Title: Thanatos. First in the
Enchantment Series.
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Notes: (Harry)/Draco,
Death/Draco, past Draco/Astoria. Happy Valentine's Day!
Warnings: Character Death (in
the past), Sexual Situations, Dub-con, Past Rape, AU
Summary: Harry dies in the
Chamber of Secrets as well as Ginny Weasley. Now, six decades later,
Draco is having hallucinations of the boy whose memory has haunted
him ever since when Death finally comes to claim him.
Thanatos
First in the Enchantment Series
The study was filled with the rich odor
of roses, reminding Draco of his wife's heady scent that he had once
craved, but now was nothing more than the reminder of past passions
doused in wilted musk. He stood at the veranda doors, his slate gray
eyes looking out over the grounds of Malfoy Manor, skimming over the
exquisite white peacocks that still adorned the lawns.
Fifty years, he thought to himself.
Fifty years ago today.
He brought a Cuban cigar to his aged
lips, breathing deeply, neither tasting nor noticing the bittersweet
aroma that filled his lungs. Sucking on the tip lightly, his memory
turned over each of those fifty years, each one duller than the last,
every single one of them a lie to himself and the witch he had
married.
Draco couldn't even claim that he had
found a moment of happiness or even contentment in Astoria's
arms—couldn't bring himself to believe such a falsehood. Not even
when her stomach was rounded twice with child could he bring a true
smile to his lips. His children, though dear to him, had one fatal
flaw, which he hid in the shadows of his eyes, always there but never
fully present.
They were his, yes; they would carry on
the Malfoy name. He cared for them for that reason, but he could
never fully cherish them as a wizarding child should be loved, as he
had been cared for when he was not yet grown. He saw the flaw—the
imperfection—every time he looked into their gray and blue eyes,
saw their blonde heads.
Both Scorpius and Miranda were
beautiful, exquisite, true Malfoys—yet neither of them was born
from his beloved.
"Fifty long years," he
whispered into the afternoon light. Fifty years of trying to move on
from a moment he had never fully admitted had haunted him.
More than ten before that when he had
pretended that his heart wasn't silently breaking since his death.
He closed his eyes in pain as images
flooded his senses. A scrawny boy with bright green eyes had smiled
shyly as he stood in Madam Malkin's. Draco had tried to be kind, to
engage him in conversation. He hadn't know that making fun of Hagrid
would anger the boy. He had so many friends growing up—Crabbe,
Goyle, the Patil twins—but he had wanted a special friend that was
all his own, that wasn't handpicked by his loving parents who only
cared about blood purity.
It was a foolish thought to have as a
child, Draco thought painfully, but he had wanted it so badly.
Harry, though, was gone now. All those
precious months—those two years—wasted when he was captured and
brought down to the Chamber of Secrets.
His redheaded friend had claimed that
he and Harry had gone down willingly to save his sister, but Draco
still couldn't believe him. He wouldn't have done that, Draco had to
tell himself. He wouldn't have risked everything for a girl who was a
plague. If he had truly known, he would have found an adult.
Draco could no longer cry for a
childhood love now lost. He had spent so many that summer following
Harry's death, that his parents had brought in a healer from St.
Mungo's. He was fading, the healer had said, a rare magical disease
that hadn't been seen in centuries.
He had had to be home schooled for two
years after that, but it didn't matter. Nothing really had mattered
since then—since Harry had gone away.
A shiver ran down his spine and he
turned, feeling like he was being watched. The scent of funeral
flowers tickled his senses, masking the ash of his cigar and
obscuring the aroma of roses and jasmine.
"Who's there?" he called
calmly, his dulled silver eyes slightly alight with curiosity.
A breath ghosted along his cheek, and
he turned again, looking out on the still trees, untouched by spring
breezes.
He sighed and dropped the unfinished
cigar on the floor, uncaring that it still lay smoldering against the
expensive Oriental rug. Dropping his forehead in his hand, he rubbed
his wrinkled skin in emotional exhaustion, a single word leaving his
lips, "Harry."
