Author: Bell Pie toggledog@yahoo.com

Rating: R

Warnings: Contains implications of rape and child abuse.
 
 
 

A hastily uttered sleeping spell from Snape disabled the silver haired one, as he once more moved to curse Remus. I was called in to look over him, after he was deposited on Snape’s bed. I could see that the Potions Master was not happy at having Draco Malfoy in his room but Remus was able to talk him into it.

I guiltily study the dragon’s form, my mind in deep torment. How could such outward beauty hide such venomous viscera? His father’s abuse... did that justify years of abuse of his own? I recall his carefully thought out comments wringing tears from Hermione and, yes, even Ron’s eyes. His skin is flawlessly milky white. Remus had frowned at Snape’s talk of dissolving the bruises and bleeding. He had explained that pictures could have been taken for evidence. This had enraged the greasy haired teacher, who had asked what would Remus have done, upon seeing his favourite student broken, bleeding and utterly traumatized? Remus did not have an answer to that.

"Potter!"

His beauty is always undermined by his loud and drawling voice. When at its peak, it is as irritating as Snape’s raggard nails down a chalk board. It seems there was no gradual return to a waking state. He was simply sleeping peacefully one moment, shot straight up on the bed the next, eyes wild and angry.

"Snape has your wand." I explain carefully. He makes a small roar like an animal and launches himself at me, driving me back against Snape’s bedside drawer, then to the floor beneath. Although taller, I find it difficult to hold off his torrent of punches and kicks. I am finally able to roll him until he is beneath me, so I can rest my body weight on his own. This ceases his kicking legs. His flailing arms, however, are harder to control. Being effectively pinned down seems to panic him and he starts to scream for help, shouting that I am attacking him. I instantly jump up as the room is entered by six others.

"It isn’t true... sir!" My stomach does an odd somersault at the sight of Dumbledore, among the bunch of gawkers. "He was attacking me!"

"As I thought!" Snape snarled. He slunk towards me with unearthly grace. "It would appear to me, Head Master, that Potter cannot be trusted to be in the same room as Mr. Malfoy for any extended period of time."

I feel my face flush at this accusation.

"There really is no need, Snape." Dumbledore held up one hand to cease any more words. "If you would please return to the bed, Mr. Malfoy. Madam Pomfrey will check for injuries."

Snape simply stares at me a moment longer, dark eyes replent with the usual loathing. Dumbledore’s twinkling and merry blue orbs are a welcome respite.

"You are excused, Harry."

I glance back to Malfoy, who has risen to his feet and now stands before the seven of us, head raised high and proud, yet undermined by the trembling overtaking his tiny frame. I lower my head and exit the room after Percy, Oliver, Snape and Remus.
 
 

"How did you become involved?" I ask Oliver.

Percy, Oliver and I are seated at Snape’s dining table, avoiding glancing at the hypnotic fish floating around a skull shaped fish bowl centering the black teak furniture. The only other feature of the room is a large overflowing bookcase overtaking one wall. Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore are still in attendance to Malfoy. Remus and Snape have been ordered to the Ministry of Magic, in order to get a group together to enter the Malfoy residence.

"The Aurors have known for years that Lucius is not the esteemed man he appears to be. I think we’ll discover that the abuse of his own son is the tip of a very large iceberg." Remus explained to me, shortly after Dumbledore and Pomfrey briefly exited the bedroom, talking of ‘sufficient evidence’ of Lucius’ abuse, to allow full inspection of the Malfoy Manor.

Detailed sufficient evidence.

I do not want to consider what that means.

The dark haired ex-Hogwarts Quidditch captain smiles a little. "I can use what I know to help others." He explains genially.

The implications of his words strike me like a cruciatus curse to the chest. It is suddenly as though my stomach is awash with ice, my throat constricted. I find it difficult to breath.

No. Not him too.

Perhaps he didn’t mean that, I reason to myself. After all, I know about child abuse from living with the Dursleys but that doesn’t mean I know anything of what Malfoy... Draco is going through.

