And So the Wolves Sing

The sky is blue-black, the satin of an exquisite dress. I look up and think wryly of all the knowledge I have of fine fabrics, of etiquette perfect and demure. [Of all the useless things a child could be taught...] You need to know how to place your napkin in your lap, how to chew without sound, how to sit properly in a chair. Upright and stiff, a skeleton on strings.

Yes, Mother.

No, Mother.

I'll not drop it again, Mother.

Tables full of corpses, dancing the puppet waltz of polite society. And then they stand, jerk to their feet, mouths open and out comes the conversation, the idle talk. Chalk dust spilling from their lips. Bullshit in sentence form.

I am six, and I've just realized that the dead surround me. No one listens, no one speaks, just this dry exchange of brittle sounds, as arbitrary as the passage of seconds (endless, endless fucking dinners) and I just want to go somewhere else and be alone. I'd take my falcon out, but my father broke its neck and handed it to me.

Hold your pet until you feel it grow cold and stiffen.

No, Father.

It's not my friend, Father.

I'll not do it again, Father.

(I wanted so badly to kick him)

I am twelve, and I've just realized that I will never please him. He wants a different son, but I've no strings about my wrists or ankles. It isn't his finger tugging that keeps me standing (my eyes are open, asshole, I can see) or my head up. And there's that moment of death. There are no deep cords between you after all, just thin strings, superficial threads; it was just you and your sickness, your hope. The two of you aren't even touching. The two of you aren't even close.

I can't see that far, Father.

When was that distance born?

[Disenchantment is a hot blade between your ribs]

When did this change?

I am eighteen, and I don't care.

I'm looking at the sky, blue-black like exquisite satin, and wondering exactly where I am. I'm wondering why the air is so cold. I'm looking at the ruins that surround me. I'm trying to remember their name. I'm wondering if this is a good day to die.

"They're going to kill me," I say, and it's casual and dry and factual. An announcement of an event, a garden party, a soiree. I am not afraid [your hands are shaking] and I light a cigarette, breathe smoke. The nicotine is so, so sweet in my veins and I laugh an obscene and hysterical little laugh.

"Shut up, you stupid prick," she says, sitting next to me on the ground in the leaf litter, "I told you."

She looks at me, eyes red-brown and gold, and flicks a tangle of her wild, twisting hair out of her face. She lays her hands on her sword, stuck into the earth in front of her. She grins, white and gleaming and feral and angry.

"I'm going to help you fight them," she says, "and then I'm going the fuck home."

And I laugh again at the irony of the fact that we are both here. That we are looking at the blue-black sky and contemplating saving each other. That we are sitting in the same place, in the same ruins. At the end of our ropes and our wits and our options.

(This never should have happened)

Look at her. That arrogant bitch. I should curse her for looking so smug.

[Look at her. Be honest.]

And I remember her in red and gold. And I remember spitting at her, at the very ground she walked on.

Fucking mudblood lover. Blood traitor hag.

And she remembers me in green and silver. And she spat at me in kind.

But we were ignorant. She knew nothing, and I knew less. We acted out the play of prejudice like fools and like marionettes.

[You hate strings more than anything else]

(I'm sick of all your shit, my dear Father)

"You don't have to stay here," I say, and I lean my head back against cold stone. I drag and exhale. I feel the slow death of my lungs and it doesn't matter.

"I need this place," she says, "I needed you to find it for me." She wrinkles her nose, makes a sound of distaste like a dog sneezing, a huff of air like a bark. She presses her arm over her face (with skin dark olive and tan like mine will never be) to cover her nose and mouth.

"That shit reeks, Le Fey," she complains, muffled, her voice a tangle of accents that I've never been able to place (where the hell is she from?) and she uses my nickname, the one she invented but I've never understood.

You're a Faery child, you know, she'd told me once, you're Draco Le Fey. Tuatha de Dannan.

I won't apologize for the smoke, but she knows that.

She knows me. It shouldn't have happened.

I challenge you, Malfoy. I dare you. Let's do it, if you're not a fucking coward.

I remember how it started. I can pick up that chain from the present and pull myself hand over hand back to the moment that it all began. It was as stupid a thing as one can imagine;

It was an insult contest.

(Pathetic. Sometimes I hate myself for it.)

Fine with me. I'll row with you any day.

The twilight is over (I wasn't paying attention. When did that happen?); this is night, finally. We wait, and we watch in silence, and soon enough the sky turns from black to cascade, from dark to rain splattered flickering color.

It's fucking spectacular.

The sky never looked like this at home. It didn't look like this at school.

Where the hell are we going, Monroe?

Just shut up and follow me, you git.

[And you walked behind her through the corridors at night, didn't you?]

She looks at me again, eyes red-brown and gold, and there's starlight on her face. I can see her properly now. She doesn't look like she used to, like a tomboy, (like a wild animal) like a small feral creature smothered in black robes, being choked by the snare of her tie.

