Nightmares and Nocturnes

The Flames of Indifference

Chapter 12: The Flames of Indifference

There had been a time that the day boy had known the thrill of the hunt; a time when he had bounded after creatures as the monster had bade, secure in his reason for breathing. But when lightness faded from his soul, so too did the pleasure of the hunt, and without it - without the crutch he'd thought was courage, but had found amounted to but a trick of the light - he could scarcely stand, ridden down by doubt and torment.

For a time, he considered himself disheartened, brought low by his failures, and desiring only to return from whence he came, to a version of himself which could withstand the future tests of night; that he might be as brave as the prey he thought he had mastered, which had run easily into the arduous dark. For he was not prey nor much a predator, and hung suspended, uncertain of his place.

But for all that the night girl was bright, and for all that she shone in her strength, she saw the world with the eyes of an artist, and without the cold drive of the hunter; and when her need was greater, it was the day boy, whose trials seemed to pale against the light of her eyes, who sought to take aim.

. . . . . . . .

2002

. . . . . . . .

He had been running through the Ministry when he found Potter, and the moment he saw him he stopped dead in his tracks.

They were alone; that was the first problem.

It was funny, really, how things had turned out. It was supposed to be so easy. Put the girl on trial, the Dark Lord had said, scarcely sparing a moment to consider it. He came for her once -

Twice, Theo had muttered to Draco.

- he'll come again, the Dark Lord finished smoothly.

And if he does not? nobody had asked; a stupid question. Dementor's kiss, the Dark Lord had not needed to reply. They all understood it; they'd all been born into it, a life of predictable outcomes. They understood the unsaid as much as they understood the value of their every pulse.

What they had not understood, and what Draco knew when he first glimpsed Potter's grim expression, was that they'd gotten far too comfortable, lulled into thinking that the Chosen One would not come for them, that he would not have hardened too; that after dying and rising, he would still only amount to the Boy Who Lived.

They'd been fools to think that because he was good, he would not still be angry.

Potter's voice was harder than Draco remembered, and edged with cold authority. This would be no schoolboy sparring, no name calling behind teenaged insecurity. He was a man stripped of everything and in every way that mattered, it had been Draco who'd done it. It was Draco who'd been a piece of it.

So he was surprised to see Potter meet his eye.

"Malfoy," Potter said. His voice had a bitter, stony cut to it now, and Draco's name on his tongue was razor sharp. "I know it's you. Take the mask off."

"Don't make me do this," Draco muttered back gruffly, his wand pointed at Potter's chest with far more conviction than he felt.

"You're not going to," Potter replied carelessly, letting his own wand arm fall. "Don't forget that I saw you in the astronomy tower. I won't be the first to tell you that you don't have it in you to kill me," he added, with a lilt of sorts. There was a subtle mockery to his words, to the precise angle of his chin, and it struck Draco as strangely cruel; a taunt Draco himself might have used.