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"Avada Kedavra!"
Nothing. The peacock squawks before him and dances from foot to foot, feathers unruffled.
"Why won't you die, you stupid bird?" Draco growls through gritted teeth, wiping beads of sweat off with his sleeve. It's not very pureblood-like, and he is ashamed of himself as soon as he lowers his arm. This is what Unforgivables practice has turned him to. An unforgivable Gryffindor pig.
From the corner of the arena, Draco's father watches his pitiful performance, quietly sipping elf-made wine from a silver goblet shaped with dragon wings. Draco feels more and more miserable the longer his father's silence carries on, as each of his fresh attempts to cast the curse are met with failure. Not even a shower of acid green sparks to prove that he is casting it right.
"Do you know why I let you practise on one of my prized birds, Draco?" Lucius eventually murmurs. His silken voice carries across the arena and slithers into Draco's ears, chilling him to the bones. The cold, cold disgust in it is unmistakable. "It's because I knew that by the end of tonight, by the end of the month, by the end of a decade, I'd still be able to walk away with it healthy and whole and unharmed."
Draco turns away with downcast eyes. "Apologies, Father. I'll try harder."
Lucius scoffs. "Harder? Please, Draco. It's a fool's errand for anyone to teach you to cast such a powerful spell. The Killing Curse is a curse meant for wizards. True wizards. Not the imitation of one that you are proving to be." He sighs, slow and deliberate. "Yet another reason why you are unfit to carry on the Malfoy name."
Draco grinds his teeth to bite down his defiant retort. How can this be called fair? Since when is the ability to slaughter a man in cold blood the mark of a true wizard? Draco doesn't have it in him to kill someone. He doesn't want to kill someone.
And that's just it. He doesn't want to kill anyone. He never did.
Come on, Potter. Unbidden, the thought of his schoolyard enemy rises to the forefront again, dirty and kneeling with his friends in the immaculate parlour room of the manor, face swollen beyond recognition—but there had been no mistaking those startling green eyes, the sudden surety that he was alive. As often as Draco had heard of the Gryffindor's many rumoured deaths and had wanted to believe it, sainted Potter was certainly not dead when he was pushed down in front of Draco at Malfoy Manor a week ago, and suddenly, Draco didn't want him dead anymore. No, he'd seen true fire in Potter's eyes that evening, that willingness to make Bellatrix Lestrange burn, and Draco had realised that he needed that. He needed Potter alive so that they could all be burned down.
As the days pass, he's been chanting it in his head more and more often. Praying to his once-hated rival as if he were a Muggle God. Seriously, Potter. Please. Stop dithering and end this war already. It's long past time that you bloody did something.
"One last time before I leave, Draco. Try to at least conjure a spark this time. It's the most rudimentary thing I ask of you. Something every pureblood wizard knows how to do." Lucius eyes him critically, and even from dozens of feet away, Draco can feel all the ways in which his father's glare says that he doesn't measure up. "Tell me that that, at least, is a standard I can hold you to."
Draco swallows. The words are cutting, but they're no incentive to him. Draco is too used to his father's disappointment to be spurred on by it—hell, the disappointment is the only constant to which he has grown accustomed. No matter what he does, Lucius is not going to be impressed. A single spark is not going to placate him. Yet, he tries. Because he is weak.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A tiny, miniscule, pathetic green spark falls out from the tip of his wand and floats to the stone floor. A spark, just like Lucius wanted. The spark terrifies Draco—it's a sign that someday, he might be capable of casting the Killing Curse, and Draco doesn't want that. Not really. He doesn't want to be made to kill anybody.
"Well, Lucius. The pride you feel at that display must be monumental."
Draco spins around immediately at the sound of that voice. That voice. That high, cold, slithery voice; the inhumanness it beheld—the sadistic whisper that could only belong to the ultimate tormentor.
The Dark Lord glides over to stand behind Lucius, red eyes glinting as he lazily surveys the pristine state of Draco's unharmed opponent. Lucius had already gone stiff in his chair at the sound of his lord's voice, the invisible tendrils of command from the mouth of his master holding him instantly in the clutches of subservience. The mark of a true coward. And Draco is the embarrassment to the Malfoy name.
"M-My Lord," Lucius demurs, too stiff to turn around and meet his master's eyes. "Apologies if we have caused you disturbance. Please."
Draco had never seen his father stutter until the night Potter had made his entrance into their cold, cold mansion and warmed it with his defiance. But since that night, Lucius had entirely lost the cloak of excessive propriety he usually masked his fear behind when confronted with the sight of his lord. Draco shudders to think about how the Dark Lord must have punished him.
"No, no, Lucius," the Dark Lord says pleasantly. "I would quite like to watch young Draco's progress while he's being schooled in the ways of generations of proud purebloods before him. I have nothing else demanding my attention at this moment, so it's alright. Bellatrix near-begged me to let her have her turn keeping the werewolves on their leash, and far be it for me to deny my most faithful servant the pleasures of creature flesh. But it does mean that I am sorely lacking… entertainment. This is perfect."
