Electrified Amber

***

Electrified amber. That's what he saw. The most wonderful mix of browns, golds, oranges and even a slight hint of violet mixed together with flecks of black. Swirls of amber colour swam before his eyes, overwhelming him, overpowering him, suffocating him. The swirls turned turbulent, violent slashes of angry oranges taking precedence, trying to scare him, trying to seduce him. And then a question. The quiet hum of a question in the chocolate brown that threatened to engulf everything.

Her eyes.

He couldn't help but stare into the bottomless depths. Depths that looked right past who he was, right past who he wanted to be and directly at everything he despised in himself. Those innocent eyes that knew so much yet knew so little. He blinked, looked away, submissive in his own right and daunting to her. To her he didn't give in - on all accounts he still held her gaze, sneered in the same old manner. She didn't see the surrender in his eyes. She never did. She probably never would.

She snapped at him, shattering something on the inside as she went. Every time this happened a little more of him died. He didn't know why it had to be this way, and yet he was helpless to change it. Helpless to try. He could only dream of a day when she might look at him in some other way than she was now, the angry slashes of electrified gold shooting daggers at him. He would never see her look at him the same way she did her precious Harry. All chocolate and honey, creamed in loving swirls and secret promises. No. That was something he would never experience.

And it killed him from the inside.

"Go back to your 'Boy Who Shouldn't Have Lived', Weasley." He dismissed her coldly, screaming on the inside, tortured by the idea of that prick's hands on her velvet skin, touching her volcanic tresses with the passion to match. His disturbing green eyes clashing with her own demure yet husky amber electrified gaze.

He wanted to kill him. He wanted Harry gone forever, all temptation of him taken away from her, his eruptive redhead. His secret love, his own desire personified. But to do that would only ensure he could never touch her, never know her. He couldn't jeopardize himself like that, or her for that matter.

"Shut the hell up, Malfoy!" she shouted back at him, her eyes dangerously close to his, drowning him in her gaze, fierce and hating all at once. He could drown in her sea of hate for hours and still not be satisfied. Never be satisfied. "Never speak of Harry like that! He is so much more than you ever could be. He is so much more than I could ever want."

"How sweet," he drawled, sneering at her in his trademark way, wincing inwardly. Cringing in his own cowardice. "Little Weasley has fallen in love with the poster child of goodness. The little cherub of light duplicated. Merlin forbid that I should ever laugh in the face of such a miracle."

***

He couldn't remember how long it had been anymore. His brain had stopped counting the amount of times that she tiptoed her lithe form across his mind, just out of his peripheral vision each day. He hadn't seen her in months and yet he could still picture her smile, quirked to the side as she laughed at another of her brother's antics perfectly, every visible dimple, freckle or spot imprinted into his memory.

But he saw her then. He saw her perfectly and knew he had to do something. Harried and cross, her glowing eyes were the first things he saw, searching the crowd in a frenzied fashion. She would never see him. He was tucked away in a small café on the side of Diagon Alley. No, she was too busy living to notice him over here in his squalid imitation of a life.

***

"Don't even speak, Malfoy!" She held her hand up in front of her face as they walked closer towards each other.

"Whatever gave you the impression I wanted to speak to you in any case?" he asked, pausing in front of her and raising an eyebrow in derision.

She glared up at him with her little amber eyes, electrifying every blood cell in his body and heating it up from the frozen ice he was so accustomed to. He suppressed the need to wince at the onslaught of heat attacking his body, trying to make himself just keep on walking.

"What, no insults about my financial standing today, no verbal attacks about my family?"

He almost doubled over in pain, and after the incident with his father in the fencing room he had vowed never to show vulnerability again. But the pain, the real and raw pain he saw reflected in her eyes was almost too much. It hurt her, these little quibbles they had and the meaningless insults he threw her way. They hurt her. They shattered him but they hurt her! His little statue of virtue and passion, of endurance and survival was hurt by his senseless words. It had never been his intention...

And then he did something completely out of character. He shrugged. He relaxed his shoulders enough to lift them, drop them and sigh. He actually shrugged - a sign of nonchalance, not caring. He'd never shrugged before. And it looked as if it shook her bearings, too.

"Not today, Weasley." The civility in his voice was like another blow to the stomach. That could not have been his own voice, tight without the usual sarcasm and wit. "Everyone needs a day off."

