The Watcher

Disclaimer: Not mine but JKR\'s *rage, weep, hiccup*
Summary: Look down, look down that lonesome road, before you travel on

Beta: The intrepid noesnifunifa for braving the harsh terrain of my grammar and taming it;-)

A/N Bear in mind that my ficlets will not always be linear.

Lonesome Road

Blaise Zabini folded the sheet of fine, cream parchment; his nimble fingers obscured the olive branch – the centrepiece of the Zabini Family Crest – as he quickly manipulated the offending stationery.

‘Olive branch indeed’, Blaise thought with a grimace. Not a very suitable emblem considering the content of his father’s letter. A letter he had been both expecting and dreading for months.

It was a joke really, the way a select few of the seventh-year Slytherins tensed up as the owls swooped in for morning delivery. Even Draco would snatch up his mail and slip it hurriedly into his robes until a private moment presented itself. Gone was the innocent excitement of receiving mail from home. Gone were the garish confectionary boxes and embarrassing Howlers.

Now was the time of paranoia and riddles.

Now was the time for choices.

Blaise’s heart pounded out a rickety beat, and his stomach danced a ballet of sickening pirouettes. Yet outwardly, he was a picture of calm diligence: sitting at his private desk, bent over his paper creation, his pink tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on a particularly tricky fold.

‘My father used to tell me a story about a little boy whose tongue was eaten by an Erkling because he didn’t have the grace to keep it where it belonged.’

Blaise’s head snapped up, and he glared at his best friend.

‘In his mouth,\' Draco added helpfully.

Blaise had been so engrossed in suppressing his internal panic that he hadn’t noticed Draco enter their chambers. The boy - aided by his sure-footed feline tread - was notorious for sneaking up on people.

Draco smirked down at Blaise, silver eyes flitting from the ill-disciplined tongue to the misshapen sculpture clasped in his hands. If Draco recognised that it had been a letter in its previous carnation, he chose not to comment.

‘How very charming, Draco. Please feel free to impart more of your father’s twisted fairytales. They\'re inspirational, truly.’

Blaise relaxed when Draco merely laughed, strolled gracefully to his dress-mirror and pulled off his school tie and shirt.

Now Blaise was a connoisseur of beauty, and watching Draco strip was a true pleasure. All that milky soft skin stretched over well-sculptured muscle, not to mention a stomach that begged to be licked. Blaise was startled out of his reverence when he noticed three red scratches extending from the base of Draco’s back all the way to his shoulder blades.

Draco was not one to take being marked lightly; Blaise knew that from personal experience.

‘Who got lucky last night?’ he quipped, expecting Draco to loose it when he saw the marks.

Draco’s reflection merely raised a blond eyebrow as he pulled on a fresh shirt.

‘You do know that you have claw marks down your back, right?’

Draco simply smirked.

Blaise shook his head and pretended that the stabbing pain in his chest wasn’t caused by irrational jealousy and the fact that his best friend was keeping secrets from him.

As far as he was concerned, Draco was family, and for Pure Blood, Italian, Wizarding stock that was pretty binding. They had gravitated to each other immediately at the Sorting Feast, Draco as much intrigued by Blaise’s dark beauty as Blaise was by Draco\'s pale elegance.

And here they lived. Nestled in the bowels of the castle. Flagstone underfoot, cold stone above, all wrapped up in dank dungeon walls. Here in this room cluttered with Slytherin symbolism, Quidditch memorabilia, empty wine bottles and Draco’s collection of jade ornaments. Not to mention Blaise’s music scores and muggle vinyl records, piled haphazardly in spare corners and Draco’s personal library: ancient tomes with faded bindings, meticulously alphabetised.

Here they had created their own little home.

Here they had learnt to trust each other – or so Blaise thought.

Blaise knew a Malfoy never trusted lightly and was honoured that Draco had singled him out from the sycophants that surrounded the Malfoy family day and night. He knew things about Draco that no one else knew.

He knew that Draco kept a blanket made from the finest cream silk, which he rubbed between his thumb and his index finger when distressed; he had only seen Draco do this three times in the six years he\'d known him.

He also knew about the inoffensive looking twigs that lay in a wooden box at the bottom of Draco’s chest, and that they had once formed part of the tail end of Harry Potter’s Nimbus 2000.

He knew Draco hated that he\'d never be as tall as his father and lamented the fact that he\'d inherited his mother’s ears – which were small and delicate and slightly pointed at the top. When Blaise had pointed this out in second year, Draco had cursed his mouth shut.

But what he didn’t know, and this was the crux of the problem, was where Draco really stood concerning the Dark Lord. This was something they never discussed; indeed, the subject was taboo throughout Slytherin House.

Draco’s father was one of the Dark Lord\'s most loyal servants, and everyone knew how much Draco adored his father. Recently though, he’d noticed a change in his friend\'s demeanour, something different. Something fleeting and elusive, and Blaise didn’t know where Draco stood anymore. Which was unfortunate because Blaise had always followed Draco’s lead.

\'Draco?’

Draco looked up, but remained silent. Blaise hesitated.

What he wanted to say was, ‘Hey Draco, are you planning on getting a skull tattoo anytime soon? Because I really would like to know if I’m also doomed to take the Lonesome Road of the Death Eater.\'

But what came out was, ‘Never mind.’

Draco gave Blaise an impenetrable look, donned a black cloak and raised the hood until only quicksilver eyes peeked out. Then, with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.

‘Night Blaise’, his husky voice floated back into the room as the door closed softly.

‘Night Draco’, Blaise whispered back wistfully.

He looked down at the folded parchment again and his heart immediately resumed its rapid tattoo. He flicked his wand at it, and it rose and spread, revealing the captivating form of a dove which swooped and soared around the room.

\'Never mind!?\' he growled in frustration and cursed the dove. He watched it drop into the fire and imagined that he could hear a tiny \'coo\' as the flames engulfed the paper bird.

He sighed and loosened his tie; it was truly lonesome in the House of the Serpent.

Fin~

Notes ~

*The summary is from Madeleine peyvoux’s – Lonesome road
* An Erkling is a small elf-like creature native to Germany. Its high-pitched laugh is particularly entrancing to children, which the Erklings like to eat.
* An Olive Branch on a family crest denotes Peace and concordance