Echo

PROLOGUE - au deuil

You Christian boys, just because you can make me come doesn't mean you're Jesus.

-

Ten minutes.

Tom gets him the high place in the Death Eater Society after Lucius's death, and tells him that immortality can only be achieved through death. Tom shows him the proper way to duel, the secret that wasn't taught in the propaganda school of Hogwarts was. Tom shows him what pain and temptation can taste like. People never asked if he were lovers with Tom. Tom says that he is a lover to only the parts of him that will last through death.

The tip of a wand pressed to the back of Draco's throat, Tom says, "This is not the end. You will see a green light. You will feel a rush of blood. This is not the end."

His wand has a lead tip that Draco tastes with his mouth. He sweeps his tongue over it, tasting the wood. Tom's wand is illegal. It is easy to see that. He has made modifications that could probably get him arrested right away. It's not hard to make those modifications. You first have to make a lead tip. This is because lead is a natural conductor of magic. The best. Wood is not. The tips have to be soaked in the Essence of Belladonna first, so it won't weigh so much and you won't get poisoned or any of that shit. Then you force your own essence into it. A birthstone or the crushed flower of your birth month. The stone needs to be part of the wand, so you cut off the lead tip, stick the stone there, put the lead tip back in, and let it soak in a cauldron full of Dragon's Blood. If the tip and stone don't unite, you have to magically bind it together. The flower is easier, because all you have to do is soak it in a cauldron full of the stuff.

If you do it wrong, the pure, unadulterated power will kill you.

Nine minutes.

The building they are standing on used to be the Ministry of Magic's headquarters in London. This will not be here in nine more minutes. He is reminded of the photographs one of the Death Eaters took for this mission. At 90_, it's vintage-looking. At 135_, you can still see where the logo of the Ministry used to be. A huge M, entwined in ribbons of all different colours, and a lion in the background for England. 180_, it looks like pure shit.

"We'll be a legend," Tom says. He licks his lips and kisses Draco's cheek. "The other people are dead to us. They are history. Pages of a history book. Nothing more."

He looks away for a second as he watches another stack of papers fly away in the wind. It lands on a car, which sets off an alarm. But none of this matter, because by the time this is over, the car will be gone too.

All of this will be gone.

Eight minutes.

He will not miss any of this. Wave a wand, say a few words. You don't understand any of it? Too bad, you're already dead.

And, of course, there's the problem if you want to die. Suicide rates of wizarding folk are among the highest. The average wizard lives up to 200 years. The average witch's age is 205. Maybe you will be enlightened on the way, but it is a fact that you will spend three quarters of your life saving up for that other quarter. Because when you're 190, you can't work anymore and you'll have to rely on your retirement money. If you don't have any and you die, you will most likely be thrown in the woods for the werewolves to eat. The average burial is 500 galleons. If your family can't afford that, then you become a meal.

Too bad the average witch and wizard don't know about chemistry. Not potions, but chemistry. The stuff Muggles figure out from wizards. Most great chemists were wizards. How easy it would be to make explosives in a humble Muggle school lab - just add a pint oanshee Blood so whatever you're trying to explode will explode, and not just set off wards.

You don't learn that in an Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Seven minutes.

He says to Tom, "I've been with you since the beginning."

"I know." Tom kisses Draco's cheek again. "Remember everything."

Of course he remembers everything. How could he not remember everything? His insomnia traces everything down. Fuck, he even remembers what the colour of his toothpaste was.

He remembers Jyers. The clash of her fist against the side of his face, the bubble of blood that rose out when he opened his mouth. He remembers thinking, 'I am going to die' on many occasions.

It may look insane if someone were to stare up at them. It would look like a wizard with a wand shoved up his mouth, nothing more. They would not see Tom. They would not see the gash on Tom's left cheek and the scar at the nape of his neck. They would see Draco Malfoy, Death Eater, with a wand in his mouth.

Perhaps he has gone insane, they will wonder.

Well. No time for that.

Six minutes.

There is no wind today. Surprisingly, it is not raining. The papers flutter down to the ground slowly, like big snowflakes. This is an abandoned street. Nobody looks up at them, nobody pays them any attention. They are all probably asleep or do not see the figure that stands on top of the building.

They all will, eventually. They will all be awakened from their blissful sleep by the force of three tonnes of gelatine explosives. They will find the bodies of these kamikaze warriors in the midst of the rubble. Maybe, Draco wonders. Or maybe they will not care at all. Maybe they will simply ignore Project LPM.

