Pairing: Lucius/Draco.

Rating: R.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Characters owned by J.K. Rowling.

Summary: "Father loved classical music. His selections were always old, muted and melancholy, the songs of the passionate repressed, of those who scream but scream silently; like the last flakes of snow that melt and leave nothing behind but their tears."

Father loved classical music. His selections were always old, muted and melancholy, the songs of the passionate repressed, of those who scream but scream silently; like the last flakes of snow that melt and leave nothing behind but their tears.

My room opens out into the atrium at the centre of the Manor, where the soft strains seemed to coagulate and wrap themselves around the room in iridescent swirls. Few pieces of furniture mar the majestic desolateness of the white marble floors and gigantic pillars. They seem to stretch into the sky forever, reaching up towards the wide expanse of perfect blue sky and trying to brush heaven with their fingertips. It is so far up that I cannot see whether they've achieved their goal...

Father's blood was darker than the sky--it was as blue as the depths of the ocean and murkier. His veins were filled with history; every Malfoy that had ever walked the earth lived on in his body. And now, they exist in my veins. It is a great responsibility--blood is our heritage. Our lives are spent trying to justify and be worthy of the honour accorded to us.

The sun slowly creeps into my room through the open door. It does so hesitantly, as if afraid to enter this sanctuary of pale and dark. This sanctuary of the moonlight. Memories flash in my mind like carnival images and suddenly the room is dark and I am a child. The covers are pulled up to my chest, the silk fabric of my pyjamas adhered to my skin with sweat and yet I am colder than I have ever been. I am waiting--

A knock sounds softly, so polite, and the door creaks open. Pale, slithering rays of moonlight spike into my room from the atrium, my bed is bathed in silver before a silhouette darkens the colour to smoke. He always came with the moonlight. I feel blushing warmth as the covers are unwrapped, delicately as one would from a present. I close my eyes and imagine the moon slowly whispering into my room and caressing me with its rays, soothing me in it's low silenced tone. Afterwards, though, while I can still feel the warm pressure of flesh on flesh I open my eyes and look into ones so like my own. 'I love you, Father'. Instead of replying, he kisses my forehead and is gone as stealthily as he came. As a thief in the night. Thief of kisses.

I remember tears in my eyes as well, but those too ceased after a while. Yes, after a while all I could feel were cold lunar caresses and a colder love inside myself.

I also remember wishing so fervently for the sun. I used to think the pillars in the atrium were calling out to it, and that heaven was golden warmth that held you in its centre. I wanted fire until we burned Father. Instead of dreams of gentle, licking flames I dreamed of infernos and sweetened searing flesh. It was mother who said we should turn him to ashes, so that nobody would know the shameful secret--that father had--that he--

He had slit his wrists. From end to end, his pale skin parted like a razor's kiss and blood bluer than midnight spilled into the water and diluted. He was so pale when I found him, his eyelids thin and veined with tendrils of bloodless tracks. It wasn't death that Father wanted, but release, an end to the responsibility of blood that he carried with him every moment, which he was reminded of every second with the beating of his heart, that crushed him a little more every day like the sky falling by inches. And so he opened his skin and let all the blood leak out because he couldn't stand being so cold, but death is colder. It is the vengeance of the blood he dishonoured. I touched his skin and it was ice.

And Mother told the house elves to pull him out, and she wrapped him in red like a present and held my hand as the fire consumed him. He melted because he was made of ice, melted into tears I cried for him. Mother kissed my forehead and we went inside, back into the Manor haunted by desperate ghosts and the children we used to be.

I missed even his coldness, and wanted even those frost caresses back. Soon, that desire too went away and today I realise that I do not want anything.

So many times I look into my Mother's face and understand that the only similarity between us is that we loved Father...or that we were Father's lovers... I cannot seem to decide which. I remember my Father's face and see many likenesses, but many differences too--we are not mirrors, as he used to whisper, 'you're my reflection'--spoken liquidly into my ear. He couldn't stand the blood in his veins, couldn't bear the coldness--

I am not like him.

I am a Malfoy. I honour my blood.

Slowly, I realise that the pillars in the atrium are not clawing towards heaven or the sun.

They are not reaching for anyone. They feel no desire or love or pain.

They are cold.

We are stone.