Total Eclipse of the Heart

Chapter 4

He had bolted for the washroom located on the ground floor as soon as Potions class had come to a close, unheeding the cries of his friends and his Professor. In the halls, ignorant students had snickered at him, and yet he had not paused to give them the detentions they so rightfully deserved. He had been in too much of a hurry to see with his own eyes what she had done to his appearance. The hazy image his potions cauldron had shown him had been devoid of detail. He had only managed to see the freckles that graced the rosy skin of his forearms and had spent the hour mentally climbing the stone walls of the classroom as time mocked his burning apprehension.

The full picture was not much more encouraging when he stared into the mirror. In fact, it was scores more depressing than he had originally thought. Not only had she changed his pallid skin tone to match her pinkish tinge, but she had given him the famous Weasley hair and eyes along with the scores of plebeian freckles that distinguished her family in any setting. He looked positively wretched! Who would have imagined, his distinguished Malfoy characteristics underlining the blatantly recessive Weasley genetics!

Draco sighed and tried a Finite Incantatem on his appearance. When the same piercingly brown eyes and chin-long red hair continued to stare at him out of the mirror, he scrunched his freckled nose and swore profusely. It was just like the Weasley bint to put him under a spell that he could not remove on his own. Knowing the foolish Gryffindor sense of right and wrong he would have to make some horribly public apology to her entire clan before she rid him of this most shameful case of bad hair, bad eyes, bad skin and overall bad appearance.

Putting on his best sneer, Draco tried to snort at the mirror. The resulting catastrophe caused desperation to settle into his altered facial features. His snort looked rather like a cross between a gorilla and a hippogriff and made him look about as intelligent as a donkey chewing on a walnut. It seemed as though his ferocity and ability to instil fear in others had taken a vacation along with his good looks and now all he was left with was a permanently idiotic stare and an ability to display his emotions to the entire world.

His cheeks tinged up in anger, and before he could control it, his entire face had gone red, each light-brown freckle becoming more and more pronounced as his anger intensified. It was all the fault of the Weaselette and her two scantly whispered words that had rendered his two most favourite tools for torturing others useless. Draco was honest enough with himself to admit that as a Malfoy with Weasley features he would look positively ridiculous attempting to either snort or sneer. It was a commonly known fact that Weasleys were not capable of such dignified expressions and communicated their preferences through moronic stares and vibrant blushes, two vices which, he too had subcontracted as a result of the Weaselette's prank.

"Oh she might believe she's funny and witty now, but she, has another thing coming for her," Draco glowered at his reflection, crossing his arms on his chest and examining how utterly ridiculous it looked, now that the face staring back at him was unfamiliar.

He didn't look like that normally, did he? His reflection mirrored his uncertain grimace and Draco hurried out of the washroom before more crazy ideas had time to lodge themselves in his head. He was already twenty minutes late for Transfiguration, and he didn't quite fancy the riot he was going to encounter when he entered McGonagall's classroom late and looking like a Weasley. She was undoubtedly still miffed about the fact that Potter hadn't made Head Boy and would not hesitate to express her dissatisfaction by giving him detention. Given all that had happened that morning, Draco did not fancy ending the day by performing unpaid slave labour for Filch.

Without another thought, he turned around and headed for the entrance hall, deciding to forgo his prior decision to attend the Transfiguration lecture. One push of the heavy oaken doors and he found himself bathed in the sunlight of the September sun. Scowling at the senselessly jovial weather, Draco made his way towards the lake. The grounds were eerily quiet in the late morning, and he could feel the silence permeate every step he took on the green grass. It made him feel disconnected from his body, almost as if he were floating high somewhere where the world could not touch him or reprimand him for his actions. He wondered briefly if ghosts felt this liberated from responsibilities when they decided to return to the mortal plane.

Stifling a sigh, he sat down by the edge of the water, and allowed the lapping of the tiny waves against the shore to soothe the heaviness inside his stomach. He smiled at the stillness around him, stretched with a crack of his back, and let himself fall back unto the cool blades of grass, eyes closed and ears open for errant sounds of activity. Pansy found him there an hour later, as only he knew she could. He was still stretched out in the tall grass and his body was half in the sun and half in the shade of the tall poplar tree that oversaw the lake. His brown eyes remained glued to the stridently cerulean sky even when her noisy footsteps alerted him of her presence. Draco didn't bother to acknowledge her as she sat down beside him and wordlessly glared down at him.

"You know, I had to lie to McGonagall and tell her that you skived off Transfig today because you had the stomach flu," she threw in his direction, voice full of chastisement and reproach.

