The Veiled Boy

The rain hadn't stopped the next morning, and it didn't seem like it would any time soon. Harry, like many other Gryffindor students, sat quietly by the windows, watching the black droplets hit the windows and the darkening clouds heavy with more. Harry had been up nearly the entire night wondering what caused such an enigmatic phenomenon and grew sick at the idea it might've been Draco. If he could swallow up an entire room in shadow over a trivial matter, then surely a serious illness could bring upon a poisonous storm. 

Suddenly, the common room's door opened, and many students straightened in their seats and turned with hopeful eyes. It was Snape, and his eyes fell upon Harry. "Potter," he said sternly. "Come with me."

Harry stood and wordlessly bid his friends farewell, who looked at him with visible apprehension. The entire room stared at him with a similar pity, as if Harry were the first of many to be sacrificed into the rain. Finally, Snape closed the door behind them, and the two carried themselves quietly into the deserted corridor before he began to speak. Harry noticed the professor much more sullen than usual; his eyes were darker and his face a symphony of all spiteful feeling. 

"I know I have promised you an explanation for the rain that plagues us," Snape began, not once looking at Harry but ahead at the ominously dark hall. "Draco is ill."

Harry stopped entirely. "How? Do you mean he's had one of his fits again?"

"Yes, but when they are particularly fatal, he is liable to share his torments with others," replied the professor. 

"I have to see him, sir," Harry blurted. "I'll break the rules anyway if you don't let me! Wouldn't you prefer I don't frighten the staff with my absence? You have to let me see him!" 

"You mustn't carry such agitation with you into the room," Snape hissed. "That, I will permit. It may be good for him to see you." At that, Snape's face sank deeper into despair.

"What is it?"

"Do not fret over his state, I beg you. It may seem he's gone mad, but I assure you he always manages just fine after a while," said Snape quietly. 

Harry nodded. The two of them made for the dungeons without another word exchanged, but the anticipation of Harry's visitation loomed over them as either a potential catalyst into madness or a fateful cure. 

Once at Draco's door, Harry grew unnaturally nervous, and it reminded him of the same nervousness he'd felt when he'd first ingratiated himself with the Veiled boy. A little under twenty-four hours ago, Harry was in this very room with a lively, healthy host, who blushed and laughed at literally anything Harry did. But he rid himself of that thought, for it would only exaggerate the plunge Draco had fallen. 

Snape knocked gently on the door. The lady Harry knew as Miss Clarke opened it and bowed to the professor. She took a look at Harry and visibly hesitated. 

"The Veil?" 

"No need," replied Snape. 

Clarke nodded and opened the door wider for the two of them. "Well, he's still the very same," she said. "The second bout of screaming has yet to come." 

There are moments such as this, when the heart simply fails to beat and one's usual inviolable soul nearly crumbles at one singular sight. And for Harry, this was that moment. With his veins running with fire and his hands tremulously outstretched before him, he approached the bed almost in a grieving trance. 

It was partly the fact Draco still possessed his marvelous beauty that brought Harry to sink under his strength and almost collapse onto the bed. As if Draco's shadow had stained itself there, and the loveliness of his character would never return. There was no flush of color upon his sickly pale skin; no smile that made Harry believe angels walked on earth; no laugh with the sweetness of spring; but to haunt Harry most of all, there was nothing in his eyes—those eyes that held all earthly blessings and glittered like terrestrial stars. They were dark, almost black now, and at the sight of it, a new, insurmountable, almost physical sickness gained possession of Harry. 

"Merlin, what have you done to yourself?" Harry breathed and gently placed his hands on Draco's face. Unnervingly cold. 

"I'm sure he is very pleased with your visit," said Miss Clarke as she prepared some medicinal potions nearby. "Do not fret over him," she said sweetly. "I assure you he is still in there and would be very, very embarrassed if you'd begun to fuss." 

"Draco gets embarrassed over the most trivial things; he must be embarrassed now that I've even come to see him like this," whispered Harry. The governess laughed. 

"You two must be close," she said, still laughing. "Let me assume so, for he never once stopped speaking of you when I'd seen him for Yule."

Harry managed a small smile, but the sentiment only furthered the stake being driven into his heart. "I guess he's fond of me."

"Fond! Do not dilute his affections with that word," said Miss Clarke. "Isn't that right, Draco? Oh, the scornful look he would give you now for saying he is merely fond of you." 