I suddenly wish for Sirius to be there. The one that had saved me from the horrors of my earlier life. Kicked out of Remus’ house because of Malfoy.

Because he slept with Malfoy. Because Draco can’t go one day without-

I want to hate him, long to loath him as I once did. It was so much simpler when he was simply regarded as my arch-nemesis. But that changed one day when I looked at him across the potion’s class room and noted him biting into one finger, in what I would gradually learn was a characteristic trait of his. I realized I had seen the Draco in a private moment, a time when he didn’t actually realize anyone was looking. Crabbe and Goyle were attempting to return their green potion blue, Marcus appeared to be flirting with Pansy and Snape was marking papers and occasionally glancing up to glare at the room.

Draco was completely shuttered out from the others. Despite his stony face, his silver eyes, staring absently at the wall opposite, conveyed a multitude of emotions I could not place. I wanted to look away, knowing it was not right to interfere with an obviously intensely personal moment but I could not. I had never seen him look so utterly distraught.

"He will be punished." I am brought back to the present by the soft voice beside me. Years after completing Hogwarts, Percy still carries the same arrogant tone. "Lucius will not be allowed to fool anyone ever again."

Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey exit the room for the second time a few long minutes later. Percy, Oliver and I stand. They whisper among themselves a moment and I note that Pomfrey’s eyes are red and puffy. Dumbledore places a consoling hand on her shoulder before stepping over to Percy, Oliver and I.

"Harry." The old wizard towers over me by a good foot, despite my now favorable height. He leans over and takes my hand. "You should go in and comfort Draco."

I nod, my mouth suddenly very dry. "Is he alright?"

Dumbledore’s blue eyes are the only portals to his disgust and anger. His mouth is upturned as he releases my hand. "He has been healed."

I frown but nod once more. I feel all eyes on me as I step forward to the door.

Draco reclines on a leather couch in the far end of the room opposite the bookshelf, pouring intently through a leather bound book. One hand loosely holds a quill. He does not look up as I enter, does not even stir as I awkwardly slip into the seat opposite him.

"What you reading?" I instantly berate myself for the hesitancy in my voice. He looks up, beautiful eyes boring straight into my own. His lashes are the same silver blonde of his hair, his eyes, however are something else entirely. Hypnotic, entrancing silver of a darker, shinier variety, as though blocks of the pure metal has been melted and poured directly into his iruses. I find I can’t even blink. He shrugs.

"Snape’s diary."

My mouth collapses. "Where did you find that?"

Another barely perceptible shrug of shoulders. "In his bottom drawer. Just then"

"You went through his drawers?"

"Just the bottom one." He scribbles into the book a moment. "Listen to this."

I want him to not continue. I am urged to snatch it off him. This isn’t right. But my curiosity and general hatred of Snape wins out. As he continues, he eerily reproduces the teacher’s voice to the extent that I feel cold water revitalize in my stomach. I am reminded of what I had learnt from Oliver.

No. Not true. Not true.

"For the fact that Black nearly had me mauled to death after discovering that I planned to ask Lupin out to dinner. I realize now that Lupin was not in on the ‘prank’. However, to stay with a man of such appalling morals has me vexatious as to Lupin’s sanity and intelligence."

Anger pours through my veins at Draco’s obtrusiveness. "What the hell are you doing?"

Draco ignores me, simply takes out the quill and starts to write into the diary. I open my mouth to speak but am ceased by his curiously effective Snape voice once more.

"Lupin would never leave Black. He is too involved in his treachery. Yes, I do lust for Lupin but my detest of him overrides any sympathies. I would sooner take him by force than tell him I love him."

He simply cannot continue. I step up and snatch the diary out of his hands, grip a handful of his silver hair and drag him to his feet. I do not know what I want to do. Only that he should be punished for such disrespect for two men I love so dearly. We simply eye each other a long moment, breathing harsh, my hands still caught in his thick strands. Draco suddenly yanks back, tearing out a few strands as he moves from my grasp.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" I ask, exasperated.

