Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, they belong to J.K. Rowling and those she chooses to share them with. I’m just borrowing them for a short time.

Notes: And after graduation….well, what else did we expect Malfoy to do with himself, eh?

Haven

Part 4

By Ivy Blossom

       

"Are you ready, Young Malfoy?" He stood beside his father, before the Dark Lord. It was a mere two months after his graduation party at Hogwarts. After the great success of his Quidditch game, he had felt oddly pensive, and had snuck out to bed without speaking to anyone. Well, that had been the idea, at least; when Crabbe and Goyle came up to sleep, half-drunk, they giggled so much like schoolgirls that Draco had been forced to poke his head out of the green velvet curtains around his bed and demand that they take their silly, drunken arses to bed. The next morning, when all the other students were crowding around the Hogwarts Express, his father hauled him quickly and quietly off the platform, frowning severely, and grabbed a portkey home. He didn’t trust his son any farther than he could throw him, which was an increasingly short distance now that Draco was nearly fully-grown. Now Draco found himself standing here, in the middle of the night, dead centre of a forest half way up the coast from nowhere, pledging his allegiance to Lord Voldemort.

"I am," he said firmly, not looking at his father but sensing his relief, as the Dark Mark was pressed into his arm. He watched as Crabbe and Goyle got theirs, along with a handful of other former Slytherins, as well as a larger group young men he didn’t recognize. He was tired; his father had prodded him awake at in the black of night in order to apparate to this gathering, not trusting him enough not to disappear this time, he hadn’t even told Draco that a ceremony was planned. The Dark Mark had been sent up into the sky again tonight, and Draco took a deep breath. After seven years with Muggle-lovers and Mudbloods, now he was finally among his own kind, he told himself. This was as it should be. Enough with boyhood dalliances. This was where his destiny lay, this was where true power resided; among those who didn’t fear it, who didn’t restrict it and coddle those who could never wield it.

The ceremony itself compete, the entire complement kneeled before Lord Voldemort. It was a mighty crowd, greater than even he would have thought. The way that Dumbledore and the other Muggle-lovers spoke, it was as though the Death Eaters were a ragtag bunch of six or seven men. Looking around him, he saw perhaps seventy or eighty men, and a dozen or so new members like himself. Why did I wait so long to do this? He wondered. Yes, this was the seat of power. Wizarding folk were already a minority in Britain; the Muggles were numerous and stupid, and yet they ruled, their whims and desires always came first. Wizarding schools and homes and even the Ministry had to be secreted away in damp and dusty passages and alleyways. Where was the pride in that? Here they were, the most powerful men in the country, and they were meeting in secret, hiding from Muggles and Muggle-lovers alike. And wizards had taken to censoring themselves, letting powerful knowledge disappear by classifying it ‘restricted’ or placing it under the heading of ‘dark arts’, untouchable by ‘decent’ folk. All these goody goodies were too afraid to meddle with real power, real magic, dangerous, uncertain stuff, that they weakened themselves and placed wizarding futures at risk, preferring to play with useless divination tricks and flobberworms. Draco furrowed his brow, breathed deeply, brushed his hand against his new mark. He had had this conversation with himself a million times. The straw man he argued against these days always had Harry’s face. He pictured him, hands balled up, face flushing, like that day in the corridor outside Potions class, and formulated his argument against him. Even Harry, especially Harry, would have to agree that the Muggles were not good for the future of wizarding folk. Look at what they had done to him, after all. Did he wish that on anyone else? A pureblood wizard, raised with hateful, slow, fat, and stupid Muggles?

Draco was trying his best to feel confident in this familiar train of thought, but he was finding himself distracted. He was vaguely disappointed. As he glanced on either side of him, he saw trembling men whispering to themselves, so filled with fear that it was palpable. He found himself feeling rather scornful of them; even the dull, stupid Hufflepuffs at Hogwarts hadn’t bent and scraped like this. This was not the way he had pictured it. He wanted to feel a surge of power, surrounded by dark wizards preparing to overthrow the Muggle-lovers, those who would taint the blood of the wizarding folk with the mud of Muggle slush. But presently he saw nothing but pathetic fear and trembling.

When you get bored of scrapping your knees on the floor behind some half-dead, cursed old man with a penchant for murder and mayhem in the hopes that he might pat you on the head and give you the honour of wiping his ass for him, you know where to find me. Draco remembered those words; they were etched into his brain. No, he thought. He’s wrong.

