair is the color of caramel. We stare at each. Mirror images. We hate each other…
I'm on the floor clutching my arm and oh, God, I didn't know it was possible to hurt this bad…the Dark Mark on my forearm is reddish-black, freshly burned, I hate it ruining my skin but at last I have eclipsed my father…I have to do something, an impossible task, but I can't, I can't, and I'll die if I don't…Dumbledore is falling… an enormous green Dark Mark sparkles overhead…
I'm home. Home is the Big House. I'm in the drawing room at night…A wizard flails on the ground in blind agony from the force of my curse, the Dark Lord stands beside me, this isn't glory I think bitterly, the firelight glows… My father is bound with ropes, prostrate like he's about to be torn in half by horses and I'm hysterical because he's surely going to die…the fire crackles and flames color everything… curses rain down green, red, blue and I can't see because I'm face down in the rug stinging all over…in the blackness I smell blood and Mead…
Greyback, feral and yellow clawed is hunched over, feeding, and I'm so disgusted I bend over to throw up… underfoot the ground is paved with gray, bloody limbs and I scream and try to get my feet off the ground because standing on them is unimaginable horror…my nausea rises up like the scream… I can feel it in the back of my throat…
My mother on her knees, bound and bloodied almost beyond recognition, her hair in the firelight is streaked with blood and semen, the sound of her gagging as a black robed wizard fucks her mouth makes my skin crawl…I double over retching, as if that cock is jammed into my throat too… I'm weightless and suffocating…I can't breathe!
Fire roars beneath me and it's hotter than hell, smoke obscures everything…Get to the door! You've got to get to the door... I'm coughing, gasping, unable to fill my lungs at all…smoke smarts in my nose and throat… I'm retching… Oh, God! I'm going to throw up…
There's blackness and clammy heat and the familiar scent of my bedroom. I lunge left. I clear the edge of the bed as I violently throw up. Vomit splatters wetly onto the floorboards and I sink down and hang my head, groaning.
I throw up three more times before I realize where I am and that I'm no longer dreaming. I'm shaking and my stomach is a washing machine on spin cycle.
My pajamas are soaked with sweat, sticking to me like I've showered with my clothes on. I feel weak and my head burns as I lie gasping for breath. Vertigo and paralytic horror keep me plastered deliriously to the bed. My heart hammers wildly. I can't tell if I'm awake or still dreaming. Through the electrical storm in my brain the slow, struggling tune of my Legilimens Box adds a sense of unreality to everything.
Beside me Draco has sat up and is fumbling for his wand in the dark.
"Astoria?"
It takes him a couple of tries to get the lumos spell to work.
The light is blinding. I squint and see Draco peering at me. He looks as ashen as I feel. His face slackens when he gets a proper look at me. I close my eyes against the light. It hurts and it's too exhausting trying to keep them open.
Through my eyelids I sense Draco lighting candles. His feet slap against the floorboards as he rushes around the bed.
The dream clings lecherously to my skin. I vividly recall the sight and sounds of Narcissa Malfoy's degradation. Bile nudges the back of my throat and my stomach pumps pitifully one last time. Tears crash into my eyes.
I feel dirty. Defiled. Smoke blackened. I curl into myself and begin to cry. Suspended in a vacuum between waking and dreaming I feel as if I've been violated and narrowly lived to remember the ordeal. I'm ashamed and alarmed; both sick and sickened by the dream images that continue to flash like a slideshow before my eyes.
"Ugh!" Draco exclaims.
From the sudden pat of his feet and flail beside me I think Draco might have just stepped in my puke.
Through my tears I see him claw with demented fury at my Legilimens Box on the shelf in the alcove beside my bed. It's sprung open in the night and is the source of the eerie tinkling music.
Draco's teeth are bared like a wolf and he growls with animal viciousness. He slams it shut and hurls it, completely incensed, across the room. The little silver box hits the floor with a tremendous bang and bounces mockingly. He slashes his wand down and a neon purple curse cleaves into the lid like an ax blade. He hacks and hacks until it eventually stops chiming.