Draco winces silently, ensuring that his face is turned away so that the Dark Lord cannot see his grimace. Entertainment. Draco is the entertainment. That cannot bode well for any of them.
"Avada Kedavra!" he tries again, because he is an idiot. And of course, nothing happens. Because Draco does not want anything to happen. Because Draco is a bloody idiot.
He can practically feel his father blanch. Not out of disgust, not anymore. Fear.
The Dark Lord chuckles, a mirthless yet entertained sound, and Draco feels it too. Bone-chilling fear. He hates having the attention of their powerful, insane houseguest directed at him. Attention garners imagination, and the Dark Lord's imagination can only lead to pain.
"Let's try this with an incentive," the dark wizard says, stepping into the arena. Draco's shoulders tighten further with each soundless step towards him. "Worry not, young Malfoy; I'm certain that a good incentive will do the trick."
Cold breath hits his ears as the Dark Lord leans over his shoulder. Draco's white-knuckled grip on his wand tightens, the bumpy protrusions of the wood digging into the delicate flesh where palm meets fingers. The sting is the only thing that grounds him.
"Let's raise the stakes, Draco," The Dark Lord hisses into his ear. "The Killing Curse is magic at its purest, at its wholest. It cares not for the victim; only for the slaughter. A means to an end. So let's change your 'end.' You have one more chance to impress me; one more chance to learn. Should you fail, I need only flick my wrist to make Lucius' filthy bird disappear and swap it out for another victim. One that you may be less inclined to see die."
Draco's blood goes ice cold.
"Picture your beautiful mother shackled down at the mercy of your wand," the Dark Lord whispers. There's a cruel grin in his voice. Draco would have shuddered to see it inches away from his face, so he doesn't turn around to see it. "Always so composed, your mother. Narcissa is a formidable witch in the right circumstances. But would her composure crack when it's her time to die? Would she cry, because it's you?"
The image flashes in front of Draco's eyes like a command. His proud, strong mother kneeling on the ground before him, just like Potter, her pale face wracked with terror. Would Narcissa Malfoy let her true thoughts show on her face, even when faced with death? Draco would think not—his mother is a lot of things, and disdainful is one of them; Merlin forbid that she wouldn't look down her nose at the face of her killer until her very last breath, even if the killer was her own son. But as certain as he was that she wouldn't be shaken, he'd rather not put it to the test.
Ever since the Dark Lord's reign in Malfoy Manor commenced, he has dangled Narcissa's safety before Draco like a rat dangled before a kneazle. It's old, it's repetitive, it's tired; and yet, it never fails to put the fear of Salazar into Draco, because what if the madman follows through? What if Draco's incompetence gets Narcissa hurt?
But while Narcissa's imprisonment might make him afraid, the thought of her death… well, it just makes him angry.
Draco would give his own life before he let someone kill his mother. He would turn his wand on the Dark Lord before he allowed himself to be the one that killed her. And anyone that thought otherwise—even one of the most powerful wizards on earth—was a fool.
Draco doesn't suffer fools lightly.
He glares at the giant white bird. His current nemesis, his victim, his source of redemption. Kill the bird, and he'd prove himself as a Malfoy. He'd get the Dark Lord off his back.
For one more precious day, Draco would keep himself and his mother safe.
This is no longer about him and his reluctance to kill. This victory would be for his coward of a father, for a dark wizard drunk with power, for the crazies living in his home; it's for his proud, helpless mother and each new day they pass side by side in tortured silence; it's for Potter and his lackeys, and the hope that they'd save the world; it's for Draco's own inner world, his fears and insecurities and anxieties as he lives trapped in this house day after day and wards himself in his bed night after night. When he gets his first taste of blood, he'll finally be free.
No terror to bind him to subservience like his father.
Gathering every last drop of fear, of resentment, of cowardice and hatred inside of him, Draco raises his wand to cast the curse. In his mind's eye, he sees Lucius before him. He sees Bellatrix. He sees the fucking Dark Lord in the peacock's place, tiny and helpless and so easy to stomp on. Draco sees everyone who has ever demanded that he be something he never could be.
And with a hateful scream, he lunges forward and casts the Killing Curse.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Acid green shoots from his wand, lighting up the arena. For a moment, Draco is left breathless. And then, right before his eyes, the bird collapses on its side, its eyes glazed and dead.
His first victim.
The Dark Lord stares at the dead bird, a slow smile curling at his nonexistent lips. "Well. Now that was a spectacle."
Draco swings his gaze to the dark wizard and meets those red, red eyes, feeling triumphant and conflicted and filled so completely with unimaginable hatred.
Those red eyes stare back with some bastardised version of pride, unknowing of the spark of rebellion it had just ignited within a young, ash-blond pureblood boy.
Draco looks straight at Voldemort and plasters on a smirk, hoping that the Dark Lord doesn't seize the opportunity to read his thoughts.
Because if he did, Draco would be dead on the spot.
One way or the other, you bastard, you will be vanquished. If Potter doesn't take care of you, I'm going to do it myself.
One way or the other, your reign will end.