Her wolf grin doesn't take up her whole face anymore. Her twisted hair tumbles all down her back, long and weighted like it never used to be. There are subtle smudges of kohl under her eyes that make them wide. Brings out the ring of black around her iris.

The eyes of a wolf. Piercing and intelligent.

You look like a wiry stick with a shrub on top of your head, you know.

And then I smirked. I leered.

(She never used to wear makeup)

At least I'm not some snotty twit with a face like a pigeon's rear end.

The way she's sitting on her haunches, back against stone, boot heels wedged into the ground, it's impossible to tell what else is different. Is she still short enough to fit under my chin? Does she still have to look up to look down on me?

You're the biggest asshole I've ever met, Malfoy.

And then she shoved me, hard, dismissively, into a wall.

And now she can see me.

[She always saw right through you]

"You look like shit," she says, runs her fingers down the blade of her sword, and laughs, low and guttural at the back of her throat, a growl. I lean toward her, flick ashes at her (she can be fucking obvious sometimes) from the end of my cigarette. She stops, her grin fades. She shifts closer to me, puts an elbow in my side. "When was the last time you ate, Le Fey?"

Shit. (That hurt. Those bruises won't heal.)

I don't remember. I start adding up hours (it's bloody hard to think) and come up with an ugly number of days. Then I smile, take a long drag, exhale slowly. There's a moment of giddy elation, sharper for all the sleep deprivation.

"Not since I ripped that fucking prick a new one."

(You had that coming, dear Father)

I get to say it with all the satisfaction that I feel. I get to gloat until he finds me and kills me. I'm not afraid (I fumble my cigarette, burn my finger) because I know it's coming. At least I'll be really dead, in the ground with soil in my mouth. Truly dead, instead of tied and strung and vomiting insincerities while I contemplate how to properly hold my wine glass.

You mustn't offend our guests, Draco.

No Mother, I won't.

She's looking for something, patting down her torn clothes, searching in the burlap sack she has next to her hip. She barks once, victoriously, and pushes a bundle of wax paper into my lap. I crush the last of the cigarette into the earth (it's down to the filter anyway) and peel it open. The back of my throat burns with the sudden smell of something edible and I chuckle erratically in relief.

It's a muffin.

"A bloody fucking muffin," I snicker, and shove it into my dry mouth.

It's wonderful, even if my shrunken stomach starts complaining almost immediately. I could hug her. If I did she'd hit me.

"You're welcome," she says flatly, and she leans her head back, faces the sky, waits while I chew and swallow. She takes the mess of paper away, shoves it back into the bag.

And we stare at the stars.

Do you ever really trust what you see, Malfoy?

Sod off, Monroe. I'm not blind.

I wonder why she's here. I wonder what she's waiting for.

[Everyone is waiting for something]

I'm waiting for consequences to find me. I'm waiting for the world to come crashing down and smother me in the weight of it. I'm waiting for my Father.

And I ask her, "What are you waiting for?"

She points to the west horizon, over the ruins, over the chunks of crumbling stone. She grins at me in the dark.

"The moon," she says, "I need to go home."

Have you ever heard the wolves sing, Le Fey?

I have no idea what she's talking about. I don't even know where she comes from. I know her (years of forced interaction will do that) but I don't understand her. Never have.

I pull another bent cigarette from the crushed packet, light it with my wand. I know that it's stupid of me. Every spell, every charm, no matter how small, will make it easier for them to find me.

Idiot boy. You dare to use the name Malfoy.

(Never asked for it)

I can't muster the energy to care.

They'll find me anyway. It's only a matter of hours. Another drag, another sweet, sticky wave of nicotine. Next to me, she sighs in disgust.

"Stop that," she snaps, "the smell makes me bloody sick."

Her boots grind against the stone and hard dirt as she shifts. She jabs me in the ribs again, hits my shoulder with a hard-knuckled fist. I hiss with pain but she won't apologize.

I know her.

"It should never have happened," I mutter, not meaning for her to hear, but somehow, she does, and she makes that huffing sound again, that woof-like breath.

"What-- this? Being here?" she says, and gestures to the broken walls around us, the skeleton of towers and the collapsing arches. She bares her white teeth at me, leers wickedly, raises a dark, sharp eyebrow. "Coincidence is a weird bitch, isn't she? Has a sense of irony."

I tilt my head against the wall behind us; feel the texture of ancient lichen against my tangled hair. I breathe out more smoke, stare at her through the haze, watch her nostrils flare at the stench of my bad habit.

"This place doesn't have anything ironic about it. It has nothing to do with me or you," I say, tapping my fag with a finger, "it's just us, stuck together. That's ironic."

Don't you pay any fucking attention to what's going on? We're on bloody opposite sides of this!

(Sometimes it's like she doesn't know it's a war)

I bring it back to my mouth, put it between my lips. And then I laugh again, because it isn't really funny. "We're both fleeing from our fathers," I say, and she snorts, unladylike and crude (my mother would hate her) but expressively concise.

