Chapter 4:
Quiescent Materials


"The true mystery of the world is the visible,
not the invisible."


Draco Malfoy opened his eyes. He was in a sweat, the kind of sweat he had only been in once before, and the reminder of that last time forced him to close his eyes once more, in what was a fruitless attempt to drive away the memories that haunted him – the Dark Lord, the Cruciatus Curse, those were, perhaps, only the beginning.

With an effort - he had no idea why had he had to make an effort for this; but the fact that he had to, irked him, because it somewhat bruised his ego - he sat up. The scent of expensive fabric hit him, full in the face; but it was not, now, as strong as it had been, only minutes ago. It was more normal, now; carried that rich sort of feel that is often brought on, by the first step in a high-and-might shop.

He looked ahead. Before him, stretched the velvet carpetting of a shop he knew well; and, in front of him stood a tall shoe-rack, one of expensive agarwood. Draco shook his head, as it trying to drive away a bothersome fly by the action; stood up -- and then he wondered why he had been on the ground, and why he was in a sweat, an angry mean sort that made his hands feel like jelly, and dribbled down his neck, into the stiff collar of his black shirt.

“Lord Malfoy?” a voice asked.

He spun around, his left hand instinctively reaching for his wand, but it was only a saleswizard. Whose eyes, incidentally, widened when he saw the tousled hair, the perspiration that leaked down Draco’s cheeks – clearly, the man had never seen the young Master of the Malfoy Manor this disheveled – not even slightly dishelved, in fact: Draco was, always had been, the picture of perfection, at least as far as appearances are concerned.

To see him so now, stunned the saleswizard – it was clearly one of the most astounding things he had seen in his lifetime.

“Is everything alright, Lord Malfoy?”

“Yes,” Draco said curtly, but he was not sure if it was. “Come here.”

The saleswizard hesitated for a second, but the order was from one of the Wizarding World’s richest men, and he decided it would be for the best, if he obeyed - and quickly, at that. Draco placed a hand in one of his pockets, and brought out a little satchel of galleons. “Take them,” he said roughly, stowing them in the saleswizard's arms.

“M-master Malfoy! But w-whhy?” the saleswizard stammered.

“To keep your mouth shut about this,” Draco pointed to a bead of sweat that trickled down his neck and, as the saleswizard’s hands closed round the neck of the satchel, strode from the room in a swirl of black cloak. He tried to remember what had happened, why he was on the floor - it annoyed him, more than anything else, because he, Draco Malfoy, was not supposed to suddenly wake up, and find himself on the floor of some common shop - but the world seemed to swim into blackness, each time.



The meeting with Mincent Greengrass was - in two short words - a disaster. To elaborate, it was probably the worst, Draco had ever fared. The young Malfoy was edgy, almost testy; and, when the man finally left, Narcissa huffed out of the drawing room, clearly angry at what she called her son’s “twitchiness.” He let her go, and headed for a hot bath, his mind abuzz with strange things.

He was sure something unnatural had taken place at the shop, earlier that day. He remembered Narcissa leave, remembered his glance round the shop – but then memory gave way to scent - heat -- beautiful green cloth -- and, of course, he remembered nothing else. He tried his best to recall, but the memories were too hazy.

It was, finally, with a sigh that he stepped out of the bathroom, a white towel – yes, white -- even Narcissa wondered, when more frustrated at him than usual, why he did not dye his towels black when he could not bear clothes of a different colour – wrapped round his torso, his usually immaculate white-blonde hair a little tousled and very wet. It fell into his eyes; the pale, very whitish-blonde tinge of the former standing out against the cold, cold grey of the latter in a way that would have made Narcissa roll her eyes, because she knew he would want to flaunt it.

He pulled jeans and a loose, black T-shirt out of his wardrobe; and, after he had slipped into them, stood in front of the mirror lined with twinkles of gold.

His reflection stared back at him, that of a slender – but not weak – boy of twenty-three, with steel-like grey eyes that did not smile with his lips, and high cheekbones that lent a certain dignity and poise to his demeanour. He looked good, he knew, in the clothes he had selected, the black of the T-shirt highlighting the steel-grey of his eyes, and bringing out the blonde of his hair. But, for some reason, his appearance did not satisfy him, today. Or perhaps it was not his appearance – more, a general dissatisfaction with his surroundings.

There was something wrong, and he hated the knowledge that he could not put his finger on it.

Why had he woken up in the shop, earlier today, with no memory of how he came to be on the ground? Something out-of-the-ordinary, something most unnatural had taken place, and Draco twitched inwardly at the thought. He had been in ‘situations’ before, but the greater part of them had been associated, either with the Dark Lord, or with... well, rather wild nights. This had been no wild night, of that he was sure, and -- the Dark Lord?

He walked away form the mirror, a frown creasing his forehead. Perhaps his tiny lack of memory worried him this much because it reminded him of things he would rather not remember.

Did not want to remember.

“Master Malfoy,” a deep, male voice floated into his room. “Dinner has been served, and the Lord and Lady await you at the table.”

It was Braine, their house-ghost, who had once been an influential Malfoy himself. He lodged in the Manor now, a close relative of his father’s, and sometimes expressed his woe at the fact that he could not help himself to the scrumptious feasts served at Lucius Malfoy’s will. Draco humored him but, for the greater part, he did not like Braine, and hated his constant reminders.

“Tell them I will be down in five minutes,” he said coldly, as he picked up the black robes that lay on his bed, and began to don them. That was when he noticed a black owl at the window, eyes a red that strung sudden nervousness into the onlooker’s heart, its talon a sharp sable. The owl hovered, for a moment, in the air; then placed his beak against the window-pane. Draco froze, not aware why his heart hammered, why a bolt of silver seemed to tear his insides apart.

He had regained his composure within milliseconds, and walked over to the window. “Get out of here,” he said coldly. “Go on, get out.”

The owl raised its claws, in response: a shimmer of white, and Draco realized a letter had been attached to the bird’s leg. For a moment, he stood there, pretty sure he did not want to open the window, and then curiosity-in-excess – a very Slytherin quality – had pulled at his sleeve, and he had raised the window-pane by half an inch. The owl slid a leg through the teensy opening and, very calmly, Draco detached the envelope.

The bird flew away and, surprised that nothing unnatural had happened, Draco looked down at the envelope. It was a plain-white but, even as he looked at it, the scent of the shop came back to him, and the heat grew, grew until Draco could take it no more, and he had thrown the envelope away from himself. It slid across the floor, like a point of fire, and hit the wall, where it burst into frothing, red flames that sent out a shower of sparks. Upon themselves, the sparks twisted, and a beautiful voice rang out.

“I shall wait for you in the gardens, Draco.”

The flames died, the voice faltered into nothingness, and where the remains of the burnt envelope should have been, glowed a tiny spark of black-purple that slowly died down into cold silence.

*

[] Reference:

+ "The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.