Echo

iii.

the atheist scales

-

When you are born a son, your father becomes your first memories, your pattern, your God. His fingerprints mark you as property, his to sell and his to trade to whatever devious deities he may choose to believe in. This is not your choice, Draco Malfoy learns early on. You control neither the mannerisms he will inflict upon you nor the God.

This is not to say that you lose control. (Only that you never really had it in the first place.)

Draco Malfoy was born such a son, so then maybe Harry Potter was lucky to be an orphan.

-

The first thing that they do when they get off the aeroplane is breathe. Draco clutches Harry's arm and inhales the smell of chlorine bleach and greasy fast-food scents, and knows - realizes what stepping onto the foreign marble floors will mean. He has conceded, given into Harry; he has agreed to this by answering Harry's questions and it is his fault, his responsibility alone if he ever should go insane and abandon Harry that Harry is not hurt, ever.

The immigration officer gives a wary look at Draco, but they pass without dissent. Draco's hardly slept, but the bright, flashing lights and dizzy cityscape dulls his eyes into staying open. Harry leads him into a yellow taxi, and he doesn't protest because Harry seems to know what he's doing, and he decides that at least one of them should know something about what's going to happen. All Draco is aware of is that Harry's followed him, led him here, and isn't leaving, and it's more than he expected in the first place, so he's not complaining.

-

The first day, Draco notices about the flat is the constant noise that Harry demands.

The steady stream of traffic buzzing by below is already enough background noise, but he's not satisfied with that. He keeps a pile of records in heavy rotation as they muddle through the household tasks; Harry cooks to the Pixies and reads to Pink Floyd. Draco doesn't object but wonders what things Harry might say to him if the records ever stopped playing.

They don't.

Through the night, Harry puts a record on repeat, easing himself into sleep. Draco looks rightfully concerned, but there's little he can do.

-

"Tell me, Draco," Harry says. He's lying on his back, his head dangling from the edge of the bed, his voice dulling to a raspy and hoarse tone. His glasses are beneath him and Draco gently removes them so that Harry won't crush them in case he falls. "Tell me again, about the Death Eaters."

Draco strokes Harry's hair mindlessly, as if tucking in a child. "What did you plan on hearing?"

"Anything."

Subconsciously, his fingers roam to where his Mark is, and his nails dig into the fabric, squeezing the rotten flesh. What does Harry think the Death Eaters were; some kind of fairy-tale nightmare? He stares down at the person lying beneath him, his face growing slightly flushed from the blood rushing to his head. Harry is not naïve, Draco knows this, but he can't help wondering if Harry ever refers to him as a circus act, a novelty item, some rare connection to a force that had wrecked his life, but at the same time, forced him into the person he is today. "My uncle. I think you'll want to hear about him."

"As long as you want to tell me."

"You already asked. What's the point?" Draco shakes his head, and begins in a subdued voice. "When the last remaining piece of Death Eater territory was conquered, they found his body. You must have been there."

"I wasn't," Harry says, breathing quietly. "Keep going."

"If you had searched him instead of throwing him into an anonymous grave, you would've noticed that he had no fingers and no toes. He cut his fingers off after Voldemort assigned him to do something he didn't like. He tried to escape. He ended up on a train to Siberia. I assume the rest of his toes had been lost to frostbite along the way. He lived there for a long while, marrying and having two kids, and then when the War broke out he was captured by Voldemort. Held hostage at the territory where you found him. He learned that your Order had finally fought through and captured the territory, and then he took a Muggle gun, went outside in the snow, and shot himself."

Harry doesn't make a sound, nothing of the sort of whimper or gasp that Draco had expected. He replies quietly, "Do you consider him a coward?"

"Yes."

Again, Harry keeps silent. "What about that day with you, Cruciatus, and Neville? I think you owe me an explanation."

"No, you owe me. We both know about Neville. I stopped his curse. You stood by and idly watched."

"How do you know I was there?"

Draco says wryly, "I can always tell if you're there, Potter." He pauses, and then blurts out, "Why all the questions? Why all the requests? You know my history better than I do. What are you trying to do?"

"You got an owl today," Harry says, sitting up. He looks dazed without his glasses, and Draco is afraid he might trip over himself as he gets up. He shuffles over to the desk and pulls out a piece of burnt parchment, and tosses it to Draco.

Lucius is dead. 1967 Warsaw Street. What are you going to use to weigh your pitiful sorrows now? The atheist scales? Jyers would be ashamed.

Harry sits by and watches Draco's reaction. He doesn't have one.

"I have to go," Draco says, pointing to the address.

Harry understands, but watches him go painfully anyway.

-

When he first sees the pair on the street, his first reaction is to run away. He recognizes Tom from the aero plane in spite of the cloud of cigarette smoke, but the second face jerks such a reaction in him that he does not expect.

Jyers.

How many times has he stared across his dining table to see her contemptuous face, staring back at him with equal remorse? Draco shakes his head. The fear of being eventually forced to marry her had actually made Draco try to convince his mother that the Parkinsons were of equal breed and would be in an equal position in the New Order.

Jyers, seeing his disdain, holds out her hand and twirls her fingers. "Do you recognize the insignia ring, Malfoy?"

His father's, obviously.

