Storm

Draco Malfoy had a long time to prepare for his future. Everything, of course, had already been planned since his birth and all he needed to do now was to say "yes" at all the appropriate times and curse "those fucking Mudbloods" at every opportunity and maybe even add in some shameless sniveling, all done with great dignity and noble breeding, naturally.

Draco had a long time to prepare. He had learned, since childhood, how to alternate between Cruciatus and old fashioned torture devices to break the body faster, the mind even quicker and take any left over spirit to be meticulously rearranged like a broken mirror, all shattered and sharp with gleaming points and missing pieces. At first, his victims were animals. His father provided him with countless baby mammals, wide eyes staring at him and they were accusing, filled with instinctive hatred and fear. Reptiles were to be respected, especially snakes, but it wasn't until his first real kill that he learned why.

Draco can still remember his first real kill. The great black cat had glared at him, slits of startling green charging him of guilty crimes against its race. He had felt something akin to awe when he whispered "Imperius!" and pet the smooth fur, tracing with his fingers the corded muscles of its neck until he reached the strong jaw, enjoying the thrill of fear as he let his finger rest there. It was a test of wills. He had knelt, staring into those eyes and those emerald greens had filled with panic, understanding its loss of will but not understanding why. Draco remembered that he felt a particular attraction to those eyes and when he was done, a wash of crimson staining the grass in red gleams of sin and guilt, he ordered a house-elf to pluck them out and place them into a jar inside his room.

Draco can still remember his first Muggle kill. The child had been young, smooth and unblemished. He hadn't been that much older at the end of his 4^th year. Eyes wide, scared and frightened, pleaded for assistance. Draco had run the back of his hand softly against a cheek. He had imagined the hair to be a bit longer, a bit messier and far darker. He had imagined a crooked scar running its jagged line down the forehead and when the child lay quiet, pale and quite dead, he thought ferociously, that is what I want. And next time it won't just be imagination. He hadn't been given any more Muggles after that. Draco liked to think that Voldemort and his father had greater plans for him than being a non-descript killer. All the Death Eaters killed their John Does but Draco would be the one to kill Harry Potter.

It was during his 6^th year at Hogwarts that something inside Draco irrevocably changed. It wasn't a great difference. He felt no desire to join the "Light" and help The Boy Who Lived in the battle against evil. However, his priorities were rearranged. Everyone knew how it had started and yet all were ignorant. It had started with the Philosopher's Stone, continued on in the Chamber of Secrets and so forth.

Draco had ignored it at first, tossing the thought aside for further examination in the distant future, considering it unimportant in times of growing adolescence and teenage fury. On a quiet night in his chambers during his 6^th year he found it once again, as he thought of wicked plots washed in a film of red during a raging storm. While he was loathed to agree, Draco consented to a certain attraction about The Boy Who Lived.

It began as an awareness. Draco ate, etiquette smooth and refined, occasionally glancing about the room as he schemed in a silky manner. He had been listening to a rather uninspiring conspiracy when he looked up at the particular moment to see a particular Harry Potter in a rather particular manner. Quidditch practices had hardened Potter's physique and shaped his face in a sculpted manner but his skin had grown paler during the last two years, probably due to some sort of conscience and depression of that sort. There was an innocence lying in those limbs, growing heavy with the weight of everyone's expectations and Draco had paused in thought. This innocence made Potter glow and made Draco think, from dinner to his chambers.

So Draco lay there, contemplating his rearranged priorities. A flash of lightning painted the room a bright white before he blinked and everything was stained in black once more. He liked storms. There was something inspiring about them. They quickened his pulse and pumped adrenaline through his body in a slow pulses. Draco felt that lightning could only be truly appreciated when the skies were black with shadows and the rolling clouds grayed in condensation, a foreshadowing of what was to come. The white jagged line grew more pure and brighter the darker the skies became.

Draco was reminded of Potter when he thought of the lightning. There was strength to that boy, a resilience. The harder Draco pushed, the firmer Potter stood. Potter was like that jagged line on his forehead, like the jagged white during a storm. Draco liked to fancy himself the sky and the darker he became, the brighter Potter would become. It became his obsession: to made Potter brighter.

Draco's 7^th year rushed past him in a flurry of activity. Plans had been set into motion and he climbed up the Death Eater hierarchy and made himself that much higher on the food chain, that much more unstoppable. Before, Draco had been content with Voldemort's plans for him. But during that 6^th year, in that epiphany about storms and innocence, Draco soon designed a painstaking plan that concluded with him on top and Voldemort nowhere to be found.

Soon, it was his name whispered in fear and He Who Must Not Be Named became him. The name "Voldemort" began to carelessly drop from wizards and witches alike. "Lucius Malfoy" was a name whispered amongst those that remembered and "Draco" was never said again, except by one particular individual.

That boy, a man now, of shocking black hair and bright skin had faced Draco directly after a long battle. Screams of spells and pain could be dimly heard but Draco focused more on the advancing man. He smiled, filled with pleasure and satisfaction. Potter had grown nearly luminescent and every stop made him that much more brilliant, that much more dazzling in Draco presence. The green of Potter's eyes was so vivid, so intense, that it made Draco ache and think of his collection, beautiful fleshy gems of his childhood.

When Draco lost--he knew he would--Potter grew so impossibly white that Draco had to shut his eyes but the light bled through and soon he was drowning in it. During that moment, a surge of triumph filled him.

And then, Draco thought, fiercely, I knew it. I knew it.

It was a cry of victory.