Draco didn't bother to respond to her provocation. He had spent the hour lying in the sun, feeling how the shadow of the tree moved over his body like a silent blanket and watching how the cotton-clouds endlessly perused the sky. Presently, he was feeling mildly numb and half-conscious from the warmth that coiled through his body like a giant dormant snake. It was a strangely satisfying feeling that left him devoid of any thought or desire and separated him from everything that was worldly and mundane.

"Well? Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" Pansy prompted in an affronted tone. She had never taken well to his silences.

"I can always count on you, Pans," Draco spoke, and it seemed almost like a superhuman effort to make his lead-like tongue move in his mouth.

Beside him, the girl snorted, reminding him of his current handicap. He suppressed the groan that threatened to spill from his lips and focused his attention on the noon sky. It had lost its magic.

"You really are a drama queen, Draco. I can't believe you, skiving off Transfiguration just because Weasley decided to give you a makeover." As his best friend, Pansy was the only one allowed to speak this way to Draco, and even so, only when they were in private. After having known him for all her life, she was the only Slytherin that could match him in temper and wit. Most times she offered him her support and served to increase his power over the other Slytherins. When she challenged him, however, Draco had learned it was never without good reason, and he had come to appreciate her critical input and analysis.

"I did no such thing," he protested with a scoff.

"You can't lie to me, Malfoy," she hissed, and suddenly her frowning face was blocking his view. "I saw the way you ran out of Potions, like you were being chased by a horde of Ogres."

"You're blocking my view, Parkinson," he growled back, in a similar tone. "And for your information, I skived Transfig in order to plan my revenge on the Weaselette. She is going to pay for humiliating me."

"Oh, I'm sure," Pansy scoffed, moving her face away and allowing Draco's sight to be once again invaded by the image of the crystalline blue sky.

"Do you doubt me?" he asked, surprised at her outburst. The Slytherin in Pansy was always more than glad to help with a scheme to humiliate a Gryffindor.

"I think you should just apologise to her and have her take off the spell. We don't need you embarrassing yourself any more than you already have."

This time, the comment made Draco sit up and face Pansy, a scowl marring his mangled features. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Parkinson?" he hissed. Pansy is your friend, you cannot harm her, Draco reminded himself as he inhaled loudly through his freckled nostrils.

Although he would have wanted nothing more than to watch Pansy's face turn a satisfying shade of purple as he throttled her silly, he had enough presence of spirit to ball his hands into fists and sit on them patiently as Pansy delivered her repartee. Mentally, he reviewed the long list of reasons why he couldn't kill her, and reached the conclusion that the three most prominent arguments against harming her were that she had been his friend from birth, she had gotten him out of more tiffs than he cared to count and she was his only ally in Slytherin house. All that being said, Draco still envisioned slapping her a few times just for making the suggestion that he should apologise. And to a Weasley of all people!

"It means, Malfoy," Pansy ground her teeth as she spoke, "that if you were to talk that way about my mother or make similar insinuations about me I would not have hesitated to hex your bollocks off your body permanently."

"Well, then, it's a good thing I wasn't talking to you," Draco huffed.

"You're a pureblood Draco," Pansy tried again. "You have breeding, and principle and class, for heaven's sake!" she exclaimed. "The way you acted today was utterly silly and undignified of your position, hence embarrassing. You do not need to stoop to such crass insults in order to make your point. I was ashamed of how you behaved and I think that your punishment is only fitting!"

He couldn't help it that his mouth dropped open in shock. After all, it wasn't everyday that Pansy berated him for his behaviour. If truth be told, he hadn't been chastised for his manners since he had been five years old. To have Pansy do it now, at seventeen was infinitely more humiliating. He felt his cheeks flush in anger and embarrassment and before he knew it his entire face was aflame, sprouting yet another wave of shame. As a Malfoy he was supposed to have better control of his emotions!

"I cannot believe you just did that, Pans," Draco sighed once the urge to do her harm had subsided, and let himself fall down in the grass, resuming his previous posture. "You did not just chastise me for calling the Weaslette a whore and for making fun of her mother. God, what has happened to your sense of... Slytherin pride, woman?"

"I've had quite enough of it, if you must know. And all this childish feuding between the Malfoys and the Weasleys is just as stupid as the notion of House Pride, Draco. And I know that you are above it. To see you sink to such a crude level makes me believe that there is no hope for Slytherin house after all. If you can't rise above it, then there can be no hope for Blaise or Millicent, or Theodore or Vincent or even Gregory, not to mention the rest of the younger ones. I might as well start carving out headstones for each and every one of you, not to mention for myself."

