Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2650343.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling
  Relationship:
      Draco_Malfoy/Theodore_Nott, Theodore_Nott/Pansy_Parkinson, Theodore_Nott/
      Original_Female_Character(s)
  Character:
      Draco_Malfoy, Theodore_Nott, Pansy_Parkinson, Blaise_Zabini, Nott_Sr._
      (Harry_Potter)
  Additional Tags:
      Triggers, POV_Second_Person, Rape/Non-con_Elements, Dubious_Consent,
      Alternate_Universe_-_Dark, Sexual_Slavery, Forced_Prostitution, Murder,
      Death, unintentional_murder, Strangulation, Asphyxiation, erotic
      asphyxiation, Necrophilia, suffocation, Explicit_Sexual_Content, Non-
      Consensual_Bondage
  Series:
      Part 1 of Into_the_Heart_of_Darkness:_A_Collection_of_A/U_Twisted_Tales
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-11-21 Words: 10890
****** Death and Destruction - Theodore ******
by unkissed
Summary
     You were eight when you saw the face of Death and became enamored
     with its gruesome countenance.
      
     The first in a series of A/U twisted tales, in which Theodore Nott is
     obsessed with Death and Draco Malfoy.
Notes
     Credits: Death belongs to Neil Gaiman. Rosaline belongs to
     Draco_Amante.
     Thank you to Draco_Amante, ColorfulStabwound, and Shan for
     inspiration, friendship, and support. Sorry I was so horrible to your
     babies. (Not so sorry…)
     Please strongly consider the archive warnings and tags before
     proceeding to read this story.
You are eleven when you see your first thestral, pulling the carriages up to
Hogwarts Castle. You are the only one in your entire class that can see them. 
And you relish it like a rare gift bestowed upon you by the gods.  You feel
incredibly special and proud, even though your young classmates are shocked by
the fact that you can see them.
 
They challenge you to describe them in detail, perhaps because they don’t want
to believe that you can see them, or maybe because they are secretly jealous.
They cringe and shudder at your words, but you’ve no idea why.  What you have
just described is a beautiful creature, more awe inspiring than any other
animal known to wizard kind. 
 
Thestrals – they are the color of the sleek, moonless night, with wings like
the cloak of Death itself and taciturn eyes like forbidden jewels set in the
darkest untouched folds of the earth.  You will come to know them all like old
friends and an unspoken trust will pass between you.  Each one will tell you
its name in an inhuman language spoken directly to your mind, and at the start
of every school year, you will speak those demonic names in inaudible whispers
as you stroke their skeletal spines.
 
You can see thestrals because you have seen Death.  And you have a special
relationship with thethestrals because you have a special relationship with
Death. Really, it is a courtship more than a relationship - for now.  But that
will change.  You will make sure of that.
 
                                      ~@~
                                        
You were eight when you saw the face of Death and became enamored with its
gruesome countenance.
 
You were in the hayloft of the stables at Luckington Manor, your home on the
English countryside.  The hayloft was one of your secret lairs – the one that
was meant just for you, not so much because you wanted to keep your friends
out, but because nobody ever wanted to follow you up there.  If we are being
honest, there was only one person that would even have the opportunity – one
person that you could really call a friend.  And Draco Malfoy would never
indulge you there, in a dusty, smelly stable.
 
So you climbed up there to be alone.  Truly alone. Because even in your room
with the door closed, there was always somebody ready to yank you out of your
fantasy world, somebody to make you put down your poetry books in favor of
lessons. In the hayloft, nobody could bother you. The soft noises of the horses
hid your sounds and the large bales of straw hid your weedy, little form. You’d
read your books until after nightfall under the light of a gas lamp, and then
come down just in time to clean yourself up before supper.
 
On this particular night, your father had gone to Malfoy Manor for one of his
meetings. You were supposed to accompany him so that you could play with
Draco.  But you were deeply entrenched in A Picture of Dorian Grayand you
didn’t want to stop reading.  You told your father that you weren’t coming and
he did not object. Your mother, however, was unaware that you’d stayed behind,
which was fine by you.  It meant you could remain up in the hayloft until
bedtime, reading your book.
 
You were entranced by a particularly gripping passage when a ruckus yanked you
back into the real world.  Thoroughly annoyed, you peeked from behind the bale
of hay you’d been leaning on to glance down in search of the offending
culprit.  In one of the unused stalls, you saw your mother.  The hair that she
normally kept in a neat chignon had fallen in voluminous waves of black silk to
her bare shoulders.  Though her blouse was open, her chest was not bared, for a
gentleman had taken it upon himself to cover her up quite determinately with
his hands. This man was not your father. Even from behind, you knew this.
Thaddeus Nott was an old geezer. And this was a man in his prime.
 
The man put his lips on your mother’s and she made a sound of alarm.  Perhaps
it was the kiss that shocked her, or maybe it was the fact that he had hiked up
her skirts in a swift motion.  You didn’t understand why this man, whom you did
not know, had his hands all over your mother.  The way she whined and groaned
made you think that his touch was unwelcome. But you were very naïve and still
blissfully ignorant of the ways of lust.  Since he was not your father, you
knew he had no right to be touching and kissing your mother and you thought
that maybe he was forcing himself upon her.
 
You loved your mother dearly.  She was everything to you.  While your father
was stern and cold, your mother was warm and nurturing.  You would protect her
with your life. 
 
This situation she was in felt wrong to you.  You thought she was in danger and
you felt incapable of defending her from the clutches of this very capable
young man.  You were afraid that if you shouted at him, he’d just hurt your
mother more – You know this because you’d tried this same approach when your
father had smacked your mother across the face after a particularly nasty row. 
 
You were too young to possess a wand and you couldn’t perform wandless magic.
You sat in the loft, helpless and afraid.  The man was now throwing himself
against your mother on the straw-covered floor of the stable repeatedly, making
her cry out as if she were in agony.  You panicked and tried to stop him with a
distraction. You threw the gas lamp from the loft, hoping the crash would
startle him.  But the glass shattered next to a pile of dry straw, which
immediately caught fire.  The flames roared up, trapping your mother and the
gentleman in the stable. 
 
You hadn’t known it, but an open bottle of whiskey had been upset and had
soaked the straw, rendering it highly flammable in the moments before you’d
thrown the lamp. It had happened in the minutes it had taken you to rouse from
your Oscar-Wilde-induced-reverie to even notice that these secret lovers were
there.
 
There were a lot of other things that you were unaware of.  Of course, you
hadn’t known your mother had taken a lover and had made a cuckold out of your
impotent father.  Though you didn’t explicitly know what rape was at the time,
you had told yourself for many years that the man in the stable was there to
hurt your mother.  You hadto tell yourself that so that you could live with
what you’d done.
 
