The Silent World Within You

Chapter 1: Summer PT2

"She'll be foaling soon," Hagrid says cheerfully as he strides across the clearing to the herd of Thestrals. A twig cracks beneath his enormous booted feet. "First Thestral born in three years."

Draco nearly has to run to keep up. He's been at Hogwarts since mid-May, assigned to be assistant to the groundskeeper. It was meant to humiliate him, he knows. A heavy-handed indictment by the Wizengamot of Lucius Malfoy's soft-handed son, sent into two years of manual labour overseen by a half-giant instead of the menial, mind-numbing Ministry filing work his friends were given. The first two weeks were hell, he'll admit. He'd hated being supervised by Hagrid of all people. Everyone knew the man was utterly mad. He'd set that horrible Hippogriff on Draco during third year after all, and the beasts he seemed to adore the most were always the ones the Ministry was warning wizards and witches to be the most cautious around. Draco'd spent his first days on the Hogwarts grounds mucking out the paddocks for the porlocks, who hid everytime Draco came near the damned things.And then Hagrid had taken him here for the first time, to help with the Thestrals.

They'd both been surprised when the Thestrals had come up to Draco, nudging him gently with their beaked muzzles. They'd taken to him quickly, and Draco found he liked the tall horses with their slick short black hair and leathery wings. They're his responsibility now, and he'll be there when Ismene gives birth in a few weeks.

 He hasn't bothered to hide his excitement.Firenze is waiting for them, his broad hands stroking Ismene's swollen sides. "It won't be long," he says, and he steps back as Draco approaches the Thestral, taking his place.Her hair is soft and smooth beneath Draco's fingers, and he feels her relax at his touch. She snuffs softly, ruffling his hair with her sharp beak. He laughs. "Wench," he murmurs, his hands rubbing gently over the swell of her belly. He can feel the press of a hoof against his palm, and Ismene shifts, wincing in pain."Rub 'er like this," Hagrid says from behind him, and Draco doesn't pull away when the giant's thick fingers rest over his, moving Draco's hand in wider circles. Ismene leans into the touch, resting her head on Draco's shoulder. "Good lad." Hagrid moves his hand and he steps away to check on the rest of the herd.

Firenze watches Draco, a smile curving his lips. His blond hair gleams in the sunlight. "He's pleased with you, you realise."Draco shrugs and keeps stroking Ismene's belly. "I don't see why. This is the only task he gives me that I don't bugger up." He stops long enough to push his sleeve back above his elbow. He's learned to abandon his robe early on, and it's a sign of how comfortable he is here in the clearing that it doesn't matter that the black mark of his Dark Mark is exposed.

 Neither Hagrid nor Firenze flinches at it.There's a reason why Hagrid dresses in trousers and boots around the animals, and Draco's taken to wearing brown corduroys cinched around his narrow hips with a wide leather belt and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up--when he doesn't just toss it aside entirely on a warm afternoon.

His father--let alone his tailor--would be horrified at his attire, he's certain, but at the moment Draco doesn't give a damn what his father thinks.

 During Draco's last visit to Azkaban, Lucius had made quite clear his resentment towards his son's Community Order."You have your freedom," his father had snapped at him when Draco had complained about the blisters on his hands and the sunburn across his back. "Speak to me about your petty complaints when you've been forced to endure one night in this hellhole."

Draco's mouth had tightened. "If it weren't for your ridiculous toadying to that bastard--"His mother had touched his arm. "Draco." He'd fallen silent, and looked away, not bothering to point out his father had actually committed the crimes he was being punished for. Common logic had never meant much to Lucius Malfoy.

 "It's a rare human who can connect with Thestrals the way you do." Firenze walks to Ismene's flanks, checking her gently. "They frighten most.""I suppose." Draco pulls a phial of oil from his pocket and pours some on his palm. He begins to rub it into Ismene's rough wings. With the foal, she's too heavy to fly now, Hagrid's told him, so she needs to have her wings cared for to keep them from drying out due to disuse. "I've seen worse." "You're not afraid of them," Firenze says.

Draco's fingers slide across the leathery membrane--the patagium, Hagrid's told him--between the bones in Ismene's wings. He doesn't say anything for a moment, then he looks up at the centaur. "They're less terrifying than humans," he says finally. "Or at least the ones I know."Firenze's tail twitches, flicking to one side in a sweep of golden hair. "True." They fall silent.

 Draco works the oil into the skin over Ismene's bones. The sun is warm on his shoulders. He's come to love the forest in the past six weeks. It had frightened him desperately as a child, and he's still not certain he'd want to find himself in it at night. But here, during the day, in this small clearing with the breeze stirring the leaves on the trees, making them sigh and rustle as it ruffles his blond hair, he feels peaceful. He doesn't think of the abandoned acromantula colony nearby, or the three-headed dog he's seen running through the trees at times, or the Blood-sucking Bugbears Hagrid's warned him to keep an eye out for. Instead he focuses on the Thestral in front of him and his inexplicable fondness for her .They'd startled him at first, when he'd come back his seventh year and seen them at last.

 He'd been afraid of their sharp beaks and hooves and their wide, bat-like wings. He'd been afraid of what they meant. Bad omens. Death. Misfortune.Somehow, now, after burying Vince, they didn't hold the same fear. "Once you see death," Draco says, though he's not sure why he breaks the comfortable silence, "you change."Firenze looks up from Ismene's tail. He's been braiding it and wrapping it long strips of white cotton in preparation for the foaling. "Yes.""Sometimes." Draco moves to Ismene's other wing. "I don't think it affected my father." "You're not your father." Firenze's fingers knot the cotton over Ismene's stiffly braided black tail. Draco snorts.

 He pours more oil into his palm. "You should tell some people that." He strokes his slick fingers across Ismene's wing. The Prophet enjoys conflating his crimes with those of Lucius's. There isn't a Sunday edition that goes by without some letter or editorial decrying his family and their lack of proper punishment. Mother had stopped her subscription recently when not even a complaint to Cuffe himself had put an end to the completely puerile and factually inaccurate innuendo."You're not." Firenze pats Ismene's flank. "No more so than your son will be you." That brings Draco up short. He eyes Firenze balefully. "That's not amusing."Firenze quirks an eyebrow at him. "It wasn't meant to be." Draco knows he shouldn't be this furious.

 The centaur has no idea Draco's queer or that he'd decided that, his father's wishes be damned, he'll be the last Malfoy. An ineffectual and horribly embarrassing tumble with Pansy sixth year had made him realise that girls had entirely no affect on his cock, whereas one sideways look at Blaise's splendidly naked arse had him wanking for hours behind his bed hangings, fantasising about being buried deep between those exquisite dark globes.

The family line would stop with him, and he thought failing in his duty would be punishment enough. His penance for costing Vince his life. His fingers dig into Ismene's skin, and she bleats softly. "I won't have a son. It's physically impossible." "It's written in the stars, Draco," Firenze says quietly. "You'll have an heir." Draco steps back, dropping his hands from Ismene's wings. She shifts and snuffles at him. His mouth thins. "The stars," he says tightly, "are full of utter shit." He ignores Hagrid's annoyed shout as he walks off and the forest closes up around him.

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