A soft laugh swept across the still
air, unheard, echoing, vibrating, yet completely silent. It caressed
his senses, stroked his aching muscles without touch, breathed
sensually against his lips in a way no woman or man ever had.
… So beautiful …
The words hung absently in the air,
unspoken but still reverberating, each syllable elongated and yet
mute in their harshness.
… Still so beautiful …
Draco breathed in deeply the smell of
death, something he craved so desperately yet was too weak to seek,
an aged smirk playing on his dry lips.
Once he had been beautiful, he thought.
When he had finally left Malfoy Manor
for the second time, he had been fifteen years of age. Most of the
witches he met had told him he was handsome, beautiful. Many wizards
had whispered it in the dark as well.
He had only married Astoria because she
had never said those words. He never wanted to hear them from anyone,
except someone long dead.
Fifty years ago today he had spoken the
lies to a witch who adored him in the presence of witnesses, binding
himself to her. She was pretty, elegant, with bright blue eyes and
strawberry blonde curls. He thought he could lose himself in her
curls. He hadn't been able to stand dark hair and green eyes since
the Chamber was finally closed again. Pansy Parkinson had attempted
to seduce him at Hogwarts their sixth year, when the war finally
ended and the dark Ministry was put in place, but he couldn't bear to
look at her, to let her touch him. Her fingers were too thin, her
palms too smooth, her skin too porcelain.
The night she had kissed him against
his wishes was the last day she was ever able to speak as he ripped
her voice from her throat with an ancient enchantment.
She would be at the party tonight, he
thought drearily to himself. He couldn't bring himself to care.
Wrinkled fingers stretched up and
caressed his soft lips, mottled with age. Yes, he had been beautiful
once. It, however, had never mattered to him when all reason to be
beautiful had been taken from him.
Glancing toward a mirror in the corner,
he sought out his wrinkled visage, amused the old compliments had
been spoken in his mind on this of all days, an anniversary every
year that secretly brought him pain.
Light flickered in the reflection,
angled away from him, and Draco glimpsed the shadow of his bookcase,
the tomes standing proud and erect, covered only with the smooth
curve of soft flesh before it darted away again.
Startled, he blinked in surprise and
turned toward the bookcase, only to see it devoid of pale skin. He
was still utterly alone.
A soft laugh trickled down his spine,
and he closed his eyes in quiet agony.
It was time, nearly time, for this
world to close its eyes to him, to shut him within the blackness of
an immortal sleep.
He remembered back to when his
grandmother was dying. He had only been nine years old and had sat up
with her at night, as she watched a single candle relentlessly, the
windows shut and the room haunting their thoughts. She had whispered
to him that the old stories were true: Death still walked the earth,
and that he murmured the truth of your life before he claimed you
with his damning kiss, taking your soul from you but leaving your
body still and quiet unlike the Dementors.
His father had later assured him, once
his grandmother had died, that it was simply a legend. Draco had been
afraid for weeks to sleep, wary that Death would come and kiss him
goodnight much like his beloved mother was wont to do. The Tales
of Beedle the Bard had been secreted away and, after a few months
of exhaustion and wakeful nights, he had finally forgotten and been
able to float back into his childish dreams that were waiting
patiently for him.
A young, callused hand ghosted between
the folds of his robes and cold fingers flitted against his abdomen.
The curtains to the veranda fluttered in the windless air, and Draco
sighed out in relief. "Have you come for me?" he asked, his
voice already dead and quiet. "Is it finally time?"
A second hand shivered over his neck,
brushing his graying hair behind his ear, and Draco leaned blissfully
against a hard body, cradled in Death's embrace.
… You wish to die … a young
voice, unused, cracked against his ear, no breath escaping Death's
sweet lips. … You are—still—so very beautiful …
Draco shook his head and gazed at
himself in the mirror, marveling that Death's skin should be so
untouched by time, his face hidden behind his mortal paramour.
"I may once have been beautiful,"
he admitted quietly. "Those days are long past."
