Unbreakable Ties

"Why do you want this; why do you want me?" His voice was desperate and pained. His pale face draped in shadow. Draco was sweating and his tie was undone in a disorderly manner; as if it had been ripped from his throat. He was so confused and his voice possessed a desperate urgency; he had to know.

"I've always wanted this."

Her voice was soft and caring, her slim hand flowing through his soft fair locks, and her russet eyes gazing gently at his eyes. Ginny had always loved Draco's eyes. Some would call them grey. They weren't just grey. Nothing about Draco could be explained in one word. She had looked into his eyes so many times to know that they were so much more than grey. His pupil was almost black, but his overall eye was dusted with brown, white, and cobalt. She remembered watching his eyes so closely that she found a dark violet speck. It was so small that she never found it again, no matter how hard she looked for it.

"Do you? Everything about me? Everything I posses?" He looked horribly ill. His face was so pale it looked transparent, and for the first time Ginny could tell what he was feeling. It was a strong need for understanding, for knowledge.

"What are you talking about?" What had happened to him that was making him act like this? Draco was always content; rarely questioning their relationship, if ever. This was a complete turn from the Draco she knew, the Draco she loved. He was looking at her now, a dire look in his eyes. Only one person could make Draco fall apart like this. She had seen it before. The shock was somewhat dented by her knowledge. Ginny had never loved knowledge like Hermione did, or calculated it like Harry did, or turned it into a joke like Ron did. Knowledge was always there; you just had to find it. She was terribly grateful that it was here now.

"Your father." It was a simple statement; informing him of her knowledge, telling him that she knew. "What did he do to you?"

Flashback

Draco was laying on his bed with his head resting on his hand and the other grasping a book. It was an old book, the pages colored a faded yellow and the corners bent. The spine was losing grip of the binding, but it had held on this long, and he could always reparo it if it gave way. He turned the page, his long-fingered artistic hands coming under the page and shifting it to the other side of the book. The yellow pages clashed horribly with the green inside cover of the novel; but Draco, for once, was not taking notice of the color scheme of inanimate objects. Draco had read this book so many times and had grown so fond of it that he cared not of the attractiveness. The beauty was on the inside, hidden in the pages, waiting to be discovered. It was veiled in the words, the way they weaved together so intricacy that they formed a tale, a story, a life.

Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Suddenly, the fireplace exploded in flames. Before, the flames were dying out; crackly feebly in the grate. Now however, the flames raced up the brick chimney as if they were being hunted. A tall slim man with long flaxen hair stepped out of the fireplace. His face was completely blank and his appearance was immaculate from his neatly combed hair down to his polished and expensive black boots. In his hand was a piece of parchment. The edges was torn as if someone had decided to rip it apart, but at the last moment voted against it. The long fingered hands grasped the letter tightly and were bone white from the pressure.

"Hello father."

He had knows who it was the moment the fireplace had bursted into tall dangerous flames. He wondered why he did not leave the castle after he had written the letter. He had chosen to stay in his dormitory with the fireplace, why? Because he knew he would come and he wanted him to come. Draco had been running his whole life; from his friends, future, and family. He was tired of running; so very tired.

"Draco."

Lucius' voice was clipped and cool, like the blade of a razor left out in the snow. His face revealed nothing, it rarely ever did. The art of hiding emotions was so complex and difficult, but when learned it was even more difficult to forget; not that Lucius had ever tried. But Draco had tried; tried to leave his face open to interpretation; tried to let his feelings show in his eyes and wear his heart on his sleeve. It was a task he failed.

Lucius held up the letter. It was torn and had many creases as if it had been read multiple times. The reader must have had not believed the ink-etched words on the parchment.

"You think you are so superior that you can turn your back on everything I have taught you?" Lucius' voice was tense and escaped his mouth in a hiss, like a deadly snake slithering out of its lair.

"No father, I-"

Lucius cut him off like a knife slicing through soft flesh. "Good, because you are substandard." The letter was shaking in his hand now but the rest of him was still, like a predator stalking its prey. He came over to Draco who was now off the bed and looked at him hard. His son's face showed nothing, no emotion, no feeling; Lucius was pleased.

"I meant everything I wrote."

A flicker of absolute hatred crossed over his steel eyes. He whipped up the back of his hand and struck Draco across the face quickly and it made the sound of a whip cracking as it made contact with his son's face.

Draco staggered and fell to the ground. Spitting up blood, he got up and looked his father straight in the eyes. Draco was a fighter; he rebelled and he would struggle until he was satisfied with the results of whatever he was fighting for. Draco had learned the art of submission, to surrender to your superiors. Surrender. The word made Draco sick. Whoever would surrender was weak and powerless. And Draco? He was neither. He raised his fist but Lucius' caught his wrist in a bone-breaking grip. Draco winced at the pain running up his arm; it felt like knives.

"You think you can desert your family? You think you can desert me? You are a part of me. I created you and I can take you away. You are my son and therefore you belong to me. You can run, and you will always end up back here, with me. There is nowhere you can go where you will no longer be controlled. Through your veins runs the blood of darkness. You can not escape what you are; what you came from. Born from darkness, you will continue in darkness. Try to escape your fate, and you will fracture. You have no choice." With those words Lucius released Draco's wrist and returned to the fireplace and murmured "The Manor" without taking his eyes off Draco.

Before he disappeared into the flames Draco called out, "I would rather die."

Lucius replied, "Morituri te salutant," right before he disappeared into the flames.

When he was gone Draco fell onto the bed, knocking the book to the ground. It fell onto the cold stone floor and the title was visible. Etched into the green felt and outlined in silver, it would have caught the light of the sun; if sunlight was visible in the dungeons. The writing itself was gold and a drop of scarlet dropped from the air and fell onto the velvet, leaving a stain. Looking back years from now, Draco would wonder what the stain was. He would think about it every time he opened this book or glanced at the cover. He would never remember that his own blood stained the cover of his favorite book, Romeo and Juliet.