Lullaby Part One

Lullaby Part Two

Warning: This is a bit darker. Hope you like.

Disclaimer: Same as before. No profit, no sue.

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Two parts malice measured and sliced thinly. Hatred diced fine, laced with bitterness, then added slowly to a simmering cauldron of wrath. Thus is my life carefully stirred and ladled drop by drop into vials and flasks. I dismiss the errant first-year I justifiably assigned detention. He trips over the pail and rags he used to scrub the flobberworm entrails pasting his desk and those surrounding. Longbottom may have competition yet.

Counting one-thousand seven-hundred sixty-five, counting one-thousand seven-hundred sixty six…

Hall patrols are less of a burden than my other duties. The silence I am granted then is precious, and I savor every shallow breath of mine that echoes in the still corridors. I begin my journey in the dungeons of course, continuing up through each floor above. For the first part of my shift, the only wanderer I encounter is Filch’s cat, and we salute in passing, fellow killers in the darkness. I creep through the Astronomy Tower, past the realm of the hopefully sleeping Boy Wonder, and reach the library before anything or anyone out of place catches my attention. A light flickers beneath the door. Granger, probably. I lost track of how many times I’ve been forced to awaken her after curfew, slumped over a stack of parchment and books, since Pince decided to entrust her with closing the library a few nights a week. The smudges of ink decorating her face are almost as amusing as her startled expression and carefully controlled but unconcealed anger when I take points from Gryffindor.

I walk to the door silently, but before I open it I hear voices.

“Draco, you don’t have to do this.”

I place a Silencing Spell on the unwarded door, opening it slowly.

Malfoy’s answer is low and uneven. “My father’s getting the Kiss because of you. Filthy Mudblood.”

Granger sits at one of the tables near the Restricted Section, both hands placed flat on the surface in front of her. Malfoy stands with his back to me, arm held shaking in front of him.

“Please! I’m sorry for what happened, but you don’t--”

“Enough!” His voice breaks over the word, but he has enough strength to hold his wand steadily toward her and begin the curse. “Avada--”

The thing within me lashes out, and I’ve killed him before he can form the next syllable. His body hits the chair in front of him during its descent to the floor, twisting into an unnatural position, his head lolling until his pale blue eyes stare through me. I’ve killed him, the boy whose birth I clearly remember, the pretty doll of a child that delighted in his first flights on a broom, the youth whose education and growth into manhood were my responsibility.

His last breath is drawn back out of him in a low death rattle as my own respiration deepens. His face pales lighter than the ice-blond locks hanging in his still eyes, the blood draining from the capillaries just underneath his skin, and my own face flushes in response. I see myself in him, a mere boy who has done little wrong in his short life besides having the misfortune to be born in a family that taught him to hate. I feel the cells of his body die one by one, decomposition accelerated, each a small spark feeding the inferno of pleasure taking hold in every part of my body. His muscles stiffen in the flex of rigor mortis as the power hums through me, igniting every nerve ending in an explosion that whites out my vision and dries the tears in my eyes.

When I float back to myself, still partially wrapped in euphoria, I see the girl in front of me. She turns her attention from the broken child at my feet to me. She is the first innocent to directly witness a murder of mine, and certainly one of the few to observe my enjoyment of it. I see her take in my hands open at my sides, the tear tracks glistening on my cheeks that contrast with my pupils dilated in ecstasy. I feel her gaze scouring every inch of me, and dare not move in the judgment. She steps toward me around the table and rapidly cooling corpse of my student to stand a pace away, still calculating. I close my eyes until I feel a light touch on my cheek. I open them as she turns my head toward her, forcing my eyes to hers.

The acceptance I find there is nothing I have ever experienced. There is no disapproval or reproach in her gaze, nor controlling promise of more carnage to come. Her eyes are as bright as upon a newly brewed potion or solved Arithmancy equation. She steps closer, breaking eye contact with me only when her head lowers to my chest and her arms come around to hold me tightly.

Her embrace is answered with a joyful cry by the beast inside me, and together we hunger for the warmth of the small form pressed to me.

I will kill for her now, though she knows it not.

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Again, thanks for reading.