"I'm not running from mine. I don't know him that well, but he's decent." She slides her feet out from under her, sits down fully on the packed earth, gleaming sword upright between her legs. Then she makes an odd singing noise, a melodic sigh full of genuine regret. "I just can't live with him. I don't belong here."

I choke, puff smoke out my nose by accident. "What the hell do you mean, 'here'? Where else are you going to go, to the fucking muggles?" I ask, and I giggle inanely from the nicotine rush. I'm almost twitching. This is bad.

[Momento Mori]

I'm going to die. I'm going to be disemboweled (oh fuck) and gutted and I'm finding it hysterically funny because I don't want to find it anything else.

You're such a cowardly chicken-shit, Malfoy.

(Touché.)

She gives me a sidelong look, and it's something angry and vaguely disgusted. She glares at me from behind a lock of her black-chocolate hair.

"Why do you always assume that there are only two options?" she says, and she puts her palms flat against the wall and pushes. She stands, walks away, and faces west.

[Wizard or not. Those are the only choices]

What the hell are you trying to do Monroe?

I'm unlocking this door. What the shit does is look like?

You've got no wand, you twit!

And she pulled the thing out of her pocket and stared at it like she'd forgotten she'd had it.

(But the door opened. How the hell did she do that?)

No, she really doesn't belong. She isn't like me, not in the least.

I finish my cigarette (only two more left), savoring it, making it last. And I'm trying not to think.

The moon rises, full and yellow and huge, to the west. White-gold light touches the edges of her face, her twisting hair, the silhouette of her petite body against granite and sky. It sharpens the subtle shapes of the muscles in her bare arms, reflects off the eyelets of her boot laces.

She bathes in it, breathes it in, stretches and twists, luxuriating. She yawns, like a canine, and the teeth at the corners of her mouth are slightly pointed. She cracks her knuckles one at a time, runs her hands down the back of her neck, rolls her shoulders, massages her forearms. She shakes out her hair, flings it out of her face and onto her back.

The girl is untamable.

(She's bloody alive.)

Ever been on the roof, Le Fey? You can jump from one tower to the next. It's bloody brilliant!

She's insane. She has to be.

"You know that they'll kill you too?" I say, because she doesn't fucking get it, and I'm chewing on the filter of the dead fag (bloody disgusting) just to keep my hands busy.

She turns away from the moon, faces me. She's burning with fierce energy, vital and dangerous and it makes her vibrate and seethe with something primal.

I can never sleep during a full moon. You know that.

[Remember who her father is. Think about it.]

"Le Fey," she says, and her voice is so sure, "I won't let them touch you."

I want to laugh again. I want to burst into hysterical tears of mirth but I'm just too tired. She sits back down next to me. I spit out the butt of my cigarette, push my fingers into my hair.

And I can't stop thinking. I can't stop remembering.

[Lions and snakes and rivals]

So many looks of hate. You think I would have been able to ignore them completely, but I never could. I don't have that kind of pride.

Do you want to be weak? Do you want to be pitiable and frail and powerless?

No Father, I don't.

(But I'd rather be breathing)

"What do you remember," I ask, "about me and Potter?"

She doesn't answer. She runs the heel of her palm against the edge of the blade and there's the ringing scrape of callous against metal. She hums quietly in tune with it, breathes the sound out of her mouth.

(That voice...)

I shiver, and I remember how she used to sing out loud to spite me; songs that sounded to me like blue nights and liquid ink; melodies that made me gape at her, mesmerized, rapt with disbelief.

[Her mother sang like that too, she told you]

"You made each other better," she says, finally.

"I hated him."

I light another cigarette, inhale sharply.

"I hate him. Now. Still."

So noble. So heroic and sporting. So genuinely righteous and blissfully unconflicted.

(Wanker)

She looks amused at this. Her eyes are pale orange in the moonlight, and she says, "You couldn't help it." Hating him. Hating each other. I cough painfully and spit.

"The lion and the snake," I say, and sneer at the sky through my smoke. It was bloody destined to be. (Fucking strings) We must have played our parts well.

(Did we dance enough for you? Maybe you should have pulled harder.)

She smiles crookedly. Shakes a rope of her hair out of her eyes.

"You're not a snake, Le Fey," she says, and she tilts her head to one side, studies me. One hand compulsively goes to the sword hilt, traces over the crossbar.

"You..."

She grips the black leather wrappings (tendons jump out in the back of her hand) and she pulls it out of the earth, twists it, stirs the dirt with the tip. Moonlight sets it afire, reflects it into my eyes.

"You're a white falcon," she says, "rara avis, ixlierria wethryahe."

The last slips out of her mouth like a ribbon, across her teeth and the tip of her tongue, twists in the air, syllables melting and curling together.

The back of my neck prickles.

She's called me that before.

"A raptor," I say, the English brief and sharp in my mouth with the taste of tobacco. And I remember clearly:

Thank you, Father.