Momentarily I'm too stunned to cry.
"What -?"
"What did you see?" he shouts frantically, his cool hands scrabbling to frame my face. "What did you see?"
He sounds so imperious and afraid. His eyes are bright with fear and cut into me with laser sharp intensity. I'm more frightened by seeing him in this state than anything else. A powerful reluctance squeezes my heart as I stare into his frenzied eyes.
My lip quivers and my chin creases and I start to cry. Really cry.
I pitch myself into his arms and bury my sobbing face into his neck. He holds me ferociously tight and cradles my head protectively like he's trying to stop shrapnel getting in. As I cry I want to somehow get the images out.
"It's okay," Draco says shakily, stroking my hair with trembling fingers.
I cling to him, limp like wet paper and cry.
The house is awake. People are moving around and lights flick on. My bedroom door claps open and Pace is there. I can't stop crying. It feels like everything is happening on the other side of a window. I ball myself up against Draco using him as a protective shell.
"Wussgoin'on?" Pace slurs blearily.
"Astoria's sick."
I think that's probably pretty obvious to Pace from the vomit covered floor and the mess that I'm in.
"Do you have any Calming Draughts?" Draco asks over the top of my wailing.
"Er, no, I don't think so," Pace mumbles, running a distressed hand through his bed-rumpled hair.
"Any Kava? Or Valerian Root?"
Pace looks uncertain.
"What kind of wizards are you?" Draco spits in exasperation. "St. John's Wort? Chamomile? You've got to have that! Go get her a chamomile tea and see if there's any Motherwort in the bathroom cabinet, that'll help a little."
Pace hesitates. His chocolate eyes linger on me. I don't think in all our years of friendship he's seen me upset like this.
"What did you see?" Draco asks me softly, but his hands on my cheeks are hard, forcing me to look into his eyes.
"Horrible things," I say thickly, trembling and sniffling.
I can't bear to say any more. I look down between our bodies. Draco is sleeping in one of my oversized band t-shirts and it's rucked up, exposing the tops of this thighs. They're a thicket of silvery white scars except for several red, bramble-like cuts that appear fresh.
They're self inflicted.
I grab his thigh in shock. I am now very awake.
I pin him with a look of pained disbelief. Draco freezes as he realizes he's got no way to hide what I've seen.
We stare at each other, wild eyed and exposed.
Pace reappears with a big mug of steaming herbal tea for me and a little wooden box of dried motherwort leaves that belong to Xenia. I accept the tea and scrub tears from my eyes. Draco impatiently takes the box from Pace and picks out two decent sized leaves.
"Eat these. They'll help."
I've only ever known motherwort used as a contraceptive, but I trust Draco's knowledge of plants, so I eat them. I almost instantly feel calmer and the minty taste cleans my mouth.
I gulp my tea, slopping some of it down my front as I struggle to get my breathing under control. It has been a very long time since I've had a nightmare this bad. I feel a little ridiculous as both guys watch me cautiously as if I'm some unpredictable creature.
The warming drink is definitely helping to soothe me.
"Are you okay?" Pace asks timidly when I've calmed down enough to stop crying. "Can I do anything else?"
"I'll take it from here," Draco says giving Pace a supercilious look.
"If you need anything I'm only across the hall," Pace says kindly to me.
He shoots Draco an uncertain look as he retreats.
When the door closes the room dims and a weary silence falls between Draco and I. The flickering delicate candles color everything yellow and paint brush stroke shadows up the walls. To avoid meeting my eye he cleans up my puke with a few choice spells.
I sip my drink and watch him move around to collect the damaged Legilimens Box. In the candlelight I get a good look at the shape of his bare legs, it makes my tummy coil with unexpected desire. His body really is beautifully crafted: economical and elegant. I don't know why he'd want to hurt himself.
"What did you see?" he asks quietly, holding the box between two fingers as if it's a particularly disgusting beetle.
