The beginning tendrils
The storm was unforgiving, howling winds, icy rain pelting with enough force that I thought the burrows roof was going to come through. We hadn't seen a storm like this for a long time, not since before the war was really upon us. Sleep doesn't come easy to any of us, instead we all sit bleary eyed at the table listening to the storm rage around us. I enjoy listening to the storms, listening to thunder and watching the lightning rip apart the sky, it gives noise to the storm inside me.
Something Hermione had said at dinner rolling around in my brain, bumping against the thoughts I try to use to drown it out and instead it becomes louder. What if light magic isn’t enough. Dumbledore taught us that love and light will always beat back evil and darkness, that if i look hard enough that i will find the light even in the darkest places. What happens if the darkness is too all consuming to let the light break through, what happens then when all hope is lost and everything is gone?
I stood and walked to the doorway, watching through the miss-shaped window, I could feel eyes on me at all times, I’m the key or what dumbledore forgot to mention is that i am the final remaining horcrux and I think I've always know that, that my connection with that no-nose idiot was more than just being the cause of his destruction the first time. There is something within me, writhing to be set free, something I'm not entirely sure is simply a part of his soul, something i wish i could blame on that pasty white fucker but I think that its all me.
Something that craves blood, something dark and powerful just lurking below the surface of my skin. I hadn't ever noticed it until he took over my body last year in the department of mysteries and since then it's been coiling, poised to strike. Something restless and cruel sliding around in my veins, in the very core of my being.
Another thunder crash and I'm ripping the door open and stalking into the rain, not caring how it hits my skin so hard it hurts, not caring that I'm getting soaking as I march myself up to the top of the hill. It’s there that I apparated, just over the boundary line of the wards surrounding the burrow against attacks. I should care that technically I'm under 17 granted it's only by a few months but I can't find the energy to care about anything other than this coiling feeling inside of me, begging and pleading to be let out. In a blinding spin I land on the outskirts of a forest, I have no idea which one, all I thought of was somewhere that no-one would hear me. I sink to my knees in front of an old sycamore, the storm still billowing around me in gusts that have me shivering and still I can't find the need to move. As lightning blasts across the sky I let the thoughts I'd been trying so hard to ignore run through my brain.
What if light can't beat dark, and the only way that I'll come out of this alive is if I give in to whatever is inside of me? What if I can't pay the price of this war? What if the price is me? Am i okay with it being me? What happens if I lose anyone else in this war? I've already lost Sirius, my only family left and dealt with the will. He left everything to me, more money than I could spend in a life-time sitting unused in my vault, a house that I can't bear the sight of without him, Kreature…
I slam my fists into the mud, unspent tears lingering behind my eyes. I don’t want anyone else to die for me. I don't need anyone else to die for me. I can't bear to lose anyone else. For the first time since Sirius joined his brother in the afterlife I smiled into the storm, my decision made.
I’m going to let the darkness consume me. There will be no need to fear Tom anymore, Tom will fear me.
The decision resonated in my mind as I stood taking a deep breath. I will do whatever it takes to keep my family and friends safe. I wear the smile like someone who is finally at peace, Just because Dumbledore believed something doesn't mean it was right and for the first time I feel at peace in my body, at peace in the skin coating my bones. Everyone who has gone from my life now would be smiling, I hoped because at least I had finally decided that I would fight, regardless of what that means for my soul.
I find my way back to the burrow somehow, I'm not sure exactly how I found my way back but the next second I'm standing in a forest wetter than a teenage girl and the next I'm walking the path back in the lop-sided house and shaking my hair in the doorway. Bracing myself for the next 12 hours before we’re back on our way to Hogwarts, Hermione's eyes meet mine; she nods only once she knows exactly what I've decided without speaking, the one who’s going to have an issue with it is going to be Ron.
Mine and Hermione's relationship is somewhat of a conundrum, in another life I think maybe we were meant to be something more than just twin flames. The same darkness lingers under her skin as it does mine, the same thoughts roll through her head when she thinks that no-one can see her. We were always closer than me and Ron despite what the outer world sees. We all know that there is something beautiful and terrible lurking just under the surface in Hermione and she's never tried to hide it, not from me. Not really. Even back when we were just kids there was something that connected us deeper than just saving the world and the adventures. As the years progressed it became more pronounced that the connection was us seeking solace in each other, two of the same. Hermione had obliviated her parents at the beginning of 4th year rendering almost an orphan like me, we confide in each other and somewhere down the line we just became more without ever acting on it. We were always more alike than Ron had wanted to admit to himself. Looking at her in the doorway I can see that great and terrible thing prowling just below the skin, I can see the way it stalks me. Calculating that's how most people describe Hermione once they get to know her, Like me she was given the option of Slytherin at the sorting hat ceremony and like me she had chosen the opposite house but that doesn't mean that there isn't a poised viper waiting for the right opportunity to strike.
