The Moonlit Waltz
"Why must you remain so secretive, child?" The man smiled and showed all of his teeth. "I, too, am a pure-blood. It offends me greatly that you conceal your face before me, child."
"Are you really?"
"Yes, I am."
Draco, who'd been most uneasy about being alone with this man, felt the only way to be rid of him was to ease his curiosity. What a terrible sight to see! The man's yellowing teeth and balding head, his coarse white shirt, and his ill-fitted waistcoat—he had a large wart near the left side of his mouth. They all dress this way, thought Draco, especially those who are bloated with drink.
"Then why did father have you walk in behind the others? Pure-bloods walk first."
"Your father has been most vexed with me," said the man. "He meant to insult me by doing so."
"Oh."
"Go on," he pressed. "I'd like to see your lovely face now."
Draco's little hands reached for the hem of the Veil and he'd slowly lifted it from his face, feeling the room's coolness on his young face.
The man's eyes widened, and he smiled gaily, showing Draco the grotesque state of his teeth once again. "What a beautiful child you are," he breathed, inching closer. His mouth twisted into something Draco could not grasp. It was a little mean, maybe. "And I am able to see you before the Viewing."
"What do you mean?" Draco wondered, his little heart quickening.
The man's hands reached for his face. Draco wished to pull away, but he'd been suffering from paralysis. He could feel the man's sausage-like fingers tangle themselves in his hair. All of a sudden, the man laughed loudly. It echoed.
"Why must you laugh?" Draco asked, trying to free his head from the man's strong grip. "Let me go! Let me go! Mama! Papa!"
"I've seen a Veiled child!" The man gripped Draco's blonde hair tightly and spoke in a sing-song tone. "I've seen the young Malfoy heir! Ha! It serves your lot right! Weep, you hellish spawn; I was born to muggle parents, and I've seen you!"
Draco thrashed in the man's arm, but his strong, determined hands held his head stationary as his eyes stared into his own. The man laughed louder still, his plump face turning red, and his spit now on Draco's face.
"Mama!" Draco weeped. In his chest, there had been a bitterness that had been unearthed. Bitterness toward whom he could not tell, perhaps towards his own parents for allowing this atrocity to take place. "Ma-"
"Silence!" The grip on his head tightened. "You stay still."
The man took a fistful of Draco's hair, and with his free hand, he'd reached into his pocket and slowly pulled out a camera. "A Veiled child for all to see," he soliloquized, grinning with malicious intent. "Could you imagine the profit one could make off of your portrait, Malfoy?"
"Mama!"
Suddenly, Draco had been overcome by some unquenchable rage, most unnatural for a child as young as he. It came like a wave, and now Draco had been drowning in it, unable to take a breath. Behind his eyes was a foreign sensation; it was cool and severely uncomfortable. The moment he'd felt that, he'd lost control entirely; it had been like he'd been locked out of his own soul, and all he could be was a mere spectator of himself.
"What are you doing?" The man looked up from his camera and locked eyes with Draco. "Your eyes are silver now; wonderful! I've never seen a child so beau—"
The man's face drooped in utter shock, and slowly, his face twisted and morphed into something unnatural. Draco's own breathing quickened, for he too was unable to decipher the events unfolding before him. Finally, the man released Draco's hair, throwing the young boy to the floor.
The man wailed; his fat hands went to his face, scratching and clawing at his eyes. His terrorized voice pervaded the entire manor; it rattled the windows and the little heart in Draco's chest. Blood from the man's sockets and cheekbones splattered brightly on the white floor.
Draco watched in horror as the man bashed his head against the arm of their gold-detailed sofa and then threw himself against the pallid stone mantle, grabbing hold of it and thrusting his head forward against it again and again. For the entirety of his wretched scene, the man had still been screaming, and Draco wondered how there'd been any voice left.
Draco had not noticed this, but there'd been a pounding on the door. The bolt shot out and clattered loudly on the Persian rug. His father rushed in and instinctively ran toward Draco, who'd still been paralyzed on the floor.
"Get this wretch out of my house!" His father grabbed Draco and pulled the Veil over his face, holding him tightly against his chest.
"What's the matter with Podgers?" Severus rushed in, pointing his wand at the man, who'd been banging his head against the wallpaper.
"Get it out of my head!" The man screamed. "What have you done?! Get it out of my head! Kill me, child! Finish the job!"