Harry looked back to Draco as if expecting his visage to change, but it remained possessed by a dull catatonia. His chest constricted painfully. "Don't be mad at me," he whispered to his friend. "You know I like to tease you." 

No reply. 

"Do you mind keeping an eye on him, Harry?" Miss Clarke began, waving an empty vial in the air. "I need to pick up a refill." She must've seen his visible reluctance to be left alone with so sickly a boy because she gave him a gentle smile. "Do not worry. Draco won't do anything. Not when he's like this."

"I-I'm not so afraid of him as I am afraid of not being able to help him if he started screaming again," said Harry. 

"I wouldn't worry about that; his catatonia should last another five or six hours before his screaming starts again. But if he should recover quickly, I would give him a drop of this calming drought," she handed Harry a blue vial. "Severus, I haven't a clue how to navigate this castle; be a gentleman and lead me to the infirmary."

Snape gave Harry a weary glance but left with the governess without a word. It was just Harry and Draco in the room now, and despite his company, Harry felt so dreadfully alone. Putting the blue vial safely in his pocket, he moved closer to Draco and took his pale hand from the bed and placed it in his own. Harry remembered how remarkable Draco had looked when he'd kissed that very hand—the way Draco's eyes glistened and his whole body melted under his touch. How precious that moment seemed now in the face of sickness. 

"I know it hasn't even been a day, but I kind of miss you, you know?" Harry began, still holding his friend's hand. "By this time, I've convinced you to do something stupid, and you're scolding me for it. Maybe I'd told you there's a secret passageway in the broom closet again, and you believe me. And because it's so dark in there, you don't realize I'd lied to you until you ran into the back wall." Harry managed a small smile. "Or maybe I'd tell you to knock on some wall to reveal an ancient scroll, and you'd knock on every brick before you'd found out I'd been joking again. And because you've become so vexed with me, you'd knock on my head and call my stupid as if I were the one who believed the silly lie." Harry laughed now and squeezed Draco's hand tightly. "You're so precious, Draco. Don't know you that? I'm sure your parents tell you all the time; I hope you know I think so too." With that, Harry repeatedly placed slow kisses on Draco's hand, confiding in their privacy and the delicacy of the latter's feelings. 

Despite having kissed Draco's hand more so for the sake of Draco, Harry's own breast swelled up with great happiness as if he'd transported himself back on yesterday's divan. Half-expecting to hear Draco's words of endearing fluster, Harry stupidly hoped he—who, at this gesture, was overcome by so great an emotion—would finally break free from his fetters of terror. He placed a kiss on the knuckle—the smoothness almost intoxicating—his palm, his wrist, and even his forearm, hoping to extract a single word from Draco. But he was met with nothing but silence. 

"Yesterday," Harry whispered, still holding Draco's hand close to his lips. "You said no respectable Veiled man would kiss his friend on the cheek. You were smiling as you said it and blushing too, as if you wanted me to do it anyway. Well, I am not a Veiled man, nor a respectable one at that." 

Harry cupped Draco's face and gently placed a soft, gentle kiss on the boy's cheek. The bliss from his hand still braced him with its passionate vigor, and Harry blushed himself as if he were the recipient. He could not bear to remove himself so easily; the feeling the kiss produced was almost medicinal, for the frustration of not having received a response disappeared and gave way to an unnatural high. Oh, but Harry hoped more than ever that Draco could feel the tremendous sensation. The face so soft under his lips and hand, so beautiful in its appearance. Harry could only imagine how lovely it would be to see Draco blush and laugh with childish confusion. He kissed his cheek again, softer this time, his lips lingering longer now, and his thumb gently caressing the Draco's jaw. 

Draco's hands—previously limp and inert—slowly carried themselves from the quilted blanket and planted themselves onto the sides of Harry's face. Harry froze, and all of the fervent bliss dissipated into utter terror. The air had shifted entirely from a melancholic sweetness to the heaviness of a looming threat. Those movements, indeed true in their imitation of his friend, carried not their usual amiability but were slow with an undertone of ill-placed wickedness. Harry trembled now with an unfamiliar distress, his breathing erratic and his cold, perspiring body unable to move. With a quick glance toward Draco's eyes, he'd seen a steady incandescence of silver, unnaturally bright and tempting to behold in its entirety. But Harry—having known the terrible fate one suffers by giving into this temptation—shut his eyes tightly. Through his thin eyelids, he could see the fatal light glowing still. Draco's cold hands gripped his head tightly with a faux gentility and forced him closer. 

Won't the governess return? Harry prayed quietly, his eyes still glued shut but becoming unnaturally weak by the second. What have I done to bring on his defense? Was the kiss so dreadful that he felt threatened by it? Was my kiss of simple affection as abhorrent as wishing to circulate pictures of Draco's young, unwilling face? Harry thought of this and more, wanting his torment to be over and deeply regretting almost everything he'd done in the last hour. But his heart was still heavy for his ailing friend. Harry could only imagine the inner turmoil Draco suffered now, knowing he could potentially send his only friend into madness and having absolutely no will to overcome it. 

Open your eyes, came a thought. I'm immune to such curses, aren't I? And if Dumbledore sensed my innate combative ability, then surely he must be right. After all, he'd been right about Draco's unnatural gift. Harry did not want to spend what felt like an eternity with his head bowed and his eyes screwed shut. He did not want Draco—stuck and helpless in his own body—to suffer the anticipation of ruining Harry's life. 

It's okay," said Harry quietly, his voice trembling pathetically under the weight of Draco's lethal gaze. "You've fallen ill; that's all this is. It passes, doesn't it?" The boy made no reply. Harry exhaled his own torment and acted as if nothing at all ailed him—nothing at all. "And before school lets out for summer, we can go to Hogsmeade one last time. You'll write me right?" Harry's voice nearly failed him. "Maybe you can come visit me if your parents let you."

"I will open my eyes now. Nothing will happen to me, I don't think. And promise me you will never, ever blame yourself if I go mad." Still came no reply, but Harry could still perceive the silver light before him. So, with resolution brought on by a short burst of impulsive bravery, Harry opened his eyes and stared into his once cherubic friend's. 

The consequence of this impulsiveness came almost instantaneously in the form of an unnatural pull inward and an unearthly chill enveloping the whole of him. For a second, Harry was certain he'd gone blind. It seemed there was absolutely nothing before him but a dreadful white light, such that even when he'd blinked or widened his eyes, he could not escape its tightening grip. But soon he was overcome with a lofty sensation of being thrown miles into the sky and held stagnant there. Harry would not fall; of that, he was oddly certain. 

"Harry Potter," came a wicked voice. Harry's building confidence crumbled immediately at the voice of Voldemort. Am I not immune? Will I see my death now at the hands of that man? "I see you," he hissed, almost laughing now. "Do you see me?"

The white light gave way to darkness, and Harry found himself standing in the middle of a dark but tastefully decorated drawing room. Bordering the richly tall windows were silk curtains lined with exquisite studded jewels that twinkled under the healthy glow of the moon. At the center stood gilded seats fashioned with gold and Chinese silk; in them, Voldemort was seated. Harry felt his heart still under his apprehension, and he'd caught himself from retreating to save himself from making a sound. The room was deathly quiet in spite of the feeble hums of the swinging pendulum and the pop of a burning log. 

"Do you see me, Potter?" Voldemort said again, standing slowly but not yet facing Harry. "Have you discovered the heir's awful secret? Hm? Willing to go mad now, are we?" 

"No," Harry whispered finally. His voice came out a lot steadier than he'd anticipated. "I won't go mad. It's not in me."

Voldemort let out a condescending laugh that echoed against the absurdly high ceilings. "They say you're invincible to such things, don't they?" He finally turned to face him, his nostrils flaring with false amusement. Harry winced at the ugliness of the man. "Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Isn't that right?" Voldemort let out another laugh. "So our Savior think he can resist Malfoy's curse!”

"I do."

"You do! Ah, you, maybe you are not as bright as the press lauds you!" Voldemort slowly approached him, licking his lips and holding his hands out before him. "And what ails our Draco if not before your eyes now?" 

"What do you mean?"

"Well, should I keep it a secret or shall I tell him now?" Voldemort said to an imaginary audience. "Let me show you." With that, the snake-like man's jaw fell limp, and from his rotten mouth came billows of thick smoke. Before Harry could step away, it swallowed him whole. 