Pansy's tone was hushed, but Draco could discern the underlying hysteria behind it. He propped himself up on his elbows and shot her back a quizzical look but she didn't turn around. Her black locks of hair were tied in a messy ponytail, which told Draco that she had, at some point that morning, snogged Blaise in one of the many alcoves of Hogwarts. Her shoulders however, were slumped dejectedly at odd angles, and her head hung low between them as her hands worked nervously to prick the blades of grass from the lawn.

"What happened, Pans?" Draco asked softly. It was obvious that her outburst held deeper undertones. He supposed he could have hugged her forlorn form and made her feel better about whatever was troubling her, but Draco wasn't in a forgiving mood just yet. He had received an unjustified scolding and he wasn't in a disposition to let the resentment go already.

"Blaise received his first Summon," she whispered not mincing her words, but not looking at him either.

The news hit Draco like a pile of bricks, and he gaped for air as he steadied his body to a sitting position that matched Pansy's. The nefarious cloud at the back of his head that was the War thundered and shook, moving imminently closer and closer. Draco's sense of inescapability caused bile to rise up from his stomach and he inhaled deeply, trying to still the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. It wouldn't be long now, before there would be full-blown war. If the children of the current Death Eaters had started to receive Summons, it meant that the Dark Lord was close to readying his army. He would be on the offensive soon.

"Pans..." Draco started, not exactly knowing what to say to such devastating news.

"Don't Draco. You don't need to say anything. I know full well what it means," she replied tersely.

"There is still time. The ritual requires three Summons before he takes the Mark. Has he replied yet?"

Pansy shook her head. "No, he hasn't had time. It came with his breakfast mail."

Draco nodded in understanding. The others would have undoubtedly received Summons too, or if not yet, then they would be receiving them soon. As far as he knew, he was the only son of a Death Eater that had been forced into taking the Mark early. His father's position and subsequent incarceration had required it, and Draco's say in the matter had been nonexistent. His Summons had come within a day of each other, and by the end of the week he had been nursing both an open wound and his guilty conscience into convalescence.

"It just isn't fair," Pansy continued before he had the chance to voice his next thought. "We're just children Draco. As much as we make a big deal out of this House Rivalry bullshit, none of us could imagine killing a classmate. Not even a Gryffindor, and they are our fiercest rivals."

"Nobody said that life was fair Pansy."

"Well someone should say it! If I'm seventeen years old and I've already lost whatever faith I had in fairness and unhampered outcome, then what is the point of my existence? What is the point of my struggling to survive this massive exercise in stupidity if the rest of my life is going to continue much in the same way?" He could hear her desperation in the way she bit on the ends of her syllables, almost as if she wanted to tear every word that escaped her lips to pieces in order to prove the ferocity of her convictions.

"What are you getting at, Pansy?" he asked, confused about the direction of her logic.

"What I'm getting at, Draco, is that we are children, and children should be allowed their idealism. Life is going to have a million opportunities to prove me wrong as I age. I should not be caught in the power-hungry struggle of two old, mad coots! And neither should my boyfriend, or any other student at this blasted school for witchcraft and wizardry. We come here to learn and enlarge our minds, not to have our innocence and childhood butchered by their machinations!"

He couldn't help the laughter that bubbled from his lips. She never ceased to amaze him with the strength of her spirit. It was probably why they were such good friends in the first place. Neither of them fit the traditional mould of the slimy, underhanded Slytherin, and at times seemed to directly rebel against it by indulging their inner, hidden Gryffindor. The question of their butchered childhoods had been one that they had pondered together many times before, in the silent and murky depths of his rooms at the Manor, or in her sunny drawing room at her father's house. Both of them had agreed that they harboured dislike towards their respective situations, but Draco had never heard Pansy speak so forwardly against the war. It was relieving, in a humorous way, that there existed someone who cared enough to become outraged by the direction of their pending future. Draco had long consoled his rage with the idea that his situation was dead-ended and hence inescapable. In some ways, not having had another choice had made it easier for Draco to bear the guilt that came with the repercussions.

"It's the milestone of our life, this war. We measure everything by it," he noted sombrely, shaking his head. "And you're right, it is disgusting. We are just kindling for a fire that is waiting to consume our entire world, but what can you do about it? Technically we are no longer the children you insist so much that we are. And as young adults, it is our responsibility to choose the side we sympathise with the most and support it so that we may shape this world in our egoistical image of right."

"They're wrong, the both of them! Together, they're the pot and the kettle and I don't want to pick either. I also loathe the idea that in the end, I'm going to be forced to pick. And I don't want Blaise to pick either, or... or anyone else that I know for that matter. Nobody should pick. That way they can just battle it out themselves and leave us, the rest of the world out of their petty rivalries!" she exclaimed hotly, her voice rising above the hushed whisper of before.