Seeing him holding the mangled silver box and hearing his words together makes something pop into place in my brain.
"Those were your thoughts?" I ask, aghast.
Draco's mouth thins to a barely perceptible line. He nods jerkily.
"My memories."
My hand flies to cover my gasp. Tears prick my eyes again.
I set my drink down on my bedside table and wrap my arms around Draco as he slides into bed beside me. At first he's hard in my hands as he resists my embrace, mistaking it for pity or else just refusing comfort. Doggedly I hold on to him.
I feel like hell. I need the relief his body provides.
I love everything about him but being close enough to hear the sound of his breathing and feel the swell of his chest in tandem has become one of my favorite things. That calms me more effectively than any herbal remedies. The scent of his body, masculine and musky rises through the cotton of my t-shirt. His hand cradles my head and I feel safe at last.
"That was all real?" I venture. "You Know Who… the fire… everything?"
"Yes."
A shudder goes through me. I squeeze him tighter and nuzzle his chest, grateful beyond measure that he's alive so I can hold him like this.
I wish I could unmake his memories, that somehow I could go back in time and change things for him so that he didn't have to live that. I wish I could take away his pain. I feel so useless.
I can't stop thinking about how frantic he was in the memories and how he burned with pain. I can't shake the thought that You Know Who – the evilest wizard in known memory - was as real to Draco as I am now. He stood beside Draco and made him torture people like he was nothing more than a wand for hire.
"Why did He make you curse that wizard?"
"Because he wanted me to," Draco says with alarming simplicity. "Growing up I thought being a Death Eater was noble, you know? About protecting our world, preserving it and keeping magic safe from unworthy hands but that was just a front; a cheap way to trick wizards into signing up to be the Dark Lords slaves. The only thing he cared about was himself."
"Did He hurt you like that?"
Through the thin cotton t-shirt I trace the line of the scar that bisects his chest.
Draco laughs humorlessly at my naivete.
"He hurt anyone any chance he got! He killed indiscriminately. Crucio was probably his favorite word. There were times I almost wished to die. Death seemed like it would be a sweet release."
Draco looks as ill as I did a short time ago. In the pale candlelight his skin appears fragile like melting wax. His pale eyes are blank and unseeing as if he's in some kind of a trance, unable to look away but unwilling to acknowledge what's right in front of him.
"People think the Death Eaters were an Old Boy's club, as if there was all this comraderie and ranks with rules but it wasn't like that. It was dog eat dog. You either had the Dark Lord's favor or you didn't. And there wasn't much difference between the two. Except that when you were out of favor you were fair game to be eaten by the others. Father was His favorite target. Everyone loved watching my family suffer. Those brawling bastards hated me."
Draco looks down at me and his face is unbearably pained. I plant a kiss in the hollow of his throat to hide the way my eyes fill with tears.
"They were jealous of our lineage, our house, our wealth, everything. They scavenged and pillaged like rats any chance they got. They secretly hated my father for his prestige and then when he fell from favor they openly hated him because they could. They hated my mother because she's good-looking and... I suppose you saw what they did to her."
"Yeah," I murmur, blinking quickly to dispel my tears.
A frosty chill pulses from my heart. The hairs on my arms and on the back of my neck prickle in fresh horror.
"What happened to the man who did that?"
"They're dead or in Azkaban. We made sure of that."
"Is she okay now?" I ask timidly.
I don't know if you're ever fully okay after something like that but I hate the idea that splendid, haughty, beautiful Narcissa Malfoy has somehow been irreparably broken.
"I don't know. We never talk about any of it. I mean, how do you? Why would you?" Draco scoffs, as if the idea of talking about trauma is absurd.
"Is that why by the swimming pool you didn't want me to-?"
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," Draco says bluntly. He instantly regrets his harsh tone because he adds softly, "Drink your tea. It'll be cold soon."
I sit up and do as I'm told.
