A Red-Hot Draco Malfoy Rec

[therealsnape]

There, there, no need to spill the tea all over the keyboard. Here, have a kleenex to mop it up.

Now, back to the original topic. Yes, I want to rec a Draco story here, you read that one correctly. It starts when the Malfoys sit huddled together at a table after the Battle, it ends when Draco begins to feel that he may look at something resembling a future.

In the meantime, there is Rita - for this is a Draco/Rita story. Now it is over 15K, and normally I don't even read Draco drabbles, leave alone anything this size. The one reason to click the link the author had kindly sent me is exactly why each and every one of you should do the same: this is a story by featherxquill, people.

Brilliant, stunningly brilliant characterisation? Check.
Great descriptions? Check.
Red-hot sex? Check.
And then there's the way the language and images exactly fit Draco's character.
And there's Draco's future profession. I'm not going to give it away, but I totally loved it.
I haven't read anything this brilliant since ... erm ... that would be since Feather posted the Amelia/Moody.

So, do as I did, take a deep breath and click here.

And here's a little teaser. The LJ cut is one of my favourite lines, but not the start of this fragment.



They talk and talk, and eventually she asks him about a story she heard of the battle - had Potter told the Dark Lord that Draco had disarmed Dumbledore before he died?

"Yes," he answers.

"How did that happen?" she asks. "How did you come to disarm Dumbledore?"

"The Dark Lord ordered me to kill him."

Something happens in her eyes, then. Surprise and a glint of eagerness that looks like thrill, and her voice catches on a breath when she asks him to elaborate.

He tells her everything and she listens with that strange excitement in her eyes. He tells her about his father being in Azkaban, about being given the Dark Mark and then the order. He laughs - a humourless, edgy sound that isn't quite the noise he meant to make - when he recalls boasting about being given an important task to his friends. He tells her about the weight of it, the reality of it, thrown into the Deatheater game with no idea how to play it and just wanting his father back. His mother had been terrified, urging him to talk to Snape, but he hadn't known who he could trust when the Dark Lord had told him to keep it a secret. He tells her how badly he wanted to succeed and wonders if she realises how terrifying the Dark Lord was that killing someone seemed like an easier task than facing him after a failure. His palms are sweating and his heart is pounding as he remembers, as he tells her about Potter who seemed to know what was going on, who followed him and watched him and eventually attacked him. He pulls at the buttons of his robe and tears them open down his chest, exposing the thick, ragged scars left from the curse that almost ripped him apart.

"Yes," he says. "Saint Potter, the hero. He did this to me and he gets an Order of Merlin, and the man who actually killed Dumbledore is a war hero, and I get spit at in the street."

His chest is heaving and his fingers grip either side of his robes and she is staring, staring with that hungry look in her eyes.

Then she laughs. "Lovely," she says. "Absolutely lovely."