"You," Voldemort hissed. Draco was suddenly aware that Voldemort had been speaking to the crowd, and he hadn’t been paying any attention. Now he realized that that hissed you was directed at him. He felt Voldemort looking at him sharply. "Young Malfoy. You knew the Potter boy, didn’t you?"

Draco looked up. "I did, Lord Voldemort." Voldemort smiled hauntedly at him. Admittedly, Draco didn’t actually know Harry very well. He knew he wasn’t really that much use as an informant; all Draco knew, really, was that Harry had defeated Voldemort before, that he had a pretty good right hook, and that he was a hell of a kisser. But that last bit could probably be left out of his official report. He had assumed that Voldemort would ask him what he knew, along with Crabbe and Goyle and a few others, and he was also painfully aware that there were flagstones at Hogwarts more eloquent than most of them, and so he had prepared a brief list of things to divulge. Mostly important on the list, of course, was that Harry was carefully watched and immensely well protected.

"Good, good…"Voldemort stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Come here boy." Draco rose and walked toward Voldemort, head high. "I want to see…."

With a blinding flash, Draco was thrown to the ground panting. He had a mouthful of blood. He crouched on the ground as Voldemort hauled him up by his hair. "Now," he hissed into his ear. "Your mind belongs to me." He slapped a slimy, cold substance against Draco’s temple and pressed his fingers into it.

Suddenly Draco felt something odd. He was kneeling in the mud, his body propped up by his hair, his lips were ragged, his tongue was swelling, but in spite of all that he felt something else, a sensation that overwhelmed the rest. He realized in an instant that all his life he had been profoundly alone within the confines of his own skull. Now, suddenly, Voldemort was there with him. He flicked about his mind like a snake, dripping venom and burning holes in Draco’s consciousness, a venom that felt as though it dripped down his spine and short-circuited his legs, which jolted slightly with each move Voldemort made in his mind. Draco panted, he drooled blood, his eyes were rolling back into his head.

Hmm, Malfoy. You’re an arrogant little snip, aren’t you. Draco felt more than heard Voldemort’s thoughts. Each syllable was painful, tearing holes in his brain, making his fingers jump brokenly. Draco didn’t dare wince. Voldemort sorted through his memories like flipping through a book, stopping and examining pages of moments, dreams, homework he had struggled over, stinging insults he had hurled, nights he had cried himself to sleep. He even sorted through his early morning sticky fantasies, the quiet thoughts that lulled him to sleep. Draco knew not to resist, but he was beyond embarrassed, beyond humiliated. Please. He whimpered, without moving a muscle. Voldemort sorted through his romp with Harry, lingering particularly on the sensation of Harry’s tongue in Draco’s navel.

Voldemort laughed. "Malfoy!" He turned and shouted, looking over at Draco’s father. Do you know that your son is a queer?" These words bashed up against Draco’s skull like a hammer. He drooled bile.

He was hardly conscious, but he was coldly aware of this exchange. He couldn’t see his father, he heard nothing at all, but he knew what must have been happening. He wished he could pass out. Voldemort was laughing.

"What is your trouble, Malfoy? Have you got some kind of medieval problem with men fucking each other? Power is seductive, Lucius. Potter, boy that he is, is powerful in his own way, yes indeed. Powerful in ways that Muggle-addled Dumbledore can’t even imagine. Your boy lusts after power and those that wield it; no surprise that he zeroed in on Potter. Why does this surprise you?" Voldemort sorted through a series of Draco’s memories. Harry at potions shooting him looks of sheer, unadulterated hated; Harry looking down on him with concern in the hospital wing after an accident on the Quidditch pitch; their angry exchange in front of potions class, and that wonderful smile he had flashed at Draco, just two months before, at graduation. Harry with hands on his chest, his hot breath on Draco’s face. "Yes…" Voldemort was saying. Young Malfoy, you’ve given me a brilliant idea. He let go of Draco’s hair, and he slumped to the ground, unable to move.

"It appears that the Potter boy wasn’t immune to his pretty boy charms, either. This will be very, very useful indeed." Draco felt fire in his brain, he felt fingers of Voldemort’s mind receding slowly, and pain burning through his body, which twitched and jolted like a headless chicken. For once, he had never felt so comforted and so horrified at being left alone. He shivered and passed out.

Return to Archive | next | previous