I am six, and I've never seen anything so exquisite.

I'll name him Mycaelis. Do you like that name?

And at first he bit at my fingers and hissed when I reached out to touch his feathers. Later, he would push his hooked beak against my hand and close his eyes when I stroked my thumb over his chest. He nibbled at my hair, grooming me like a fledgling. He came when I called.

(Stupid beast got his neck snapped for trusting)

"And Potter?" I ask.

"If he was a lion, you wouldn't have survived him."

She says it with gravity, gives me a rueful, lopsided smile that tells me she means it. She stretches out one leg, balances the sword against the toe of her boot. She pulls the pommel towards her face, closes one eye, sights along the edge of the blade, touches the scratches and nicks.

Not a lion.

But I think of skin splitting, hot blood running into my eyes, my hands slipping in it when I touched my chest. The fiery stinging and the scorching pain. The force of it (the weight of a sword I never saw) crushing me to the floor.

Sectumsempra.

[But he knelt next to you, muttered how he hadn't meant to do it]

"A stallion. A horse." She laughs once, a gruff bark. "He's a pony. You've looked him in the eyes. You know."

The eyes of a horse. Wary and forgiving.

The stag; His patronus. Powerful, impulsive, and fierce. Formidable and obstinate.

Get out of my way, you mulish prat!

But not a predator. Not a hunter. Not a true rival.

(No, he had bloody Snape for that)

[So where has your casus belli gone? Your catalyst? Your reason for war?]

We weren't meant to clash. We could have ignored each other.

And I laugh, uncontrollably, until I'm retching from the pain in my side, from the smoke in my lungs, and I realize just how much I loathe that creature called circumstance. (This much. I'm thinking of the distance between the earth and the fucking stars.)

My life (my adolescence, such as it is) could have been my own, but instead I was to chase the Boy Who Lived.

And so, still, I hate him. Now more than ever.

(Can you fathom what we stole from each other, Potter? Do you even care, now that everything is over?)

[You hope to all the Gods you don't believe in that it's truly, utterly over]

All this running. I should have just given up and died six days ago, denied my Father this bloody, reckless denouement.

"I want this to end," I say, and I wipe my mouth and eyes on my dirty sleeve, "I want this to go quickly. I'm sick of waiting."

And it's like she's wanted me to say that all along. Her face splits into a savage and gleeful smile. Genuine and exultant. Brighter than I've seen since we found each other in the rain on that ruined and forsaken back road; since I brought her here, to this place. She punches me heavily in the shoulder again (this time in something like camaraderie, though we've never shared such a thing), and she says, "Fuck, yeah."

She slaps a palm against the bicep of the arm holding her sword, makes a jubilant noise, something between a whoop and a growl. I grin back at her (she's a bloody maniac) and suck more smoke into my mouth.

"Call them here," she says happily, "let them know where we are. Then we can fight. End this. Now."

She moves suddenly, throws me the sword (I'm not ready for the weight. It nearly hits me when it slaps into my hands), riffles through her burlap bag. There's a peculiar sound, like rain on dead leaves, and she pulls into view a black shard. An obsidian sliver. Something angular and sharp that looks like liquid, frozen, solid... shadow.

It has no contours, no details. Light bends around it, twists, falls into the shape of it. And I think:

Black as tar.

Black as pitch.

Blacker than the darkest witch...

[So the rhyme goes]

It's a dagger. A hole in the air in the silhouette of a knife.

"Merlin's prick..." I mutter, and in the face of my impending death, I'm not ashamed of my crude choice of words.

In her other hand is a black drawstring bag (full and heavy), a silver key on a chord. It hits her boot buckle as she stands, gives a metallic chime. I open my mouth to ask her what she's doing, but she jerks her chin up (that primal gesture, like a fox cocking its head), snaps at me, cuts me off.

"Just get your asshole father here, Draco. Piss him off. Make sure he comes running."

And she slides the black dagger into her belt, holds the key in front of her as she walks between the low, broken walls, the piles of loose stone. I recognize it from somewhere, the way she's watching the key swing, retracing her steps in a pattern. I suddenly think of school, of high towers and dim light and smothering heat and the suffocating haze of incense.

Dowsing I think, and I realize the word hasn'0t crossed my mind in years.

I need this place, she'd said.

I put the sword down, push myself to my feet, wincing and aching (fuck that hurts), feeling wounds crack and open along my sides, pulled muscles shaking in spasms. My fag has fizzled out, died while I wasn't looking. I throw it into a corner, swear, shed my cloak (the thing's practically in tatters), spit again and taste blood.

She turns like she can smell it, asks if I'll live. I give her the finger, tell her to piss off. She scowls, tells me to go bugger myself.

Shut it, wanker.

Likewise, bitch.

(Such a guilty pleasure; we love insulting each other)

And somehow, I'm soothed by it, by the anger in her voice. Something sincere, something genuine at last.

Make him come running, she said.