Draco blows out the candles on his side of the bed and punches his pillow into a more comfortable shape. He tugs the duvet up around his shoulders so that only his pale, pointed face peeks out.
"How are you feeling?" he asks, staring up at me.
"A bit better," I lie.
There's a painful heaviness behind my eyes and my muscles feel sore like they do the day after doing hard exercise. I think now that the nausea has passed I just have a regular hangover brewing but that's not the real problem.
Even though we're in the same bed it feels like there's a huge distance between Draco and I and it hurts like a physical heartache.
I blow out my candles and grope around for my Barney Bat stuffie that's lost in the bed somewhere. I catch him by the wing and hold him to my chest like a rabbit. He's velveteen and almost as old as I am. In places the seams are clumsily held together with brightly colored cotton from my poor attempts at repair.
In the dark I'm aware of Draco by the impressive amount of heat he's radiating. I scoot up along side him wanting to be close to him. Our feet brush together and he's as smooth as ivory. I get the urge to stroke him everywhere. His hand finds my hip and he pulls me with unexpected urgency into the warmth of his body. Our legs slot together so we can lay a breath apart.
In the hush I blink fast, making my eyes adjust to the dark. Draco blossoms out of the blackness, all hard lines and right angles. I look at him for a long time, tracing the shape of his cheek, his chin, his ear, his eyebrow, his eye, his nose. I wish I could know what he's thinking. I wish there was something I could say to comfort him.
"Thank you for looking after me tonight."
"If I hadn't been here you wouldn't have needed looking after," he says, his voice rich with self-loathing.
"I'm still glad you're here."
I tilt my forehead to rest against his and with my palms at his cheeks it's almost like holding myself. I kiss the sharp little tip of his nose and he kisses my lips. His tongue peeks into my mouth, hot and tender. My body warms up a couple of degrees as if someone has cranked up the thermostat. I stroke his hair and kiss him until he makes this wonderful groan of pleasure.
"You're so lovely. Why would you hurt yourself?" I ask in an agonized whisper.
He's already experienced so much suffering, why would he heap more on himself?
Draco captures my lips between his and sucks on them in turn in such a decadent way I melt into him.
"Why?" I demand in a pitiful mew, gripping his thigh determinedly.
With my thumb I can feel the long thin scabs as rough as tree bark inlaid into the supple muscles.
"I used to do it because I was numb inside. Since I met you the world has opened up and sometimes I feel everything all at once. I can't cope. It's the only way to let it out."
He raises his eyes and even in the dark I can see his fear and confusion. We're so close I could almost fall into his head like a pensieve if I tried.
"It's not the only way. Please don't hurt yourself anymore. I like this leg. I like every bit of you. I don't want you to hurt anymore."
I steadily hold his gaze.
I was so close to saying 'love' instead of 'like'. I think he knows this judging by the way his eyes flicker back and forth between mine studying my stillness.
"I tried to warn you. I'm damaged goods and you're… beautiful and pure. I don't deserve you."
"I'll be the judge of that," I say firmly. "I'm not some kind of saint."
"You know Asteria was the patron saint of falling stars?"
"But you're not a star. You're a constellation."
If there's anything in my soul that's beautiful, I want to give it to him. Not to make up for the past. That's impossible. But because that first night we spent together beneath the Eiffle Tower we were so happy and free together.
He kisses me slowly. His lips are chamomile. I sneak my hand beneath his t-shirt and try to read the Braille messages of the shifting muscles of his back. I want to comfort him.
I hum low in my throat as long fingered hands trace my spine with silk fine finesse, rolling up my tank top in the climb, peeling it off. I undress Draco, enjoying the build-up of tension in my body as more of him is revealed. For a moment we both look at each other in awe.
His body is lean and so pale and smooth and pure it's like looking at a glacier. He's beautiful in an incorruptible way. I could almost be happy just looking at him all night, except I have this tantalizing urge to kiss him everywhere my eyes go.
Our eyes meet and Draco is looking at me like I'm the most precious thing he's ever beheld. I expand in his gaze and my heart grows three sizes in my chest like an engorgement charm has been cast.
