Love Under Will

Love Under Will

Part One: Transeamus

Chapter 15: Dissolution

But should you fail to keep your kingdom

And, like your father before you, come

Where thought accuses and feeling mocks,

Believe your pain; praise the scorching rocks

For their dessication of your lust,

Thank the bitter treatment of the tide

For its dissolution of your pride,

That the whirlwind may arrange your will

And the deluge release it to find

The spring in the desert, the fruitful

Island in the sea, where flesh and mind

Are delivered from mistrust.

In the days to come, whenever Draco Malfoy looked back on those final moments, he would remember only a blank shroud of numbness from which crystallized sensations and images arose, like mist taking shape from a bog.

He would remember that his fingers dug into the varnished surface of the wine cabinet so violently that he could feel splinters cracking the tips of each one. He would remember every noise suddenly magnifying itself so that his head seemed about to split open from the volume whenever their voices disturbed the silence. He would remember the rush of wind from the alcove, like the roar of a train, and the way it seemed to sweep through the room and suck the air out of it so that he couldn´t manage to draw a full breath.

He would remember the look of Harry´s letter, how the fold was worn as if it had been taken out, reread and re-creased many times before being sent. He would remember the hard lump beneath him when he sat on top of Slytherin´s Memoirs, concealing them from sight; he would remember that he had wondered, as if watching the whole scene from a very high perch like a spectator in a Quidditch bleacher, if he were damaging the pages.

But no matter how much he tried he could never remember the moment when everything shifted. He could not remember asking himself what he felt, or weighing his options; indeed, he could not remember thinking or feeling at all. He could, ultimately, remember only that he knew, beyond scrutiny or judgment, his choice; knew it the way one knows that day is day or that water is wet. He knew his choice because it simply was.