Then he walked away. Afraid that he may have just betrayed everything that he was, everything he had tried to keep secret for over a year. Everything that could keep him under control.

***

"What do you want, Weasley?" He poured over his Potions textbook, trying in vain to block the strawberry scent of her shampoo that invaded his lungs.

"I want to talk to you." She pulled her chair out and sat down, resting her head upon her hand, revealing the lovely white column of her neck, so stark and beautiful. It moved from her finely molded chin down to her elegantly shaped neck, spreading out at the bottom to her collarbones and the white velvet that caressed the top of them. Then it went further, the sides moving to lovely shoulders hidden beneath black school robes - and not the only thing hidden beneath school robes, either. He swallowed hard.

"Say your peace then," he snapped irritably. "I have homework to do."

Again she seemed shock by the lack of insult or insinuation - just curt acknowledgment of her existence and it was more than enough to send her spiraling into confusion. He almost smiled wryly. Yes, he knew she existed. Most definitely.

"I just wanted to... well..." She faltered and he almost reached out to her. She'd never spoken to him in this way. She'd heard her, surely, but her tone was never used on him before. It was slightly more strained than that of what he'd heard her use with the Mudblood Hermione or even Pitiful Potter, but it was still there.

He had trouble keeping himself from jumping to conclusions as he determined that she was concerned for him. That she actually cared enough, after everything he had done to prevent it or to disguise his own feelings, to push her away from him and squash any chance, to be concerned for him.

"You wanted to what, Weasley? This Potions homework won't do itself."

Ginny glared at him, angry that he interrupted. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay," she admitted, flushing slightly as she looked up at him. "You didn't insult me like usual today... and though it was a nice change, I suppose, I was just worried... that maybe you were... ill, or something?"

"Ill?" he asked, sounding amused. Inside he was in anguish. If it were a sickness, he thought, he would have found a cure for it by now.

"Yes, ill, Malfoy. I thought maybe you'd come down with something, or maybe you'd hit your head... it happens, you know. Would you like me to help you up to the Hosp--"

"I'm not ill, Weasley. Malfoys don't get sick."

"Of course not," Ginny sniped acidly as she moved to leave, her chair legs scraping along the floor.

He grabbed her arm suddenly, by impulse. He couldn't stop himself and he almost regretted it as he felt the rush of heat as his blood vibrated.

"Is it that bad, Weasley?" he asked suddenly, quietly, taking in the consideration in the electrified amber eyes. "Is it so bad that I can be nice sometimes?"

She stopped moving, turning back to him and staring at him, shocked. She sank back into her chair, ignoring the fact that he was hanging onto her arm with a death grip.

"Bad? No."

"Then why? Why was it so shocking?" He couldn't deny it. It was hurting. The idea that him being nice was such a shock hurt him to the core. The painless, horrible, aristocratic prat was a part he played and obviously played well. "Do I play the part too well?"

His eyes widened as his brain registered what he had said. Ginny was looking at him with pity, her eyes registering his internal struggle. He couldn't take her pity! He dropped her arm as she made to touch it, perhaps to comfort him. Hastily he packed up his equipment, cursing his own stupidity. She knew!

He didn't even say goodbye as he exited the library hastily, ignoring the small call of 'Draco' escaping her lips and tearing something from him. He couldn't let this happen, he couldn't let her see. He promised himself.

***

He kept his promise. He hadn't talked to her once since that night in the library. Had forced himself to ignore electrified amber as he went about his classes, his days, his life (if you could call it that).

Only once had she tried to talk to him, making it easier, and perhaps even harder, to pretend she never existed. To pretend that nothing had happened in the library and to pretend that she had never got a glimpse of the real Draco Malfoy.

He carried on his days as it was meant to be - tormenting those less important than himself, denying himself the simplest of pleasures and obeying every order that was sent his way from his father. He was to be initiated as a Death Eater the moment he left Hogwarts, the danger of bearing the mark whilst he remained under Dumbledore's watchful eye was too great for the future right hand man of Lord Voldemort.

***

The attack, he determined, was to happen in his seventh year. The Dark Lord was quite through with Dumbledore's coddling and was determined to prove it. He could feel the tension in the school as he arrived in his seventh year. Everyone was on full alert and even the first years seemed more morose and subdued.

He couldn't help but smirk at the fact that the only person who seemed to still be chirpy and happy was the long-time girlfriend of Pitiful Potter - Ginny Weasley. Electrified amber wasn't quite so sharp now - more like jaded amber. The innocence in those eyes, he concluded as he stole glances at her one morning, was gone, replaced with something almost equally alluring. The glow of a woman.