The touch faded away and another flash
appeared in the mirror, dancing almost away from him, a slim muscled
leg briefly shading the edge of the reflection.
… One I kissed once claimed that
one should only find beautiful meanings in beautiful things—and I
find your fading beautiful, Draco Malfoy … the empty library
whispered to him. … You are still beautiful now at the end of
your illness …
"I was cured," Draco rasped
out, turning slowly, his foot crushing the cigar further into the
carpet. "They said I was cured long ago."
Cold fingers dusting over his hair,
soft lips pressing against his neck but never kissing him. A hard
thigh pressed against his own from behind, making him yield to the
effervescent creature that toyed with him.
… No—never cured. Delayed,
perhaps, but there is no cure for a love like that. Not until a
stronger love claims you …
Draco sighed, the only breath to escape
into the scented room, prepared already as if his wake were taking
place.
Tears slipped from his eyes, flowing
across his wrinkled skin, mapping his age and the passing of time he
loathed so much. Each moment took him away from Harry, his beloved,
but now he was so close to finding him again.
… Your children are beautiful …
A rustle of silk as his tie was undone and dropped, crushed, to the
floor.
Draco nodded his assent. Miranda had
her mother's beauty, Scorpius his grandfather's strength that Draco
no longer possessed.
Hands cupped his face from behind,
stroking softly, a moan fading into the darkness as messy black hair
reflected into his gray eyes. It was fitting, Draco believed, that in
the end his death should be with someone who looked like the one he
had lost.
… Beautiful because his name was
on your lips when they were conceived …
The truth tickled Draco's senses and
despite himself, he felt a blush seep through his gray skin.
… How I've longed … he
murmured, but the rest of Death's desire remained unthought,
unspoken, not even whispering into his mind.
The formal cloak that Astoria had
picked out for him fell to his feet, but Draco barely noticed, even
when the cold hard fingers began to pull his shirt from his trousers.
Briefly he thought how he had never
heard of wizards or witches being found alone in a state of undress
upon their death, but he shook the notion from him. He did not care.
Nothing mattered. Nothing but Harry—who he hoped was waiting for
him beyond this scarred earth where so many had met their ends too
early, only the Dark Lord remaining untouched although he, too, had
faded as Draco once had.
… You hadn't touched your wife in
years—three decades to be precise—when your longing for another
overtook you and Astoria … he bit out the name, his lips
unmoving … seduced you back into her bed and Miranda was
conceived. The anniversary of his death and Miranda was conceived in
this very manor …
Slowly Death unbuttoned his shirt,
leaving only a few of them clasped, and Draco found he could not
answer. He had only touched Astoria to produce an heir, and once that
was done, he felt no need to any longer, her arms a mockery of
everything he desired. It was too painful to lie with her, too
humiliating when he had to take potions because, despite how
different she was from Harry, he still could not desire more than
simple companionship.
… What did she put in your drink?
… The question hung between them as smooth fingers kissed his
lips reverently. … What did she give you sixteen years ago to
make you hallucinate that he was no longer within my embrace? …
"I don't know," Draco quietly
whispered. "I never wanted to know."
He looked out the veranda and noticed
that twilight had set in—time having no meaning in Death's
presence. Music floated up from the ballroom and he shuddered,
knowing that Astoria would expect him to be there, that he would
never be able to say goodbye to his children.
… Come … Death echoed, his
hands now running up his back, the cold barely touching him. …
Come dance with me before I love you …
Draco did not question the words as
candles flickered in the dusk-filled room, the air still humid and
stagnant. Bright green eyes haunted him as they looked out at him
from the mirror, but he looked away again from the illusion. He was
so near to his death, only a dance and the first kiss he had been
given since Miranda was conceived.
Miranda, a dreamer, a Malfoy beauty. He
would never see her fall in love or marry a wizard. Instead, he would
finally be in the arms of his lover.