The flames rose fast and engulfed the screaming couple.  Their arms flailed in
a gruesome dance, like the tongues of fire that consumed them.  As your mother
burned, you saw her face – her melted and charred skin, and singed hair, and
exposed bone. You saw the face of Death and it was not horrifying, but
breathtaking.  Death wore your mother’s beautiful face and you knew you didn’t
ever have to fear it.
 
 
In fact, you revered it.  You worshiped Death as you did the memory of your
mother.  You saw Death all around you and you found beauty in it.  You’d go
walking with your cat through the woods by your home to watch him kill voles
and you would admire the lithe way the soft little creatures went limp.  You
spent hours staring at Renaissance paintings, studying the rapturous poses of
unclothed, dying martyrs in their final throes of holy agony. 
 
Not long after your mother passed, you found grace in the way your grandmother
was slowly dying of pancreatic cancer, bleeding black blood from every orifice
like dark wine seeping from a Dionysian vessel.  While everyone had turned
away, you stayed by her side, holding her hand, smiling at her gaping mouth
until long after she had gone, entranced by her hollow expression, while your
emotionless family stood on deathwatch from the other side of the closed door. 
Death was not cruel – lifehad tortured your grandmother.  It was Death that
granted her mercy and peace.
 
When you were a teenager, you learned that your father was a member of a secret
order of wizards who venerated a man that sought to defy Death. And you knew
this man to be evil and demented because he showed such blatant disrespect for
that which you had held in such high esteem.  He had the foolish audacity to
claim he had more power than Death, than that which had power over everything
on earth.  You would never become a Death Eater, no matter how your father
threatened you. Because you felt like you knew Death, and it was not to be
balked at or used as a mascot for self-indulgent political crusades.
 
 
                                      ~@~
                                        
You are fifteen.  You’d known for quite some time that you were attracted to
your dearest friend, Draco Malfoy. He’d been returning your subtle advances all
year and you’re willing to bet that he won’t object if you cross that line
beyond friendship and kiss him.  Just last week, he had slept in your bed,
nestled in your arms, so you are certain that the feelings you have for him are
mutual.
 
You’re on the great lawn of Malfoy Manor, on a blanket beneath a vast canopy of
stars. But the brightest stars of all are the silver ones in Draco’s shining
eyes.  He’s looking at you with so much want and desperation that you almost
feel obligated to give him what he wants, which you assume is you.
 
So you take him gently by the back of the neck and you close the small distance
that separated you.  When you press your lips to his, it is fire and
electricity and magic and beauty.  And you devour him with all the desire in
your soul. You don’t notice right away that he isn’t kissing you back.  But
when you do realize that Draco is stiff and that his lips aren’t moving against
yours, you don’t let it deter you.
 
You want him, and damn it, you are certain that he wants you, and you will give
him what he’s too stupid to take even if you have to shove it down his throat.
You roll him back onto the blanket and pin him down with the length of your
body upon his.  You shackle his wrists with your fingers and kiss him hard,
forcing your tongue between his pursed lips.  He whimpers in protest, but it’s
half-arsed at best. He’s not even fighting you; he’s just lying there frozen. 
 
You pull back slightly to reprimand him for being so ridiculous, but he speaks
as soon as his lips are free.  “Why’d you do that?” he asks, affronted, and the
insulted expression on his face makes you want to punch him.
 
“Because you want it,” you say before diving in for another kiss.
 
This time he pushes you and you sit up, still perched on top of him. He glares
up at you and whines petulantly, “You’re ruining everything, Theodore.”
 
His eyes are like knives that pierce through your soul and the pain of betrayal
is unlike anything you’ve ever felt.  It even rivals the heartache you felt
when your mother died. This pain melds with anger and courses through your body
with fire.  You screw your eyes shut and fight the tears that threaten to spill
forth. Your body seems to move on its own accord and when you open your eyes,
you find your hands around Draco’s throat.
 
His fingers are around your wrists now.  The look on his face changes from
shock to panic and fear.  His eyes are wide and his face is flushed pink.  You
imagine that this is the face Draco would make if you fucked him – when his
virgin hole is breeched for the first time and sends a searing shock of pain
all the way up his spine.  This thought has you instantly hard and your hips
start to move in long, sinuous motions atop Draco’s lap.
 
You imagine being nestled inside him with your hands forming a loving collar
around his neck and you squeeze tighter.  You smirk down upon the boy beneath
you, and both of you are starkly aware that his life is quite literally in your
hands.  Just a slight motion of your fingers, and you’d be sending him over to
the other side – you could say the same about your hand around his cock and the
parallel between sex and death is such a glorious revelation that it brings you
close to orgasm.
 
You’re so high on lust and love and the thrill of this moment that Death itself
appears like an epiphany.  You see Death in the dimming light of Draco’s eyes. 
He writhes beneath you in vain attempts at wiggling free, and the erratic jolts
of movement just serve to get you off.  You imagine fucking Draco’s lifeless
body – his muscles twitching with the last bursts of neurologic activity, his
lips blue, and his eyes devoid of light. You come hard inside your trousers and
instinctively tighten your hands around Draco’s neck.
 
As he is silently, uselessly gasping for air, you are shuddering above him and
moaning his name with rapturous adulation to your god, as if you are offering
him up to Death as a sacrifice. 
 
And then you see something that startles you with such force that you find
yourself on your back a good two feet away.  Your mother’s dead face had
appeared on Draco’s head, just as you were about to squeeze the life out of
him.  You manage to stand up unsteadily and stagger away as Draco rolls on the
ground, gasping and coughing.
 
 
Needless to say, you and Draco pretend that night never happened and don’t
speak to each other for the rest of your time at Hogwarts together. 
 
But what he doesn’t know is that, from this moment on, you will wank to the
delicious image of Draco’s pale, naked body expiring elegantly in your arms as
you quite literally fuck him to death.  And in your fantasy, you keep fucking
him well past his last breath, until Death renders his tight flesh soft and
pliant for you.  When you come, the Draco of your fantasies stares up at you,
blank-eyed and slack-jawed, and he is the prettiest corpse you will ever see.
 
                                      ~@~
                                        
Sex and Death become synonymous for the rest of your teenage years, and well
beyond.
 
In your sixth year of Hogwarts, a girl by the name of Rosaline Dolohov
transfers from another school.  She reminds you of your mother, if only just
superficially, with her dark hair, blue eyes, and aristocratic air.  Of course,
you become obsessed with her, not just because she’s the new girl that
everybody wants, but because you recognize a darkness in her that nobody else
seems to notice. She gravitates to you, the brooding mysterious boy in the
shadows, like a demon seeking out the dark. Just like your rare ability to see
thestrals, you feel blessed to know Rosa like no one else knows her. It isn’t
long before you wind up snogging behind the greenhouses.  Soon after that, she
takes your virginity and thereafter you have rough, brutal sex every chance you
get, in every secret corner of Hogwarts that you can find. Her viciousness
rivals yours and some nights you wind up more cut up and bruised than she, but
nevertheless sated and drunk on love and violence.
 