Tom kisses Draco one last time on the lips. He also tastes some of his own wand. "You said the one thing you wanted from life was immortality. Now you'll get your wish."

Shiver.

Five minutes.

You remember everything, Draco. You remember everything and that will be your downfall.

-

When a piece of glass is broken, it does not reflect reality. It casts scars upon unscarred flesh, scars that split the face. Some young wizards and witches are taught that cracked Muggle mirrors reflect the look upon your face when death approaches. Draco had been taught this while he sat in his uncle's arms (his sinewy arms entwined around his waist, his thumb annoyingly poked at his crotch). He had widened his gaze in amazement at the huge crack that split the mirror in the hall into four pieces, and his uncle had laughed. "Don't worry, that's not a Muggle mirror."

Remember how that crack got there, Draco? Do you remember your uncle with that angry look on his face and the blur of the leather that hit the mirror with a crash? How it fell down on its spine and you crawled over carefully, and picked it up? That, Draco, never should've happened.

Funny how fate can sneak up on you like that, slither up your ankle like hissing vines and when you don't know it you're trapped Draco trapped and there's no way out and you're lost so lonely afraid of the light in the dark -

-

He hears his own father talk about the glory days of Voldemort all summer. It is not an unpleasant thing, for the hope and careful voice of his father melted some of the ice. He shivers often, thinking of the harsh ice palace that he returns to every holiday. The Malfoy Manor, he is told, was the Death Eaters central meeting place. He had been brought down to the dungeons one time, to look at the locked archives and meeting places. The old bedrooms that former Death Eaters would sleep in now are covered with cobwebs and the smell of sickly sweet wine. It is cramped, unlike the rest of the Manor, and by the looks of the beds, Draco had estimated at least 200 Death Eaters had lived down here.

When his father turns his back, Draco picks up a scrap piece of paper hidden between mattresses. Two black shirts. Two black pair of trousers. One pair of heavy black shoes. Two pair of black shocks and two pair of plain underwear. One heavy black cloak. One white towel. One small pewter cauldron. He flips to the back, and there are what seem to be the directions for making soap, except several steps are crossed out and a heavy, flowing handwriting is written across them.

Skim off glycerine. Mix with nitric and sulphuric acid. Add distilled water and table salt and sodium car--

Draco's mouth drops slightly. Explosives. He does know about this chapter of Death Eater history. More than that, these are Muggle ingredients. This surprises him slightly, but not so much. In spite of what was most commonly said, he knows the Death Eaters are not fighting Muggles. It is only part of a bigger picture, he is convinced. Something much bigger and larger and that would change lives. Kill lives. Create lives. Deepen lives.

He pushes the scrap piece of paper into the pocket of his robes, convinced it would be useful later on.

Lucius does not find them.

The next summer is more eventful. Lord Voldemort has risen again, and this time Draco is being taken to see him (Come and see the anarchist of the Wizarding world, Draco. come and see what this society has reduced him to - and why their muffled lives will lead to death, and death alone.)

His skin glows greenish and Draco is frightened at first to approach him. However, Lord Voldemort greets him like a nephew and puts his long, curled fingers on the bare skin of his forearm. He smiles as a fire is lit in the cold dungeons of the Malfoy Manor and the fire cackles just as the Mark is burnt onto his skin.

"This is the best moment of your life," he says with finality, his claw-like fingers greasy with lye. "Don't think of pain."

-

This is nostalgia.

Hogwarts, second year. The youngest Weasley has it, and you know it. You snigger at the silly things she writes in there, ramblings of a dull eleven year old, going on about how perfect and valiant her hero, Harry Potter is. You enjoy the power you have over her because of this, how you can make her freckled, scaly skin so pink just by mentioning his name.

Harry Potter is her hero, and you can't very much but hate her for it.

You're thinking of sneaking into the Gryffindor dormitory one night, when you're crawled up all snug under the covers of the Slytherin dormitory. Crabbe and Goyle are snoring as usual, but a silent, endless hum drives you. You could murder them right now, you know you could. Dumbledore would never have a clue.

Sneak up over their beds and point your wand to their heads. You would be doing them a favour anyway. If they are destined to be in Voldemort's ranks, they will not remain whole for long. A person of their fathers' ranks is only useful for one thing; essence. You have seen this. You have seen Voldemort take a lowly ranked Death Eater's hand and chop off the fingers into a boiling mix of Muggle chemistry and Dark Arts.

You can already taste the blood on your hands.

