Chapter Text
Death.
Death is terrifying, until you’re at its edge.
But Draco didn’t need to worry about that, because he was Death itself.
You know that guy with a scythe, all dressed in black with a face you can’t see?
Yes, him, but in a much more attractive and appealing way, after all, he was Draco Malfoy. He found that loose robe very old-fashioned, always opting for a black long-sleeved crop top and ripped black jeans that accentuated his behind. And of course, he wouldn’t be Draco without his Gucci belt and doc martens, which added the final touch.
Every day of the year, Malfoy needed to hide from people, remaining invisible so those around him could sense him, but if they turned, they saw nothing. Touching or seeing him was out of the question, unless they were on the brink of death.
However, there was only one day a year, just one, when he could appear, and that day was Halloween.
Particularly, it was Draco’s favourite day of the whole year.
He could laugh at people who got scared by horror movies, play tricks on them, terrorize them with his everyday outfit that humans imagined as Death’s attire. A black cape that covered his whole body, more like a mantle, complete with the scythe he always carried.
Draco, in particular, didn’t need a scythe to collect the souls of the deceased; he had his own power, which he found much more sophisticated. Much better than that old-fashioned thing.
The man loved to scare people whenever he could, terrorizing any human possible, but when someone just died, they were confused and seeing a guy with a scythe coming toward them and a covered face wasn’t the best feeling.
Draco had some sympathy for others, still.
However, he was hardly ever a benevolent person.
Perhaps that day, everything could be different.
xxx
The party was packed.
The smell of marijuana permeated the air, like a cool breeze on a chilly night, striking anyone who entered.
Noise filled every corner of the place, making it difficult for anyone to hear anything other than the loud music blasting in their ears.
An old rock song played, coloured lights flickered, and everyone was in the centre, dancing.
The only thing left to do was to sit and wait. It would be very ordinary if Draco joined the crowd dancing; he didn’t want to become one of those common teenagers, after all, he wasn’t even a teenager.
He put on his cold demeanour, rising from the chair he had been sitting in with a glass of wine between his fingers, savouring the drink. He adjusted his "costume" — since this time, he was dressed as Death in human perception — and gently placed his glass on the table, licking his lips sensually, picking up the remnants of his drink.
The blonde was eager to try something peculiar tonight, something he had never done before. After all, he only had this chance once a year, he wouldn’t waste it.
To get a better feel of the environment, he walked quietly towards a group of people, slightly separated from the rest, laughing quietly with some beer bottles in hand, clearly drunk.
Malfoy rolled his eyes and moved elsewhere; he wouldn’t join that kind of crowd. Besides, their costumes were quite strange.
There was a guy dressed as a skull, a mask covering his entire face and holding a knife.
There was another taller guy, with makeup scars and a costume that looked like a postman’s, but his eye was deformed. He held a screwdriver.
Someone who seemed like a child due to their height wore a pale mask, almost no blonde hair visible. Their eyes were nearly closed, holding a bat with nails along its length, stained with victims’ blood.
Next to them, another tall guy wore a red checkered shirt, ripped jeans, and an axe. But what caught his eyes was the bag over his face, with some holes marking his eyes.
There was a man who seemed the oldest among them all, with black hair down to his shoulders. His makeup was one of the best, giving the impression he had no eyes and holding a crowbar, lightly smeared with fake blood.
And last but certainly not least, there was a girl, the only one in the group. She wore a boot, a dirty white shirt tied at the bottom, creating a kind of cropped top, and her face was dirty with blood, just like the razor she held.
Draco had a slight déjà vu sensation, vaguely recalling seeing these people somewhere before. However, he decided to dismiss it and focused instead on another group nearby.
This time, it was a larger group of eight people, all very stylish. There was a girl with curly hair and dark skin, wearing a checkered coat and loose jeans that smelled of leather. Beside her, another slightly taller girl, blonde with very pale skin and blood trickling from her nose, had an arm around the waist of the other, smiling at her.
