Disclaimer: I own no characters or associated things recognizable as JK Rowlings.

AN: This is a short look into Draco Malfoy’s life after the events of Before the Storm, and before the events of The Storm. It is recommended that you read Before the Storm before attempting this piece, otherwise you’ll be rather lost.

Slowly but surely, The Storm is coming.


--


Within a forest, poised at the edge of shadows as deep and dark as the ocean, there stands a young man. He is tall and slender, wrapped within a black cloak that sweeps heavily about his feet. His face is hidden by a wide hood and a mask that gleams coldly in the brilliant moonlight.

Rituals, as gory and cruel as the heathens of medieval days, have just been concluded, and the tinsel bright edge of magic still clings sharply to the trees, wrapped within the scent of blood and pain.

The young man, his lack of innocence as tragic and shameful as the black magic committed within the clearing just moments before, stays stiff and motionless in the darkness. He is adjusting his inner workings, accepting what he has just done – what he must always do – and rationalizing it with disturbing ease. It is a vicious world, and he must follow its teachings.

He is still, as still as the trees, as still as the cold moon, as silent as a ghost as the wind ripples along his cloak, snatching the black folds and plucking negligently at them. The mournful moan of it tangles with the branches and breathes against his ears in an eerily human wail, and he stirs, moving farther into the glade. Dead leaves scatter about his feet, damp and frail from a long forgotten rain. They shred softly beneath his boots.

From the corner of his eyes through the mask, a cold silver, he can see the shifting shadows of black forms melting into darkness. They are fearsome and predatory, glutted on sin and evil as they sink into the eerie blackness like ships in the night, and he is a part of their brethren. That they leave him behind without a backward glance is reassuring. They have not been discovered. He will live another day.

In a moment, the clearing is empty save for a mangled body splayed across the dirt, and him. Blood darkens the grass like crimson dew, clinging like precarious tear drops on crushed blades of grass before spreading coldly into the soil. He watches it for a moment, transfixed, wand held loosely in his slack fingers.

The moon glints through the trees that are dark as ebony, black as tar, and he lifts his pale face to it as he tosses back his hood. Light blonde hair flutters around his forehead, the color of starlight and sin, and he closes his eyes to savor the silence. A slim hand reaches out and removes the mask, and the cold zephyrs touch his heated skin. In the moonlight one cannot see the flecks of blood or sheen of sweat marring his pale beauty.

With his face still tilted to the sky, his gray eyes still shut, Draco Malfoy disapparates, leaving only the weeping wind to comfort the corpse in the clearing.

---

He enters a small manor well past midnight, the wards parting at a flick of his hand and reforming as soon as he passes by. The foyer is brightly lit by golden wall sconces, and he glances down at his black robes to see wet splotches of blood in the stark light.

There are spatters on his gloves and he knows they are on his mask. He had felt the hot blood splatter across it when Blaise Zabini cast a particularly vicious severing curse at their shrieking victim. In disgust he waves his hands to dim the lights, then strides across the hall and up a staircase to a wide porcelain bathroom of silver and blue.

He locks the door behind him with a muttered spell, and as he steps into an adjoining shower room, he feels the soothing blue calm his frayed nerves. Swiftly he shucks his boots and his Death Eater robes, tosses the long discarded mask aside and removes his personal, ornately clasped robes to reveal his pale body. He pulls off his black gloves, carelessly drops them on the floor, and turns on the fountain of water.

He is careful to keep his eyes away from the scars woven like spider webs across his palms.

The smell of Frankincense, myrrh and oak moss immediately hit his nostrils and he sniffs delicately. Stepping under the hot spray, he picks up a cloth and primly scrubs the last vestiges of murder and dark magic from his skin, disturbingly detached. His almost extravagant use of magic from habit makes him whisper a spell to wash his hair, darkening it to the color of light honey in the water, and he sighs at the relaxing sensation.

He must not linger though. His thoughts escape him when he idles.

Draco pauses, then stops the water flow and steps out. He dries himself, his mind cautiously returning to the nights atrocities and their pathetic fatality, a wizard from Beauxbaton who had mentioned seemingly unimportant information to the wrong source. Branded a traitor and a spy, he had been tortured, then executed with great abandon for the spectacle of the other Death Eaters.

As he sifts through the nights activities, he remembers the shrill way the young man had screamed, how the blood had plumed gracefully from his severed arteries and how they had blinded him so he could not see where the next strike would come from.

Snakes, all of them were snakes. And there was such beauty in death, such power, that he could not help but be enamored with it when he was confronted with it so closely each day. He is frightened by the darkness within him, so close to the surface and rapidly becoming the norm.

Absently, Draco remembers the boy's hair. It had been black, like raven feathers and cold marble. There had only been one other person he had known in his life that had such pure black hair. A boy he hated most powerfully. A boy he despised, revered, and reviled.

Harry Potter.

An image of his school boy rival forms in his mind, scruffy hair, mussed robes, broken spectacles and all. Draco remembers looking at the gold and red of his Gryffindor tie and feeling such hate he could barely stand. He can recall molten fury boiling through him and turning his veins to charred black, roared in his ears, screaming, clawing, inhuman and beautiful, and all because Potter had denied his friendship in their first year, then tried to encroach on something Draco considered his own in their last.

The old, familiar anger still thrums through him with the memory, and he feels as if a dark, cold hand is scraping its nails along his soul. It is an exhilarating feeling, and one he welcomes because the stale hate of childish memories and the pale resentment of bemoaning a past he cannot change is comforting in a hollow way.

When he thinks of hate, he does not think of her.

With a shake of his head, Draco tosses aside the lingering nostalgia, the miserable feel of impotent fury and loneliness mingling like acid in his heart, and draws a long black robe around his cooling body before heading towards his empty bedroom. The halls are long and forlorn, and as his hand rests on the doorknob to his room, a tremor of desire shifts through his soul, breaking away the taint of his memories, his life, and bringing the memory of Ginevra Weasley startlingly into focus.

She haunts me in my darkest hours.

He swears he can hear his soul shatter like glass and he steps quickly inside the room and shuts the door behind him, as if that will ward away the image of her so firmly set on escaping his mind. Draco wanders to his window, opening it to allow the cold fingers of wind into his bedroom, and glances dispassionately over the nighttime scenery.

It is an astoundingly beautiful world he looks out onto, cold and frosted like glass by the moonlight. Everything is bathed in shades of black, white and blue, like winter is breathing foggily out onto the countryside. Draco looks about suspiciously, haunted by the fear that soon he will be discovered and hunted down like a dog. His silver eyes search hard for shadows detaching from the rest and flitting towards his home, but as always, he finds nothing.

His mind drifts inexorably towards her, because it is on nights such as these, when the chains of his mission drag him down more heavily then he can bear, when his soul is weakened by black magic and murder, that the strings of his heart are loosened and he can keep her in no longer. Memories spill forward, cascading recklessly over his mind’s eye, as relentless and inescapable as a flash flood.

He contemplates foolish things, such as going to her, showing up at the Burrow where she might be, tapping at a window and being allowed into her room, her sanctuary, covered in blood and sin. He would drop to his knees before her, in supplication, in need, and cover her once more in crimson hand prints and pain.

Ginevra would be angelically white against the faded pink of her bedspreads, and the curtains would be open, and the same moon and stars he had earlier basked in would pour through the leaded glass to illuminate her fragile beauty, her hair smoldering in the darkness. His fingers would tremble as he touched her shoulder, he knows they would because they quiver at the mere thought of her. She would lean into his body and kiss his jaw. Her lips would be as light and cool as snowflakes pressing against his skin, and though he wants more, he would take her slowly, achingly so, because he cannot sustain the thought of the night ending quickly. He would push her back softly into the pillows, and he would hear her whisper that she loved him, and he would close his eyes against the knowledge that he does not deserve such devotion.

Each time he thinks of her, frantic, foolish scenarios flit through his mind, a million pathetic what ifs and possibilities he can never allow to happen, and has no right to dream of tease his soul. But he can imagine it so clearly he can almost smell her flowery hair, and taste of her warm skin, and when he comes back to himself he is sitting on the edge of his bed, gazing at the marred flesh of his palms and wishing he was a better man, even as the darkness inside him rages out of control. A better man would have said no to this life of intrigue and terror. A better man would have chosen love over power and not risked such stakes. A better man would not be alone in the darkness of a cold room, shrouded by dread and paranoia.

There is no solace in the gloom of his bedroom. He may as well be back in the forest, surrounded by darkness and death. And so he sits still, stiller than the trees, stiller than the cold moon, as silent as a ghost as the wind ripples along his robe, snatching the black folds and plucking negligently at them.

The wind freezes his still damp hair, and he shivers slightly, though his face remains emotionless, betraying no discomfort. The silence of the bedroom steadily grows, until it is a shrill ringing in his ears, and it presses down upon him from all sides. Only then does Draco stand, gracefully shrug off his robe, and slip beneath the cold covers. He closes his eyes, sleeps, and does not dream.

He is alone.