We kiss long and deep as we explore each other. His hands feel enormous against my petite frame as they pour down my ribs, into the hollow of my waist, up across my hip. He squeezes my bottom, crushing our hip bones together. A guilty little noise of excitement escapes me and I rake my fingers through his hair, trying to hold onto him for dear life. I palm his shoulders, his elbows, down his waist and around the miraculous tightness of his ass. He hums like an engine beneath my lips and hands.
He chains his fingers through mine and that gesture alone is so blindingly intimate I can hardly believe we're still two people. Draco stretches my arms up above my head, laying me back and I feel like unfurled parchment about to be written on. Each kiss is an exclamation point.
Draco nips my bottom lip and I feel electric. He nuzzles and kisses my neck, my chest, my breasts; with my eyes closed I'm drowning in a cavalcade of sensation. His hot tongue flicks against the tight bud of my nipple and I squeak like a mouse because it feels so good. He lathes me with his tongue, sucking and nibbling until I'm breathless and restless beneath him. His mouth follows his hands and I lift my hips eagerly when he wiggles down my shorts and my panties.
Draco plants a tender kiss beside my belly button and takes hold of my hands again. When I feel his mouth between my legs every single nerve in my body snaps to attention. Lust drenches and clings to me like oiled bathwater. My head rings as if I'm caught in the middle of a fire alarm. I buck and squeak like a wooden rollercoaster cart at a theme park. Draco makes these cute little groans that warm my chest like shorts of liquor. When my orgasm hits my knees tuck up, my toes curl and I gasp like I've just had the best surprise.
Starry white lights pop behind my eyes as I sink down on spent limbs. Draco looks incredibly pleased with himself as he sits up on his knees and stretches like a big cat. His eyes are inky and lust fogged. As he crawls to kiss my lips his cock brands my thigh and I think it's about time I took care of his needs. After all that is how this all started.
I reach between us and touch him very gently with both hands. I caress him with airy uncertainty and he doesn't resist. His eyes flutter shut and he bites his lip, his head bows and comes to rest on my shoulder. I want to give him the kind of explosive pleasure he just gave me. I want to see him and hear him lose himself. I want to be the one to make him feel that way. I think jealously of all the other girls who have seen him like this.
I brush my hands up and down his shaft, stroke the soft crepe skin of his balls and listen for the hitches in his breathing and his throaty groans when I do something he likes. I tease the hot head of his cock where the skin is baby soft and slick. I watch in wonder at the way his muscles undulate.
"I wish I could feel you inside me," I murmur against Draco's lips.
"Soon," he pants fervently. "We'll do it right. I promise."
I kiss him hard, biting his lip. God, he's so perfect sometimes. The fact that he wants to honor my request to do things properly is so considerate and touching it makes me not want to wait at all!
Draco sways unsteadily and has to kneel between my legs to keep his balance. I don't let him go. His eyes lock on mine and his face is lightly pained, his eyes glint like diamonds. He covers my hand with his, guiding and holding, showing me the rhythm he likes best.
Above me, he tosses his head against the dark, his delirious tenseness highlights the long tendons in the sides of his neck. His hands fall away and tremble along my hip bones. He's given me his trust and it feels like flying.
His head goes back, his mouth falls open and his face creases up into a look of incredulous joy. As I pull him towards me his eyes are snowflakes and I drink his lips like I'm dying of thirst. Draco shudders and whimpers against my mouth as he comes, popping like a cork and spilling champagne onto my belly.
I hold his face very close to mine and we both laugh breathlessly as we kiss.
Draco drops down on top of me, steaming my face with his panted breaths as I stroke his sweat-slicked back with my hot, damp hands. The sticky patch on my belly glues us together. I don't mind the messiness or sweatiness.
All I can think of is Draco: his face so vulnerable above mine, his eyes, his breaths, how he shook in my arms. I love him. No matter what horror stories he's lived through. I love him.