familiar ; draco malfoy

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

But once he'd entered the warm home and the dimly lit living room, and the soft "Draco, are you alright?" reached his ears, he felt like breath returned to his lungs. She appeared to him like a dream, her braids reaching the small of her back and revealing the gentle face bathed in moonlight, wide eyes resembling stars. She glowed in the darkness.

"I didn't mean to disrupt whatever it is I disrupted," said Draco, looking between the two cousins as if trying to decipher where their own anxieties came from. Unlike Draco, who felt calmer at the sight of her, Ramona felt her heart palpitating and said virtually nothing. He found comfort in seeing her, knowing she was there, alright, alive and breathing; she grew even more troubled at the sight of him, once again covered in blood, and didn't want to let her aunt's words influence her judgement.

Ramona breathed out a cloud of white smoke and lowered her gaze to the table.

"If you're in some sort of trouble Malfoy, I don't want any part in it," said Blaise hoarsely, voice dripping with something Draco could only see as a warning. And, fuck, Draco couldn't blame him. Their recent heart-to-heart didn't exactly make them friends, and he knew he was overstepping. He knew, but he was desperate.

And Blaise Zabini's concerned face proved that he was the closest thing Draco Malfoy had to a friend. And he needed someone to at least pretend to be his friend.

"I'm not in trouble, yeah?"

"Then what are you doing here?" Blaise stared fiercely at Draco, eyebrows raised like a schoolteacher interrogating a naughty student. With a sigh, Draco closed his eyes, like it physically pained him to say what he was about to say, teeth grinding and mind swirling with red and red and red and red.

The spectacle of men driven insane by hatred was a sight to behold.

Draco had seen cruelty in his life. He stood by to watch it, he'd inflicted it, he'd lived through it. Cruelty wove itself into part of his being, so much himself he could not find where it began and where he ended. It slept by his bedside and woke him in the morning, like a guard dog that would bite him if he went out of line, but that would bite for him if he did everything right.

He knew cruelty. And pain and regret and worry. But he didn't know fear like that until that evening. The kind that ricochets up you skeleton and leaves you paralyzed. Nothing amounted to the horror he'd seen that evening when, finally, Draco Malfoy realized for the first time what it meant to be a Death Eater.

And it wasn't purity. It wasn't power. It wasn't pride. It wasn't money, and it certainly wasn't a bloody privilege, like they all said it would be; like his father said it would be. He felt foolish for even thinking it could be any of those things. Blood, like red rubies, stained his hands and his mind and he felt like he'd never wash it off. He'd never wash off the guilt. He'd never wash off the injustice.

It would cling to his skin until white turned crimson. Just like the mark of his prejudice, his supposed superiority, his filth, his ignorance and his duty would forever be imprinted upon his skin.

The Dark Mark kept him safe. The Dark Mark kept him alive. The Dark Mark reminded him that he couldn't make one wrong move or the snake would slither from his hand to his neck. It would sting his ivory skin and weave itself around his throat, nestle at his collarbones, and wouldn't hesitate to bite his jugular.

Poisoning. Choking. Strangling.

Cruelty was a dog. Cruelty could be taught. Cruelty could bite, but it could also protect. Cruelty was loud, it barked and warned. Fear was a snake. Fear choked and poisoned and swallowed you whole. Fear was quiet and cunning and it killed slowly.