Black Eden

Chapter Eight - Fear and Ivy
Enjoy! (soon, the title, Black Eden, will make sense. will also be featured later in the story. so keep reading! pweez?)


***

There were many things Draco would readily admit to. Lighting Blaise Zabini\'s boxers on fire once, being completely spoiled as a child, and being gayer than gay.

Some things he would like to stay secrets, not that he was particularly ashamed of them, but it just wasn\'t fitting for someone of his social standard to be afraid of their own house. Yes, Draco Malfoy was afraid to go home to Malfoy Manor. Which was where he currently woke up, disoriented and parched.

His mother, in all her blond and perfectly dressed glory, quickly reached out from a chair next to him and tipped a glass of water to his lips. Her nails were shiny, painted a slate colored grey matching her eyes perfectly. Matching Draco\'s, also.

Malfoy Manor is large, no that\'s a lie. It\'s fucking huge, Draco thinks. And he hates it. When he was little and had to go to the bathroom, he had to get directions from a house elf named Dobby. Draco liked Dobby, who the little blond boy had always treated like a big teddy bear (not that he was lacking in them) that could pop out of the room and get him cookies. His mother took Dobby away from him when Draco turned 7. She said he didn\'t have need of the house elf any longer. She thought that her precious son touching a servant - no, something lower than a servant - was absolutely revolting.

In all the Manor\'s rooms, it had been chosen that Draco had his own wing. And entire wing to himself. It was always drafty in the large rooms, no matter how many heating charms were placed. Draco, being an only child, was lonely most of the time.

His father, the feared and awed Lucius Malfoy, loved his son. He played with him whenever he could and lavished attention on his child.

That is, until the Dark Lord called upon him for meetings. At the time young Draco did not understand why his father would suddenly grimace when holding a bear, or even a tea cup when Draco demanded he play tea party, and get up and go away. Leaving Draco feeling empty and unloved.

And the days after the times when his father would leave him, he never saw his father as he was holed up in his study or in his bedchamber. Now Draco knew that his father had been subjected to the Cruciatus curse and was recovering from the excruciating pain he had been through.

His mother was always distant, though loving. Draco had been born a sickly child with a weak heart, and had died.

And so, his parents had immediately brought forth a vampire; they did not want to lose their son no matter the consequences. The baby was changed, and neither parent regretted their decision - until one day when a young Draco, aged nine and a half, attacked Narcissa when his nightly cup of blood, provided by some secret donor, was spilled. Draco had apologized again and again, but from then on Narcissa was distant with her child. Knowing that she had made him this way, and that if she upset him he could kill her.

Now, Narcissa left her sons room with a small, timid smile and not a backwards glance.

She had been very, very worried after all, when Severus had floo\'d them and had them go immediately to the school, where Draco lay, awake, but bruised and in need of more sleep. And so with the Headmasters grudging consent, Draco had been brought back to the manor until classes started again.


***


Draco\'s bed was luxuriously huge; it could fit 10 people, with room for stretching and such. It really was lonely to be in the middle of the huge bed, all alone.

And Harry ... there was no sense of Harry anywhere in his mind. His mate was absent. Draco clutched at his chest pitifully, trying to subdue the ache welling there. Was Harry dead? Would Draco soon die?

He could only embrace death, if that was his fate, so he could be with his mate. Even if they were both dead, they would be together. Draco suddenly snorted into his black silk pillowcase at his thoughts, Like fucking Romeo and Juliet. Except we both have dicks. Draco had been exposed to many muggle books and plays, and he didn\'t really like Shakespeare, but one of his housemates, he forgot the girls name, but she had forced the books upon him and said that if he didn\'t read them, then he really was missing out. And Draco had not wanted to miss out on anything.

Blood. The scent was echoing faintly in his room. Wafting beneath his nose, the tangy metallic scent of it drew him out of his bed, to follow it. Padding barefoot through the drafty empty halls of his wing of the manor, he came to a doorway. As a child, and in the past summers, Draco had explored his home quite thoroughly. But he hadn\'t been able to go in all the rooms, there were so many. And so, this door was new to him. It gave no resistance when he pushed on it, and creaked silently open.

