Pure Of Heart

Pure of Heart

Prologue

"This little piggy went to market."

He dropped the leg on the floor.

"This little piggy stayed home."

Another leg.

"This little piggy had roast beef on rye."

Another.

"This little piggy had none."

A fourth fell.

"And this little piggy, he cried wree wree wree all the way home, the silly bastard."

He dropped a leg to the stone with a sigh. Then another two for good measure.

Grasping the only remaining leg in between his thumb and forefinger, he held the spider up before him. He dangled the arachnid by the lone limb, in front of his eyes, as if it was some morbid Christmas tree ornament. The creature was stiff, petrified by a spell. But it was still alive. He could see the spinets working feverishly, like hairy little fingers, shooting silk aimlessly in a hollow attempt at escape. The pearly threads floated through the air like moonbeams. He lifted a jar from the windowsill and captured the precious wisps, sealing them tightly within their glass prison.

He didn’t have to do it. He didn’t have to do that to the spider. Snape had told them to collect silk. It needn’t be fresh. It needn’t be straight from the spider and pure. He looked up at the web stretching across the windowsill. The moonlight reflected off the silver strands so fine as to have no substance at all, channeling the light like electricity through invisible copper wire. There was enough silk there for ten people. But it would be such a shame to destroy something so pretty. What a waste that would be. Better to get what he wanted from the spider, ugly and loathsome. And the silk would be pure. He liked his things pure, untouched. His father had taught him that much in life. Purity is important above all else. Without purity you are dirty, shameful, corrupt. Malfoys were not to be corrupted. Malfoys were to corrupt others. Purity was important. He looked to the web once again. Woven into the silken threads were wings, lacey wings, and ragged wings. They interrupted the perfect geometric pattern in various places across the web, adding or detracting from the beauty Draco could not decide. It was still beautiful, shining there in the window. Still beautiful. But flawed. But beautiful. Like so many things.

He turned away. He could feel it pulling up in him, from somewhere right above his stomach, where his diaphragm must have been. It was cold and black and hate. Yes that’s what it was. Hate. But why he wasn’t sure. But it was there in his midpoint and spreading upward into his heart and his mind. It was times like these when he felt the need to destroy something. Something beautiful perhaps.