Dust Motes

A/N: Like all my recent fics, for some reason, this one was inspired by some French work. There was a description of some dust in a sunbeam in a translation we were doing. Dunno how on earth that got me to this. ^_^ My thanks to Kythena for the Beta.

Dust Motes

Dust motes were dancing in a broad shaft of sunlight.

The room's long disuse was obvious. The heavy mahogany furniture was covered in white sheets to keep the surfaces free of the dust which hung thickly, dully in the air. The atmosphere was musty, full of that stale, stuffy smell of air which has remained undisturbed for too long. The thick carpet, velvet curtains, and delicately gilt-patterned wallpaper were all in shades of deep red, to match the port which had once been served after dinner here. On the edges of Pansy's vision, ghosts of better times flickered tantalisingly, spectres of a different age. The age before this family's disgrace.

Dust motes were dancing in a broad shaft of light, which had forced its way between the thick curtains. It was strange how everyone always said they were dancing. Was that really what their slow, unpredictable descent was?

Pansy had never been allowed in here when she had accompanied her parents to dinner at the Malfoys'. She had been too young, of course, but more importantly, too female. Women had never been allowed in this room, it was a room for cigars and port and men, and all the sorts of things men might talk about. Pansy's mother had never seemed to care when she was banished to the drawing room with Narcissa and the others while her husband entered this room whose air breathed secrets, but Pansy had burnt with curiosity. Once Draco had been allowed to join his father and his friends in there, as a reward for something or other, and Pansy had nagged him for details for weeks afterwards, sure that some piece of information would shed light on the mystery of that segregation. Perhaps that was why she had chosen this room for their meeting place, defying the old order, embracing her new creation of her own destiny.

The dust motes swirled among one another, jerked unevenly sideways and upwards and downwards, as if tugged at by unseen threads. Was that really an intricate set of steps which they were following, all the way to their eventual entombment in the thick-pile carpet?

The house had been a good choice, she felt. It had been boarded up for months now. After Lucius' arrest Narcissa, still poised and in control, had used every trick she knew, and that was a considerable number, to keep the Aurors out.

Even after Draco's failed mission, when he had joined his father on the run, according to the Prophet, still Narcissa had held it together, and the Aurors had only made it into certain, select areas of the mansion.

Even after Lucius' death in battle with the Order, Narcissa still had an heir to preserve the house for, and she remained there, holding the fort. Pansy hoped that in similar circumstances she would be able to do as much for her lineage, as well as for the greater cause.

But after news came of Draco's defection, the news that he had been a spy for some time now, ever since Dumbledore's death, even... Narcissa no longer had an heir. She no longer had anything to live for.

And after Narcissa... the Aurors had pounced.

The dust motes sparkled as they danced, she noted with a distant curiosity. She had never really paid attention before, but sometimes when they twisted and swayed to the music only they could hear, they shone briefly with a reflection of the sunbeam which made them visible.

But even the Aurors had eventually lost interest in the mansion, had exhausted its hoard of secrets, and had abandoned it to its ghosts and decay. An undeserving end to a noble house, both the building and the family which had resided in it, Pansy felt.

Nobody ever mentioned that dust motes sparkled in the sun, as if something as dull as dust didn't have the right to sparkle. They never mentioned the peculiar alchemy which allowed a ray of light to briefly transform dust into gold.

A good choice of meeting-place, definitely. No-one would expect anyone to come here, least of all him. In some ways, it was too obvious: it was his former home, after all. And yet at the same time, it was too obviously the last place he would go: it was everything he had betrayed, after all. Hadn't he spent months scurrying from safe house to safe house, fleeing from the men who had once drunk port and smoked cigars and talked about whatever it was they talked about in this very room?

Numbly, her eyes traced their twinkling forms, following their paths without thought. Something about them hypnotised her, and although she knew she should be long gone by now, leaving the dust to settle unseen, something about their flickering dance held her motionless in place.

She had been proud to accept the mission. Her parents had done their best to hide their surprise, but she had known it was there, shock that she had embraced the task so eagerly. But how could she feel anything but honoured when the Dark Lord himself had decreed that this mission should be hers? She was certainly the best person for the job. Draco had once trusted her, and a combination of nostalgia for those times past and eagerness to recruit a successor in his role as spy would lead him to trust her again, if she played her cards right. She had known when she had sent the message what she was luring him to, and how easy it would be to do it. She had done her job well.

