Ace of Swords

Ace of Swords

Part One: Cheap Red Wine

The boy, caught somewhere between demon and angel, did not sleep. A twisted hybrid of dark and light, a fine, delicate balance, his fingers twined with the bedsheets, eyes made of winter storms and pallid skies and the far north cast towards his semi-open door. Weak illumination spilled into the shadows, and so did the familiar cadances of home.

He listened silently as Lucius did his regular, sweeping stroll down the hallway and towards his bed chambers. The dull thud of feet on sumptuously-carpeted floors filled Draco's hearing. His hands tightened on the sheets in an uncontrollable spasm of bitterness when Lucius paused for just a moment. The family patriarch's shadow filled the doorway, lingered for awhile, and then vanished.

One more night. One more night, and then Draco would be gone, away from Malfoy Manor and beginning his sixth year at the drafty old castle that called itself Hogwarts. He ground his teeth in a habitual gesture.

Harry Potter wasn't the only one who hated summer.

The argument with his father still burned on Draco's tongue. There was never, and probably never would be, a woman, child, man, standard, or rule that was 'good enough' for Lucius Malfoy. It was a wonder that he had ever signed himself up for fatherhood in the first place; Lucius seemed too misanthropic, too haughty, too imbued with the old structure of living, to ever sire a son and instruct him in the ways of life.

Narcissa's voice suddenly filled the air. Draco tensed. Keen ears managed to steal some snatches of the crisp conversation going on between husband and wife.

"...going out for a bit. Won't be too long..."

"...have told you how it..."

"...didn't say that! And you should know better!"

Silence.

Narcissa broke the strained tranquility by saying something that was comletely inaudible to her son's ears. More footfalls followed, and Lucius' angry voice echoed down the corridor after her.

Draco turned his face away from the false light of the hall, and towards the truer brilliance of the moon outside. Its rays danced impishly through his curtains, only halfway drawn. The light pooled in various corners of his room, and melted into a soft visual ballad.

Summer was not sultry heat and cool water and sticky treats. Summer had never been about that sort of thing. This was a season when Draco retired home, to an arrogant bastard of a father, who's approval and acceptance he so badly wanted for reasons that were obscured from his own vision. As a child, he'd looked up to his sire, no doubt about that, bragged about Lucius as most boys his age were wont to do. Now, he saw that very pride under a very different light. A perverse light.

He could try over and over again, could extend his lifetime into two more, but it would never be enough. Nothing was ever 'enough' for Lucius.

A door closed.

Draco slipped from the mattress and into the hall.

What little affection Lucius had shown for his son as a baby, an infant, a toddler, had withered and died upon the passage of Draco's sixth birthday.

He pushed the voice from his mind, shoving open Narcissa's bedroom door. He entered the vacant chamber, shivering at the sudden, intense cold. Crossing the starkly-furnished place, Draco slipped down to the floor, just beside his mother's dresser. He took the liberty of opening the bottom cabinet himself.

The stack lay there, atop a frilly shirt, encased in its usual cardboard holder.

Tarot cards.

Draco chuckled to nobody in particular. He'd played with these cards as a child, flipping them over, arranging them, drawing them one by one to see what the future concealed from normal eyes. Lifting the deck from its peaceful resting place, he removed the cards. His mother's, but she never really seemed to care.

A sudden wave of memory assaulted Draco, and he gave himself over to it.

The words swirled over and over in Draco's mind. He flipped over a card. The Tower symbol. He grimaced.

He toyed with the cards for a few minutes longer, drawing the Ace of Swords, Two of Pentacles, the Death Card, and finally, the Emperor. Packing the deck back into its secure bundle, Draco hesitated before slipping them into his pocket.

Draco rose from the chilly floor, and exited the room. On the way back down the corridor, he passed the large mirror hanging from the wall, and his pace increased. He didn't like mirrors. Mirrors made you look into your own eyes, and made you examine what you saw there.

A leaf caught in the river's current has no clue as to where it's headed. It just plunges onwards, too rootless to question its own doubts, taking security in the only way it knows.

The mask had fallen back into place by the time Draco shut his bedroom door.

***

He smelled of cheap wine. Cheap, red wine, the sort you can get for almost nothing per bottle. Ginny Weasley cringed away from him, even when the long fingers opened, spilling the papers onto her desk. She was counting every word that dropped from the taut lips and adding them to the 'reasons why I hate Severus Snape' list. The black robes swirled, and then he was gone, blending into the shaded part of the dungeon, the place where his desk sat.

It was unusually warm down in the bowels of Hogwarts castle, and Ginny was thankful for that. Now, all that was left to wish for were lights to give form to the darkness that comprised the place. Taking the quill up in one hand, she grit her teeth and tried to concentrate on the parchment in front of her. But all she could think of was how Gred and Forge would have teased her if they'd seen the situation she'd gotten herself into.

"Get writing, Weasley," the dour vocalization prodded. Ginny sighed and bent her head to her work.

It hadn't been her idea, the prank, but it had landed her in detention anyway, firstly because she was in Gryffindor, and secondly, because the target of the prank had been Snape himself. The entire fiasco had been the brainchild of Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, and surprisingly, Neville Longbottom, spurred onwards to courage by his fellow house-mates. It was a long and comlex scheme that made Ginny's head hurt, just thinking about it.

If it ever got finished.

Time slowly started wearing itself away, and so did the thick stack of essay papers, though not by much. Ginny's lips thinned when she counted the remainder of what was left to do. After throwing a longing glance out the door, wistfulness began to turn back into an ever-rising floodtide of irritation.

She stopped herself before she could get any further.