He winced as bright sunlight hit his eyes. As a vampire, he could walk in sunlight and remain as pale as milk, but if he were in the direct light for more than several hours, his skin would begin to blister. Having experienced that before as a child, Draco almost shied away from exploring the garden. And that was what it was.

The Malfoy grounds had around a dozen different gardens. A rose garden, catering specifically to rare species of roses, and herb gardens and such. But Draco, who had explored all of these in depth and loved them all, had never seen something quite like this.

It was sunlit and bright, actually encased inside the manor itself on the third floor (there were 8) and with a simple spell, it was made as though it were outside. The spell reflected the weather on the outside of the manor perfectly.

Walls were encased in ivy that twisted and turned in beautiful random patterns. But it was black ivy.

The entire garden was like a black eden.

Every plant, every living thing, was black. The trees, by a fountain sporting a black marble cupid in the middle, were black barked and leafed. Draco rubbed his eyes, searching for some color, some shade of grey. The walls that were partially covered by the ivy were stark white in contrast.

It was beautiful. A wrought iron bench, with ivy twisting smoothly around the arms and back, was off to the side and had a perfect view of the roses. Long stemmed black roses grew, dozens of them.

The scent of blood drew his mind away again; everything went into a blank state. It was not human, he could tell from the taste of the air near the spilled blood, which he could now see.

It was beautiful, in a sick way, yet utterly captivating. The stark contrast between the white wall behind the black wrought iron bench, and the captivating red, warm blood spilled behind the bench by some creature.

A squirrel. How or why his mother and father had brought a bloody squirrel - literally - into the black garden was not foremost in his mind. He only hoped it wasn\'t dead, for you never took blood from something dead. Congealing blood was a Sin for vampires to ingest. It would burn the tongue viciously.

He crept quietly behind the bench, squeezing in, and reached out a finger to the little furry body. It was dead. All intentions of drinking from it fled, only to be replaced by an insatiable thirst. He hadn\'t had blood in quite a while, if his thirst was anything to go by. He left the garden, promising himself to return as soon as he could. Maybe someday, if Harry wasn\'t dead, he would bring Harry in there...his hair and skin would go lovely with the room, just as Draco\'s did.

Draco stalked down the hall, still clad only in his black silk sleep bottoms, and started hunting down house elves - he would never drink from one, as a curiosity he\'d had when he was five had turned into the stupid elfs magic lashing out at him and Draco cried like the child he was. And the blood tasted bitter.

Draco was a vampire on the hunt. Well, the hunt for a house elf who hopefully would get him a few glasses of warm blood (they had their ways), but still, it felt rather nice to \'hunt\'.

He was constantly aware of the absence of Harry from his mind.

If he was dead, Draco could only wait for his imminent death, if that was the way it was to be...




Me-Notes:

-- it\'s short. i know. i am working on ch9 which is LOOOOOONG (as it\'s Harry\'s mind-chapter thing. hmmm mhmm)

-- i\'ve been reading a lot of Sirius/Remus. just letting you know, because what i\'m reading influences what i write usually. so if baby harry say, witnessed a make out scene between the two at his parents home...muahahahhahahaha....mmm...

-- in answer to a review i received (danke!) about Light and the Dark...erm...well, now that i reread it, it does sound a bit odd, doesn\'t it? but i suppose there is a reason for it; harry cannot yet really associate shades of grey. everything is still black and white. and as siri is in his mind, even though he IS siri, he reflects harry while doing his own thing. his own sexy, sexy thing

-- yes. i am a sirius/remus fan. as well as george/fred (smiles happily like a loon)

-- also in the works is a \"Truth or Dare\"-ish thing with a bunch of gryffindors, slytherins an ravenclaws. and MAYBE a few hufflepuffs, if you can name a few that\'d be in harry and draco\'s seventh year.

-- mm. who likes cupcakes?

-- THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS! please continue to REVIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEWWWWW!

-- i know this chapter sucked. but trust me, it will get better.

I PROMISE!