Throughout the storm that followed, he would often struggle to know one thing from another, to know what was and what was not. Yet once rooted within him, that single moment of truth became a part of him that not even the worst turmoil could assail; a solitary anchor holding fast through the roughest whirlwind.

~~~~~~~~

Voldemort was chuckling. Draco stood frozen across the room, watching him. The Dark Lord took his time, running his fingers over the parchment in his hands, drawing out the moment until he opened the letter.

At last the boy spoke. "I believe that letter belongs to me."

Voldemort´s head snapped up then, eyes glittering with malevolence, all traces of civility replaced with cold, calculating cruelty.

"Do you dare to presume that your own interest in knowing the contents of this letter supercedes my own, Mr. Malfoy?"

The boy´s lips tightened. He clasped his hands in front of him and shrugged insolently, a gesture that passed unnoticed by Voldemort, who was finally drawing out the letter, devouring its contents even as he opened it.

Moments passed and lengthened. Silence thickened around them like fear on a night with no light. Draco did not move, but kept his eyes glued to the letter as the other wizard read it. At last Voldemort finished. "Well, well," he said without expression, closing the letter. "How very interesting."

Draco came forward. "I´d like my letter now."

"Yes," said Voldemort pleasantly. "I´m sure you would."

Draco reseated himself on the couch and glared.

"Fervent as your interest may be in the contents of this document, Mr. Malfoy, before I allow you what I fear will be the dissatisfaction of reading it, I must know what degree of feeling you bear toward the writer."

"As it´s my letter, I hardly see why it should concern--"

"Be careful, Draco," said the Dark Lord coolly. "Do not add mockery and disrespect to the growing list of alarming transgressions you are suddenly exhibiting against the name you bear--"

"I´ve done nothing that could be counted a sin against my family," interrupted Draco with a scowl, "and I don´t intend to."

"Then you should have no reason to refrain from answering my prior question, Mr. Malfoy. What do you feel towards the boy, Harry Potter?"

The words fell stiffly on the air around them, swallowed up in the deafening silence of a room left largely undisturbed for centuries. Now the tension was thick and jarring, like dust being deliberately kicked up after years of neglect. Around them the portraits, so seldom disturbed, kept watch, mute but alert.

The moment before was just long enough to be profound. A store of hidden emotions flickered over the boy´s face until finally a new look of resolve entered it.

It was then that he gave his answer, quiet, but sure: "I love him."

His voice rang out in the dead room. In the space that followed, the floors creaked and the wind howled through solitary chinks in the wood, but the two figures did not move or speak. Draco´s words hovered between them, the gauntlet ready to be thrown.

"Love?" echoed the Dark Lord at last, in a voice of quiet mockery, his face registering nothing but veiled surprise.

A firm nod. "I love him."

"You have been seeing one another, then?"

"It is as you have doubtless already read. My letter--"

"--should not trouble you; its contents are not worth your concern."

"Its contents are my concern, and they were meant only for my eyes."

Voldemort emitted a reflective `hmm,´ and appeared to consider. "And yet, you are terribly eager. I wouldn´t be so hasty."

Another half-insolent shrug.

"Tell me, Draco. Are your feelings of--" a derisive chuckle proceeded the word "--love reciprocated?"

"I don´t need to be assured of his feelings to know my own." If there had ever been any hesitation in the boy´s voice it was absent now.

The Dark Lord appeared to hesitate suddenly, as if stricken by some new, dismaying idea. "But then, he has never told you he loves you, has he?"

Draco´s eyes hardened in a flash of defensive anger, but Voldemort only leaned forward and scrutinized him coolly. "I marvel," he said smoothly, "that you can be so certain of your own feelings under such uncertain conditions. You, who place so much emphasis on pride, to suddenly appear so willing to forego it for this boy. Tell me, Draco--do you think it would make your family proud to know that the heir of Malfoy Manor had fallen in love with the son of a Mudblood?"

Draco, expression harder than ever, now moved to the edge of his seat, each word a controlled burst of anger.

"No less proud than it must make them to know that the current heir grovels before the son of a Muggle."

With a hiss, Voldemort sprang up from his seat, quick as a snake striking, and dashed the contents of his scotch glass in Draco´s face. His snarl was not a human sound.

"You have been tempted, to the disgrace of your lineage, Draco Malfoy, by the presence of that wretched, pure demon boy. You have confused his thoughts with your own, and if it takes fire to separate them again, it is fire you shall have!"

Here he paused to compose himself; stretching out his hand, he cleaned the mess he had made of Draco´s alcohol-soaked robes with barely a gesture. Draco sat, fiercely unmoving, while the Dark Lord reseated himself and smoothed down his own robes as calmly as if the outburst had never occurred.