The tune began in the back of her head, soft, quiet, something she had heard on a Muggle radio. Ginny's quill began to rise and fall in time with cadances. A peaceful sense of premonition washed over the shores of her psyche.

He was watching her now. Ginny jerked, startled at the realization that she had been humming out loud. Cheeks flushed, she bent her head to the paper, working more vigorously than ever.

The tune still played.

Snape had risen from his seat. Closer, step by step, he was approaching her desk. Ginny tensed when he cast his own shadow over her, going over the words written on paper.

She loved Potions well enough, it was up there with Charms and Transfigurations.

It was the teacher she couldn't stand.

Lengthy fingers reached and plucked the quill from her hand in one deft motion. Ginny stared directly at the parchment, hoping Snape would met out whatever punishment he wished to, and get it over with as quickly as possible. She was surprised when he did nothing of the sort.

Inky eyes traced what Ginny had written, and her teacher raised his eyebrows in an expression that was almost...

...approving?

Ginny twisted awkwardly in her seat, trying to figure out what was going on. Snape gave a dry chuckle.

"Eloquent, Ms. Weasley. Very eloquent. You may go."

She rose from her seat, nearly turning it over in the process. Hastening for the door, she exited on legs that had fallen asleep due to sitting for so long.

"One-hundred percent asshole you are. Did your mother ever tell you that? Oh, sorry, forgot. She can't. She's--"

"Asshole, huh? Least I don't spend my time kissing ass."

"Your intellect could do with some broadening. After all, they say brains--"

"Shut your face, Malfoy. I've heard that one before."

"Well at--"

"MISTER POTTER!"

Both boys jumped, startled out of their verbal war. Professor Trelawney came sweeping down the aisle, glaring daggers at the two. It was hot and stuffy as usual in Divinations class, but Harry wasn't thinking about that. His mind was trained on what Trelawney had to say.

"It would be highly appreciated if you and Mister Malfoy began paying attention during class. What do you expect to do when final exams come out?"

Harry's jaw dropped. Sparkling green eyes darted over towards Ron, sitting opposite him. The old fraud was beginning to sound more and more like McGonagall than herself.

Bangles clattered together on Trelawney's wrist as she gave both Draco and Harry one last, reproving Look and then strode back to the front of the class. The garish colors and hoop earrings the woman wore hadn't changed in the least over a course of Merlin-knew-how-many years.

Harry sighed, resting his chin on his hand.

"...studying Tarot Cards. These are restricted to sixth years due to the fact that..."

Harry cast a lazy glance at the blonde sitting to his left.

The Boy-Who-Lived found his feet tapping against the wooden floor on their own accord, beating out a steady, unconscious rhythm. Ron glanced curiously over at Harry. Harry glanced back and gave a lopsided smile, then allowed his mind to drift off once more. It was so easy to let one's head wander in this particular class...so...easy...

"...essay on Tarot Cards, if you think you know enough to not pay attention to what I'm saying."

Harry jerked into awareness, bewildered at the sudden snicker that rippled through the classroom. Ron was shooting him sympathetic glances. Harry looked up, surprised to find Professor Trelawney standing over his seating place. She was glaring at her student.

"Is that clear, Mister Potter?"

"Is wha...?"

"The essay," she said, fast losing patience. "I'll expect it in two days. Three full parchments on the history of Tarot Cards, and another on the relationship between the Emperor and the Hierophant. See how much you know," she sniffed.

Harry's jaw dropped for the second time that day. Ron's glances turned from friendly sympathy to downright pity.

"Yes, Professor."

Malfoy snickered. Harry glared at his rival, then resigned himself to his own fate.

***

It was Ginny who found the cards.

Draco had dropped them on his was out of Divinations class, and the youngest Weasley had picked them up, and began toying with then. There was no name, no clear label stating who's they were, and at the moment, staring at the Two of Swords, Ginny was fast losing a battle of honesty with herself. Keeping the lost deck was an option who's temptation proved more than she could handle.

The last bloody rays of late afternoon found themselves snared in the windows of the old castle. Ginny sat on the steps leading to the Gryffindor common room, absolutely fascinated. She had heard rumors that the sixth years were studying Tarot. A grimace covered her features.

Flipping the cards over and over without really knowing what she was doing, Ginny read the names emblazoned on the bottom of each one.

She paused at the Fool card.

Pulling her knees up to her chest, Ginny fought with the tangles of her robes, wishing for just a moment that she'd brought pants along. Molly had taken the liberty of doing her daughter's packing for her; Ginny had had an overload of homework during the summer, and thus, had ended up with mostly skirts in the luggage.

She was about to rearrange the pattern of the cards once more (Ginny had seen others performing such a gesture, and was acting purely on imitation), when a shadow cast itself over her. She looked up, startled.

"It's getting late. Shouldn't you be headed for the common room? Or will I have to take more points from Gryffindor?"

A few seconds passed before Ginny found herself able to reply, mortified at being caught dabbling in a type of magic that was superfluous, to say the least.

"N--no, Professor. I was going right now."

Snape looked down his nose at her, expression both disdainful and contemplative at once. Ginny began packing the cards in, but not before her teacher stopped her at one particular card, defered her with a single glare.

"The Empress. The trademark card." A corner of his mouth quirked slightly, as though he were entangling himself in anamnesis. He released Ginny after what seemed like sempiternity, breaking his watch and telling her to get on to the common room. She stared after him, perplexed at his own actions and her own thoughts.

She shook herself out of her reverie, glancing down at the cardboard casing. Flipping it over once, Ginny nearly dropped the thing when her eyes met the name she had failed to notice was there before.

Small as the words were, there was no denying what they said: