Title:  Stripped (Love Ridden 13)

Author: Romie

E-mail:  romie@r...

Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's convenient.

Rating:  PG-13

Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco.

Spoilers:  none

Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  There's also some Shakespeare references.

Warnings:  Slash.  If you can't take the same-sex pairing, stay out of the bedroom.  There's also some very violent imagery.

Summary:  Draco receives distressing news

=============================================

 

They found my mother.  I can't . . . Earth's turned to Jupiter, hot and liquid beneath my feet, roiling gas clouds spiraling towards that aching rust spot of knowledge.  It's all I can do to stop from sinking, to brace my feet against the shifting whorls that  buckle under me, a micrometer from dissolution.  From disintegration.

 

I can't get over the sheer *ordinariness* of her capture.  It's almost surreal; she ran to the corner newsstand and happened to run into an Auror - not even one on duty; he was taking his morning stroll.  This Auror coincidentally remembered her from a cocktail party *years* ago, back when he used to work with The Grenwich Illusionist's Theater, and nabbed her before she could even draw her wand.

 

I don't know where she's being held - Dumbledore couldn't tell me that.  Maybe he just didn't have the information, but I suspect he simply doesn't trust me.  (Smart man.  Then again, he didn't expel me when he had the chance.  Unless he did it to keep an eye on me.  Who can tell what he thinks behind his smiles and gibberish?)

 

I think he expected me to cry, or get angry.  Instead I am afraid, skeletal hands pressing between my shoulder blades, impelling me to the edge of iron- built cliffs.  Blood-warm spikes rivet my hands together in a mockery of prayer, finger-nailing white crescents into my knuckles.  (new moons.)  I let them stay locked, for otherwise they'd reach out to strangle.  (my own neck.  conventional wisdom says you let go when you pass out.  not if you do it right.)

 

I'm terrified they'll take me to see her.  That she'll . . . ask for me.  I don't want to see her confined; she *hates* being shut in.  That's probably why she ran to the newsstand in the first place, just to get out of the house.  Or the fortress, or the palace, or wherever it is the Dark Lord is putting them up.  It's still a jail.  Homes are prisons, she used to say.  That's why we were always adding on.

 

A pitiful excuse for not visiting - but then, it's not the real one.  The real one's worse.  (God, I'm such a coward, all bravura to the contrary.)  I don't want her to ask why I stayed.  She won't have believed it - not 'til she can see and touch me.  She won't have believed that I didn't follow her and my father.  She'll know - of course she'll know, how could she not? - but she'll have held on to a justification  She'll have convinced herself that something important was stopping me, a cordon of Aurors or a binding charm.

 

Certainly not that her son betrayed her, betrayed everyone, for the love of a boy she detests.  A boy *he* detests.  A *boy*.

 

I Hate Him.

 

I hate him so much that it's a fist around my throat.  Nothing would please me more than to see him chained and begging, cowering at my whims.

 

I Want His Soul.  I want to plunge my fingers into his chest and *pull*.  I want to weave the gossamer strands into a rope, and use it to strangle him.

 

i can't

 

All I can do is scrub at the marks on my chest until it's raw and bleeding.  As if somehow that makes it okay.  As if somehow that hides my attachment.  Hides the fact that He Owns Me.  (Ironic, isn't it?  Draco Malfoy someone's slave.  Someone who doesn't even care, who doesn't even fucking *notice*.  Who'd be disgusted if he did.)

 

If I had my mouth, I would bite.  If I had my arm, I would strike.  I would laugh when I was happy and frown when I was angry instead of always *waiting* for the politic moment.

 

the marks won't come off, even though I've shed a couple layers of skin.  rationally, i know they're not there, but when has rationality counted for anything worthwhile?  i can still feel them, fluorescent nets about my shoulders.

 

She'll know.  She always knows.  She built me, after all.  Whatever I do, it doesn't matter, which is why I can't ever see her again.

 

o god.  she'll figure it out anyway.  when i refuse to see her.  She'll know that I'm on their side (i'M NOT on THeirSiDe!), that I must have defected.  Why would a son refuse to visit his mother for any reason other than shame?

 

I AM ASHAMED.  I AM A SHAMEFUL COWARD.

 

Why did she have to go to the newsstand?  Surely, the Dark Lord's influence is sufficient to procure a newspaper.  Surely, there are house elves and minions whose job it is to run those kinds of errands.  There was no reason for her to go, to be captured so *stupidly*.

 

whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy

 

I'm trapped in a labyrinth of ifs, perhapses climbing up the walls like creepers.  It's madness, broken harlequins in deaths-head masks.  (maybe they were treating her badly, and she wanted to be caught.  maybe she wanted to find out about me; she wouldn't have trusted anyone else to tell her the truth.  this is all my fault!)

 

NO.  That way lies insanity.  I'm going to sit here in my room, nice and calm.  I'm going to sit here and sip tea and read my history book and pretend I'm not bleeding from a thousand tiny abrasions (self-made).  It's easy.  I just have to imagine I'm someone else, something I do frequently.

 

I'll pretend I'm Hermione Granger.  She'd never have to worry about this kind of thing - her parents are muggles.  How droll.  Yes, Granger.  I'll read and read and read and read until I can't remember the rest of the world.

 

Maybe if I try hard enough, Draco Malfoy will never come back.  (a shocking loss to the world, but it would certainly make things easier)

 

When do things get simple again?