Altus Amor

Chapter One

Lost Desires

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Grasping onto desperate hope,

He walks along a thinning rope.

Willed only by an ardent love,

He leaves his fate to dusk above.

He feels his death: morose and near.

He sees all of what others fear.

Can passion save a darkened soul?

Can love erase a mortal toll?

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Blood carpeted the floor, the walls, the chains and the steel bars, making everything in sight appear as if a smooth scarlet sheet had been draped over the universe. Blood covered Draco's robes as well as his outstretched hand and wand, which held a prisoner under the Cruciatus Curse. *Too long,* he thought. The body neither moved nor showed any sign of breath, and from this he concluded that the person no longer remained alive.

Shivering, Draco sunk against the eastern wall of the dungeon, staring blankly at the crimson world that smelled to strongly of death and decay and of overall hatred. His home. His home since the rise of the Dark Lord--and he cursed Lucius for that. For holding him in this cold, desolate mansion, willing him to live the life of a Death Eater. But there was no life here; no happiness--only the subtle and everlasting spread of darkness. It was no way to live, especially not for a seventeen year-old boy.

*Man,* he reminded himself. He had never been a boy. Lucius had never allowed it. Where other children had teddy bears, Draco had a wand and the word 'imperio' on the end of his tongue. How he survived his days until Hogwarts would remain a mystery, as will how he would survive now that he had been lifted out, having to live in this...this prison. I repeat, it was no way to live.

To clear up some misconceptions: Draco, in no way, lived among the rats and lice and fleas of the dungeon. After all, not every prison is made of steel bars and hexed rooms. No, most prisons, in fact, are created purely out of the human mind, as a weak attempt to set borders on their frantic lives. For example, one might use society and social standing as a reason not to be with the one they love, purposely hurting themselves by using the mantra 'it's for the best'. In Draco's case, his prison was made up of his father, and unreal expectations that he was certain he would fall short of.

Carrying on, I must stress that there are two types of people in this world: those who enjoy misery and those who hate it. Now you say, "Who likes to be unhappy?" More people that not. Society, as a whole, is filled with despair and longings, vacant needs and wants, and unseen or untaken opportunities. These people feed off of their anguish, using the desolate, wretched thoughts that build up as a sedative. They soon become too familiar with the dejected feeling to register any other emotion, whether it be love or fear or hate or happiness.

Draco was one of these people, and wished to be no other way, mind you. He was perfectly discontented with his morbid plot in life and looked upon his soon-to-be fellow Death Eaters with disgust. This was just as it should be. Carrying on:

Draco could hear the low rumble of Lucius' voice from just outside the dungeon walls, sending a cold shudder up his spine.

"Draco."

"Yes?"

"Is Macmillan accounted for?" Draco glimpsed at the lifeless body that sat not ten feet from him. With a shaky tone, he replied.

"Yes." Pause.

"Good. Come here, I have something to talk to you about." Reluctantly, Draco stood from where he was seated, feeling the resistance in each muscle he possessed: the result of so much dark magic coursing through his veins and many, many sleepless nights. Grudgingly he unlocked the door and stepped out onto a steep staircase that wound incessantly up to a high corridor. Surveying himself before he took the first step, he noted that he was still covered in a thick layer of blood: not the proper guise for the presence of severely-reserved Lucius Malfoy.

Using a quick cleansing spell, Draco silently stalked up the stairs, relishing in the few moments he had before having to appear in front of the old Death Eater. Yet his time was short lived, for awaiting him on the landing was Lucius, his gray-blonde hair gleaming in the firelight, contrasting with his dark emerald robes.

*An older picture of me,* Draco mused uneasily. *How quaint.* Lucius stared at him, his cold silver eyes chilling the younger Malfoy's gray.

"Did you acquire any useful information?" he asked, his tone like ice. Draco shifted nervously.

"No. He was like the others--the memory charms were too strong to break through." Lucius nodded dispassionately.

"As I thought." He continued to stare almost rudely at his son, before Draco found the audacity to speak up.

"You called me here for something?"

"Yes. A ritual, of sorts. It will better put you in order for becoming a Death Eater." Inwardly Draco frowned, careful not to show any feeling to his father. Over the years he had mastered such--emotional control. "It will be held in a few hours. Now, on with you. We don't want you loitering around here while the preparations are being made," Lucius finished. Not bothering to fathom who the 'we' was, Draco turned on his heel and exited the stone room, leaving the older Malfoy to matters that were best not to contemplate at the moment.

It really was no way to live.

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A cool breeze floated through the open window, carrying on its drift the scent of rain and moist earth. Outside a light shower had begun to fall, spraying Harry with a delicate mist. It was days like these that he felt the most disconnected from the world, as if the dreary clouds bound his mind to an isolated inner-prison. He let his thoughts stray until he was reflecting again on that horrible night: the night that he had stared death in the face and saw its raw and sinister facade; it's gruesome, macabre air; the nauseating scent it left behind as it slaughtered it's victims one by one, destroying life after life as if it were nothing but a mere game. The painful knowledge that something once so rich in life and love could be gone from this world in a meager moment. The realization that he could easily be next. Cedric had looked so--empty, to put it bluntly. His face was frozen in a look of shock, yet all the emotion behind it was--gone. It was so intensely frightening, so deep a loss.

"Harry?" Ron asked, startling him from his nostalgic state. With a jolt, Harry looked up to meet his friend's eyes: so worried. Much to worried for all Harry was worth.

"Yeah?"

"Are you ok? I mean, you look a little--"

"I'm fine," Harry replied, quite unconvincingly yet in a tone that told Ron he didn't want to talk. He noted how Ron let a look of concern and sympathy cross his face before returning to his schoolwork. *I don't mean to hurt you, love.*

That was perhaps the most honest and consistent thing in Harry's life. He *was* sorry; sorry for putting his friends in danger, sorry for not saving Cedric, sorry that he couldn't be stronger when people needed him, sorry he couldn't fight in the battle soon to come....But none the less he needed his friends. He *needed* Ron and Hermione and Sirius and the Weasley's more than anyone could possibly imagine. They were they only reason he was alive today, other than rampant luck. They were his family, and that was why he felt so terrible for putting them in such danger. *Your own *fucking* family. You're a death wish, Potter.*

Harry lifted his eyes from the book he was supposed to be reading, unable to concentrate. Pensively he gazed out the window, watching attentively as each drop of water fell from the hollow sky until it blended perfectly with ground bellow. Winter was approaching fast--Harry could sense it; smell it in the rising wind and see it as the sun set lower and lower in the horizon each day. Along with winter came the frost; the bitter iciness that chilled bone deep, leaving you feeling nothing but the numb arctic pain that such a cold darkness held. Oddly enough, it was Harry's favorite season. He liked the low temperatures and the consuming dusk. After all, he spend most of his life before Hogwarts and *now* during Hogwarts feeling dejected, and one couldn't help but get used to it. So yes, the cold became like shelter for him, so familiar, releasing frozen hands to caress his mind in the shadows of the night: dismal yet strangely soothing.

Harry shook himself. Someone was talking to him.

"'Lo, Harry," Hermione greeted, walking briskly into the common room and seating herself next to him: a friendly gesture. He wanted to grin up at her, to show her that he was all right, that the world could be alright, that the terror wouldn't reach them here, that he--*they* were safe, but he couldn't. Lately smiles had been few and far between, saved only for the most desperate moments. Mind you, it took much energy for Harry to gather the will to grin. Things were so different from before....

"Hi Hermione," he replied, head turning in her direction. She looked sadly up at him.

"You're not doing so well." It was a statement.

"No. No, I suppose I'm not." Hermione continued on, and Ron looked up from his homework nervously. Somehow they had made it a habit of not talking about this sort of thing.

"Harry, why don't you come out with us anymore? We used to go to Hagrid's all of the time."

"Guess I haven't been up to it," he answered. She persisted.

"Or go down to the lake?" Harry shrugged. "What about the parties that we used to always throw in the common room?" He looked down at his feet.

"I don't know, Hermione."

"Well, there was always Quid-"

"Don't. Don't say it." Hermione's mouth shut. It was common knowledge that Harry had quit the Quidditch team under Dumbledore's orders for his safety; and that was saying a lot. He still hadn't gotten over what losing the constant in-the-air, free-at-last feeling had done to him. He supposed he never would. They had taken it away; taken away his only escape from the brutal reality.

"I-I'm sorry. I just thought that maybe you would like to talk about it."

"Well I don't!" He said, much to forcefully than what he had planned. Quickly he got up and headed to the staircase leading up to the boy's dormitories.

"Harry, wait--" Ron spoke up. Harry paused but remained where he was, back turned to his friends. His *family*. Ron took this as motive to go on.

"Come to Hogsmeade this weekend."

"No. Ron, I don't want to."

"Please! For us, at least. Plus it'll be good for you to get out a little." Harry remained mute. "Look, I'll buy you whatever you want. Just--"

"Alright. But not because you're going to buy me something. Don't. I'm doing this because I owe it to you--Goddamnit I owe you too much--anyway, I'll be there." Ron and Hermione both nodded, relieved expressions on their faces.

"You don't owe us a single thing," Hermione voiced to Harry's retreating back.