I tilt my head back, stare at the moon. I think of my father's cold temper, his belligerent, automatic pride. I think of what would make him incensed, furious enough to make mistakes...

Me.

I drive him to frigid rage.

[You were sixteen when you realized that your father wanted to wretch in shame at the sight of you]

(Can you imagine how that felt, dear Father?)

I pull together the shattered remains of my energy. I muster all the pieces of bitterness and insolence I can, grip my wand and swing it viciously upward; I throw the Malfoy family crest into the sky. Silver, massive, and nauseating. I swear at it, feeling surges of hate. I wonder at the fact that I can still summon it, that the name still clings to me somehow, even though I just want it to leave me the fuck alone.

I want this to end.

"Come get me, you prick!" I yell, voice hoarse (and thin, like flakes of ash), "Come punish your bastardly whelp!"

Like a child, I kick at a piece of rock (to vent my pithy anger) but I'm so pathetically exhausted that I almost fall over. She catches me by the back of my shirt, sets me upright with so little effort that I'm insulted. She tells me succinctly (the chord of the silver key in her teeth) to save it, to wait for the real fight.

Her hand, pulling out of the heavy black bag, trails white between her fingers; streams of powder are thrown to the ground, scattered into corners while she speaks words like the breath of mists and wind, like the twist of fire and static:

Aisethraherr.

Lur rahvithye.

Irithrieya enerafiithe.

I don't know what they mean, but the sounds, too slippery for real familiarity, make my memory itch.

[Ixlierria wethryahe she called you]

The air thickens. It condenses, presses in from all around me. She ignores it, makes light patterns on dark earth that glisten in the moonlight. The silver crest, ugly and iridescent against the stars, blurs in my vision. I lick my lips [dry and brittle from spitting so many angry things], taste the sudden weight of the breeze, taste... salt.

"Monroe..." I begin, and then I feel sour disquiet creeping up the back of my throat. My question dies, unable to form properly on my tongue. It's hard to breathe.

(What is this?)

Without pausing, without turning, she says, "The salt cleans the space. It'll fade."

I would respond, but I have no air with which to speak. My mouth is brimming with torn cotton, with chalk...

She picks up the sword where I left it, drops it at my feet. She tips the bag, walks in a wide circle around me. She comes back to the place where she started once, twice, and three times while I watch, standing (swaying), unable to form words around the dust in my head.

"Weyraihehth!" she cries commandingly, to the earth, to the world at large like it will do exactly what she tells it to and the salt seeps into the ground like water, vanishes in wisps of vapor. All but the circle disappears, perfectly round, an unbroken line of crushed quartz.

I swear, pull wet, moist air into my lungs, fill my mouth with the sudden tang of fresh rain. Sweat cools against my skin, and I become abruptly aware of the dampness of my clothes.

"What the fuck!" I blurt, gasping, bracing my hands against my knees while I shudder.

It's warm and humid. The ground is steaming.

"Shut up!" she hisses. "They're coming. I can hear them." And she goes so still, stops breathing, turns to granite. It reminds me (absurdly and pointlessly) of the way she used to listen for teachers while we wandered through hallways at night, enjoying the ridiculous pleasure of hating each other's company.

She stirs (think of pine needles crossing stone in a breeze), leers at me happily, glances up to the grotesque emblem in the sky.

"I can hear your dad's expensive shoes," she says, and grins.

It worked Malfoy! It bloody worked!

Of course it worked. This was my idea...

[Foolish, stupid children you were]

I can't hear a thing. Not over my unsteady breathing. Not over my pounding heart. Logic makes it's slow return, and I panic, realizing that my Father isn't already on top of me, cursing me to the seventh hell.

(Why isn't he trying to kill me?)

[And then it occurs to you, through malnourished fog and starving mind]

"They can't apparate here."

(What is this place?)

I say it and realize that there isn't any other explanation; if they could, they would already be in sight, throwing spells. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Monroe look at me in something like surprised approval. It makes me (ludicrously, idiotically, irrationally) proud of myself. It fades after just a few seconds and I'm left feeling like an ass.

A muffin won't save me, but it makes something work (wind in a windmill) and I have a moment of clarity; Blinding, sharp, and monstrously unpleasant. I suddenly understand that I will die. The concept becomes the thing itself and I am paralyzed.

I can't even laugh. I just feel sick.

No.

Something has changed; the taste of true soil has no appeal.

No, I won't.

(I don't know what's going on)

I fucking refuse. No Father, I won't.

[You'll never be able to take back what you said to him six days ago]

"Explain it to me," I say, and I pull my last cigarette out of my pocket, put it between dry lips. My breath is coming in gasps. Black meanders across my vision, edged in violet and green. I have trouble getting the end of my wand to the tip of the thing, but it lights.

[Inhale. Exhale. See stars when the tar and nicotine hits you. Inhale...]

She just looks confused, bewildered, eyes bright and vivid in the moonlight still flaring around her outline. I point to the circle, unnaturally perfect.