"I was with him when he was captured," Jyers says.

What they were doing, Draco does not want to imagine.

"I'd be lying if I told you he hadn't suffered."

Draco can imagine.

"Our whole generation has been lied to," Tom says. "What difference would it make now?"

-

"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.

Lucius was not fond of castration.

"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.

-

When Jyers' stiletto heels meet the concrete of the sidewalk, it makes a grinding noise that makes Draco wince.

"Why here, why now," Jyers stares up, mystified, at Tom. "I don't understand. It's over, isn't it? Why do it again?"

You were Lucius's fuck-toy. You wouldn't understand anyway.

"I mean, what purpose would it serve now? Isn't Voldemort just a hole in the ground?"

A hole in the ground, a pile of ashes, and entirely too many wizards being haunted by what their mother had in plan for them. Voldemort and Potter were both orphans. Voldemort and Potter both stayed up late at night, wondering uselessly what their mothers had been like. It came down to one flimsy gesture of affection for both of them, when deciding the ultimate fate of whether their mother had loved them or not.

Potter believed it, Voldemort did not. Potter is alive, and Voldemort is a hole in the ground.

Draco starts to wonder if another woman is what society needs.

-

This is how the Society is born again.

Draco, Tom, and Jyers walk along. Jyers won't shut up and Draco is tired.

"It's coming again," Tom says. "But in a different way.

"This time, no ideology, no lies.

"It's coming at you like a hijacked Firebolt."

Tom sniffs. "What would Albus Dumbledore be doing if he were alive today and part of this conversation?"

Tom doesn't pause for an answer. Draco doesn't have one, anyway.

"Clawing at the door of his coffin."

-

"We're not resurrecting it, Jyers," Tom says patiently, as if explaining the concept to a child. "It was never dead."

"Voldemort's dead."

"The Society is not Voldemort."

"It was based around him, wasn't it?"

"You were Lucius's mistress. Don't flatter yourself with how much you know."

"Then why no ideology? What would be the purpose?"

"The purpose is to push the limits of wizarding life as far as we can," Tom says. "Three thousand years of peaceful existence and we as a civilization have no ideology, no religion, no universal belief as to what happens after death, and no spirituality. We have virtually no meaning in life except to breed for the sake of the population and we live our lives watching Muggles, like they're the ones who belong in a cage.

"Compare the two cultures," Tom says. "Muggles will buy used toilet paper if it's made by the right company. Wizards will reject anything remotely different from the ideals that we've lived for years if it isn't said by the right person. Consumerism culture and a medieval dinosaur.

"You tell me who's worst off."

Jyers frowns. "You're making a mockery of the Death Eater name."

"Who ever mentioned the Death Eaters? I'm talking about the Society, everything it was meant to be until the only thing left of a wizarding belief struggled, fell, and we had to put it back together again."

"Don't ever mention the Death Eater name again, then," Jyers hisses.

"The name Death Eaters apply to everybody," Tom says. "Look closer at what's on your plate next time."

-

This is Draco's last memory of Lucius.

Lucius is sitting, staring at a young Draco patiently, his hands putting weights on the pure gold scales. Two stone on one side and two stone on the other - Draco doesn't understand until Lucius asks him, "Imagine putting fate on one side. Then, try to place something that is equal or heavier to it."

Draco says, "I can't. Fate can't be defined, thus there's nothing that exceeds it or is equal to it."

Lucius smirks. "Try God, then."

"What?"

"Place God on one side. Try the same thing."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Draco stares up mournfully, and says, "There's no such thing as God. Nothing would be there."

-

Draco cannot remember if Lucius had punished up for that.

-

When Draco returns home to Harry, he does not mention how Draco doesn't say a word to him, except smiling purposefully. Harry stares at him, the corner of his eye, and the tiny curl of his upper lip that allows him to smirk with elitism. Draco stares at Harry, daring him to ask. This is a test. Does Harry enough to know why Draco's got a lipstick smudge on his shirt? Or has he even noticed? Draco knows this all comes down to a pathetic cry for attention, but it's his pathetic cry for attention.

"Who's Jyers?" Harry asks finally.

"Nike Jyers," Draco says. "My father's mistress. I grew up with the bitch. We were doomed to marry."

"Huh." Harry's facial reaction is barely noticeable, but Draco catches a glimpse of resentment. "What did she say to you?"

"What could she say? Her lover is dead, and I'm the only reminder of what she had with him. I look like him, and she knows it. She looks at me like I'm supposed to pretend to be Lucius. What stage of mourning is this? I can't remember. Denial, anger, fear; categorized into a set of expectations and feelings for each stage. I wonder if she's going through a checklist right now. Uncontrollable crying, physical nausea. Check, check."

"She cried?"

"No. I'm assuming she's human enough to pretend she has, though."

"He was your father." Harry muses like this is a useless fact on the back of a cereal box.

"You're an orphan."

"My father is dead, too."

"One more thing we have in common."

"This is not a good thing."

"Everybody wants to be like you. Why is this not? My father dies; one more thing I have in common with you. This should be bringing us closer."

"Does it? Your mother is still alive."

"One parent at a time, Potter."

Draco moves closer and bites down on Harry's collarbone. Harry puts his hands through Draco's hair and thinks of Lucius.