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Draco's future seemed to approach all too rapidly as he stepped into the circle, thoughts of his barren life twisting around him like winter's arctic winds. He could literally feel the darkness emitting from the walls of the chamber; invisible claws grasping out, striving desperately to find some being to latch onto. The room was dimly lit with a few emerald-green candles, light barely reaching the outside line of the carefully drawn circle.

Across from Draco stood Lucius, as tall and foreboding and utterly sinister as always. In his right hand, the older Malfoy held his wand, and in the left a silver dagger. Apprehensively Draco stepped into the circular magic-made wall, the enchantment brushing around his quivering form like a curtain. Slowly he lifted his vision to meet Lucius'. The man was staring avidly down at him, causing pure fear to rush over Draco in waves. *But I don't want this...I want anything *but* this...* Resentfully, he stepped forward.

"Take out your wand," the man remarked, his voice like ice. Draco sullenly obliged, lifting it with shaky fingers. Lucius raised his wand to meet Draco's chest and muttered mercilessly three words. "Fatum Praevaleo Obscurum!" Instantly Draco's blood turned cold, dark magic wringing in and out of his body, bitter fingers prodding at the binds of his mind, heart pulsing with an unearthly rhythm. He swayed a bit, then stopped; the unbroken arctic bonds on his body the only symptom remaining from Lucius' words.

"Your left arm," he instructed, and Draco tensely held out his arm for the other man. Lucius lifted the dagger. *Oh Fuck...* The metal was chilling against his skin, and the pain when it was drawn across his wrist was that of a biting evil. Draco sucked in a deep breath, vision blurring with the intense ache. Blood trickled down his ashen arm, and he was oddly satisfied at the warmth it created.

"Repeat what I say," Lucius growled, his voice no higher than a whisper, yet the subtlety of in did nothing to diminish it's cruelty. "Existo Melificus." Draco repeated the words in his head, then boldly straitened his form and struggled to ignore the pain in his arm. *But I don't want to be a Death Eater...I don't want to even practice a ritual *before* becoming a Death Eater...Crap, this is it...Stupid fate, stupid father, stupid life.*

"Existo Melificus!" The words rolled of his tongue, leaving behind a taste of immorality and darkness. No sooner had he spoken when a nauseating sensation fell over him, starting in the pit of his stomach and working it's way throughout the rest of his body. He looked questioningly up at Lucius, who was frowning down at him.

"What did you do!" The older man bellowed. Draco hugged his stomach, the pain overriding him.

"I-I didn't do anything," he stuttered through panting breaths. Lucius seemed angrier than ever.

"That is shit, Draco. I knew you would mess this up. Look at you, cowering like the pathetic creature you are. You're a disgrace to the Malfoy name." Draco shuttered, making weak attempts to block the man out. The soreness in his every muscle was unbearable, and the blood seemed to be flowing endlessly out of his wound.

Lucius strode over to him and slapped him--hard--against the head. "Get up! Get up and leave this room at once!" Draco didn't need to be told twice. Practically crawling out of the room, he managed to make it out of the doorway and slump desperately down against the stone wall, exhausted from hurt, nausea, blood loss, and a throbbing headache that ceased to decline.

Hours later--perhaps it was morning now--Draco awoke, spread uncomfortably across his bed. His arm was bound tightly with a white linen cloth--something he made sure was taken care of before he crashed into unconsciousness. As for the nausea, it wore off with the sleep. The headache remained, though decreased a little, but still stood as a reminder of the horrid ritual he had so recently experienced.

So what had gone wrong? Draco had done everything Lucius had told him too, which by his standards was quite a lot. The words were spoken; the blood was shed, all in perfect succession--yet something failed. *Perhaps it *is* me. Perhaps I *am* a disgrace to the Malfoy name.* Part of him was disappointed by this understanding, but another part was slightly glad; maybe he wouldn't have to carry such a brutal fate.

This acknowledgement was quickly put from his mind when a loud banging could be heard on the other side of his door, followed by an enraged Lucius. Draco sat stiffly up in his bed, eyes watering from the all-too-bright light that the door let in, the sun making it's first peak on the horizon. The older Malfoy stopped at the foot of his bed, staring disapprovingly down at him. Draco shuddered.

"We have no need to talk about the ritual. What happened, happened. The occurrence in the chamber is something we will not look back on. Your next attempt will be better; you will make sure of that." Lucius paused, and Draco felt something inside of him sink. *So I have to do that over.* "Go to Hogsmeade," he continued. "There are some potions we have run low on. Also, find Kieran Flint at the Three Broomsticks and see if there are any updates." It was an order, and after it was spoken Lucius turned on his heel and left, shutting the door behind him with a thud, leaving Draco to brood in the darkness.