"Explain everything to me. Tell me what in the name of fuck you're doing." Then the coughing starts and pain stabs up my sides, and I'm doubled over while she talks, while she wraps an arm around my waist and keeps me from toppling.

"I made a circle with salt. It's a barrier, like a shield charm."

(I'm tasting blood again)

"We have to stay in the circle. I mean it! Step across that line and we're in royal shit."

(I can feel pieces of rib grinding against each other)

"You need to fend them off while I..."

(Bloody hell this bloody hurts!)

A strong, callused hand goes to my jaw, pulls my face up. The horizon slides a little towards vertical.

"Are you listening?" she snaps, and I make an effort to focus on the sound of her voice. My head clears slightly, makes the pain brighter.

"You blow as many pieces off them as you can. I need to open the Gateway."

(what?)

"To fucking where?" I spit out, grinding my teeth. I realize that I'm panting. Like a dog. I remember my cigarette, take another drag. It helps the blurring, but not the sensation that my intestines are going to fall out of me sideways.

There's a silence, and she pulls my head up again until I'm looking at her, upright but not actually standing. I can feel the muscles in her forearm shifting against my back where she's propping me up.

"To the Ancient Realm," she says, like this is a fucking normal thing to say, "to the Old World, the First Sky and the First Earth. I told you, moron. I'm going home."

Where do you think magic comes from, Le Fey? What do you think it is?

(We had so many arguments about that. She acted like she knew, but I never understood what she was talking about.)

But then I recall that day...

We are both fifteen, and she hands me a picture of her mother; a photo vividly and oddly saturated with color. The woman is fucking beautiful (Leneahya; What a name), wildly magnetic, dressed in a gown the likes of which I've never seen, a fine fabric that for once, I don't recognize. Her black-chocolate hair falls down past her shoulders in twists and loops.

Barefoot and tan. Petite and strong, fiercely feminine...

She'll bolt from the frame if you speak to loudly, I thought as I stared, she'll flee into the woods and the night, singing and howling.

[And, like her daughter, she didn't belong]

(This is the mother of Frankie Monroe)

That was the day she told me her real name, the one she hadn't known about. The one they withheld from her until she found her father:

Frakyla Mana Lupin.

[That same day she told you how he never knew much about Leneahya, or where she was from. She wouldn't tell him, not before she died.]

Such a sad story:

Hold your lover while she grows ill and fades. Give your infant child away, lest you tear her to pieces when the moon is full.

[Can you even contemplate making that terrible choice?]

If I hold very still, it doesn't hurt so much. I take slower breathes, slower drags, and the coughing subsides. She slowly lets my weight slide off of her, onto my own feet. I fight the lightheadedness that's saturated my perception; push it back with what little will I have left.

[Six days would strip anyone bare]

Dimly, I hear the sound of my own blood whistling in my torn lungs. Just the merest sensation (buried under all the other pain) of something bubbling with every breath. With as much irony as I can muster, I take my last drag of my last cigarette, and then violently spit it out. I can feel blood and saliva drying at the corner of my mouth, throat stung by smoke.

Maybe I'm already dying...

[Terror gives you focus]

It's too late to ask any more questions.

"Tell me what to do," I say, and I'm shaking. My head is clear. More so than it has been for days. The stabbing pain is still strong, and I cling to it. It splinters in my mind, clears away the black stars drifting across my vision... and I sway.

(Don't let me fade...)

(Shit, please don't let me fade...)

"Draco?"

She's looking at me with irritated alarm. Her hand (rough, and small) is still on my back, like a crutch. Her red-brown eyes, black edged and intent, are wide like I've never seen them.

"Just-- tell me what to do," I say again (can't think can't think), and I heap little shreds of energy together to focus, to see those sharp eyebrows draw together in a deep scowl. She bites her lip, snaps her teeth together while she thinks furiously, gaze darting faster than I can follow... and then it settles.

There, in her belt. That black knife, the sliver.

She swears loudly to herself. She pushes my sagging head up with her free hand, her rough palm against fine stubble, forces me to look at her again.

"I want you to come with me," she says with her teeth bared, "you need to come with me. I'm not leaving you here to drown in your own fucking blood."

My knee jerk reaction of refusal is out of my mouth before I can stop myself and she slaps me for it, calls me an idiot, a moron; a prat and a prick and a wanker. She's slid from annoyed to livid with me, beside herself with fury while she grips the front of my stained shirt and insults me.

Coward.

Morose little shit.

(How dare I be such a fool?)

Spineless, sodding git.

I'll die here, she says, however uselessly and for whatever useless reason.

And I can't articulate that I don't want to die. I don't want to stay here, in this earth, in this soil; I'll go with her. I want to leave. I want to bloody live.

(I want to be fucking alive!)

[Mycaelis]

Shivering, sweating hands go into my pocket and I grip my wand, draw it between us, the point of it raised in the weak pantomime of defiance. She stares at it, wide eyes bright with starlight, and she smiles slowly, so very white in the dark, understanding. I try to speak, the effort of it taking precious breath, but she puts a palm across my mouth, growls at me (again) to save it.