It was really the dust motes' fault, for defying their own nature, and venturing out of the shadows into the sunlight. They weren't expected to sparkle, and what right did they have to try to behave against expectations?

She had known he would come, and that he would come alone- for even now, the Gryffindors wouldn't be willing to take a risk for a Slytherin spy, no matter how much use they might be. They would have tried to dissuade him from coming, and eventually he would have lost patience, just slipped away on his own. They were all so predictable...

She hadn't expected it to be easy from then on, though. He wasn't a fool, he knew where her family's loyalties lay, even if he thought he might be able to sway her. The thought that she might turn too, might follow his path... that would be seductive, but it wouldn't stop him being cautious.

They were just dust motes, after all, and even if the sun cast its rays upon them, and allowed them to sparkle briefly... well, that just made you all the more aware of their ceaseless descent to the ground. If they had just stayed in the shadows, they wouldn't have been singled out, wouldn't have had their fate plotted into an inevitable trajectory.

So she had gotten here far in advance of the appointed time, and she had waited in the darkened room. He wouldn't be expecting an immediate ambush. He might walk in with his wand out, but he wouldn't even really be expecting to use it straight away. He would expect her to talk, because he had never loved anything better than the sound of his own voice, and had never truly understood that others might think differently.

She was different from him in many ways, though. She had stayed silent when the door creaked open beside her.

Perhaps the dust motes in the shadows could persuade themselves that they weren't falling. Perhaps they could convince themselves of that until they spotted one of the dust motes in the sun beam, and realised that they were all the same, all falling.

She had stayed silent, scarcely breathing, frozen still as he had glanced around carefully. But she had been Disillusioned, and the room was dark, and he hadn't seen her. He had turned away to walk over to those thick curtains. The Disillusionment wouldn't have worked for long, in a moment he would have cast revelation spells and wards, making the rendezvous point safe. But he didn't have a moment left, because he had gone to the window to let the light in first, before warding the room. She had trained her wand on him as he had placed a hand to the dark material, and then as the mid-morning sun dazzled him...

Without the sunlight the dust motes were invisible, were imperceptible, were, to all intents and purposes, nothing. But give something existence and you give it an end. Maybe nothingness was better.

The way he had fallen was what had gotten to her. She had spent a long time preparing herself, steeling herself for her first kill, as her parents had impressed upon her that it was the hardest one. It would get easier after the first time. She had done well. She hadn't trembled, hadn't hesitated. Her parents would have been proud.

But they hadn't mentioned what happened afterwards. How he would fall, awkwardly, slumping like a giant puppet with the strings cut. How that fall would somehow make it clear that this was how a dead body fell, not a living human being. How that body would just carry on lying there, heavy on the dust-laden carpet, reminding her of that fall.

When the dust motes fell, they were almost weightless. Their fall was so slow... but still there. Almost weightless, but not quite. They still fell.

She wasn't repenting, not even feeling regrets, for she had known that this was what had to be done. Traitors didn't merit sympathy, and besides, he had known what he was doing the moment he had danced his way into the sunlight and flickered gold. He had seen the downward spiral laid out as a glittering golden road before him, and he had carried on dancing in that ray of light. Some of them had danced back into the shadows, but not him.

And the sun was still there, and the dust motes too, no matter how long she watched, and if some fell, and some disappeared once more, still there were always some dancing in the light...

She had watched his dance from the shadows, tracked his jerky progression downwards, fascinated by it and yet horrified by the way the sun's bright spotlight illuminated his destination. She had come to accept it in time, though, for when something was inevitable what could you do? They had been almost surprised by her acceptance of this mission, her parents, but when you knew what the outcome was to be, what did it matter which hand batted the defiantly twinkling dust mote downwards?

The dust motes carried on sparkling, still rebelling against their destiny. They twinkled, tiny sparks descending a golden pathway, down to the shimmering golden band shining in the boy's pale hair.

The other dust motes were still tumbling lazily through the sunbeam, and in a sudden lurch, Pansy suddenly found herself able to move again. She moved forward and yanked the gap in the curtains closed. The room was thrown into darkness, but Pansy didn't mind. As long as she couldn't see the dust motes dancing in the light.