However, you are a passing amusement to Rosa.  You are just one in a long line
of boys she’s charmed, fucked, and will soon discard. But you’re infatuated
with her. You tell her that you love her. And because she is all about what’s
bad for her, she indulges you and encourages your sick obsession. You spend a
lot of time just watching her, staring hard enough to make her uneasy.  What
she doesn’t know is that you are painting her in your mind. You are overlaying
a shroud of Death upon every portrait you conjure in your head.
 
You’re a shitty artist, but you sketch pictures of her in your journal as she
lounges on the common room sofa.  They are unassuming pictures.  When you go to
bed at night, you embellish these pictures from the privacy of your curtained
four-poster. You’re not sick – you just think Rosa would look so beautiful as a
corpse.  You draw her in various poses of post-mortem – with her throat slashed
open, with deep gouges in her wrists, with bruises in the shape of your
fingertips around her neck, with a mortal head-wound between her empty eyes.
 
One evening, Rosa snatches your journal from you after a playful wrestle in the
grass by the lake.  She flips through the pages and her smirk darkens when she
comes upon those secret sketches.
 
“Do you want me dead, Theodore?” she says, with so much sinister amusement in
her voice that it seems like she’s challenging you.
 
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rosa,” you scoff, though part of you knows you’re lying.
“I just fancy drawing dead people. And you make a fucking sexy corpse.”
 
Under the light of the full moon, the darkness gleams in her eyes and she
kisses you hard. You’re only mildly surprised when she palms your crotch.  This
is Rosa, after all, and only she would get turned on by you calling her a sexy
corpse.
 
She whispers hotly into your mouth, “Does thinking about killing me get you
hard, Theodore?”
 
She clutches the outline of your stiffening length through your trousers and
has you moaning against her lips, “Yeah.”
 
Then she chuckles deep and low, absent of humor and mirth, “You don’t have the
balls, Theodore.”
 
That’s all you need to incite you into another one of your rage-fueled sexual
romps. You clutch her wrists and pin her to the grass and it is so déjà vuthat
it hurts, right down to the moment you have your hands around her throat.
 
But in this scene, unlike the one with Draco that you still replay in your
fantasies, you actually get to be inside her.  And it is better than all of
your fantasies.  She’s so fucking tight around your erection that you can feel
her pulse on the inside, synchronized with the throbbing of her jugular vein
against your palm. Instead of her hands trying to wrench yours from her neck,
she’s clutching your backside, digging her vamp-red nails into your skin,
spurning on your every thrust.
 
She’s pushing you to do it because she thinks you’re bluffing.  She thinks
you’ll let go at just the right moment. She thinks you’re just playing with the
orgasm-heightening effects of asphyxiation.  With every thrust you wordlessly
tell her that she’s wrong, that you are completely capable of taking her life. 
You fuck her so hard that it hurts you – you can only imagine how painful it is
for her.  Lack of oxygen begins to take its toll and she starts to fade out of
consciousness, still with a smug grin playing on her lips, doubting you until
the very end.
 
Death is so close you can feel its cold fingertips ghosting on your back. You
race towards it like you rush towards orgasm.  And just like that time with
Draco, you see the face of Death again.  You’re not even startled, but
frustrated, when your mother’s dead eyes glare at you through Rosa’s purple-
pink face.  You let go in every way.  Your fingers loose their grip from Rosa’s
neck, you come because you’re past the point of no return, and you collapse on
top of her with a sob. You cry with breathy, quiet sobs and soak her chest with
your tears as she gasps for much needed air
 
“I’m sorry,” you bemoan, “I love you.”  You repeat it over and over like it is
penance.  You don’t know to whom you are paying it.  Perhaps it is to both Rosa
and to your mother.  But if you were being honest with yourself, you’d know it
is all for your mother. 
 
It is allfor her.
 
 
                                      ~@~
                                        
The Fates have a sick sense of humor.
 
Soon after you run away from home to escape the clutches of the Death Eaters
during the summer before what should’ve been your last year at Hogwarts, you
learn that Rosa’s female lover has murdered her in her sleep – suffocated by
her own pillow. The story is all over The Daily Prophet, so scandalous that it
preempts the usual Ministry propaganda on the front page.  Apparently, Rosa had
come from a family of assassins and was not spared when each one was wiped out
by the Death Eaters that could have been their targets.  And now Rosa’s
personality all makes sense now. You wonder if she had been much older than
sixteen – if her identity as a transfer student had just been a cover. You’ll
never know who her target was, but you suspect it might have been Draco. 
Unlike you, he did not escape the stain of the Dark Mark.
 
Even though you’ve fled far from England, you still think of Draco. You wonder
about the atrocities he is being forced to commit in the name of the Dark
Lord.  But more than that, you think about Draco as you jerk your cock at night
and you see his dead, grey eyes behind your closed lids. You see his blue,
emotionless face when you fuck your way across three continents.  You’re not so
foolish now – you are a boy on the run with nobody following you and you want
to keep it that way.  So you don’t dare try with strangers what you’d tried
with Draco and Rosa, because the last thing you need is a warrant for your
arrest. Though you still flirt with asphyxiation by way of fingers caressing
the throats of your lovers as you screw them without mercy and without
affection.
 
 
The war is over, but you’ve no reason to go back to England. You end up in New
York, where you decide to plant roots, however shallow, and rent a flat in a
bohemian neighborhood.
 
You’ve been exchanging letters with your friends back home since the fall-out
of the Battle of Hogwarts had settled.  In their return missives, you find that
war has rendered your friends useless shells of human beings.  Once the
promising young stars of wizarding high society, your friends are now branded
as the children of war criminals.  They’re social pariahs who no longer have a
place in the wizarding world.  Lost and disenfranchised, with too much money
and too much idle time, they struggle uselessly to find joy while the rest of
the world celebrates victory over Voldemort.  They fill the indolent hours with
cheap thrills that are bought at high prices. They are exactly where you are
now, but on the other side of the ocean.
 
Pansy Parkinson comes to visit you, more out of lack of anything else to do
than out of nostalgia.  What was supposed to be a weeklong visit, turns into
months of excessive sex, excessive drugs, and utter destruction.  You ruin
sheets and ruin each other because nobody fucks you like Pansy fucks you. She
is downright vindictive when she rides your cock and it is herhands that find
their way to yourthroat when she is close to orgasm.  And you discover for
yourself that oxygen deprivation plus orgasm equals the most beautiful high you
have ever felt, more euphoric than cocaine or Ecstasy.
 
Every time you fuck, you invite Death into a ménage a trois.  Soon, hands and
fingers aren’t enough and you find other ways of seducing Death.  Neckties,
scarves, rope, strings of pearls, bed sheets, belts are your improvisational
props. When the novelty of using those implements fades, is when you really
start to get creative and dangerously kinky.
 
You’re both high on coke, unbearably hot, and insatiably lustful one sweltering
summer night and it seems like a great idea to fuck in the bath.  Water
splashes out of the tub with every forceful thrust as you pound Pansy into the
porcelain from behind.  Most of the water is on the floor of the bathroom by
the time you’re close to climax, but there is just enough.  You’d once read
that it only takes a few inches of water to drown a person – it didn’t make
sense to you until now. 
 
Your fingers are tangled into the back of Pansy’s hair and you push her face
down into the water when she tells you she’s close.  Your pace quickens as you
rush toward a dramatic end and you are so caught up in your own bliss that you
don’t realize that Pansy is plunging head-first towards her own absolute end. 
You feel her pulsing around you as she comes and her euphoric moans are muffled
by the bathwater, which bubbles from her face.  Your own orgasm strikes you
hard like a wooden plank to the head and stars blank out your vision.  When you
spill inside her, your hand remains clenched around her hair and her face is
still in the water.
 
When you slide out of her, breathless and dizzy, she falls away limp like a
fish at the bottom of the bathtub.  The warm feeling all over your body is
immediately flushed away by a cold panic shooting up your spine. You pull her
up by the shoulders and she feels like a wilted flower as you hold her tight,
whispering, “Wake up, Pansy, wake up.”  You say it over and over again like a
magical incantation.  When she doesn’t rouse, you shout at her as you smack her
cheeks, but your words come out more like a woeful cry because the weight of
what you’ve done starts to press heavily upon you.
 
You sit in the tub with her until both you and she and the water go cold,
rocking her in your arms, still chanting wake up, wake upin a hoarse, small
voice.  It is dark by the time you come out of the tub and lay her on the bed.
You dry her off, brush her hair, and fold her hands over her chest as if she is
Snow White in death-like sleep. She is still so pretty. You daresay she is even
more beautiful in death than in life – before, she was cruel, loud, and
obnoxious, and now she is quiet and serene.  The tinge of blue beneath her
translucent, white skin gives her an opalescent appearance. Her eyes are wide
and glassy like a doll’s, with long, thick fans of lashes.  Her lips are like
the petals of her namesake flower - soft and purple.
 
You admire her for a long time, reverently stroking her blank face with the
back of your hand, and she doesn’t cease to stir emotions in you the way she
did moments ago when she was still breathing.  Death wears Pansy’s face now and
you are even more besotted than you’ve ever been. She seduces you with her eyes
that are like interstellar space, beckoning you to dark realms, and you are
powerless to do anything but give in to Death’s call.  Her limbs are so soft
and pale and elegantly wilting as you fold them around your body.  You are
wrapped up in a cold shroud as you nestle between her legs.  There is no
resistance when you slide into her.
 
Sex had always been about violence to you.  But now, you are making love to a
woman that has yielded everything to you. Pansy’s sacrifice is so beautiful
that it makes your heart hurt.  It is the first time you’ve ever been so gentle
and so careful, and as you slowly move in and out of her, you cry silently. 
You cry because you want it to always be like this but you know it is fleeting.
You cry because you know what you have to do to sustain this feeling, and it
scares you.
 
You make love to Pansy until the water that had suffocated her spills from her
parted lips, until you fill her with your semen and your sorrow, until you come
crashing down hard from your cocaine high and realize you’ve just committed
murder.
 
You cannot bring yourself to treat Pansy like a thing, like a corpse to be
disposed of like so much trash. She is still human to you, still beautiful and
deserving of respect.  So you dress her in the frilly, pink nightdress that she
wore to bed and you tuck her in for the last time, leaving a kiss on her blue
lips before leaving New York.
 
By the time the neighbors make a shocking discovery in your flat, you are
already a faceless, nameless boy in a sea of strangers, lost in North Africa.
And you are blissfully unaware of the gruesomeness of that discovery, as her
rotting, stinking carcass had to be scooped up from your bed in New York and
dumped into a body bag.
 
                                      ~@~
                                        
The harsh reality of your crime catches up with you, if only within your own
conscience. Nobody is looking for Pansy. Nobody knows who the dead girl in your
flat is, for she’d left no identification.  The muggle police are looking for
you, but all they have to go by is a badly drawn forensic sketch and a fake
name.  Of course, you don’t know any of this.
 
You cover your tracks with postcards sent to your friends in England, telling
them what a lovely time you and Pansy are having on your adventure through
Africa. The last postcard you send, months after the murder, is from Morocco –
you tell Blaise how devastated you are that Pansy has left you there and run
off with a handsome French tourist.
 
You are tired of running.  You are tired of being paranoid everywhere you go,
not venturing far from your cheap hotel rooms, hiding your face behind dark
glasses and a head scarf.  You are just so fucking tired period. So you decide
to lay low in Marrakesh for a while. 
 
It is a particularly hot day and you take relief from your sweltering hotel
room in the shadows of a dingy café.  You don’t bother with the scarf today and
just bury your face in a book of John Keats poems. You’re smoking a cigarette
and drinking strong coffee when you are finally found.
 
But it is the last person on earth that you expect to find you. 
 
“Malfoy?”
 
You’re so shocked that you wonder if it is not a heat induced mirage of Draco
Malfoy that stands before you.  He is leaps and bounds more elegant and
gorgeous than the snotty teenage Death Eater you left behind years ago.  He is
refined and regal in his white linen suit and neat, powder blue tie with dragon
hide gloves to match.  You marvel at his remarkable lack of sweat and his cool
demeanor.
 
“Hello, Theodore,” he drawls smoothly with a smug little grin that means
trouble.
 
He knows. Somehow, that bastard knows what you’ve done.  You don’t know how he
found you, and you don’t know why he’s here, but it can’t be for a
reconciliatory reunion. You had abandoned your wand when you ran from home as a
teenager, afraid that your magic would be traced – right now, you dearly wish
you’d kept it.
 
One of Draco’s leather-gloved hands slips into his pocket and you swallow
hard.   Though you sit, frozen in your seat, your eyes flit around frantically
for an escape route. You regret sitting in the corner now, for you’ve no place
to run.  You flinch as he pulls something from the inside pocket of his blazer
and he holds it between two fingers like a cigarette when he hands it to you.
It is the last postcard you’d sent to Blaise.  You stare at it as if it will
hold more answers for you.
 
“I must say, I thought you were smarter than this,” says Draco with his
signature superior air.  “Maybe you thought you were being clever by sending
all those postcards to Blaise and Daphne, but they brought me right to you.” 
He reaches toward you and you flinch again, which pulls a small, closed-lipped
chuckle from Draco as he takes the cigarette that had been wedged above your
ear for later use. “Relax, Theodore – I don’t want to hurt you.  I’m not one to
make a scene in such a public setting.”
 
But it gives you little comfort.  The way he holds the cigarette between his
lips would make your pulse race, had your heart not already been beating out of
your chest.  You pull your Zippo lighter from your shirt pocket, not so much
out of courtesy, but to show Draco that you are not entirely unarmed. You flick
it open and he leans down to light his stolen cigarette.  Inside the panic of
your cluttered mind, you see Draco’s face going up in flames – his nearly
translucent eyebrows disintegrating instantly and his pale features turning a
sick red as they burn, looking just like your mother’s face when she died. It’s
all in your head, but you find some reassurance in the fact that you could
defend yourself should the need arise.
 
“Shall we go, then?” Draco asks, as casually as if he’s picking you up for a
date.
 
You sit back in your chair and cross your arms like a petulant child. “I’m not
going anywhere with you.”
 
He sighs as if he’s terribly inconvenienced and mumbles, more to himself than
to you, “Of course, you’re going to make this more difficult than it has to
be.” He takes a deep drag off the cigarette and blows a great plume of smoke
above his perfectly coiffed hair before flicking away the barely-smoked fag. 
He pierces you with grave, silver eyes as he declares, sounding rather
official, “Theodore Eridan Nott, you are wanted by the Ministry of Magic in
connection with the murder of Pansy Parkinson.”
 
Before he can say more, you leap out of your seat in an attempt to run, but
Draco moves faster than you ever knew he could and ensnares your wrist in a
muggle handcuff. He pushes you face-first into a wall and pins your arms behind
your back to attach the other handcuff.
 
“You just had to make a scene, hm?  Ever the drama queen,” he whispers behind
your ear, never losing his cool. “You’re going to let me take you out of here
quietly, and I’ll spare you excruciating pain, alright?” You daresay he sounds
downright seductive, but you’re far too alarmed to be aroused by the heat of
his words and the command of his fingers digging into the back of your neck.
 
You give a stiff nod of assent and he leads you out of the café with one hand
clamped on your shoulder. You hold your head high because you won’t be a common
criminal, and you buck the condemning stares of strangers with your pride
alone.
 
He brings you into the privacy of a dark alley before transporting you by
magic. You find yourself in a hotel room that looks much like the ones you’ve
been hopping between throughout Africa, with sparse, rickety furniture,
mosquito netting around the bed, and dingy tile floors.
 
He sits you down on the saggy mattress, not gently, and you spit, “What daft
Ministry monkey made an ex-Death Eater a DMLE officer?”
 
He laughs condescendingly.  “You think the Department of Magical Law
Enforcement would waste time and precious manpower to apprehend you?  You think
you’re special?” he scoffs, “Aurors and officers have their hands full rounding
up all of Voldemort’s supporters who fled the country.  You’re a low priority. 
Personally, I think the Ministry might actually be grateful that you rid the
planet of another useless Death Eater spawn. I’d shake your hand for killing
Pansy Parkinson.”  He glances dramatically behind you at your bound hands and
smirks so smugly that you want to head-butt him.  “But you’re rather tied up at
the moment.”
 
He leans down, hovering menacingly over you, and splays his hands on your
thighs. Maybe there’s a glimmer of desire in his eyes when the dragon hide
leather of his gloves moves slowly over your jeans, creating warm friction. 
But you can’t be sure.  There’s definitely something dark and mysterious about
his stare.
 
“Still, murder is murder and can not go unpunished,” he says with a feigned sad
sigh. “The DMLE can’t afford to send an officer to apprehend you, but there is
a warrant for your arrest.  And Mrs. Parkinson put a bounty on your pretty head
to bring you into custody.” He hooks a finger under your chin and tilts your
head up.
 
You laugh in his face because you can’t help it. “You’re a bounty hunter,
Malfoy?” you say with amused disbelief, “Merlin, I never thought you’d deign
yourself to wallow among the working-class.  But I suppose you’d bankrupt your
vaults and suck the Ministry’s proverbial cock to keep yourself out of
Azkaban.  And my guess is that your designer suit was not paid for with Malfoy
gold.”
 
He grits his teeth and growls lowly, “I’d let the Minister for Magic fuck me
hard enough to make me shit blood if it meant I’d never have to go back to
Azkaban – five weeks was more than enough torture to scar me irreparably.” He
speaks quietly, almost maniacally, “Imagine serving a life sentence there,
Theodore. Imagine the constant cold, so deep that it makes your bones ache. 
Imagine the darkness and solitude so complete that it drives you certifiably
mad. Imagine the soul crushing anguish killing you so slowly that you beg for
death.”  His predatory hands slide along your thighs and his growl returns to a
smooth drawl. “The question you should be asking yourself is not what Ihad to
do to get released from prison, but what youwould do to keep yourself out of
Azkaban.”
 
He straightens to divest himself of his blazer and sets it down neatly. The
streaks of sunlight filtering between the slats of the window blinds glint off
his diamond cufflinks as he removes them and slips them into the pocket of his
trousers.  He rolls up his sleeves to his elbow, and the fact that he keeps his
dragon hide gloves on makes you nervous.
 
“Let’s weigh our options, shall we?”  He gracefully straddles you on the edge
of the bed and nests comfortably there, smirking down on you.  In more
favorable circumstances, you’d be thrilled to have Draco subtly grinding on
your lap. Your cock still manages to stir in your jeans despite everything
because, let’s face it, this is still the man that has haunted your sexual
fantasies for years and he is more fit than ever.
 
You hazard a cheeky grin.  “I’d be more amenable to discussion if my hands were
free,” you say.
 
“Nice try, Nott,” Draco replies, chuckling as if this is a playful game between
lovers. He pushes on your shoulder with more force than you ever knew he had
and you fall back on the bed. Your own bound hands and the metal of the cuffs
dig into the base of your spine.  The extra weight of Draco’s body on yours
just exacerbates the discomfort. 
 
From his back pocket, he produces his wand.  Draco is not gentle, nor is he
careful, when he swiftly slices open your shirt from collar to hem with the tip
of the wand and a whispered incantation. You shiver with fear, paralyzed with a
sense of helplessness.  You wish you’d set him on fire in the café like you
fantasized about.  Your skin splits shallowly where the wand tip had touched
too firmly, and the crimson cuts stand out starkly against your pale skin.
Small rivulets of blood seep from the cuts and streak across your flesh like
red ink on parchment. 
 
As he peels your shirt away, like skinning a fish, he muses with a smirk,
“You’d make a beautiful canvas upon which to paint.”  His gloved fingers smear
the blood on your skin as his hands splay across your chest.
 
And now you recognize that mysterious glimmer you’d seen in his eyes. It is
madness. Draco’s short stint in Azkaban has quite possibly driven him insane.
 