She takes her hands away from me for a moment and I almost collapse, my legs buckling drunkenly, but she pulls one of my arms over her shoulder (it makes me bend sideways and spit with pain; short, tiny little Frankie) and the other around my hips.

(So bloody strong...)

She turns us to face the moon, blindingly full. Rain sounds on dry leaves and glass when she pulls out the knife, the black dagger, and it rings with a wet echo that only multiplies as she pulls it up through the air.

She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth...

And she sings, the words throwing themselves out of her mouth, the melody melting and twisting like black liquid earth and blue star-fire and the wild cry of every animal I've ever heard:

"Lur ilyerihehth eyrier theixhlel!"

And with all the strength of her small body, muscles tightening against my bruised side, the last note sears through the air with a roar of thunder; she pierces the sky with the tip of the blade, snarls viciously as she pulls it to the ground in a shower of moonlight and lightning and roiling, wet heat that hits us both like a wall.

I stagger against her, slipping in her grip, but her hand is twisted tight into the fabric of my trousers and I can't move while the air thickens and crushes me, mashes my joints together in a fierce gravity that sweeps outward from the gash in the world like a shockwave.

My jaw works to swear, to cuss, to scream and the hot, humid air pours itself into my lungs, fills every inch of them; the heat runs like fire across my broken ribs, my torn skin, and I'm gasping for breath, my chest heaving with the purest, sweetest air I've ever tasted.

(Fuck!)

"FUCK!"

Her boot on my back shoves me hard to the ground, my forearms scrapping against moss and pine needles and roots as a flash of wicked green light bleaches my vision, leaving disjointed trails of fading color.

(can't think can't think)

I twist, my back instantly soaking in dew. I stare up at black silhouettes of trees that seep into a night sky just as dark. Trails of stars and moonlight smear across my blurred sight as perception slides back into place. I hear shouting, incoherent and angry, and I jerk upright with a stab of pain, finally understanding what's going on as more bursts of colored light ignite a scant ten feet from my head:

My Father is here; they're on top of us.

(Shit shit shit!)

[Think!]

I get on my hands and knees, slipping on the wet ground as I crawl forward, half standing, my wand still in my damp hand.

"Le Fey!"

She's close; to my left where she'd sliced open the door, crouching behind the white line of the circle still steaming and smoking. The air at the boundary of it is shimmering, spells and curses slamming into it with sharp crackling noises that snap against my ears and make the circle brighten, and then fade. She whips to face me, hair flying, eyes blazing luminous gold-red, with her hands still on the handle of the black dagger, thrust into the earth halfway up to her elbows.

"Push them back!" she screams, "I have to close the Gateway!"

Even as I'm lifting my wand in my left hand, even as I'm speaking incantations, my mind is jarred (fucking distraught) at the sight of the world split raggedly in two; The stone ruins thrust up unnaturally through gigantic trees, rock and bark overlapping, rippling and clashing where they touch; Grey stone fades disjointedly into green moss; shadows cast by one moon crisscross the shadows cast by another, the thresholds between them heaving and vibrating...

Do you ever trust what you see, Malfoy?

I can't blink (shit, shit) and my eyes start to sting and water as I aim again and again at indistinct figures approaching through the night and the open Gateway. My ears are ringing with my own and other's hoarse shouts, my mouth burning with the thick air as I exhale the words that might keep me alive.

[There's more of them than you expected]

[No time or breath to count]

The crackling noises get louder, become constant; transform into a continuous rankling sizzling as the circle steadily fails.

"Draco!"

That furious, frigid voice sends slivers of dread into me, makes me jerk involuntarily, makes me hesitate. I turn to the one figure that isn't moving (the one person that instills in me the irrevocable terror of a child); the blurred image of a tall man with hair as fair and skin as pale as my own.

Lucius.

(Father)

I would call out to him.

I would beg at his feet.

I would cry like a child.

(But I won't. I refuse.)

[Mycaelis]

I haven't forgotten, Father.

A tongue of burning sensation rips through my left arm, down the right side of my face and the back of my neck; It coils in the pit of my stomach, grips my bones; it leaps across my skin in flashes of liquid white-green static that lick jagged tongues along my hand and my wand, power cleaving against flesh.

(I never will)

It ripples up my spine, up the back of my throat, seething and boiling, wrenching my jaw open, burning my teeth, spilling from my mouth and shaping my tongue into a single word that seeps from the very air and trees and earth around me:

"Nrihthlarryeh!"

Anguish is torn out of me, thrown towards him with all the power of striking lightning; Anger, pride, betrayal, resentment, and bitterness, (hate and sadness in equal measure); love and guilt and incomprehension; even joy and comfort; every emotion I've ever felt for my Father is wrenched from me, pulled and ripped and pitched at him in a heaving wave of serrated light and black fire and the deafening cry of a dying falcon.