When he'd regained his sight, Harry found himself again in the drawing room, as dismal as it had been, but this time, accompanied by a ferocious storm that battered the windows. The Dark Lord was there, but accompanied by a very fascinating young couple. Quickly, Harry recognized them to be Draco's parents, and not having seen his mother before, he was almost enchanted by her beauty, and it became no wonder how Draco could have surpassed all of his peers in both grace and arresting allure. But the scene before him was painfully grim, with both man and wife holding each other closely; Narcissa was weeping in the arms of her husband, trembling under the gaze of her Lord.

"Without an heir?" Voldemort hissed, pacing the room as if it were his own. "That cannot do! Why have you picked so incapable a woman, Lucius? Does genius stop where the heart beats?"

"My Lord, my wife is nothing short of brilliant. I beg you not to embarrass her, for she is my saving grace." Lucius's voice was stern and bold against his master, and Harry was overcome with an anticipatory nervousness for him. 

But Voldemort did not seem at all appalled by the sudden act of mutiny. "Ah, Lucius! But I know better than to insult your concubine, for it was her hand you've spilled the very blood that gave you life."

"They did not approve."

Voldemort snorted, his slitting nostrils flaring. "It seems your parents did not approve of anything you did, Lucius. Is that why you've chosen so barren a woman? Are you much too afraid to become like your father?" 

"Let me remind you, sir, it was I who brought you to power! Without me, you'd be collecting knuts for a recital of the Book," Lucius scolded, drawing his wand and thrusting it toward Voldemort's throat. 

"That is no way to speak to your benefactor." Voldemort finally smiled and revealed the rotten state of his teeth. 

"My benefactor? You?"

"I needed your influence, your imperium, to exact my reign. That, I have successfully begun, and I've promised you your crown, have I not? But if I am to be their Lord, why do I leave their leaders barren and desolate? Now, tell your lovely concubine to stop her weeping. A solution I will gift you."

Narcissa's eyes widened, and she stood with her hands clasped against her breast, unable to speak and trembling in fervent prayer. "My Lord, do not deceive so fragile a woman! Do you really have a solution?"

"I do." Voldemort laughed loudly and held his arms out wide. "Why, I've had a splendid dream as of late! A beautiful angel with extraordinary power came to me in the land of slumber—so divine a face that I have never witnessed before in a child. He came to me with an indescribable air of naivety and innocence, and just as I nearly turned away—for sheer goodness bores me—he set the entire world aflame! Your heir, my dearest followers, will be our prince." In a burst of hysteria, Voldemort held his hands outstretched toward the fresco-painted ceiling. "I see him now," he whispered. "I sense his power! I sense it here before he's stepped foot!" Voldemort ceased his paroxysm of excitement and turned to the couple, who stared at him with incredulous curiosity. 

"So, let us make a deal."

The black smoke whirled around the room and stole Harry from furthering his building interest in the scene. And once his vision was restored, he found himself yet again in the drawing room, this time lit up with crystalline lighting and generously filled with a lively crowd. By the window, some curious musicians played hypnotic jazz, but the music was only second to the robust conversations being had. 

Harry turned to two men who stood by the Parian hearth with champagne in their hands. The bearded man—whose cheeks were red with intoxication and had hardly any neck—raised his glass toward his friend—his lanky stature awkwardly towered over the former. 

"The child is rumored to be of an extraordinary sort," said the fat man, spitting as the word 'extraordinary' left his meaty lips. "The Dark Lord seeks protection from this unborn infant, it seems." 

"Protection from an infant, you say? What sort?" asked the taller man. 

"Why, I haven't a clue! It was just a guess; you ought to see how frantic the Lord is over the couple."

"Maybe he wishes for the heir to be his own predecessor."

"And to be the Lord's predecessor means there is something extraordinary about that unborn boy," said the fat man. 

"I dare say!" 

Quicker than before, the smoke swallowed Harry up, and he'd been unwillingly transported to a dismal hall. Harry was now in the center of a suffocating crowd; he was tossed to the side and nearly trampled by fanatical Veiled witches and wizards. Finally, he managed to hold himself steady on one of the many pillars and dissected the scene more closely. It was a vast, stately hall with a high dome top and lined with marble pillars but with no other particular decoration. The Veiled crowd cheered toward the front, where there'd been a large set of doors on a higher platform. Harry recognized Professor Snape standing cautiously at the front, almost as uncomfortable as he. 