Startled, Draco drew his head upwards and scanned the grounds for any witnesses to their conversation. Indistinct figures moved across the distant horizon and he relaxed slightly. They were out of hearing distance for now. "Pansy, will you keep it down? We don't need to inform the entire world of the fact that Death Eaters are being recruited from the Slytherin ranks!" he hissed at her poisonously.

"I. Don't. Care," she punctuated with a defiant glare, cold fire burning in the depths of her eyes.

"Look, Pansy, I know that you don't want to join the war. I understand how you feel about it, and believe me I feel the same way. But trust me when I tell you that the alternative would be much worse. Keeping out of this war is a luxury that our generation does not have. You think you know the Dark Lord, but until you've faced him in the eye and had him hiss at you across the table you don't know anything. He's the stuff of nightmares, Pansy. And you can't even begin to imagine the ways he can decimate you for your choice to remain neutral."

"You don't understand, Draco!" she exclaimed passionately. "My choice is inconsequential at this moment. If Blaise joins them, I might have as well joined them!"

"So then convince him not to join! Give him something better to fight for! Something more precious than an alliance with a madman," Draco sighed in exasperation. It was always the same dead end, the same non-choice. He was tired of it.

"There is nothing that I can give him, Draco. I can't make him change his mind," her voice was barely a whisper, and he could see tears brimming in her eyes as she looked away from him. They sat in silence for a few moments, before Pansy spoke again, "He thinks he's doing it for me. That by joining them he's protecting me, that he's securing a future for us where we can... live. He refuses to understand that life as a serf is no life! I'd rather be dead than sing after the Dark Lord's tune!"

He couldn't help but scoff at her words. Pansy might not be a conventional Slytherin, but neither was she a Gryffindor. Should the time come, she would grind her teeth and squeeze shut her eyes rather than face the prospect of her death. The motto of his house was self preservation. It was ingrained in their bones, just as foolish bravery was ingrained in those of their fellow Gryffindors. There was no escape from it.

"Pansy, stop your melodrama. You know very well that you would live as a servant of the Dark Lord if you had to choose between that and death. And while I understand that you feel the need to exaggerate for the sake of convincing me to attempt to persuade Blaise into not taking the Mark, I'm afraid my sympathies haven't been aroused even by your passionate monologue," he snorted, staring at the shimmering lake before him.

"You know me too well, Draco," Pansy's tone was appreciative if not somewhat dejected.

"Of course I know you well! We share a bloody birthday and we have only been friends since we were in swaddling clothes! Goodness Pansy, you'd think that after all these years you would dare come up to me in honesty instead of subterfuge! I don't need you too to be pretending. I get enough falsity wherever I turn! I don't need it from my best friend as well!" he was being loud, he knew, and his anger was irrational, but it felt good to let himself be angry even though it was at the wrong person and for the wrong reasons. It was a reminder to himself that he was still human, that he could still feel and hadn't yet turned into a chunk of uncaring ice.

"Sorry," came the mumbled apology, but he found no appreciation in his heart for its elegant sincerity.

"And before you think to ask again, no, I cannot talk to Blaise. And no, it's not because I don't want to, but because I cannot compromise my position in Slytherin house more than I have already. The Dark Lord is watching my every action even more closely than before since I haven't been attending his meetings. I cannot look like I am anything else but a Death Eater sympathiser, or else it will be the end of the Malfoy line. And trust me when I tell you, it won't be a pretty and quick end."

"So is that it? Every man for himself?" Pansy sneered at him, her eyes hard and full of contempt. He had seen that look before, but never directed at him. It made Draco feel very small and petty indeed. "What happened to friendship? And honour? And duty? What happened to the loyalty you profess you have, Malfoy?" she hissed poisonously.

"Parkinson, the emotional stress of this affair has made you stupid," he didn't bother to check his words. She had made him angry for the second time in less than an hour by insinuating he wasn't worthy of their friendship, and was thus deserving of his wrath. "I said that I couldn't help you. I didn't say that there wasn't any help for you, you silly bint. Just because I am tied at the hands, that doesn't mean I can't point you in the right direction," he told her.

"Well? Are you going to make me beg for it, or are you finally going to impart upon me this most important piece of information?" her lips twisted in a wry grin when she voiced her question.

"I'm considering having you down on your knees and begging," Draco responded with a smirk. Banter he could do, if it meant she didn't have to stare at him that way.