[Ixlierria wethryahe]

The air slams (crashes) in around me, impossibly heavy. My breath is thrown out of my chest from the strength of it, pain and heat splitting down my sides. I yell without air, blinded by tears and light and then consuming darkness, pouring in around the edges of my vision as I topple, my knees hitting soft, wet ground.

[... and through the haze of black, you see him fall backward, collapse like a rag, conquered...]

(Fuck you, dear Father)

And I smile.

I hear Frankie howl next to me, a roar of wild rage and brute force as she heaves her hands up out of the ground, still gripping that black dagger, that shadow knife. The white circle cracks and severs at her feet [the sound breaks against your ears, makes them ache], and the shuddering boundaries between grey stone and green moss collapse with a brittle snap that vibrates through the earth beneath me and up my body, jarring my tender ribs.

A rush of cold air touches my face, then fades.

[That's the last of Britain you'll ever feel]

Did you say Goodbye, Draco?

No, Mother. I didn't want to.

The ruins simply aren't there anymore. The old towers, the arches; they've disappeared. Forest stretches into the distance as far as I can see, empty but for the two of us.

"Yes! Fuck, yes!"

She lets out a great barking whoop, a victorious shout that echoes between the trees and she jumps into the air, throws a fist happily towards the other moon in the north.

She tilts her head back, throat to the sky, sings a single jubilant note (a long, weaving howl) that rises and slowly falls. I shudder uncontrollably when it's answered by a dozen more (what an eerie fucking sound) that climb and drop in intricate harmony.

(Are these the wolves?)

Do you hear them, Le Fey?

She laughs, loud and full, trembling with energy, grinning. She takes the dagger, now dull and grey (utterly ordinary), slips it back into her belt. She grips her sword, lifts it from the ground, swings it buoyantly in her hands. She cocks her head towards me, eyes manic and iridescent gold (like an animal's, reflecting light), shining with delight.

She winks.

"You spoke," she says, gasps a laugh she can't contain, "but you'll live. You'll be fine with us." Her boots crush moss and pine needles as she steps towards me, flops down next to me. She's humming, starlit, turning the black hilt in her hands, the long blade flashing in the unfamiliar moonlight.

[And it occurs to you that the strings are finally cut]

I collapse (paralyzed) to my hands and knees, and she mercifully pushes me onto my back, where I lay, wet and gasping and shaking. My lungs still sting. My ribs ache, but the blazing pain has faded. Pins and needles race along my left arm, the right side of my face and the back of my neck. My skin is tingling, warm and damp.

I can smell it now. The forest. The pine and the moss and the rain.

What is this place?

She'd smirked when I'd asked, that too big grin across her eager face.

My secret, she'd said.

The black claims my sight, finally clouds my vision completely, and I close my eyes, my ears filling with the growing sounds of howling and singing and speaking voices...

[And so the wolves sing]

(...fall into the ground...)

People are still animals, Le Fey, she told me once, but we've forgotten.

[Animus ferinus]

I fall asleep, whispers and wet noses ghosting across my skin, and I dream the shapes of beasts and people, of paws and hands and wild eyes in the dark, of kind, gentle sounds slipping and twisting in the air, familiar...

The first singers were the wolves, you know. Under the First Moon.

(Blue nights and liquid ink)

[And so the story begins]

~~> * <~~

Latin translations (I've used the internet as my source, which is not necessarily reliable):

Monemto mori: a momentary awareness of mortality.

Rara avis: Literally, a rare bird.

Mycaelis: A Latinized version of the name Michael.

Cassus belli: A catalyst of war; a situation or set of circumstances that leads to conflict.

Animus ferinus: Wild spirit... or something like it.

Tuatha de Dannan: I've understood this to be the Celtic name of the Faery race.

Draco Le Fey is a take on the name Morgan Le Fey; I've taken Le Fey to be the designation 'of Faery'.

The words and phrases Ixlierria wethryahe, Aisethraherr, Lur rahvithye, Irithrieya enerafiithe, Weyraihehth, Lur ilyerihehth eyrier theixhlel, and Nrihthlarryeh are part of a language that I've invented for the purposes of the story (forgive me; I'm a linguistics major). The words themselves don't mean anything specific, although 'nrihthlarryeh' (which Draco shouts at his Father) is a very angry phrase indeed. 'Ixlierria wethryahe' is meant to have the same meaning as Rara Avis. As these are my words, I would appreciate it if you ask before you borrow... If you borrow. Let's not be presumptuous...

The poem 'Black as tar... blacker than the darkest witch' is from the movie Legend, as spoken by the lovely character Blix.

I'm actually contemplating writing a sequel to this; it would have quite a bit more to say about the Ancient Realm, which is a great deal more detailed and complex than I've been able to include in this story. Not to mention the fact that it will explain what the bloody hell I've gotten Draco into... Please shout your support if you're interested in either! It would help motivate me.

Thank you for reading.