He still missed the innocence though, found himself sometimes wishing he could go back, return to that night in the library and redo it all. Maybe things would be different now? Maybe he wouldn't be waiting for the initiation into a group he didn't want and the life he was sick of playing already?

Maybe it would be his arm she hung from and his eyes she smiled into?

***

The date had been set a week ago. He remember it clearly, the owl that bore a miniscule piece of paper. A miniscule piece of paper that read 'Seven days from now'. A seven days that passed faster than a golden snitch to him. And now, it was the time. Today was the day.

He was the only one in the entire school who had any idea... even Crabbe and Goyle had been elicited from the loop this time round. He thought he might have felt honoured had the timing been different. If he hadn't gone so soft on the inside. But he didn't. He felt burdened, he felt guilty, he felt remorseful. Heck, he felt sacrificial.

He sat in respective calm as calamity erupted around him. Determined, he was, to finish his toast as the hall filled with black-robed, white-masked Death Eaters. He wasn't going to do this on an empty stomach. He watched with calculating eyes as every student in the hall attempted to hide behind the staff table - except perhaps the Gryffindors, the foolhardy idiots.

Few students stood side by side with teachers who could fight - despite all their measures, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was depressingly outnumbered.

He didn't care for killing people. He didn't care for inflicting pain. He shrugged as the first hex was thrown, followed my hundreds more. He didn't care for watching Dumbledore fall to the floor and would play no part in his demise. Why, he didn't even care for watching Harry die, as much as he hated the fellow student.

There was only one thing he really cared for, and the only reason he was present right now - making sure Ginny got out unscathed.

He searched frantically for electrified anger as the fighting became more widespread. What if she's already...? He ran looking for her, dodging hexes and shouts of 'Traitor!' and other such obscenities. He didn't care - the insults were like water off a duck's back.

He had only been traitorous for lack of anything else interesting to do, really.

And then she was there. An almost holy-like light from a high above window circled her as she lay over a fellow student, lost in the line of fire. He stay where he was, watching silently as she raised her head and watched him. To her, this was his fault. Her anger was palpable and the electrified amber that he considered his was shooting sparks almost.

She advanced upon him, every movement of her body screaming rage and betrayal. Then she slapped him. He didn't care. The pain of her hand was nothing compared to the pain of her hate. He didn't even flinch.

"You did this!" she screamed at him, electrified amber clouding with tears.

"I did." He wasn't going to deny it. He definitely did nothing to stop it.

"You admit it?"

"What else would you have me do?"

"I would have you die for what's happening here today, Malfoy!"

He cocked his head to the side and had the audacity to look almost amused. "Ginny, it would have happened sometime. I'm only sorry you were here."

"Why would you be sorry for that? I would have thought you'd be more sorry for staining your robes." She gestured towards the large stain of blood that went down a whole arm and was still dripping to the floor ominously. She grimaced as she watched. He didn't even acknowledge it was there.

"Draco!" He turned as he watched his father come up behind him, pointing his wand at her. Pointing his wand at the one thing that mattered to him. "Good job, boy. The Dark Lord will be proud of you." He grinned sardonically at her. "He has unresolved issues with you, girl."

Lucius grabbed her harshly by the arm, dragging him along beside him, leaving Draco to do as he pleased. And he did.

He watched with disdain as his father's lifeless figure slumped to the floor, his face no doubt covered in a shock not quite registered. She turned to look at him, shocked by his lack of emotion.

"Why did you do that?" she questioned as she stepped back towards him."

"He would have taken you to Voldemort."

"So? Isn't he your Master?"

"Not where you are concerned." She looked confused as he smiled at her, the first real smile to pass over him since he had been a small child.

And then he heard it. He heard the shuffle and stumble, the muttered curse from a person whose voice he knew and recognized. Heard the intake of breath as he leaned in to plant a kiss upon satin lips. Heard the hiss of a wand being drawn from a wand and the incantation of a Forbidden Curse.

As calm as he had always been he stepped in between her and the killing curse that was aimed her way from Lestrange, ignoring the pain as it hit him in the back and the scream from satin lips. All he wanted to remember, as he gave his life this night, was the electrified amber that haunted his living life and he could think of nothing better than being haunted so in his life after death, if there was one.

~fin~