A shorter boy, clearly a fan of video games or computer stuff, stood next to a girl in a blue cheerleader outfit, her hair tied in a bun with slightly curled ends. In the middle was a boy with blond hair, wearing a pink coat and many rings on his hand, nails painted black.
Next to this group, there was a trio of two who appeared to be sisters, although the shorter one was a redhead and the other had light brown hair. The taller one wore a button-up shirt, her hair tied back, and seemed to be the group’s leader. The other had short blonde hair and wore denim shorts. She held a small bag of powder but quickly put it back in her pocket, hiding it from view.
Like when he saw the other group, Malfoy was sure he had seen similar people before. It couldn’t just be in his head, could it? Either way, he decided it was best to leave those teenagers alone and enjoy the party.
The blonde drifted away from them as quietly as he had approached, like a shadow. Leaning against the wall, he lifted one leg and lightly touched his chin, adopting an analytical pose. He observed everyone at the party, trying to uncover each person’s weaknesses, the group of friends, and what "type of teenager" they were.
There were the popular girls, dressed in flashy clothes that anyone could recognize from a distance, reminiscent of the movie "Mean Girls". Draco remembered watching that movie a few years ago when he went to retrieve a body upstairs, and the younger sister was watching the movie in the living room, right at the Halloween party scene.
The lacrosse players’ group looked normal as always, in their team uniforms, showing off to any girl who passed by them.
And there was the famous losers’ club, or rather, the outcasts. In Draco’s opinion, they were the best group there. They were three friends: a tall redhead in a pirate costume, a medium brunette in a butterfly costume. But what caught the blonde’s attention the most was a short brunet in a somewhat... picturesque costume.
He wore a flower crown on his head, dyed some strands of hair pink, which mixed with the brown strands. He wore a short black skirt and a tight white blouse covered by a vest with three skulls hanging on it, diagonally. The skulls had some leaves positioned on them, giving a special decoration to the outfit, and there were some red roses among the leaves, the same ones in his flower crown. He wore black high-top Converse shoes. And, to top it off, the boy held a fake pomegranate in his hands, holding it naturally while laughing with his friends.
Ironically, he was dressed as Persephone, the daughter of Demeter — the goddess of agriculture — who married Hades, the god of the dead.
Having already roamed the entire party hall without finding anything very interesting, the blonde went to the hallway that divided the rooms and led to the other part of the residence. A cold atmosphere came from that part of the house, catching Draco’s attention.
He followed there, paying little attention to the teenagers trying to stop him from going to the hallway, just gesturing with his hands, pushing them and making them fall to the ground, with a puzzled look.
The hallway was dark, lit only by a central lamp that was flickering and seemed very old. The walls were old, with faded and worn-out paint, gradually deteriorating.
Some drops of blood were visible in the corners of the walls, next to some newly woven spider webs, near some plastic skeletons.
Since there was nothing too strange there, the blonde decided to go to the bathroom to see if his outfit was still nice and if his hair was still aligned as always.
He opened the first door he saw, startled to hear some strange noises coming from there. A couple was in bed, the man covering almost the entire body of the woman who was under him, and it could be heard from afar that the woman was moaning. Draco laughed when he saw the guy’s butt sticking out as he got closer to her.
Fucking straight people!
He slammed the door shut, wanting to get that image out of his head as quickly as possible, and went back to his search for the bathroom.
"Teenagers scare the shit out of me," he thought, quickly finding the toilet.
The music was muffled, occasionally hearing something, only when the singer sang beautifully, using his original voice.
That would be a great time for Draco to pretend to be drunk at a party, singing with a fake microphone in his hands in front of the mirror, and so he did.
After feeling like a true teenager, he spent a few minutes admiring himself in front of the mirror, remembering in his mind how beautiful he was.
"Mirror, mirror on the wall," he said, looking at his reflection. "Who´s the prettiest of them all?” He chuckled sarcastically, remembering the children’s movie.
After making sure there was nothing wrong with his face, he left the bathroom, the sound of the music no longer muffled, returning to being loud and lively.
