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For the Want of a Nail	By : thewickednix Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 4934 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. This is made for fun, not profit.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Chapter 7. Castle on the Hillside, Mirror in the Pond

Walking through the Entrance Hall on my way to breakfast the next morning, some second year Hufflepuff girl walks through the doors. A fresh breeze blows straight for me, and I feel it calling me. Breakfast forgotten, I head for the door.
The moon is still high above the silvery tree tops, and the air is sharp and cold. I walk out onto the Quidditch Pitch and sit down on the ground next to the Gryffindor goal pole. I taste the winter in the air as I light a cigarette, watching the horizon where the white earth meets the dark green sky.
Steps in the snow behind me, and a shy voice is heard.
"Malfoy?"
Yes. Unbelievably, here he is again.
"Potter." I acknowledge coolly, and turn back to watch my horizon.
He rudely takes a seat in the snow next to me, and I cannot even be bothered to be angry. "What are you doing out here?"
I snort humourlessly. "I could ask you the very same question." I tap the ashes from my cigarette onto the clean, white snow.
To my surprise, Potter laughs. "A valid point, I guess."
We sit in silence for a while, I watching the deep green sky, Potter drawing abstract lines into the soft layer of snow.
"Why did you come to Dumbledore instead of going to Voldemort?"
I am startled out of the silence by the question, shivering at the mention of the Dark Lord's name. "Um, well. Wouldn't you have done the same thing?" I sneer at him.
He gives me that 'yes-but-I-am-not-a-Death-Eater's-son-and-an-evil-Slytherin-in-general'-look.

I give him a defeated look, staring down the hill and past it into the distance. "I was never going to join him in the first place, but the unfortunate events during the Yule Holidays put an ugly spin on it all. I couldn't go through with my original plans. So I had to seek out Dumbledore."
"So you really didn't want to fight for the Light?" Potter's voice is small. As I turn towards him I am forced to notice the disappointment in his eyes. Confused, but mostly just irritated I turn away. I gaze towards the small sliver of the sun raising up above the tree tops, fighting the moon for space in the sky. Snorting, I crush the remains of my cigarette into the snow in frustration.
"Don't get any ideas, Potter. I am no hero, no martyr. No noble saint who suddenly realised his purpose in life is to fight evil. I am merely a marionette, tossed around by the whims of fate. As I told you all at the meeting, I had little choice but to do what I did." I mutter, draping my cloak tighter around me as a cold wind rushes up the hillside.
A long silence follows, until Potter finally sighs. "I don't believe you." At my offended raise of an eyebrow, he hurries to continue. "I believe that you were driven to this by the circumstances, but that doesn't change the fact that you did chose this path. If you really were the Malfoy I always thought you were, the Malfoy you try to make everyone think you are, you would not have hesitated to kill a few wizards to keep yourself alive."
I stare at him. He looks back with a steady gaze, his whole posture mirroring the image of a hero speaking the complete truth. Or what he believes to be the truth, anyway. "You chose to lower yourself to ask for help from Dumbledore, which I have no doubt was no easy thing for you to do. So no, you may not be a saint, Malfoy. But you are a hero."
I can think of nothing to say to that. Staring down at my pale, long fingers, I wonder how these hands, these cold hands of a killer, could ever be the hands of a hero. Lifting my gaze towards the field below once more, I see the sun lose its fight against the moon. It blinds me with a few pale rays of light before disappearing behind the horizon. I sigh.
"Do you think this goddamn winter will ever end, Potter?"
He chuckles as much as he dares at my silly, yet totally serious question. Finally he sighs and answers softly:
"Of course it will. They always do."
A small smile playing on my lips, I draw my knees to my chest. "Well, that's good then." Maybe for this moment, for this moment only, I could believe him.

___________________________________________________________________

We do not have one of those talks again. A week later I am moved to Grimmauld Place. Packing only a small suitcase with my most necessary belongings, I bide farewell to my home forever. Who knows if Hogwarts will still stand when all of this is over.
The house is dark and empty, a typical old wizard house with house-elf heads on corridor walls and ghouls in the attic. I take my time to go through the whole house, and eventually come upon a Family Tree in the drawing room. Realising I am in the old Black House, I feel the urge to laugh at the irony of it. Being in the position where I am probably soon to be disinherited, I suddenly find myself actually living in the Most Noble House of Black. The one legacy Mother has been dying to get her hands on.
Running my fingers along the long branches of the tree, I finally find my hand resting on a familiar face. My own. The flame of the candle on the wall flickers, and I find myself reaching for it. Before I know it, a black hole is gracing the wall where the small picture of me used to be. The only thing left now is my name. I blow out the candle.
From that day on, I live in darkness.