Draco would never forget the look on his mother's face upon hearing this. She'd been terrified by the entire ordeal, yes, but this allusion to some unknown power scared her too; perhaps she'd been scared of Draco.
His father set Draco down on his feet and stared at him through the Veil. His gray eyes were dark with utter contempt, not towards him, Draco believed, but was still unsure.
"Did you do something to the man?" Father asked, his voice stern.
"I think so," Draco whispered. "I think I made him go mad."
Draco awoke with a gasp, sitting upright in the subterranean darkness of his room while clawing at his own face. A cool drop of sweat fell from the point of his nose and onto the blankets. His heart had been beating wildly in his chest, and his breathing itself threatened to choke him.
Instinctively, Draco grabbed the black Veil that had been neatly folded on his side table, kissed it with fervent affection, and threw it over his head. The thin fabric remedied his ailments; no longer was he stuck in a seemingly perpetual free fall. Of course, the physical symptoms of his attack had not yet gone, and Draco understood that sleep would remain unrealized.
So he stood, holding onto his bedpost, to recover from an onslaught of dizziness that overtook him. Draco became distinctly aware of his own gradually increasing fatigue, for this had been the third night in a row where he'd awoken from the scene. Slowly, he'd left his dormitory and walked in the darkness.
The castle was dangerously quiet. Through the stone-detailed columns, the moonlight lay across the corridor floors and left an amusing little pattern before him. There was something comforting about the emptied halls of Hogwarts. During the day, he'd been overly conscious of the looks he'd received and the way people practically lunged away from his field of view. But that night, when there was not a soul around, the castle proved to be his own sanctuary of silence.
Draco navigated the darkened corridors, finally making it to the school's astronomy wing. It'd been quite the journey he made, and yet he'd still been unable to shake the residual terror from his dream. The walking hadn't sufficiently distracted him, and he'd been afraid that nothing could ever help him.
Suddenly, from the neighboring wall, a deep rumble shook the floor, and from it emerged an outline of a door. Draco slowly approached it, his weary hand outstretched before him. A door. Anxious was he of new places; its ominous grandeur and appearance almost prompted him to take leave of it. But more than his caution, he'd always been a curious child, so he'd figured that if Hogwarts had never been a place of dark magic—stressed many times by his own professors—then perhaps such a door could only lead towards something safe. Fortifying himself with these reflections, he grabbed a torch from the wall and pushed the towering doors open with one great heave.
A grand room it was. Tall windows lined the walls, and from them, the silver light from the moon lay itself across the entirety of it. Across the stone floor lay a silken Persian carpet, skillfully woven from expensive material solely for Draco. Sensationally rich tapestries hung formally along the walls, accented with strands of gold that glittered in the moonlight. Draco stepped in, amazed by the material beauty of the room, circling many times in an attempt to take it all in. From a window, in came a faint perfume of his adored osmanthus blossoms. Draco smiled. He'd been bewitched by the divinity of it all.
At the very center, perhaps Draco had been much too preoccupied with the decorations to notice, was a grand piano—the very same that sat in the drawing room of his home. His luminous hand caressed the polished wood where Podgers was supposed to have made a dent, but it was not there; the piano had forgotten it entirely, and maybe Draco ought to have too.
Consumed with a childlike giddiness, Draco sat himself down and lifted the lid, letting out a breathy laugh at the sight of the ivory keys before him. "Mother, father," he said, turning to the empty sofa with fantastically gilded buttons. "Let me play for you a waltz: Chopin's waltz no. 2 in A minor op. 34, Valse Brillante, one of your favorites, mother."
Draco turned back to the piano and began to play. The piano produced such a clear, melodic sound that Draco's smile widened beneath the Veil. He could hear nothing but the piano. Podgers's screams became an afterthought; the dream buried itself somewhere deep in his mind, where the moonlit waltz could not reach it.
He swayed with the song, losing himself completely in the euphoric melody, his powerful hands moving at their own will. The room was still lovelier, and Draco, who'd stared at the ceiling while playing, felt a tear escape his eye and soak itself in the Veil. Much too happy was he, for it'd been a terribly long while since he'd felt himself liberated from the fetters of memory.
"What are you playing?"
Draco screamed and leapt from the piano bench. With a trembling hand, he raised his wand, turning in his place in desperate search for the origin of the voice.
"Who's there?" Draco called out, his voice tremulous and pathetically high. "I've gone mad," he whispered.
"You play well." Potter's head appeared before him, unattended by a neck or a body at that.
The scene startled Draco so badly that he'd let out a yell and fell to the ground. Potter's body suddenly appeared accordingly under his head, and he'd tossed to the ground a cloak.
"Merlin, did I scare you that bad?" Potter asked, kneeling in front of Draco.
Draco, who'd been ready to sink under his apprehensions, stared at the latter with great disbelief and severe contempt. "You insolent, depraved man! You rejoice in my suffering, do you?! Why, I am hardly surprised!"
Draco scrambled to his feet and left the room with great haste. To his great disappointment, Potter had been following him. "Wait, Draco," he hissed. "Come back! I actually wanted to speak with you."
"Why have you the right to tell me what to do? You've just startled me greatly; I'm not at all inclined to listen!"
"Shh!" Potter grabbed his cloak and pushed Draco against the wall, covering them both with surprising ease.
"Get off of me, you wretched—"
Potter put his hand on Draco's face, finding his mouth under the Veil and thus silencing him with pressure. Draco had been so greatly offended by this that he'd debated whether to bite the latter and draw blood, but he'd dropped the matter entirely when he'd seen the man.
The man was bent awkwardly, wearing tattered and offensively dirtied clothing. His hair was draped over his shoulders in greasy clumps, and his wrinkly face twisted as it scanned the empty corridors. "Who's there, huh? I heard yah! I heard yah yapping! Who's getting expelled tonight?!"
Expelled?! Expelled for simply taking a walk? Kievount was hardly this strict, thought Draco, remembering how cherished he'd been as their student. Slowly, Potter removed his hand from Draco's mouth, and the two of them watched the man stagger away into the neighboring room, grumbling as he did so.
"That was Filch," said Potter quietly. "He patrols the halls at night; I'm surprised you haven't been caught yet. Why're you out, anyway?"
Draco could hardly look into Potter's green eyes, for he'd been much too close, and that'd made him terribly nervous. It was true; Draco thought him very handsome, and his handsomeness came solely from his disorder. Potter wasn't at all well-kept. In fact, if any guest had shown up to his own dining table with Potter's posture, hair, and unbuttoned shirt, his mother might faint from utter embarrassment. And Draco, too, would have been greatly offended. Unusually, though, Draco found that he wore his disorder well, and that was refreshingly charming.
But even more so, Draco wondered why Potter had seemed so friendly. Their last exchange could not have meant any cordiality between them. Draco, who'd been suffering with the loss of a potential friend, fortified himself with the facts: Potter didn't want to be his friend. It was simple—disheartening, yes, but simple in its very nature.
"Malfoy, what are you doing out so late?" Potter asked again.
"I just wished for a leisurely stroll. I had a bad dream, that's all."
"What about?"
"You certainly have no right to concern yourself with my business," Draco said hurriedly, his face hot with vexation. "Now, if you please, this proximity is most disgraceful."
Potter let out a laugh and stepped away, pulling the cloak off of their heads. "Why is it most disgraceful, Malfoy? Because you're afraid you'll fall in love with me, and that would make dear mother upset, wouldn't it?"
Draco blushed. Never before had he been confronted with such a thing! And it prompted a terrible ache in his heart that Draco deemed to be mere anxiety. But it infected his entire being still, and he'd wished to be without it. Draco turned on his heel and started back toward his room, his face burning.
"Malfoy, wait, I'm sorry." Potter ran up to him and grabbed his shoulder. "I'd just been teasing you. I'm sorry, okay? Don't be upset with me; I hate it when you're upset with me."
"Why? Do you fear for your own safety? When I am angry, do you tremble before me like all the others?"
"What? No! Come on, Malfoy, you know I'm not scared of you. I just don't like it is all. You're amusing when you're in a good mood."
"A lot more amusing for you, am I? Is that all you've reduced me to? Well, I hardly become intolerable on my own! My anger is almost always your doing, so do not tell me when to be upset! And why are you suddenly so concerned with my mood? In your words, I am not to count on your friendship! How terribly rude you'd been to me then!"
"Yes, I know. It was a nasty thing to say, and it wasn't at all true," said Potter. "Look, that day, you'd gotten upset with me because I made a simple joke. You're always getting upset when I tease you. I'm trying to be friendly, you know? I poke fun at all of my friends. So, when you snapped at me, I was discouraged and lashed out."
Draco looked at him and studied his face. Potter's green eyes implored him to speak; his face was that of extreme lofty expectation, and there wasn't anything like deception in it. Well, what do I know about deception? I've fallen victim to it before.
