Eyes of Phthalo Green - DRARRY

Chapter 1 - The Arrival

September 1, 1995 - 5th Year

The cold nip of the September air mingled with the steamy atmosphere of the station. Draco had bid farewell to his parents mere moments ago, yet he didn't bother turning around in the hope of one last look. Doubtless they were already miles away in Wiltshire, having already forgotten their son who still stood in a plume of steam and smoke, hands in pockets, exactly where they'd left him. 

Draco ran his thumb over his Reducto-ed luggage stored deep in his coat pocket, gathering courage. In just a few hours he would be home, if such a place existed for him. At Malfoy Manor, he was only ever his father's son and heir. He was Malfoy there, he was impassive as ice, unfeeling as stone. He could be stabbed without flinching, hugged without warmth. He was frozen even when he slept, even when he dreamt. Draco could no longer remember the day the division had first set in, Maybe it had come alongside the portrait painter who was commissioned to do a post-mortem piece of some distant cousin, when he was five. Maybe it had slithered into his private booth while attending his first opera with his mother, at age 10. Maybe it had always been. 

Draco's musings were cut short by a high-pitched whistling. Distracted, temporarily, from his soul-searching, he walked towards the first cabin. He may have had approximately 5 seconds before the train left him behind, but Draco refused to run outright. He needed to keep up the appearance of grace, and his walking had always been peculiarly brisk. Draco reached the train door just as the guard was beginning to shut it, nearly catching his fur coat on the hinges. Once inside, he made his way towards the prefect's cabin. He hadn't wanted to be a prefect, but refusing the post would have compromised Malfoy's image. Draco had also wanted to avoid Pansy; ever since the Yule Ball she had seemed to think they were paramours. He couldn't pinpoint why the whole idea seemed so hateful to him, yet he didn't try too hard to decode the disgust. Draco had never lusted after women the way his classmates had. Besides, anyone who wanted Pansy in his bed didn't have his head screwed on right. 

The door to the prefect's cabin opened just as Draco reached for the latch. "Speak of the devil," he muttered, grimacing, "and she will be presently at your shoulder." Pansy stood in the doorway, her pug-like face frozen in a look of surprise and greed. "Hey Drake," she crooned, "I was just going to change into my robes...Care to join?" The question was accompanied by a suggestive smirk and the batting of lashes. Draco felt suddenly ill. He didn't even bother to decline Pansy, pushing past her to sit on the bench. The pug just huffed and winked at him, then flounced down the corridor. 

Draco tried to conceal his sigh of relief in a sneer; the last thing he needed was the Gryffindor prefects knowing his love-life was pathetically one-sided at best. He knew that when he looked up he would see Granger and Potter looking at him with hate, disgust, and pity. Yet when he did focus his eyes, he saw Granger and, unbelievably, Weasley, sitting across from him, and somehow, he felt disappointed. Their eyes betrayed, as he had suspected, that strong distaste, as though some beast doomed to ugliness had come and spoiled their morning. Weasley was first to confront him. "Enjoying the power? Tell me, how much did it cost your father to buy you a prefect's badge? Or did he need to take out a loan from Voldemort?" A dense silence flooded the cabin, drowning out the other student's gasps and making them open and close their mouths like codfish, beached by the brash gesture. But Draco didn't even wait a second before firing back. He'd learned this dance years ago. In truth, it didn't even matter at that moment what the weasel said; Draco was on autopilot. "Look at you, Weasley, always playing the money card. Ironic how you never talk about your family's balance, maybe if you ever cleaned those elephantine ears of your's you'd be able to hear just how desperate you sound. And for the record, I have the power to remove house points, so do try not to rest on your laurels." Draco swept out of the room in a billow of coat, not even waiting for a comeback. 

He walked down the center aisle, looking for any empty cabin. Finally, at the very back of the train, Draco found one. He pushed the door open and sunk onto the bench. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the contents. Wand magic may have been illegal outside of school, but there were no rules prohibiting potion-making. Draco positioned two of the tiny objects on the cabin floor, then reached into his back pocket. He drew out a small vial full of purple liquid. Where a Finite Incantatem wasn't possible, limewort had the ability to negate any spell or charm cast upon an inanimate object. He tapped the bottle with near professional precision, letting two drops of the liquid fall to the floor. This particular distillation was concentrated enough to be instantaneous; by the time Draco was done pocketing the vial, the objects had regained their normal size. He still had a few hours, might as well put them to use. Draco opened the sketchbook and pencil box and began to draw.

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Minutes became hours, and still he drew. It had been a long time since he'd last felt paper beneath his fingers; the feeling was just as intoxicating as Draco remembered. He sketched out a face, then a hand that covered it. Every stroke was precise and clean, utterly perfect. He drew every strand of hair, shaded every pore. Highlighted the trail of every tear. This was how Draco drew. It was meticulous and emotional, and his every subject was in excruciating pain. Sometimes he would draw post-mortems, like that painter had so long ago. Draco was able to capture the peace of death, the agony of living. Drawing was the only thing that made him close to happy. The same went for painting, and potion-making. In the spare moments he had to himself, these were the things that let him glance at contentment. They were the moments where Draco Lucius Malfoy could become simply Draco. These were the moments when he was closest to being free.

The face took shape on the page. It was a teenage boy, covering a black eye with his hand. Ethereal in it's life-like nature, the picture glowed. The left side of the boy's face was streaked with tears, parting the grime that caked it. They gathered at his chin, struggling on the brink of gravity, as if they would fall at any moment. The boy's hair was dark and tousled, the bridge of his nose held an indent from the constant weight of glasses. His fringe obscured his forehead in a mass of long curls. Delicate eyelashes rested gently on round, innocent cheeks, too cherubic for the pain of the portrait. Draco signed the drawing in the lower right corner, then held it away from him to examine the work. One of my better attempts, he thought, but I made the nose too flat for the perspective. It points further up in three-quarter view. It was worth keeping, at least for the time being. Draco already felt the weight returning to his shoulders, the escape of art was fleeting. And yet, fleeting joy was joy. He was not too far gone to see that. 

It felt like only minutes later that the Hogwarts Express pulled into station. Draco braced himself as he saw Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini, Nott and Pansy sauntering towards him, scattering first-years in their wake. They pulled him towards one of the thestral carriages, chattering and making jibes about their classmates (and each other). Draco played along, acting leader of this motley band of malevolent teenagers. When the carriage crested the hill, it provided him his first glimpse of Hogwarts castle since June. The stone spires pierced the cloudy Scottish sky, the turrets wound the mist around them as though braiding ghostly hair. Warm orange light flicked from every window, making the castle fade from solid granite to a speckling of stars with every bump of the carriage. Whether he was ready or not, he had arrived.

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An: We meet again, dear readers! I hope you're enjoying this so far. A word about updates: I am a student, and as such, I don't have infinite time to write. I want to make sure what you do read is the best writing I can manage, but this takes time. I get it, a week seems like a ridiculously long amount of time to create a chapter, but please try and factor in the other responsibilities I have. Anyway, I hope you're getting to know our character (if you haven't realized who it is yet this book is going to get very confusing) and are feeling the anticipation of the carriage ride to Hogwarts! Remember to try and eat something and don't stay up too late (it's not worth it ;). Love you all!!

-Ophelia