A strong hand wrapped around his wrist
until he was pulled down into a cold embrace. Wisps of acromantula
silk brushed against his forehead as he pressed his face into the
shoulder offered to him. His old hands grasped at the folds of a
cloak, so thin, barely there, nothing more than shadows nearly
obscuring the form that now held him. He knew if he looked, he would
be able to see Death's body through the torn cloak that fell around
him, his arms almost completely bare, his legs and thighs moving out
from the folds that did nothing to conceal him.
Death released him and with firm hands,
covered in skin and not of bones like the legends said, slid down his
body, brushing against his soft member until they reached his feet.
He didn't look down into the eyes he knew would be gazing back up at
him.
He didn't want to know what emotions
they held—if they held any at all. It would almost be worse if he
saw any understanding or compassion shining out of them.
… I've waited for you …
Millennia I have waited for one such as you …
Draco didn't hear as a frost like grip
surrounded his ankle, tugging at his shoe and then his sock, until
his foot was naked against the carpet, snow like fingers caressing
it. A moment later and his other foot was bare, and he looked one
last time at himself in the mirror, his gray shirt unbuttoned against
his gray skin.
Death slowly rose again to his feet,
his cold nose pressed against Draco's cheek, and although no air
could pass into his lungs, as if he tried to breathe in the scent
before him.
… How I envy the living … he
murmured, his unseen eyes the only part of him that could speak,
before he lead Draco from the study through the wall that shimmered
so that Death and his companion could pass through. On the other side
of the door a small house elf was weeping, banging against the oak
forcefully, but no sound reached his ears, as if Death's presence
silenced what he did not care to perceive.
The pair ghosted down the stairs,
Deaths' feet never touching the marble steps, his firm back erect and
visible through the gray material that served as his shroud, a hood
hanging lifeless on top of the cloak.
Messy black hair was cropped around his
face, obscuring his features from Draco's view, and yet he seemed so
familiar, almost like he was someone who should have been, but never
was.
"Father!" a bright voice
called to him, but Death did not stop as they finally landed in the
entry hall, which was alight with silver and gold light provided by
fairies that danced along the ceiling.
It was truly beautiful, Draco thought,
now fully detached from reality. Astoria had outdone herself.
… Beautiful … was whispered
seductively to him, and Miranda, who had hurried up to them, blushed
at the young spirit before her, her young eyes raking over his
visible nakedness.
Wrenching her eyes away, she gasped
when she saw Draco's undress. "Father," she began again,
"Mother has been looking for you, but you aren't even dressed."
He opened his mouth to speak, but found
that only shadows escaped it, his voice stolen by one who had yet to
kiss him.
Miranda looked at him in confusion
before her gaze swept back to Death who looked uninterestedly back at
her.
"Introduce me, Father."
Death simply pulled him away, further
from the world he had come to know, and soon he found himself among
the whirling couples, alight with colors, while he and Death wore
nothing but shadow-gray.
Hands slicked with ice slid down the
back of his trousers, caressing him softly, as the music skated about
them, the violin ascending like a bird to the heavens.
Draco looked up, finally meeting
Death's gaze, and gasped when he saw familiar features. Black hair
fell about a face so much younger than his, several years older than
when it was claimed. Green eyes looked down at him, there yet not
there, and a vivid white scar in the shape of a lightning bolt shot
across his forehead.
… Shh … Death hummed as a
thumb was pressed against his lips, so much older than the finger
whose touch he could see yet not feel … Don't say it …
He could not look away from the mirage
before him, and felt himself led across the floor. Wizards swept
their ladies away from them, their eyes wide in fear and hesitation
as the figure of one long dead moved around the floor flawlessly, the
master of the house in his arms.
Who is it? What is it? many asked each
other, Astoria's face pale in humiliation.
He has arisen—the Boy who Lived.
No, he was claimed. He has come to
claim again.
In a gentle embrace, Draco felt himself
drifting through time, water rushing past him, yet he remained dry
and cold as he was pressed against a body he had dreamed of for far
too long.