I don't bother sitting back down at the table, I don't bother to try to make idle conversation with Ron when everything that needed to be said was communicated to Hermione. Instead I walk back up to the room I share with Ron, throwing everything into the trunk for Hogwarts. Robes, books, spare quills, regular clothing for the Hogsmeade trips, pyjamas, the sweater I had gotten for Christmas off Mrs Weasley, the mirror off Sirius even though it no-longer shows my godfather in the reflection. General things, pretty much the entirety of my possessions. I lay on the bed. There isn't any point in sleeping now, it’s almost light and we’ll be there sooner rather than later so i just stare up at the ceiling. Watching the sun crest over the hills and listening to the house come alive with noise. I barely notice when I'm back on the train, it isn't until I'm sneaking into the carriage on the train that houses Malfoy. My trusty invisibility cloak at my hand and my wand gripped in my right hand. I slipped inside listening to a conversation that really isn't all that interesting, something about what they did over the break and what they think of the new classes. Instead of listening in I begin to tune it out, imagining how soft Malfoys skin might actually be, perfect, porcelain face. Looking at him now, with his “friends” his features are so much more relaxed he actually looks cute. No sneer on his features and his eyes crinkled in a smile, a real smile, perfect white teeth. I don't even try to block out the thoughts of how it might feel to have his pink lips wrapped around my cock. A few years ago I would have been so confused about my attraction to him but not now, now I am well aware that I'm not exactly straight. Ginny was beautiful and strong-willed but there was a certain blonde itch that she couldn't scratch and asking her to dress up as Draco Malfoy and shove a strap-on up my ass, wouldn't cut it. So eventually we went our separate ways. I was entranced in the way his tongue flicked against his lips as he spoke, I didn't notice when we’d stopped his face was too angelic to not get trapped in his features. It wasn't until the kiss of the cool night air against my face that I realised that Draco had ripped off my invisibility cloak and was staring at me. Eyes churning with something not far from what mine were, his breath mingling with mine, it smelt like spearmint.
“Potter.” The snarl on his lips was lost on me as I took note that no-one was left on the train, that he was encasing me against the wall, one arm on either side of my head, his face still inches from mine, he was breathing heavily with dilated pupils. I raised an eyebrow.
“Malfoy, Seems to be quite the suggestive position that we’re in here” I mocked, my voice sounding foreign even to my own ears, there had been something off since i had made the decision to let the darkness in. Malfoy seemed to notice something, I could see the cogs turning in his head about what it was exactly. His stare penetrating as it bore into my brain looking for what I couldn't tell you, well other than the decision I had made the other night while trapped in a storm and trapped in my own head.
“Well Malfoy, are you going to kiss me or kill me, make a choice” my eyes rolled on their own accord as i spoke, settling back to looked into those stormy eyes, the shock registering in his face as he gripped his wand my eyes noticed the movement and fingers tightening on my own i raised it to his throat. “Make a choice” I whispered, leaning towards him so mere centimetres separated us .
Faster than lightning he struck like a cornered rattlesnake, except he did the opposite of what I had expected as his lips came crashing down on mine. His lips were soft and plump, demanding almost but it was short and hungry as he pulled away anger churning in those baby blues, I couldn't stop the smirk from crossing my features as he pulled back.
I moved, spinning him, until he was the one trapped between the wall of the carriage and my body. Pressing against him and staring down at him his eyes were nearly black, pupils blown wide, I wasn't ignorant. I knew I had filled out a lot since 5th year gone was the gangly boy who needed those broken glasses. Hermione had fixed my eyes and I had made more use of the gym than I think even Ron had, and he’d been with me most of the time. I had expected him to take the other road, to stun me and run and instead he had kissed me like a dying man with my wand cutting into his throat. I looked down on the boy between my arms, before gripping his chin with my thumb and forefinger and tilting it up so I could read his expression. Something was there, whether it was hatred or longing was lost on me as I tilted my head down so my lips were so close to his that I could feel the heat radiating off them in a taunting sort of way.
“I assume that your father won't be hearing about this then” I taunted,
he swallowed his loudly, pressing himself closer to me, his hands running up my chest, tracing the newly formed muscle there, he was shaking. I moved back looking at the boy trapped between me and the wall but what was on his face wasn't fear, it wasn't anger. No, the expression so blatantly pasted onto his face was wanting, His eyes met mine before flickering back to my lips and fluttering so delicately shut. Well shit, this Harry potter doesn't need to be told twice. Holding his face still, I leant down brushing my lips against the blondes,
“I guess not then” I murmured before letting go of him and stalking back the way I came and off the train, leaving him stunned and slumped as I strutted into the castle. Never even sparing him a second glance as I threw open the doors and began my 6th year at Hogwarts