"But," he said after a moment, "I have spoken too hastily. Certainly Harry Potter´s trust and confidence are invaluable assets to have." He ran his fingers over the parchment of the letter. "A true Malfoy will know how to use them for his benefit."

"A true Malfoy also knows that in order to keep the benefits, sometimes he has to forego the severance payoff."

Voldemort blinked.

"Meaning, I have no intention of betraying Harry Potter´s trust to anyone."

"Ah, but haven´t you already?" Voldemort leaned back in his chair, just as Draco stiffened in his and dug his fingers into tight fists. "How do you think he´d look at the current scene? You, serving his archenemy drinks, making him welcome in your home, and, oh--" a positively mischievous glint appeared in his eyes "--and letting him read his private letters. Shoddy work indeed."

Draco let out a strangled noise of rage. Voldemort chuckled. "You must admit that it looks very bad for you. After all, you are in an ideal position, are you not? As close as you doubtless have been to Potter, you´re sitting on a gold mine. You probably know virtually everything about him: what he eats, what he dreams, what he reads--" And here the Dark Lord´s eyes narrowed. "Yes, I suspect you would know all about that, wouldn´t you."

Draco glared at him. "Pardon?"

"I was merely wondering if Mr. Potter had come into possession of any rare books recently."

It was Draco´s turn to chuckle. "Oh, please. Potter´s as likely to buy a book as I am to give up flying for fly-fishing."

"Stranger things have happened, Mr. Malfoy." Draco looked as if this were unlikely. The Dark Lord steepled his fingers in impatience and continued, "Have you seen him with any sort of unusual or rare book recently?"

"Look," Draco seethed, "as far as I know, Harry doesn´t read, he doesn´t even read his textbooks. And if you expect me to just tell you what Harry´s been up to, even if I did know what in the world you were talking about, you really need to work on your negotiating skills. I believe you have something of mine over there that I´d really like to have back, if you don´t mind."

"Ah, yes." Voldemort looked at the letter in his hand. "This." He studied it for a moment, then turned back to Draco, who glared steadily away. "You know nothing about any such book, then?"

Draco glared steadily away at him.

"Pity."

The letter inVoldemort´s hand suddenly burst into flames.

"No!" Draco yelped, anger immediately streaked with anguish.

"Come, come, boy," said the Dark Lord blandly. "You´re wasting all this noble behavior. Harry Potter is not worth your loyalty."

"You son of a--"

"--And quite honestly, you should be grateful I am sparing you the idiot child´s latest effronteries. I will say that he has spared you no words in letting you know exactly how he feels about you and your divided loyalties."

Draco´s eyes widened, and he gazed at the rapidly blackening parchment, which was quickly falling to charred red pieces on the floor.

"Harry--Harry didn´t--he wouldn´t--"

"Ah, such faith, Mr. Malfoy, such blind faith. And for what? For a boy who cannot accept you as you are, a boy who, I sense from your agitation, has placed upon your shoulders an ultimatum--himself, or your family."

A crestfallen look swept across Draco´s features, and he looked steadily at the floor.

"I ask you, is that the act of someone who loves you?"

Draco flinched, and the Dark Lord appeared to relent. "But, as you say," he added in a tone of great gentleness, "what he feels doesn´t matter when you love him as you do."

The boy looked up then, darkness clouding his gaze. Voldemort murmured a few words under his breath, and two fresh glasses of scotch appeared in their hands.

"Let us drink, then," he commanded, "to your Harry Potter."

Draco studied him for a moment, all his wisdom and acuity surfacing in the swirling depths of his gaze, and finally downed the glass in a few gulps, wincing as it burned his throat. Voldemort in his turn sipped silently for a few seconds.

"He will leave you, you know," he said at last.

Draco blinked at him. "He will?"

"Yes. Of course. It´s only a matter of time."

"It--it is?"

The Dark Lordstifled a chuckle. "Poor, poor Draco," he murmured. "Love is, as they say, a harsh mistress, but I fear that in your case you will go from being love´s servant to being her whore." A pause, then, with undisguised contempt: "His whore."

Draco let out a dark curse, and started to rise in anger, but with a look from the older wizard, almost immediately his aggressiveness gave way to marked despondency, and he looked with a woeful expression at the floor once more.

"It is his own folly, underestimating the value of a Malfoy, one of the noblest Malfoys at that." Draco looked up and nodded vehemently. "In fact, it makes me wonder why you, of all people, should have fallen in love with such a fool."

Draco grinned a little drunkenly. "Oh, but he´s--"

"A pretentious upstart son of a Mudblood."

"But he´s--"

"Short-sighted and demanding, yes, completely unable to understand you--that much is clear."

Draco blinked. "But I--"

"But you love him, yes." A pause. "Or do you?"

Draco´s answer was cut off as Voldemort replenished his drink with another wave of his hand. It served to distract the boy, who blinked a bit more, and said blankly, "You´re not using your wand."

The Dark Lord´s voice was patient. "I rarely have need of it for most magical tasks. And be grateful for it--were I to use it upon you, you would feel the effects of it most keenly. Most keenly indeed."

Draco said, "Oh," as if this were very profound.

"Remember, Draco, the more powerful the wizard, the more powerful the wand. In this case, the Confundus Charm in your drink appears already to be vastly effective, and thus negates the possibility of my having to work physical magic on you to bring you to your senses."

"Oh," Draco said again, and then slowly he lifted his head, the haziness about his expression somewhat diminished. "Bring me to my senses," he echoed groggily. "You unholy bastard, what have you done with me?"

"Nothing that did not want doing," replied Voldemort easily.

With effort Draco shook his head as if trying to clear it. Voldemort´s lips drew backwards in what could have been called a smile.

"It will not do, boy. Your mind was already in conflict with itself. That much has been obvious to me from the moment I arrived."

Draco muttered something unintelligible and sat there, working his hands aimlessly against one another.

"And you know, somewhere in your confusion, that you have brought this upon yourself." Draco looked up guiltily. Voldemort purred, "Yes, and you will listen and know that what I say is the truth because you want to know. Something inside of you is reminding you that this is what you have always thought, and urging you to heed my words."

Draco gazed at him intently.

"And do you know what that something is?" Voldemort´s voice dropped until it was almost a whisper, and Draco steadily leaned forward towards it.

"It´s your pride, Draco. Your pride as a Malfoy, as a pureblooded wizard of the highest quality. Pride like this is not for all men. But you, Draco--you have it in spades, and enough talent and sharp-wittedness to make very good use of it indeed."

Draco´s lips had parted in anticipation.

"And you want to, don´t you, Draco?"

A slow nod, growing steadily more eager.

"Yes. You thirst for it. It is something I have seen in you since you were very, very small. I came here tonight to allow you the chance to quench your thirst--to tell you the plans I have for you, for I do have many. You would like to hear them, all about them, wouldn´t you?" Another nod. "And perhaps one day, you shall. But no--first I must be convinced that you are not a threat to me, even an unwitting one. Your loyalty is useless to me if it is not wholly mine. You know this, don´t you?"

In the middle of the third nod, Draco suddenly slowed and frowned as if he were concentrating very hard on something. After a moment he said slowly, as if each word were being dragged out of him, "But that´s an--an ultimatum. And you said that if Harry loved me he wouldn´t give me an ultimatum. Why should--"

"Silence, you fool!" With another sharp hiss, Voldemort sprang out of his chair again, this time gripping Draco by the front of his robes and dragging him forcibly over to the door. He flung it open, and a great gust of wind from the narrow passageway rushed in upon them with a howl.

"Listen! Do you hear? Hundreds of years ago, they say, one of your forefathers used this corridor to make his escape after betraying all those he loved to Muggles and men of ill will. And at the end, he ran, through this passage, to this alcove, escaping through the door that used to stand just there. Look! Still you can see its outline plainly, where earlier your forefathers had walled over it in an attempt to shut out the memory of its evil. Yet there are some memories that will not die, which indeed only increase in horror with every attempt made to dispel them.

"And now the wind seeks out this passage, searching for the doorway that no longer exists; and calls out, `Traitor! Traitor!´ as it passes through the hall. Listen--can you hear it?"

As if under a great weight Draco´s eyes closed, and the only sound was the mournful wail of the wind. If one listened long and fervently enough one might have imagined that the wind cutting its sharp teeth on the stone corners and crannies was actually sighing, `Malcolm Malfoy--traitor, traitor.´ Draco shivered, and Voldemort bent lower, to whisper against his ear.

"Have you never wondered why?" he said, slipping his hand over the boy´s arm, "Why the servants fear to come here? Why everyone else stays away? The place is haunted, haunted by the memory of a two-hundred-year-old curse. And yet, your father tells me it is your favorite part of the house. An affinity perhaps? Have you found a kindred spirit in that of your treacherous predecessor?"

As Voldemort snarled his final words, Draco shrank back with a cry. "No," he gasped, attempting and failing to wrench himself from Voldemort´s tight grasp. "It´s not, I´m not, no, no, no."

"Then prove it," snarled the Dark Lord, leaning ever closer, his flat nostrils flaring. "Prove that your supposed love for this boy, this Potter, hasn´t made you weak."