The blonde returned to the main hall of the party, looking for the drinks table. He needed to take advantage of those free drinks when he had the change.
But he didn’t dwell on it much, it was impossible not to notice that there were fewer people at the party.
Malfoy found it very suspicious, the party was full before, but now it seemed to have at least ten people less. Of course, they could have left or just played a prank on other people, but Malfoy felt it was something more.
He looked around and saw that the trio that had caught his attention was still there, laughing as if it were the only thing that mattered in the whole world.
A strange feeling filled the blonde’s chest, as if he were grateful that those people were still there, happy.
It was like a... relief?
Quickly, he pushed these thoughts out of his head, focusing on something more important at the moment, like his drink. He circled the mouth of the cup with his fingers, repeating the movement as he analysed the rest of the people, looking for any unusual movement in the place.
He found nothing. Damn! He wanted to have fun there, not just get drunk, as he always did.
Unfortunately, the drink was his only escape to forget what he was and what he did.
He was always drunk to forget that people’s ordinary lives were just a beautiful lie, while his was a painful truth.
Occasionally, someone found Draco sober, he always drank to try to forget reality. He drank to forget that he needed to take souls that didn’t want to go.
His emptiness couldn’t be filled by souls.
At first, he tried to read to forget his problems.
Until it worked for some time, but he started to stress out and books alone didn’t work, he needed something stronger, and the drink was his only solution.
If anyone asked him what his problem was, he would answer:
"My problem is tequila." The answer coming out of his lips naturally, tired of repeating the same phrase over and over again.
He tried to get these thoughts out of his head, leaving his head blank, but that hallway still echoed in his mind, hitting his thoughts, making him focus only on that and everything went back to it.
He decided to go there again, just to make sure nothing strange was happening there.
It was just some teenagers playing pranks on each other — he affirmed to himself, not trusting his own thinking.
But something in his head told him that it was important, and being Death, he had the privilege of feeling if people were dead or not.
He had a strong feeling telling him that there was a person needing help, someone on the verge of death, so he decided to follow his intuition.
He walked there dragging his feet, but always keeping his head held high, not losing his posture for a second.
A kind of mist was coming from there, making it almost impossible for Malfoy to see anything. The smoke made his eyes burn so much that the blonde blinked to position his eyelid. He made a gesture with his hands, expelling this "mist" — which was probably used in shows — and blinked again, smiling in delight for having nothing to bother his beautiful stormy gray-blue eyes anymore.
When he got there, he rolled his eyes along the wall and saw that it was more blood, almost staining the entire length. An old painting of an old man had blood covering his face, preventing him from seeing what his face looked like. Draco narrowed his eyes, trying to see better, it was almost impossible, since that light didn’t help in any way.
At the end of the corridor, some candles were lit, being possible to see minimally what was there. The blonde could only see a volume on the floor, apparently covered by an old and thick blanket.
Malfoy decided to go there to see what it really was, looking around the corridor, analysing every tiny detail, not letting anything slip by.
He noticed that there were several paintings there, all very old and covered in dust. He would definitely sneeze if he got closer.
Draco reached the end of the corridor, which seemed to take hours to do so, and finally could see what was under that blanket.
As it was full of blood, the blonde was a little disgusted to touch, holding the blanket as far away from his face as possible, not wanting to stain himself.
When all that heavy blanket was removed, a body covered in blood everywhere appeared. The chest was open, seemingly repeatedly cut by a knife in a slow and painful process.
Not just one person, but several bodies lay on the floor, seemingly stacked. The other bodies had bullet holes scattered across them, blood gushing everywhere.
Draco opened his mouth in a shocked expression, startled to see so many dead people there, as if they meant absolutely nothing.
"Wh-who are you?" a boy whispered, voice barely audible as if breathing was the hardest thing to do at the moment.
Draco smiled at the little boy lying on the floor at the top of the pile, realizing there wouldn’t be much time left for him.
He noticed he seemed young, his face showing juvenile features, someone under fifteen.