Finally, the doors opened, and Lucius came forth holding a small, wailing infant. Then came a shake of the room so great as if the foundations were on the verge of collapse. The crowd began to weep and shriek with fanatical bliss; their hands were outstretched toward the baby, which was held high above them, almost as a physical display of his magical and social superiority. Nausea overtook Harry, for the scene was too intense in its gross seduction of rank, and he'd held firmly onto the pillar to ease the bout of dizziness that strained him. Is this how the madness begins? he wondered fearfully. Is this how I lose myself?

"The heir! Our child!" They screamed. "Pure child! Let us caress him and bless him! Give him here!"

Harry felt his palms slip on the smooth stone, and he'd fallen into the black sea of self-designated servitude. 

When his eyes opened again, Harry was weak with exhaustion, as if each scene stole a large chunk of himself. But he regretted to find himself back at the very start: alone with Voldemort in that dreadful drawing room. 

"You have no power against me, Potter," he cooed, circling Harry in heavy pats. "Have you no idea the psychological terrorism I am now capable of? Fool, every wizard may live without his body, but what use to me is a shell? Don't you see how powerless you are now against me?" Voldemort laughed, his breath hot against Harry's shivering neck. "I know your pathetic morality will never hold a wand against the length of the heir's porcelain neck." 

"And without Draco, you'd be as powerless as I am," said Harry bitterly, hating to utter such a lovely name before a wicked man. "But Draco cannot hurt me. He will not hurt me. Just the same way you could not either," he whispered angrily.

Voldemort recoiled and hissed angrily, clutching onto the gilded furniture. "Even if you cannot crumble at the hands of the prince, I, at the center of the maddened screams of your pathetic circle, will slaughter you myself!" 

"I ask you if you are as immune to the curse of the heir as I am." 

"You contemptible half-blood!" Voldemort screamed. "Have you not just seen the ties between me and the heir?! I gave his family their rightful position higher than they were! Wealth, rank, and honor bestowed upon them at my hand for his protection! His! And you so confidently believe I ought to have asked myself such a stupid question? I cannot go mad!" 

"You're deluded by power and thirst for purity. You're a contemptible half-blood as I am, just not as powerful." 

Then, with disagreeable haste, Voldemort reached into his robes and procured his wand, thrusting it into Harry's direction. Before the man could utter the killing curse, Harry felt himself being violently pulled away toward the wall. With him, the drawing room unnaturally warped and elongated; the great flash of green could never quite reach him. Harry could only watch helplessly the curse mere inches away from robbing him of everything. Then he was freed. 

Harry finally broke through a thick, gelatin-like wall and found himself suspended in that same heavenly white as before. How his heart pounded violently in this moment with his screams still premature in his throat. That nothingness, as serene in its impression of forever, soon materialized as Draco's hands on his face, Harry's body on the quilted mattress, and a violent pull by strong, vigorous hands.

"Potter!" Came Snape's voice. Harry blinked to find the professor bent worriedly over him, shaking him intensely with both hands. "Can you hear me, Potter?"

"Yeah," Harry managed. "I can." 

"You're conscious," breathed Snape, utterly perplexed now. "You're completely fine."

Beyond his bewilderment, Harry staggered to his feet and cautiously observed his ailing friend. Draco was shrieking in the arms of his governess, holding her tightly. "Not Harry! Not Harry! Why, but I loved him! I loved him!" 

"Oh, he hasn't gone mad! Look!" Miss Clarke pointed at Harry with disbelief. "Your grace, your friend stands in good health before you! Why don't you look and forgive yourself as soon as you can?" She shook Draco out of her arms and practically forced him to face Harry. 

Despite the weight of terror he'd bore witness to within the eyes of Draco, Harry felt sanity now more than ever. A final tear rolled from Draco's eyes and left a glittering silver streak along his face, and, like an immense burst of light, a beautiful smile stole the grief from him entirely. 

Draco's heart was as golden as the sun, as pure as the air, and as ever-changing as the trees. Before Harry was a boy who had been selfishly planted in a grim landscape; perhaps there were factories nearby, polluting the air to augment the suffering of any living being. But underneath the soot were leaves of green, roots deep enough to reach the pure waters of beyond, and branches tall enough to penetrate the everlasting fortress of darkness. Draco was planted there, but by no means did he belong.