___________________________________________________________________

The Fidelius Charm and quite possibly some other charms Dumbledore has put on the house prevent me from ever leaving it, and already after the third day I am panicking. Luckily, pacing my bedroom one night I get the brilliant idea to open a window. And though none of the doors and windows downstairs will budge an inch, this one slides open with only a slight creaking sound. I cast a Stunning Charm out into the cold air, and the sparks hit an invisible wall about three meters from the house. Cursing the old coot who locked me up in here, I climb out onto the window seal and raise my arms to grab the edge of the roof above me. Though I manage to drop one of my shoes, swinging myself up onto the snowy roof takes no effort at all.
Sitting on the edge of the roof, I try to Accio the fallen shoe from the ground bellow. Unfortunately, it seems that there is another shield a few meters below the bedroom window that rejects my attempt at saving my shoe. Cursing myself for not bringing another pair of shoes, I toss the other one down the roof to join its pair.
Staring at the far away horizon, dark and empty with no sun nor moon, I suddenly feel completely alone, more so than ever. Standing on the roof top, I'm ready to fall. If I only could.
I light a cigarette. And I laugh, long and hard.
Crying would be out of character.

___________________________________________________________________

I spend most of my days either hidden away in the big dark library, or on top of the roof. As the days get longer and sunnier, I stay in the library for longer times each day, reading through books of my condition, the Black family history, advanced potions, and dark magic. But as the night falls, I climb out onto the roof, sitting there for hours at end. Staying inside the house during night time seems unbearable; I cannot stay in the bedroom because I no longer need to sleep. I cannot stay in the kitchen because I do not eat. And I cannot light a fire to sit in front of in the drawing-room.

Severus visits me from time to time. He brings me cigarettes and vials with anonymous blood, one to drink every other day. It seems blood from a vial is less nutritious than fresh blood. Before the actual war, I will have to survive on that, but the small vials leave me chronically thirsty and aching for more. Severus never says a thing about the dark house, but uses Lumos so he won't fall over his feet in the dark hallways.
We don't talk about much beside my condition. Avoiding the topics of Voldemort, Father and Dumbledore, that's pretty much all we're left with. Severus sits in the big Slytherin green armchair in front of the fireplace in the drawing-room, while I curl up in a smaller black one in the far away corner. He never attempts to light a fire, though I suspect the house is freezing. I would hardly know.
Dumbledore comes by once in a while, speaking of trivial things like the Sorting Hat's love life and Severus' increasing bitterness. I ask him for information about the upcoming war, but the only response I get is that there is little information of importance. 'All details will be revealed as soon as is needed'. It seems that for now, I am left alone and ignorant behind these four walls.

___________________________________________________________________

It's getting close to spring. The snow is starting to drip off the roof in large drops in the warmth of the morning sun, while freezing to ice taps in the still cold night. Tonight I can hear a nightingale sing in the distance, and I can but wish that I could jump off this roof and join him on his branch somewhere in the woods. After a while he quiets down. When the small sliver of the rising sun starts to climb the horizon, other birds' song take his place. In a hurry to get out of their way, I swing myself down the roof and straight through the open window into my bedroom.
I am greeted by the smell of candles burning. Terror surges through my brain, as I realise that it can neither be Dumbledore nor Severus. Severus never lights a candle, and Dumbledore visits very rarely, and then only in the evenings.
I creep silently out into the still dark hallway, confirming my fears of an intruder when seeing the faint light of a candle mirrored at the wall on the top of the stairs. I hear faint steps coming from the entrance hall, and my instincts kick in. Before realising what I am doing, I have crossed the corridor with an immense speed and leaped over the railing of the stairs. I land heavily on the intruder who yelps in surprise.
- 6
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- 8
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For the Want of a Nail