With wide eyes, slightly glossy from the potion, the boy looked around, meeting only the cold stares of his ancestors.

"What must I do?" he said finally, in a lost, small voice.

"Nothing so easy, my boy." The Dark Lord released Draco from his clutch, his tone now quite convivial. "You must discern your feelings for the Potter boy."

"I--I know what I feel. I love him."

"But you aren´t sure, are you, Draco?"

A tell-tale hesitation before the answer came, this time: "I--I am."

Voldemort chuckled, a rippling wheeze of dry laughter like sandpaper against stone. Draco backed away from him into the center of the room, until the long sofa impaired him. Voldemort moved to place his bony hands on the boy´s shoulders. Draco shuddered, and the Dark Lord´s smile deepened.

"You will be perfect for the task ahead of you, Draco."

"My--my task?"

"To discover your true loyalties."

"But I--how would I do that?"

"There is a way to find out for certain," he said slowly, in a tone of great consideration.

"To--to find out if I really love him, you mean?"

A grave nod.

Draco furrowed his brows in thought, and then his eyes lit like a child newly discovering the answer to a riddle. "There is a way--I was just reading--we just learned how to make it--the potion, the Deathjoy Serum. But--but it kills the drinker. That is, it can. If you love the drinker, the potion kills."

"Excellent, Draco. I want Harry Potter dead. You want to know how you feel about him. Why not slaughter two birds at once?"

"But I--is that my task?"

"As you wish."

"But I--that means Harry would be--"

"Dead, yes. But anything other than a dead Harry Potter is ultimately unacceptable."

Draco went white.

"There is no other way for this to end, Mr. Malfoy," said the Dark Lord. "However, if you hate Mr. Potter after all, he will live. You will be in no doubt of your duty, and the way will be clear."

"Clear--to do what?"

"To join me. To serve wizardkind with me against the upstart Muggles who have contaminated us for too long." Voldemort paused, studying the boy, whose fine silver hair currently fell into his face in unruly strands. The wizard pushed a lock back out of his eyes to reveal the dawning excitement, the fresh new uncertainty in them. He splayed his fingers over Draco´s cheek and tilted the boy´s chin up to look him more fully in the eyes. "I know your heart desires to eradicate them from our world, Draco, as much as my own. And we will." His voice became silky and full of promise, "Together. We will remove their stench from our society until all of wizardom heralds our victory as the coming of a new Age."

Here Voldemort´s eyes lit with a wild, frenzied anticipation, which the boy´s sudden struggle to get away quickly dispelled. He ducked out of Voldemort´s hold and turned to face him, his eyes blazing. "I won´t do it," he said sharply. "I love Harry Potter. You´d have to Imperius me first, and if you did, I´d fight that, too." He was suddenly speaking with clarity, as if the effects of the Charm had been dispelled. The Dark Lord, however, appeared perfectly unperturbed.

"Of course I would, and of course you will," he answered smoothly. "You will fight it, but in vain. You are strong of will, Draco, unusually so--yet you are uncertain of many things. In your own mind, you are not sure what it is that you want. Thus you are very difficult to command, but extremely easy to confuse. Your will has been weakened. The Confundus Charm in your drink is a very powerful one. You have done an admirable job resisting it, but ultimately you have failed, as you will fail to challenge the will of Imperius--done in by your own insecurities.

"You see, Draco, mind charms--Confundus, Veritas, Imperius--are all, at their most basic, fundamental level, the same breed of magic as the Diabolution Solution itself. The kind that does not influence the mind so much as strip it of its self-imposed inhibitions, removing from it all the scruples and conditions which men are of a lifetime taught to place upon our own desires. What prevents us from telling the truth, for example, but fear of the consequences? Thus Veritas does not force a man into telling the truth, but simply removes the fear that would normally induce him to tell a lie, so that he has no reason to refrain from being honest.

"Just as you, now, under the charm´s power, are experiencing on the one hand an impulse to rebel against my words--your logic is telling you that this desire to do harm to the one you supposedly care about, is wrong, wicked, and a falsehood. On the other hand, you feel a completely rational urge to agree with what I say to you now, because some part of you has long wanted to hear it. What part of this is induced, and what is real? It is not for me to say--only that the charm reveals that you have long been at war with yourself on the subject of Harry Potter and what you should do about him. Every attempt to deny only makes your struggle more transparent, Mr. Malfoy. The charm begins to take root--because you cannot help yourself. It is what you have wanted. Confundus is merely erasing your brain´s ability to argue with itself.