“Are you going to kill me, Malfoy?” you ask, and as soon as the question leaves
your mouth, you realize that you’re actually not afraid to die.  You’ve never
feared Death.  What scares you more is being overpowered by another.  You’ve no
idea what Draco intends to do to you, and your complete loss of control over
the situation is what has you shaking.
 
“I’m not sure,” he answers too casually for your liking.  “I’m trying to figure
out if you are worth more dead or alive.” His eyes rake over your body,
appraising every inch of you, as if cataloguing each curve and line and
assessing your value.
 
“Is it worth going back to Azkaban?” you ask facetiously.
 
He laughs, patronizing you.  “Oh my dear Theodore.  You’ve no idea what sort of
license I’m afforded in my line of work.  And as it stands, the price on your
head is fixed. I’ll be paid the same whether I bring you back to England in a
body bag or in handcuffs.”
 
“I’m sure you’ll find I’m a lot easier to transport walking on my own volition
rather than hauling, quite literally, dead weight,” you reason with him.
 
“This is true, but dealing with your smart mouth might not be worth the trouble
of keeping you alive.”  He tilts his head and taps his gloved finger on his
lips thoughtfully.  “I wonder if I could make even more than your bounty if you
worked for me,” he ponders.
 
“I think I can prove to you that I’m capable,” you say.
 
His smirk darkens and the madness in his eyes sparkles like electricity. He
leans down and whispers hotly with his lips hovering over yours, “Oh, I bet you
can.”  If you really wanted to, and part of you does, you could kiss him, but
he is just out of reach.
 
He moves southward along your body, leaving wet kisses along your chest. Your
skin burns with the heat of his mouth and the sting of the lacerations.  His
lips come away blood-smeared and he looks deliciously psychotic as his smile
slowly spreads.  It is the last thing you see before a bright flash of light
and then black nothingness.
 
 
                                      ~@~
                                        
It is a slow return to consciousness.  First, you feel the stifling heat of the
room, and the slick sheen of sweat pasting the front of your body to the
threadbare sheets of the bed. You realize that your clothes are gone.  Next you
feel a dull ache in your shoulders and you find your wrists are now handcuffed
to the headboard, effectively splaying your arms out above your head. The
inside of your mouth is like sand. Everything about you feels sluggish in this
room that is like a clay oven, baking you alive.
 
“Malfoy?” you call out hoarsely, and it hurts your throat to say one word.
 
You pry open your heavy eyelids to find that you are alone as far as you can
see (which isn’t very far at all).  After a long silence, you assume that your
assessment had been correct. But, from somewhere at the opposite side of the
room, you hear the rustling sound of fabric brushing against fabric and you
realize that you are actually not alone.  Then you smell smoke – you’d
recognize the subtle nuances of the scent of your exact brand of cigarette from
a mile away. That scent alone makes your nerves twitch with need.  You must
have been unconscious for quite some time, for your craving for nicotine is
dire, perhaps even trumping your requirement for water.
 
“So you’ve decided I’m worth more alive,” you hazard to guess.
 
You hear a faint crackle of burning tobacco and paper, followed by a slow
exhale a few seconds later.  But you don’t get an answer. Now that you know
you’re not alone in the room, you feel dread in the pit of your stomach – you
are naked and prostrate, but this adds very little to your sense of
vulnerability, for the fact that you’re shackled to the bed makes you feel more
exposed and helpless than you’ve ever been before.
 
It doesn’t help that minutes go by without a word uttered by the other
inhabitant of the room. It is uncertain that it’s Draco, but his penchant for
stealing your cigarettes leaves you no reason to assume otherwise.
 
There’s a soft, irregular knock at the door. 
 
“Just a minute.”
 
And now you know that it is indeed Draco in the room with you.  He sounds calm
and not the least bit alarmed that somebody is on the other side of the door
when you’re naked and chained to the bed inside the room.
 
In a few click-clacking footsteps across the tile floor, Draco is upon you,
hissing maliciously behind your ear.  “Have a good day at work, darling.”  He
nips harshly at your earlobe.  The unexpectedness of it distracts you enough
that you don’t have time to take a breath before he stuffs your mouth with some
sort of cloth and ties it behind your head. It tastes of starched fabric,
sweat, and the bitterness of cologne, and you wonder if he’s gagged you with
his own necktie.
 
You shout uselessly through the fabric, which stifles your sounds of panic more
than silk normally would, leading you to believe that Draco has charmed it as
such. The heels of his expensive shoes click swiftly along the tile.  The door
unlocks loudly and the hinges creak just a fraction.
 
“Money upfront,” says Draco, all business-like with no time for nonsense.
 
“Do I not get to see first?  What if I don’t like?” asks a man with a very
thick, unrecognizable, foreign accent.
 
“I am offering you exactly what I had promised in our previous discussion,”
says Draco, sounding slightly affronted, “You get the goods as is.  But I
assure you, it’s worth it.”
 
“Seventy-five hundred Dirhams, yes?” the man confirms.  “It’s all here in
cash.  Plus the five-hundred Dirhams security deposit.”
 
“Come inside and have a drink while I count it,” says Draco.
 
You’d scream louder, but you can’t waste the energy.  You listen carefully,
trying to assess what’s going on unseen behind you. Every sound makes your
heart beat faster with tense anticipation - The creaking of rusty hinges. The
closing of the door. More footsteps. A stranger’s soft, pleased chuckle.   The
scrape of a chair across tile. The clink of glass against glass and the pouring
of liquid.   The rustling sound of paper currency.  With each passing second,
you begin to understand that this transaction is taking place over you, and you
hyperventilate through your nose as you try to discern for what purpose Draco
has just sold you.
 
“I’ll be back in one hour,” he says, “I’m in the room next door.  If I find
that you’ve caused irreparable damage, I shall retain the security deposit.” 
His shoes click across the floor, away from you, and you actually wish he were
not leaving you alone with an unseen stranger.  “I’d prefer that you use a
condom, but I’ll leave that up to your discretion.”
 
The door closes and the lock clicks into place with the finality of a death
sentence. You heave muffled sobs of despair and inwardly curse Draco for his
utter betrayal.  Your eyes blur behind tears, not that you can really see
anything anyway.  You hear heavy breathing and the rustle of clothes coming
undone.  The man smells of too much expensive cologne that had been applied in
excess to mask the stench of sweat, however ineffectively, not that you smell
any better – you likely smell worse, bathed in fear-tinged perspiration.
 
The man doesn’t talk, doesn’t even acknowledge you as a person.  You are a
thing.  A commodity.  A receptacle to be used. You have never felt so inhuman
before. You clench every muscle, as if that will somehow defend you against the
advances of this stranger. He advances slowly and it is the worst torture,
drawing out your dread and anticipation. A hand caresses the back of your thigh
with fingers that have never known toil – thick, heavy, fingers that trace the
furrow of your arse.  You sob louder, tumbling down into despair, as the
inevitable washes over you. He spreads you with those fat fingers and spits to
coat your exposed hole. 
 