"What do you want, Harry Potter? Oh, I know. I see it in your eyes. You want me, don’t you? You want it rough. Want to pull my hair? Want to slap me? However you want it-"

This is it. I can no longer contain myself. I feel fury enough to kill him. It must be written clearly across my face as he suddenly backs away, silver eyes widened as I stalk up to him, pinning him against the wall. I cannot contain my trembling, such is my fury. My nails are cutting into my palm, from fisting my hands with such effort as to cease myself from striking him. In fact, my entire body, poised for a fight, is aching from my deliberate clenching of all muscles.

"I’m not going to hurt you, Draco! I AM NOT LUCIUS!"

The tension in the air is thick enough to slice my wand through. His mouth is open, expression unreadable, before he collapses into my arms, weeping, gripping me with such tightness, I already feel bruises form, his fingers trembling from the effort. I risk reaching up to stroke his hair. He allows it. I wonder what horrors could produce such a broken creature. Another part of me does not want to know. Terrible to find out the truth. Why did I go to that museum that day to see the Mirror of Erised? If only I had a pocketwatch, such as Hermione had in our third year at Hogwarts. Turn back the time so it never happened. No, better, use a memory charm, as Gilderoy Lockhart threatened in our second year. Wipe the entire past few days away. To know Draco only as the snide creep I see in Hogwarts Halls.

Only that would not work, either. I have known a long time there is more to Draco than his exterior. I have fallen in love with the one underneath the layers of protection he covers himself with for his own esteem. Only, I don’t know who that person truly is.

We stay entwined a long time, long after he has ceased sobbing. After, we retreat to the bed. We don’t make love, or even kiss. I simply hold him close to me, fall asleep to the rhythmic thud of his heart against mine.
 
 

Evil does not happen in a vacuum. It is always produced. Many people, however, mistake the cause. Many a time, the blame is too simplified; parents or key incidents in one’s childhood. Not only does this cease any responsibility on the part of the ‘evil’ person, but also does not take into account that x and y does not always equal z.

Or so Tom Riddle learnt in his ‘Muggles, Past and Present’ class. He had taken it to learn more accurately how these things act, to better understand their failings. Many of the other Slytherins simply regarded them as stupid vermin. Riddle would not allow himself to fall into such a trap. Muggles were smart, devious creatures who longed to hurt and cause pain whenever necessary. They were not to be underestimated.

Yes, Riddle believed that evil was not only manufactured, but that it was purely the responsibility of the person. But he objected to the word. So like muggles to simplify things into good and bad, light and dark. The world was full of greys. In fact, Riddle firmly believed that there was no such thing as ‘unconscious pure evil’.

Was his father ‘evil’ for abandoning him to the muggle orphanage? Riddle thought not. Stupid, mean and self-centred, but not evil. To place such an esteemed word as ‘evil’ upon him too increased his stature.

For this reason, nor were those pathetic muggles John Wills, Bobby Mcgovern, Randall Adams, Peter Richards and Phil Caracke evil.

Jimmy Tonga was not evil.

But Tom Riddle would be. He longed to be, yearned for it. There would be a time when his very name would not even be mentioned, such would be the fear he would exert over others.

Voldermort.

He had been using it among trusted friends at school, liking the way it felt on his tongue.

Voldemort.

At night, he would write in his diary, last in a line of leather bound books, from the beginning of his time at Hogwarts. The others have been burnt, ripped, lost and finally been destroyed by a Basilisk’s tooth over the years. Only one currently remains, that from his seventeenth year.

Jimmy Tonga will be punished for what he did. They all will. They will plead with me to cease, will beg until their throats are raw from shouting. This will only make me laugh and hurt them more.

I will have them begging for their lives. Every one of my tears spilt from their atrocious actions upon me will be avenged.

The memory of Tom Riddle continued in the final, unfound diary, locked safe in the cellar of the Malfoy basement. To all purposes, he felt very much alive, condemned to repeat the actions written of in the diary again and again.

Banished to enacting the horrors of his seventeenth year for all eternity, until the diary was found and written in once more.

tbc...