Astoria, her sister whispered quietly,
the sound wafting across Draco's senses as if he were master over all
their lives now that he was so close to his own end. Astoria, we must
leave. You must go. Can't you see?
He has come. He has come to claim. The
house is his until he leaves again.
The fairies blinked quietly as rushing
color moved through the ancient halls, Miranda gazing after the sight
of her father and the handsome man who had claimed her heart at first
glance.
Shadows screamed silently in the night
as Death continued to dance with Draco in his arms, neither tiring in
the evening haze until finally, Death released him and led him back
up the haunted stairway. The blackness kissed Draco's exposed ankles
and neck, making him feel wanted and loved, mirroring the passion
that had been left, strangled, in his heart for far too long.
… So long for a child to love with
passion … was spoken yet not unlike droplets of water melting
from an icicle, only to freeze again against the snow-covered earth.
Palms meeting his in a pilgrim's kiss,
a memory of a time long past yet still remembered by he who could not
be touched. Buttons undone and shirt shivering to the hall floor,
left to gather dust for the house would not be occupied again for
many years until Death's shade had fully dissipated.
… Then to fade before age bloomed
… Death continued with a lover's lost promise, a cheek sliding
against his bare chest, freezing it forever in its imperfect age.
Draco felt his knees give way beneath
him, only to be laid lovingly against silk sheets in the humid July
night. Fifty years of lies and fake smiles that could never fully
turn his lips. False words on his tongue that could no longer cry out
as Death's mouth dusted over his limp member.
… And then for such a one to
linger beyond all hope …
Caresses, gentle passion, whispered
words from a throat that could not reverberate with sound. A cloak of
nothingness tossed to the floor as Draco's knees were drawn up.
Sweat pooled against his stomach only
to be chilled again with a simple touch, the bed sheets chafing him
sweetly in the black night. … I've loved you since your heart
was broken … Feelings whispered against him, sensations
touching him yet not as Death with the face of one he had lost so
long ago, made love to him under the light of the moon.
Draco reached up, tracing the scar he
never thought to see again, a silent 'I love you' forming on lips
that would never speak again, now that Death had come to claim him.
A shudder from a body that could not
draw breath, could not steal Draco's breath into its unmoving lungs.
… Say my name … it begged, its frozen hands moving against
his member that could not rise since the day he began to fade. …
Say my name …
Silver eyes glanced into green, one
filled with death, another with life and hope.
'I love you, Harry,' the lips moved,
air breathing out gently as he shivered in the darkness.
A sadness he never wanted to inflict
hovered across the still-beloved face. Cold fingers turned to shadow
as Death's softening manhood slipped out of him, a groan unable to
escape Draco's lips.
… So be it … A dusting of
words, as if in a dream, and then Draco was all alone again, alive,
lingering although his heart had faded from this world. He sobbed out
into the quiet and yet no sound reached his ears. Shaking, his old
fingers touched his lips, unkissed by the one he desired most.
With a name in his mind, he drifted off
to slumber, knowing that he would never rise from the bed alive.
- The End -
The Enchantment Series. A series
of short fics centering around otherworldly enchantments.
One. Thanatos. Written for
Valentine's Day 2010. (Harry)/Draco. [Death]
Two. Swan Song—A Veela Love Story.
Harry/Original Male Veela. [Veela]
Three. Vitula: My Beloved.
Harry/Sanguini. [Vampire]
Four. Book of Hours. Harry/James
Sirius. [Cupid/Love]
Five. The White Stag.
Harry/Peter Pevensie. [White Stag]
ExcentrykeMuse's Notes: Happy
St. Valentine's Day, dear readers! I realize this is not your typical
V Day fic, but the thought occurred to me just before Christmas after
I finished up Judicamentum and I had to write it. It's been
horrible waiting to post it all these months. Influences on the fic
are the film "Death Takes a Holiday" (the remake of which
was "Meet Joe Black") and Oscar Wilde's "The Picture
of Dorian Gray." Kudos to those who pick up the references. As
always—Reviews are Greatly Appreciated. Thanks for reading,
cheers, cen.
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