Your crotch stirs. This is a new one.

Nostalgia.

-

Harry.

This is longing.

-

"I'm not crazy."

Pause.

"This is real."

Sip.

"The events that have just occurred are not fictional."

"Of course they aren't, Malfoy."

Jyers and her hourglass body and playground sand legs. She looked like she could be sculpted into anything you want, anything at all. Carve a pattern into the sand and carve a piece into her.

Tom sits by, his face hidden in the shadows of the Venetian blinds, his expression cold.

Draco blinks and wraps his hands around the cold coffee. The waitress walks by, purposely sticks her ass in his face and gives him a provocative wink, unaware of the growing gap in her cheap pantyhose.

"The first thing about the Society is that you don't talk about it." Jyers pouts her full, collagen-injected lips, and puts one Shining Silver nail onto the table. "The second thing about the Society is that you don't talk about it. Am I right?" She pauses. "It could've been worse, Malfoy."

Draco doesn't say anything.

"Lucius's balls could've been ripped off," she says casually, picking at the peeling paint on the wall. "The Ministry could've sent those other kind of beasts, the one that attack crotches, and crotches only. They just jump for the crotch, and sink their teeth into it, ripping out everything they can."

The Ministry's Act of Versailles, Section 2, heading 4 - ...any Ministry may choose to use the force of an illegal beast, only for the capture of a dangerous criminals, rated XXX or higher. Proper paperwork and applications may be given a two week extension if criminal rated XXXX or higher

"At least he died quickly," Tom says. "Imagine if they had used cyanide." Jyers is taking out a cigarette now, and she gives him a sour look.

"Don't think you can escape cyanide that easily," she says, "all the new wands have it now. It's a natural magic regulator."

Draco looks at his newly purchased wand, and digs his nail into the soft wood. Somewhere in the back of the restaurant, a baby cries.

"Don't sweat it, Malfoy," Jyers says, chuckling. "All the second-hand smoke you've inhaled from me will probably build a strong enough tolerance for it."

He doesn't mention how she refers to his dead father as Lucius, but she still calls him Malfoy.

-

"You belong to me," he says, shivering.

"You belong to me.

I brought you back, didn't I? You belong to me."

"No, Malfoy, I don't."

"Yes - I brought you back--"

He bites his tongue.

"I brought--you belong to me -"

"Say please, Malfoy. Say it. Say it, say it. Just say it, you know you want to - say it, say it, say it...."

"No, I won't, you're only here because of me, if it weren't for me you wouldn't -"

Silence solidifies this moment.

He gasps, and in a very small voice,

"Please."

The same skin, the same hair, the only difference is his eyes don't light up in the dark.

There is no difference between all of this.

-

Half the time you're talking to somebody, they're probably not listening. They're either thinking about how badly they need a manicure, or how much they want to stop listening to you. They're probably thinking about how to respond to what you are saying.

Anything but listen to you.

There is only one exception to this rule: if the person you are talking to is asleep. Then they will have no choice.

Justification is always the answer, he tells himself.

Shadows carve out his face. He leans over, his hands shaking and his lips cold.

He shouldn't be doing this now.

"You know I'm sorry."

He whispers,

"I would welcome you back, you know.

"I would."

Black hair like midnight.

Smoky green reminiscent of after post-sex cigarettes.

Even the ivory sheets look pale against his skin.

-

This is falling.

Diminishing into his depths; you're screaming, you're kicking, you're grabbing onto anything you can, but you don't want it to stop.

Because when you sink into him, you're not you and he's not him.

And everything else is just gone.

You like that. You like that very much.

The night of first encounters was also a night for redemption. Poor Harry, always trying to redeem himself; he was pushing against the limits of darkness, refusing to give into the revolting, vivid thoughts, when all along he should've been pulling.

He thought he could change the unchangeable. Unchangeable is unchangeable is unchangeable, you poor, naïve scarred little boy.

Don't mess with forces bigger than you.

(You know this lesson well.)

(When will Harry learn?)

You're an awful lot different now.

You pull against it and I push against it -- we'll never get anywhere, he says, his eyes mournful.

You look to him. Wrong, Harry, you say. We do. Only you don't like where we've gone.

-

Car alarm and sirens.

The coffee is cold in his white hands, and the feeling that he's been living someone else's life is overwhelming.

(Your mind is a blur of faded sepia tone.)

-

A gust of wind blows a stray piece of paper onto the roof. Draco stabs it with the heel of his boot.

Four minutes.

There's nothing left to say.