"You've changed your mind, then?"
"Yes." Potter nodded eagerly, moving closer to him. "If anything, I've never had my mind set on anything but being your friend. We've gotten off to a bad start, but I'll make it up to you."
"I hardly see how. You deride the Book, term my mother mad, and mock my intonation. How could I possibly believe you'd merely been friendly? You must believe me to be a fool; that I will act against my better judgment for anyone's company." Draco said this, yes, but in his heart was something like hysterical ecstasy at Potter's offer. Have I done it? Have I acquired a real, breathing friend? A handsome one too! Not at all well dressed, but he is awfully handsome! Silence! He may be deceiving you! Oh, yes! Let not his words tempt you, Draco, for on your desperate loneliness he may prey!
"You're right. I'm sorry for all of it, really," Potter replied. "I won't ask you to forgive me, but if you could give me another chance to make it up to you, you'll see that I'm being sincere."
Draco felt a dreadful blush on his face, and he'd been eternally grateful for the Veil's covering it. "I'm hardly capable of accepting at the moment," he said, much too conflicted and confused to produce a coherent thought.
"I understand," said Potter. "Will you come with me anyway? I wanna show you something. Maybe I can change your mind."
"You're much too hasty to lure me somewhere. Let it be known, I am still weary of you, and I suspect you may be deceiving me even now despite your speech."
"Deceiving you? Malfoy, I'm not going to play a nasty trick on you. What's gotten your silken knickers in a twist? What do you think I'm going to do to you anyway?" Potter asked, smiling with growing unease.
"I've seen the young Malfoy heir! Ha! Serves your lot right! Weep, you hellish spawn; I was born to muggle parents and I've seen you!"
"Malfoy?" Potter took a step forward and outstretched his hand towards him. "What's the matter? Are you alright? Do you need help?”
Draco moved away, his breathing erratic and unsteady.
"Could you imagine the profit one could make off of your portrait, Malfoy?"
Draco felt completely alone; his mind was imprinted with the terrifying memories unearthed by his dream. They'd come flooding back, and he'd felt like he was drowning. With great consternation, Draco stepped back once again, turned, and ran ere the shadows take him again.
Draco sat idly on the cobbled wall where students seldom walked and stared at the group of kids flying brooms and throwing balls in the courtyard. Perhaps if he'd been less of a coward last night and accepted Potter's friendship, he'd have been playing too. 'Proper Veiled children do not fly on brooms.' His mother's voice rang loudly in his head. Even if Draco did not fly, he'd be allowed to keep score, and the players would flatter him for his favor. Draco smiled to himself but was rid of it immediately upon thinking of his missed opportunity. It was a deep-seated pain. There was nothing he'd desired more than to be Potter's friend, and yet again, his terrible nerves ruined it for him. Curse his nerves!
What would they be up to now if he'd accepted? Draco thought of his herbology class, where he'd taken to listening in on the conversations being had by the girls who sat in front of him. What odd things were being talked about by people his age! Romance and disagreeable affections seemed to sit uppermost in their minds. Would Potter have liked to converse about snogging? What would Draco have contributed anyway? Snogging was a foreign concept to Draco, almost like a faraway land he'd been silently curious about but dared not to inquire about. Maybe it's a good thing I did not accept his offer, thought Draco. Perhaps I am much too young in spirit to keep up with the interests of the modern teenager. Despite this resolution, Draco was hardly capable of feeling anything other than great chagrin.
"There you are."
Draco turned to find his godfather stepping over the uneven ground. Severus situated himself beside Draco on the wall, visibly agitated by its state.
"I've been looking for you, Draco," he said. Severus followed Draco's gaze toward the playing students and heaved a great sigh. "I take it you've yet to make a friend."
"Indeed."
"The faculty is trying their best to calm everyone down; our attempts prove feeble against the cyclical nature of rumors. Do you really wish to befriend someone outside of the Veiled? Nobody at this school wishes for that life, Draco. You know how scrupulous and suffocating it can be."
"I dare not utter a word against the Veil," whispered Draco, finally tearing his eyes from the game. "Befriending someone half-blooded will do. Pure-bloods without the cover may be just as bad as mudbloods, anyway. You've befriended my father, and you hardly partake in our practices.”
"You're right."
"But I've had a chance at friendship, Severus," Draco said. "Potter offered to be my companion, but I'd run away."
"Why?"