"Keep dreaming Malfoy. Slytherins don't beg, or get down on their knees."

"Well, Blaise might convince you to reconsider that last statement," he replied with an evil smirk, and was rewarded by Pansy's rosy blush of embarrassment.

The silence that followed was only slightly awkward as Draco made a disgruntled mental note never to tease Pansy about anything with any remote sexual undertone lest he might accidentally stumble upon other details of his friend's sex life that He Was Better Off Not Knowing. It was their only unspoken rule: that they did not discuss the privates of their sex lives. As far as Draco was concerned, Pansy had been dating Blaise since the Halloween Ball in their Sixth year, and the two seemed very much in love. So much, that he had had to put up with Pansy's lovesick rants for half the summer while Blaise was travelling with his family in Italy. They made a very credible couple, with Blaise always the attentive boyfriend and Pansy the doting girlfriend. Draco wondered if their romance was just for show or if this was the transformation one underwent when love took him under its wing. He didn't like to think about the issue too much, always reminding himself that sometime in the future, if he survived the war, he will have more than enough time to come to his own conclusions.

"I think you should talk to Potter," Draco finally spoke.

"What?" Pansy shrieked and jumped half out of her seat on the grass. "You want me to talk to Potter?" she repeated more calmly as she rearranged herself in a more comfortable position.

"If anyone is going to find a way for Blaise not to join the Death Eaters, it's Potter. He's the dedicated hero type, always welcoming the quest to save souls and all," he explained.

"Potter? You have gone out of your head Draco. I surely cannot go to Potter. He is going to laugh at me and then AK me for sure. Not to mention that Blaise will not want to talk to Potter. He absolutely despises him," Pansy protested.

Draco growled, annoyed. "Weren't you the one that was just giving me the talk about pointless House Rivalry a while ago? Don't be such a hypocrite and don't get your panties in a knot just because you have to talk to Potter. He doesn't bite you know, and like I said, he'd be more than happy to save your Slytherin arses. It'll be a pride trek for him, and a boost to his ego, but at least you and Blaise will be safe and away from the Dark Lord's clutches." Not to mention, he added silently, that you defecting will send a silent message among the others that a choice is available, however unapparent, and that there are those among them that have the strength to make it.

"Wouldn't that be choosing, though?" Pansy's air was pensive.

"Of course it would be choosing!" he exploded with an angry puff. "I thought I made it clear to you that there is no way you can get out of this without choosing! But unlike the rest of our sordid house, you would be choosing the winning side. And hence you will get a chance to live your life the way you want to afterwards."

"How can you be so sure that Potter's side will be the winning side, Draco?"

"Because," he huffed, and his tone assumed a superior air as though he was talking to a five year old. "The world won't let the Dark Lord win. He will be overpowered in the end, even if he believes himself to be the strongest wizard alive, or reincarnated, or whatever the hell he is."

"You can't be sure of that. The odds are for him at this point," Pansy protested.

Draco laughed. "Of course the odds are for him. That's exactly how Potter's side will boost their egos when they win. They'll use the phrase 'even when the odds were against us', to retell of their victory in history books. The truth, however, is that the world does not bode well with the idea of it being oppressed and ruled by pure evil. And it will fight that much harder to make sure that the winning side will be an evil that it can stomach. An evil clothed in the emblem of good, hence, Potter's side."

"Hmm," Pansy's air was thoughtful. As much as she might wish to deny it, the truth behind Draco's words left no room for protest. "I am going to talk it over with Blaise, and see what his feelings are about this. And then I will consider enlisting Potter to help me out," she decided.

"Sensible idea, Parkinson," Draco grumbled, suddenly feeling very disgruntled and unhappy, even though he had managed to partially convince her of the worth of his idea. Unheeding of her curious glance, he stretched once more out onto the grass, bent on ignoring her presence entirely. Grim thoughts and plans formulated at the back of his head. He wanted nothing more than peace of mind to sort and examine them carefully.

Beside him, Pansy stood up and her shadow fell over him, blocking out the sun. "Lunch is almost over, are you coming?" she asked.

"No."

"Well, I'm going. If you decide not to come to DADA I guess I can keep on going with the stomach flu excuse. I'll drop the homework that you miss by later, after classes. Thanks for all your help," was the lengthy goodbye. He barely heard two words of it and sent no reply back. After a short pause the soft earth thudded underneath her footsteps as she moved away. He had believed himself alone when Pansy's voice broke through his concentration yet again. "And Draco..." she paused, obviously wanting his reply.

"Yes?" he growled.

"Apologise to Weasley. I like you better blond," came her parting words, and Draco's scowl only deepened on his face.