"Well, so much for a quiet day," he mused aloud, unprepared for the sudden onslaught of pain that derived from his head as he stood. Shutting his eyes tightly, he waited tensely for the ache to subside to the point where he could effectively function, praying it was only a *temporary* effect of the ritual.

As soon as Draco had arrived in Hogsmeade he regretted it. *Damnit,* he thought, as he realized that he had come on precisely the *worst* day to be there. It was the day that Hogwarts visited Hogsmeade.

Swiftly he pushed through throngs of people, ignoring familiar faces and the longing for old school days that had built up inside of him. Tightly he grasped the list of potion ingredients in his hand, and made his way into Honeydukes, who, other than selling candy, secretly ran a secure market for illegal magick supplies. They were easy enough to obtain, save for the fact that you had to have pretty strong connections. *How odd. Illegal potion supplies in a candy store. 'Here, little kiddies. Seeing as your father is a big important Death Eater, we'll give you some dragon's blood along with your fizzing wizzbies!'* he thought sardonically.

The actual going, however, was not as easy. So many third through seventh year students flocked through there, that he basically was pressed up against two people the entire time as he tried to move to the back of the store. *So much for being discrete,* he mused.

Draco was incredibly relieved when he finally got out of the store, having been able to acquire the correct supplies, and when he found an empty table in the Three Broomsticks. However, he only had a moment's peace before a tall and rugged looking man walked up beside him, and anxious expression covering his face.

"Mr. Flint," Draco greeted uneasily. He had never felt comfortable around Lucius' associations.

"Young Master Malfoy--come with me. I do, in fact, have some rather interesting news." Draco nodded and stood reluctantly, the headache pounding softly in his temple. He pushed the pain from his mind for the time being. Years spent silently suffering from Lucius' angry blows will teach you something.

Kieran Flint led him to an enclosed room in the back of the Three Broomsticks, which obviously was laden with concealment charms. If only the Ministry knew what secrecy was held in its beloved Hogsmeade....

"Sit down," he said, pulling a low chair out from underneath a desk. The room was stone, and lacked the comforting light that a window would provide. A torch was hung in the corner, but other than that it was rather dim. Draco took his seat.

"Lucius has been wondering when anything involving the war would occur. I expect that he'll be pleased to hear my message." Draco nodded, taking in each word. The war would be soon?

"Other Death Eaters on Lord Voldemort's inner circle that haven't been outed yet have been gathering, and are finally ready to strike." Pause. Draco took in a deep breath.

"And?" he asked curiously.

"And, we are thinking of starting everything off with a bang. The Order of the Phoenix has been inactive too long now--this ought to give them something to fret about."

"What exactly are you planning on doing?" Kieran gazed suspiciously around the room as if someone was listening, then bent down closer to Draco.

"A mass destruction. Imagine this--Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade or what-have-you, full of lively witches and wizards. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bomb is released. But not just any bomb--no. One set to clear thousands of feet, entirely wiping out the shops and the landmarks. Destroying the center of the wizard world." Draco quivered. The cheerful tone and contentment that filled Kieran's words was sickening. *How horrible,* he thought.

"Of course, we would have taken the black markets off of the chosen location, and warned any Death Eaters of the attack before hand, but other than that--"

"You're going to kill hundreds of wizards to get the Order's attention," Draco finished. Kieran nodded, and if he had picked up on any of Draco's anger, he hadn't shown it. Instead he smiled and stood happily, leading them out of the room.

Draco exited the Three Broomsticks with too much on his mind, not to mention a headache that would *not* quell, no matter how many different healing charms he put on himself. Angrily he rushed up the hill to the Shrieking Shack, full intentions on an hour or so of unproductive sulking. *So they are going to destroy Diagon Alley--or Hogsmeade. What would come of that? Sure, it would get the Order's attention, but what about the after effects? How many wizards' lives would be ruined in the process?* Draco shuddered involuntarily, his own reaction to the news bothering him more than anything. He didn't care about others. He *shouldn't* care about others. How the hell was he supposed to go around killing Order members for information if he held some sort of twisted compassion? He couldn't--couldn't do his job if he thought of the wizards as actual *people*, not the source for much needed data. *And you *know* just how much you want to turn into Lucius,* he reminded himself. That was true. He *didn't* want to turn into a mirror image of the older Malfoy. But what choice did he have? His future was basically set in stone. So what did he care if he did his job well or not? *Because, dumb ass. If you are going to be stuck doing something for the rest of your life, you might as well do it well, * he deemed. As for his concern--well, that was the most convenient answer.

Grudging up the hill to the Shrieking Shack, he finally managed to make it to the top and over to a small bend in the wood where a large stone sat: perfect for melancholy brooding. Dazed and much absorbed in his own thoughts, he failed to notice the pale, dark-haired boy that rested in his spot. Well, until he sat upon him, of course.

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