You have fucked countless people before – men and women and in-between, some of
them had been nameless strangers you’d picked up at clubs, some of them you’d
spent time with, some of them you’d reluctantly given in to for lack of a good
excuse not to fuck.  But it has never been like this – so faceless and
anonymous and completely against your will. And nobody has ever had the
privilege of entering you this way.  To this man, your virgin arse is worth
eight thousand Dirhams, which is a formidable amount of cash.  But to you, it
is priceless. To be fucked is to be owned, and you have never belonged to
anyone - you had wanted to keep it that way.
 
When the stranger begins, you immediately understand why Draco took a security
deposit to safeguard his property.  The stranger doesn’t just fuck you; he
absolutely destroys you. After an hour, you are covered in semen, bruises,
teeth marks, welts, and abrasions.  You feel like you’ve been pried open from
behind with a crowbar and hollowed out with a broom handle. 
 
Sometime during your brutal assault, you’d let your mind go to another place,
and the animal sounds of a stranger’s carnal growls faded into a dull buzzing
in your ear. And inside the dark spaces of your mind, you heard voices, none of
which were your own.  You heard the voices of the dead, whispering
unintelligible things to you.  You let the voices lead you deeper and deeper
into your own mind to escape the horror of what was happening to your body.
 
You think the ordeal is over when Draco returns to assess the damage an hour
later. He insists on keeping half of the security deposit, much to the
stranger’s muttered dismay. From the way your body feels, like wet pulp, you
think Draco could have retained the entire five hundred.
 
But apparently, there is more of your body left to capitalize upon. You have
maybe fifteen minutes to recuperate, still handcuffed to the bed, before there
is another knock at the door. Another five hundred Dirhams is exchanged as you
protest soundlessly into the enchanted gag until your already-sore throat feels
like raw, shredded membranes.  This time you’re flipped onto your back and you
wish your ability to see all that transpired hadn’t been returned to you.  A
lecherous old man wearing a very bad hairpiece and an outdated suit sucks you
off, and thanks (or no thanks) to Draco’s magic, you actually get hard and
orgasm, though there is absolutely no pleasure in it. The entire time your skin
crawls and you feel like you’re being swallowed up by a slimy, teeming mass of
maggots.
 
In the end, you are completely broken down.  You wonder if you’re still human. 
You’ve no strength or clarity of mind enough to fight when Draco removes the
handcuffs and leads you to the washroom where he has drawn a bath.  You dry-
heave on the bathroom floor as Draco holds you firmly by the arms, but nothing
comes up but bile.
 
Draco guides you into the tub.  No words are exchanged.  Not even a sarcastic
remark.  He silently washes your body and you feel like a child, which is leaps
and bounds better than feeling like Nothing.  He surprises you with his
nurturing hands, gently scrubbing away the sex and grime.  And you welcome
every touch despite yourself and despite what he has done to you. Because
you’re desperate for comfort, for tenderness, for kindness after being so
brutally used up.
 
He dries you off and puts you into bed.  You fold up your weary body into a
fetal position.  He lays down beside you and curls himself around you from
behind, and you sob quietly because you can’t understand why he is doing this
to you – why he has traded you like a commodity one moment and is treating you
like a cherished lover the next.
 
You fall asleep to Draco’s rhythmic, warm, breath against the back of your
neck. Your sleep is fraught with terrible nightmares and you jolt awake in the
middle of the night to find that one wrist is handcuffed to the bed.  A naked
body stirs beside you and Draco’s arm finds it’s way back around your middle.
He hooks a leg around yours and snuggles up close.
 
He nestles his face against you and mumbles softly, “You awake?” 
 
If it were not for the handcuffs, this scene would look everything like two
lovers rousing in the middle of the night.  This fact makes your chest ache. 
Perhaps in another life, you wouldbe lovers, sharing a quiet moment on a warm
night in Morocco.  Certainly you had dreamed of nights like this, when you were
fifteen and infatuated with your best friend. Yes, your best friend – your
heart hurts to think about what Draco once was to you.
 
“Depends,” you mutter, your voice cracked dry and wrought with impending tears.
 
He chuckles softly, you daresay even fondly.  When he kisses your sore
shoulder, the tears roll down your cheek silently. It baffles you how Draco
could break you so utterly and pretend to put you back together again. His
hands caress your arms, as if trying to erase the bruises and the lingering
pain.
 
You’re so desperate to be whole again, to feel safe, to be loved, that it is
not entirely unwelcome when you feel his arousal stirring against you.  You
don’t even flinch when his fingers find your cock and curl nimbly around it. 
It doesn’t take much for you to succumb to his touch – as it is, you’ve no
fight left in you. Besides, this is still Draco Malfoy and you’ve wanted him
for so long.
 
He is sinuous marble and moonlight when he straddles you.  He is smooth skin
and lithe muscle and even more exquisite than the Draco of your dreams.  Not
even the dark stain on his left forearm could detract from his beauty, not even
the madness in his silver eyes could make you recoil.
 
Your free hand finds his hip as he fits himself perfectly upon you and you both
go together so seamlessly that it’s like you were made for each other. He rides
you slow and sensuously and makes you forget the myriad of ways that he hurt
you.  He leans down to hover above you and your eyes meet. And there, you feel
your dark souls connecting.  For every evil he has committed, you have done far
worse, and you believe that you and Draco could be the most wonderful pair of
deviants that ever crawled out of Hell. You are so wrapped up in him and aching
for more.  You curl your fingers around the back of his neck and he doesn’t
stop you until you try to pull him down for a kiss. 
 
“No,” he says quietly as he turns his face and unhooks your hand from his neck.
 
And that’s when the proverbial spell breaks.  You realize that this is no
different from the vile acts that occurred on this bed, hours before.  Draco is
using you every bit as much as those men had used you.
 
The illusion of love bursts into flames and you feel the fire coursing through
your veins. You are even more furious now than the first time Draco rejected
your kiss so many years ago. You hook him around the neck with your arm and
manage to flip him over as your tethered arm twists in the handcuff.
 
Draco laughs, winded but amused.  “You got me right where you want me, hm?” 
His legs tighten around your torso and his stormy, grey stare is unwavering.
“Do your worst, Theodore.” His hips curl against you, sending a delicious
thrill through your lap.  “I want to feel the way they made you feel,” he
drawls, seducing you more than challenging you.
 
With more freedom of motion, you maneuver your bodies into position, with his
ankles resting on your shoulders.  You fuck him into the mattress with spite
and fury, hungry for his pain. But Draco just smirks at you stoically as if
you’re not plowing through him.  He doesn’t even cry out.  He is so unaffected
that it infuriates you.
 
It takes a split second for you to regain control, in the time it takes for
your hand to clamp around his throat.  The way Draco keeps smiling makes you
wonder if you are playing directly into every one of his dark whims.  He holds
your wrist, but does little to pry your fingers off his neck.  You mirror his
smirk and you slow your hips. You want to savor this moment – the moment that
you both realize that you want the inevitable to happen.
 
Maybe he’s been dreaming of this moment ever since you were both fifteen. Maybe
the sick fantasy had haunted him exactly the way it had haunted you.
 
The voices in your mind return and become clearer with each thrust into Draco’s
delightfully tight body.  You hear the voices whispering spitefully like
hissing, angry serpents roiling inside your head. They whisper in the voices of
your mother, of Rosaline, of Pansy.  They are the voices of the dead, calling
for Draco to join their ranks.
 
As your fingers squeeze tighter, your conviction strengthens.  No longer do you
have anything holding you back from doing exactly what you’ve wanted to do ever
since that fateful night at Malfoy Manor. It feels like the easiest, most
natural thing to do.
 
It takes remarkably little effort to strangle such a formidable young man such
as Draco. His lips are blue by the time your seed is spilling into him.  When
you release his throat, you lean down to kiss his cyanotic mouth, and the
absence of even the faintest bit of breath confirms your success.  You kiss his
gaping dead mouth the way you’ve always wanted to, letting your tongue slide
against his.
 
He tastes acridly bitter and his breath smells of almonds and apples. You
hardly have time to ponder this unusual mélange before your tongue feels fat
and swollen inside your mouth. Your throat closes as if phantom fingers are
strangling you, and your hand instinctively goes to your neck to free it from
the invisible binds.  The more you uselessly gasp for air, the more your
airways constrict, the more you panic and struggle to breathe.  Bright stars
flash in your eyes as you search the room for a culprit or a savior. On the
bedside table are several potion bottles. 
 
When everything clicks into place in your frenzied mind, you only have a second
to smile with faint amusement before the voices of your mother and Rosaline and
Pansy and Draco call out to you, as your world goes completely black.
 
                                      ~@~
 
“I see why you didn’t want me to kiss you,” you say, nestled beside Draco upon
a bed of immaculately white sheets.
 
“It’s not that I didn’t want you to kiss me,” he replies, tucking a stray lock
of black fringe behind your ear.  “I needed you to kiss me at just the right
moment.”  He smiles and kisses you wetly on the mouth.
 
“Let me guess. You ingested lycopodia before lacing your mouth with aconitum,”
you say.
 
“Close. Bryopsidia is actually the antidote to aconitum,” he corrects you,
perhaps a bit smugly.
 
You slip a ghostly leg between his to part his thighs and his deathly white
limbs splay open for you.  “Clever motherfucker,” you say fondly with a cheeky
grin.
 
When you slide into Draco, there is no resistance.  When he bucks against you
with a soft, pleased moan, he also meets none. You make love to him slowly with
both hands curled around his neck, and you can see the swell of his Adam’s
apple through your translucent fingers.
 
Every day, of every year for fathomless years to come, you will love Draco to
death, condemned to kill each other over and over again for eternity.
 
 
                                      ~@~
 
Draco was eighteen when he saw the face of Death.
 
He was rotting away in a cold, damp cell in Azkaban, screaming for Death to
take him. And when Death came, she appeared as a woman with skin like the
smooth, white wings of a dove and hair the color of the void within a black
hole.  Her eyes were pleasingly round, lined heavily with kohl, as black as the
color of her pretty mouth.  She wore remarkably muggle clothes, all black
fabrics of course, and carried a little parasol with her small, lace gloved
hands.
 
“Are you here for me?” asked Draco, clamping his shaking hands desperately
around Death’s ankle.
 
Death giggled and smiled down on him.  “Well, I’m here because you called, but
I’m not going to take you with me.”
 
Draco sobbed and begged Death, “Please.”
 
Death sighed as she pet his matted hair fondly.  “I’m sorry, but it is not your
time, Draco Malfoy.” 
 
Draco gazed up at Death and wiped away his tears, smearing dirt on his face
with his dingy shirtsleeve.  “Can you tell me when it will be my time to go?”
 
“I’m afraid it is not my place to tell you that, Draco Malfoy,” said Death, not
unkindly, “That question should be asked of my brother, Destiny. But
unfortunately, he rarely heeds the call of mortals.”
 
“Is there nothing you can do for me to ease my suffering?” Draco beseeched.
 
Death crouched down and gently took Draco’s face in her hands to gaze at him
sympathetically. “It is not my job to give, Draco Malfoy. It is my job to take.
And as I’ve told you, I can not take you with me until your life is truly at
its end.”
 
Draco began to cry again, whimpering softly like a hurt little boy. Death took
pity upon this lost, beautiful child, but could offer very little.  “You may
ask of me two more questions, Draco Malfoy.  I can not promise that I will be
able to answer them, but I will do my best.”
 
Draco calmed down enough to ponder – to truly think long and hard about his
questions. Death waited patiently, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the
prison cell, twirling the parasol on her shoulder.
 
After several minutes, he spoke, and Death perked up, eager to field the boy’s
question.
 
“Is there a Hell?” he asked, blinking with glassy, silver eyes.
 
Death shrugged. “There’s something like Hell. It isn’t the place that mortals
have written about, with fire and torture and grotesque demons. But there is a
place where I must take people to work through their personal demons.  Hell is
where you face the ugliest parts of yourself and come to terms with them. Most
people can’t. And so they stay there for eons before moving on – and thatis the
true torture of Hell – reliving the worst things you’ve ever done, over and
over again.”
 
Draco bit his lip thoughtfully and nodded.  After another long pause, he asked
his next question.  “What does somebody have to do to wind up in Hell?”
 
“Are you trying to make a reservation, Draco Malfoy?” Death joked with a
quirked inky eyebrow and a twist of her black lips.
 
“I just want to figure out where I’m going.  And I know you can’t tell me. 
So…,” Draco shrugged with a small apologetic smile.
 
Death returned his smile.  “You’re a clever one, Draco Malfoy. And I will offer
you this. There are three ways that will ensure one’s ticket to Hell.”  Death
counted off each one on a lacy finger.  “Murder – that’s pretty obvious. 
Taking advantage of the innocent for one’s own personal gain.  Betraying the
person you love the most out of selfishness, or pride.  There are many ways
that people wind up in Hell, but those are the three biggies.”
 
Draco took a deep, cleansing breath, seemingly content with the answers. And
when Death kissed him on the forehead and ruffled his hair with a small giggle,
he felt marginally better about his current situation.  Though the actions that
had landed him in prison were reprehensible, he’d not done any of the things
that Death had mentioned, as far as he knew. And if his crimes were not
horrible enough to warrant a stay in Hell, surely they would not keep him in
Azkaban for long.
 
“See you when I see you,” said Death, winking at Draco before disappearing into
the shadows.
 
 
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