"Under such circumstances your mind will easily be susceptible to the Imperius curse. Already you have proven pliable--you have even, under the influence of Confundus, suggested it yourself. You also suggested the use of Deathjoy, a stroke of genius I had not expected you to be able to remember. It is a mark of an excellent mind for wizardry. Still, the readiness with which your thoughts snapped to the subject indicates that you are perhaps more willing than you will ever admit to carry out the task ahead of you. Even your silence as you listen to my words now is preparing you, taking you deeper under the curse´s power.

"You know in the end, Draco, that this is for your own good. You know your place is with me, alongside me, ruler of all men and most powerful of all wizards. Not with him.

"If you love Harry Potter, kill him. Kill him while your love is in full bloom, while the curse of his life is not yet upon him to blight his later years with unhappiness. Kill him with kindness, in an instant, before he has to endure the pain and torture my followers will eagerly submit him to when they find him. Kill him before he understands that your place is with me, your loyalty to your father and your family. Kill him before your love dies, while it is still pure, unblemished passion--before it grows and begins to fester like a canker on the open wound of your heart. Kill him while you can, and know that yours was the purest and the truest of all the loves he knew--that he died before he could grow to despise your love. Kill him before he grows to desire another. Kill him and know that he loved only you, that he died with your name on his lips. Kill him as an act of mercy towards you both. Love him. But kill him.

"Then may you fulfill your destiny with an unblemished heart, Draco. Your destiny to be counted among the greatest wizards of history. To join me in sharing all that I command. To seize power and do with it just as you have always dreamed. To excel in all things and push past the limits others have set for you. I have waited for you since your birth. Then, as now, it was clear that fate had set you apart, had apportioned for you a special place among wizards. As yet that place is unseen, but certain.

"You know what you must do to achieve that destiny, if you will. Love is not a part of it, yet it is none the less great. Therefore, murder the love you feel, Draco, and wait upon the things you have been bred for: power, glory, fortune; or, if it comes to it, revel in your hatred of your most prized enemy. Pit your life against his with a clear heart, without remorse. For in the end it can only be your heart against his: one winner, one loser; but never are you meant to be twins in victory."

Silence swallowed up the Dark Lord´s final words. The boy stood mute and staring, as if unseeing, looking past him, perhaps to something beyond the walls or even the vision of men. Lord Voldemort observed this vacant expression for a moment and finally continued with a wave of his hand. This time he spoke boredly; he could have been reading the boy his rights. Yet his eyes gleamed with a deep malicious triumph, and his tone of voice was light.

"You will not attempt to communicate the fact that you have been cursed to anyone. You will not attempt to take your own life or in any other way do physical harm to yourself." He chuckled. "At least not until after you have carried out these instructions. You will have six weeks exactly, beginning at the last stroke of midnight tonight, in which to make and serve Harry Potter the Deathjoy Serum. You will not fail to do this. After you have completed your task you will come find me, regardless of the outcome. If you should, for whatever highly unadvisable reason, fail to carry out these orders, I will come find you. Is that understood?"

As if somewhere amid a dream the boy gave a long slow nod.

"Good. You will find that all attempts to dilute or change the nature of the potion will fail, so you are not to waste your time trying. Do not attempt to drive Potter away, threaten him, or in any other way make an effort to rouse his suspicions. Knowing the fool it wouldn´t work, and he would only stick closer to you than ever. And of course, you will obviously tell no one that I was here, nor provide any information about this visit to anyone. Is that clear?"

The same foggy slow nod.

"Excellent. You will carry out your instructions to the letter, I have no doubt, Mr. Malfoy. You always were terribly obedient.

"But look--the time nears midnight even now, Draco. You will have no need of me after this. You must prepare. This is, after all, a very exciting time for you, and I would not wish to deprive you of the chance to enjoy it fully without unwanted company around."

Draco, rousing himself, suddenly focused his gaze on the wizard. In a strange voice, he said, "I will," his eyes flashing a terrible sort of defiance as he spoke. The Dark Lord frowned.

"Will as you may," he said. "You will not win." He stretched out his hand, and the boy grew still. Indeed, all the world seemed to stiffen around his voice.

"Happy New Year, Mr. Malfoy," he said as the clock began to chime the count of twelve. "Imperio."

Hundreds of miles away, in the first moments of the new year, Harry Potter awoke with his scar on fire.

To Be Continued.