The blonde felt sorry for having to take the souls of such young people, children. He always invented a story about a magical world to lighten the burden of what really happens when they die.
"Come with me, sweet child," he whispered softly, trying to show the most comforting smile he could muster.
The boy, looking at him with frightened eyes, coughed lightly, his expression shifting to a more relaxed one as he calmed down.
The souls of the other children slowly left their bodies, following Draco’s voice, gradually approaching him.
"I will make all your dreams come true," he extended his hand to the boy in front, seeing him hesitantly reach out his own hand, uncertain until Malfoy gave him a reassuring smile, after which he accepted tentatively.
"Just take a look, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about," he glanced sideways, his eyes thoughtful, as if seeing the horizon. "We live in cities you’ve never seen on screens," he pointed ahead with his fingers, pretending to visualize something.
The boy slowly closed his eyes, feeling more comfortable, panic fading away slowly, replaced by a lighter and more peaceful expression.
"Not very pretty, but we sure know how to get things done," he smirked, extending his hand to the young one. "Living in the ruins of a palace within your dreams, and you’ll see we’re on the same team," he opened a genuine smile, seeing him grip his hand, trembling considerably but believing in him.
The others behind him went through the same process, imagining they were being taken to a better place.
Draco smiled satisfactorily, clearly saddened by the death of those kids, but at least managing to make them feel less terrified. Death certainly scared people, but Draco’s goal was to make them believe they were going somewhere better.
He was cleaning his hands when he heard a scream from the other side of the hallway, coming from the party.
He looked more closely, noticing a brunet with a gun in hand, pointing it aimlessly, seeming lost.
Duty called, and he had to go into the midst, collecting the souls of some teenagers who, unfortunately, had lost their lives.
He didn’t pay much attention to the person with the gun, setting that matter aside, focusing on trying to reassure people, making them feel as comfortable as possible about actually departing.
It was always difficult to get everyone to accept going. Of course, they couldn’t decide whether they would continue living or not, but they needed to accept they were ready to actually leave and accept their fate.
Since there were still some children, who were quite reluctant to let go of their lives completely, the blonde gathered all the patience he had — not much anymore — and began to do his work.
"This guy is disturbed," he croaked, rolling up his sleeves, thinking about the guy holding the gun. "But the blame lies with the family that made him this way..."
The dark-haired guy holding the gun lowered it for a second, seeming pensive about what to do next.
"Hades, I just wanted a cigarette right now..." Draco sighed softly, the words barely audible.
"Unfortunately, I’m here today to take many with me, so now it’s just waiting for him to pull out the gun his dad kept hidden in the closet. I just hope this is quick, I have more to do," he rubbed his temples, knowing that guy would give him a real headache.
It was as if the brunet had snapped out of a trance, raising the gun again, unlocking it.
"And the time has come, yes, it has," Malfoy put on a black hat in a sensual way, which lightly covered his eyes.
"All of you who see me, come to me," Death raised his hands, gesturing for people to come to him. "You should have run faster instead of screaming. I’m sorry, but you lost the race with the bullet," he looked at the lacrosse players who seemed hypnotized, pretending to be sad, putting on a face of pity.
"Come here, little boy. I know you saw me," he pointed to a boy, dressed as a pumpkin, clearly in shock.
He slowly walked towards Draco, his feet almost stumbling over each other.
Malfoy saw that the boy was just a child, so he repeated what he had said to the other children in the hallway, using as much kindness as he could to comfort him.
"Well, I guess that’s everyone now..." he sighed looking around and only finding blood staining the floor. "Such a shame there are so many children here."
He looked around, searching for the culprit behind all this, seeing two boys heading towards the hallway, one of them with a gun.
The blonde didn’t hesitate for a second and immediately went after them, not running clumsily but walking formally, a sigh escaping his lips, hanging in the dense air, as if he had all the time in the world.
"And now, only the guilty one is left," he fixed his gaze on the dark-haired boy dressed as Persephone, with the gun in hand and eyes shining in terror.