"Well, I'd been ailing with intense paranoia after I dreamt of Podgers, and found it terribly difficult to trust him. But I'd wanted nothing more than to accept; I was willing but unable," explained Draco.
Severus adopted a look of subtle surprise and turned to face Draco entirely. "What did Potter say to you exactly?"
"That he'd always had his mind set on being my friend; his teases and jests had merely been an awful attempt at amusing me. Why? Do you believe he was being dishonest?"
"No." Severus shook his head and gave Draco a quick smile. "I am simply looking out for you, Draco. You know I care deeply for you."
"That I know. Be it also known then, in regard to his requisition, he'd sounded very eager, Severus. Potter was much too apologetic and almost as desperate as I! Curious, isn't it? Do you think he is grieving the loss of friendship too? Should I pursue him now?"
"No," Severus said sternly. Draco recoiled at the austerity of his tone. "If Potter wishes to be your friend as severely as you say, then let him come back to you."
"And if he never asks again?"
"Then you'd be rid of a lowly, unworthy friend. Trust me, Draco. You're much too young to be dealing with petty scandals," said Severus.
Draco nodded and returned his gaze toward the lively game once again. "I'd like to be left alone now, Severus; I hope you do not mind," said he, feeling great sorrow overtake him.
Severus stood once again and eyed Draco for a considerable amount of time. Very quickly, his godfather placed a kiss on the top of his head before retreating back into the castle.
His own heart ached as he stared longingly at the group of kids in the courtyard. As expected, warm tears erupted in his eyes and traveled down his unseen face. Draco cried softly on the wall as he'd inwardly resigned himself before a fate of perpetual solitude. And of this solitude, he is obliged to accept, for there would be nothing more mortally wounding than to leave the Veil for a simple game of ball. But good God, does that game look fun!
Severus paced the headmaster's office in a state of terrible agitation. In him raged a fierce battle of emotions. He'd been possessed by this distress the moment he'd learned of Harry's pursuit of Draco's companionship.
"Then what do you wish for me to do about it, Severus?" The headmaster asked calmly, sipping from a porcelain cup as loudly as the elders typically do. "Do you wish for me to pull Harry from his task? And then what? Let your godson succumb to his predetermined obligation as a Death Eater? Goodness, Severus, did you not beg me to admit him for this very reason? You yourself believed wholeheartedly that the boy would never make it as a murderer, and yet here you are paralyzed by some paroxysmal agitation!"
"Do you understand me at all, Albus?" Severus stopped his pacing and turned toward the headmaster. "Yes, every word you've uttered remains true, and there's nothing I wish for more than Draco's idleness. But for him to be involved on our side is much too great of a requisition! Should the Veiled discover his betrayal, they'll cleanse him!"
"Then which is it, Severus?" Albus set down the cup on the table before him and stood to face him. "You must choose to live with the Veiled or without them. Draco will never be idle, don't you know? If he remains on their side, he will be forced to commit atrocities that his good soul will never recover from. There's no idleness in a time of war, Severus. It's us or them."
Severus fell helplessly onto the sofa and buried his face in his hands. "Children should never be involved in such things," he said quietly to himself. "What wretched being is man?"
"Yes," Albus said, situating himself again on the sofa. "But I'm afraid that is the way it has to be. Either I quit my ambitions with him and he loses his purity before he has a chance to grow up, or we give him another option and let him choose."
"Choose between Harry and his parents?"
"To choose between great personal freedom or comfort at the cost of his soul, He is not yet aware of what he has in store for him should Tom Riddle rise again, and I take it he will not be at all keen on it."
"Yes, I am certain he will suffer greatly in their hands," whispered Severus, his heart still aching. "And I also believe his parents would defect if something were to happen to Draco."
"Certain?"
"Perhaps," Severus said, lifting his head from his hands. "Lucius told me himself, well, in not so many words, he said: I am a very devout man, but to the beginning of my doom may I follow my son."
Albus thought for a while and nodded slowly to himself. "His love for his son is great; I have no doubt that Lucius would leave everything for his boy."
"And then what? Lucius may leave everything too and be cleansed. The very same fate for Narcissa?"
"You doubt their cunning," said Albus. "But we are getting ahead of ourselves, Severus; we are not yet sure what the boy will choose. We are not even sure if Draco is willing to forsake his ways. If I have your blessing to continue my pursuit of his allegiance, I promise you I will do all in my power to keep him safe."
"I had an undying obligation to protect him, no matter where his allegiance lies," whispered Severus. "I, too, will follow that boy to the end of the world."
