FIC: A Portrait of the Artist Undone (Harry/Draco, Theo/Draco, Theo/Harry)

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Title: A Portrait of the Artist Undone
Author: mypetelephant
Prompt: #48
Adapted from: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Pairing: Harry/Draco, Theo/Draco, Harry/Theo…but never quite Harry/Draco/Theo. Mentions of Draco/Astoria
Word Count: 3800
Rating: NC-17
Contains (Highlight to view): *Major character death. Minor character suicide.*
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Thanks to thusspakekate for betaing, as well as Vendelin for helping out as well. And all apologies to my English high school teacher for shameless mixing my references.
Summary: “To influence a person is to give him one's own soul.”—The Picture of Dorian Gray




The artist had green eyes, but you already know that. The whole world knows about his green eyes and his thin scar. And now the whole world wants him to train those famous eyes on them. Everyone wants his paintings, and your parents insisted that he paint you.

Only the best, they said, for our little boy.

Only the best, I knew, for you.



*****



People say he paints because it helps him forget, because it helps him create a world where families are whole and there are no deaths. How trite—as if a paintbrush could do him any good.

If painting could help us forget, you would have painted canvases full of bright landscapes and happy children. You would have painted a world where your past didn’t exist.

How many times did you come to me, begging with my name so desperate on your lips? “Theo,” you would cry, pleading with me to find a way to make the sharp pain of a conscience go away.

Remember when you begged for a Memory Charm, pleaded with me to take away the scenes of what you’d done during the war? I had to dissuade you, move the wand away from your temple as your lips trembled around the words.

A Memory Charm would have done as much for you as a paintbrush did for the artist. What good would it do you to forget when the world would remind you every day?

I’ll show you differently, I thought to myself when the artist first came. I’ll show you how much happier you can be.



*****



It took weeks for him to finish your painting, but who can fault him for taking such care? You deserve—deserved—only the best. He spent days perfecting that blond shade for your hair, hours circling the grays of your eyes and tracing the lines in your neck, a whole week just on your thighs. And it was a masterpiece.

By the time he was done with the painting, I wasn’t sure which one he loved: you or the portrait.

I understand the feeling—now that I’m done with you, I’m not sure if I love the portrait or you.

For a man who has seen evil the rest of us can only dream of, who has harbored it in his own body, he’s never appreciated its beauty.

I’ll show him though, I thought when I saw the artist flush at your compliments. I’ll show him just how beautiful you can be.



*****



There’s a dripping sound from somewhere in this room, and I think that means it’s still raining. Or maybe it’s coming from you.

Right. I was talking about that day. You’ll have to forgive my distractions; it’s a bit hard to focus right now. I’m not sure you’re listening anyway.



*****


I found the spell for you in a book whose title has faded out of memory. Have you ever tried to find a book with no name? Whose entire existence is a rumor that no former Death Eater wants to share? We’re all so busy trying to look respectable that we’ve forgotten what made us feared in the first place. I had to throw in several threats on top of the pile of Galleons to convince Borgin and Burkes to hunt it down for me.

You were too nervous to touch the book when I showed it to you. There were cracks across the heavy cover, filled with substances that felt like tar and stained like wine. The pages were embossed with clotted smears of deep shades that blended into black. The inside was crusted with the remnants of its readers’ work, traces of potions and curses that knotted their way into the book until they were embedded into the parchment itself.

Never has reading between the lines been such a literal exercise. On one page, you could see the blood used in the Draught of Despair. On another, there was human flesh seared into the text, dotting the “i” in “basilisk”. There were scratches and tears where someone tried to rip it all apart, but sometimes our possessions have a way of outliving us.

When I found the spell to help you, it took me three weeks to figure out how it worked, and then another two weeks to hunt down the thestral bones (killed, of course, on the full moon). The only thing that remained was to find the perfect place to cast the spell, and when I saw the finished portrait, I knew it would be perfect.

I’d never seen what guilt looks like until that night. I watched it pour out of you into a thick, black mass that rolled lazily in the air. You didn’t even want to look at it, didn’t want to see the hideous muck of your own shame.

Do you remember that night—the night when you were split so entirely that it was like you were whole for the first time?

Remember that you were there when I removed it from you and cast it into the portrait. Remember that you begged me for it. You pleaded with me to put it somewhere so it couldn’t hurt you anymore, and I did.

I did.

Oh, you think I was being selfish? That I did it for myself? Yes, of course.

But only because of you.



*****



You should have seen your smile that first night. Like a stupid little baby encountering the world for the first time, you looked so angelic that I was almost convinced. But the portrait knew. The portrait knew everything, and it took the burden of your guilt off you as it began to wear a happy look of cruelty.

That night, I knew you were healed.



*****



Look at the portrait, dammit. Why won’t you look at it?



*****



The first night, you seemed so unsure of what to do, like a prisoner let loose from shackles and caught up in the phantom feeling of constraint. You’d never known what a life without regret could feel like. Even I don’t know that feeling. But my regrets have been few and far between, a misspoken word, an ill-timed response. Your regrets have always been larger.

The first night, you tested the waters. You made the pretty maids blush and the young manservants cross their knees. It was nothing you wouldn’t have done before, but you took so much more pleasure in it—let your fingers wander just long enough to tempt fate without falling into the fear of discovery.

The second night, you let your fingers wander longer and further—no longer tempting fate, but inviting it to join you.

The third night, your fingers didn’t wander. They found their purpose and dug into it.

I looked at your portrait that third night, while you were still claiming the fruit of your endeavors, a pompous, young man whose name I’ve already forgotten. That grin on the portrait, I’d never seen anything like it on your face. I knew just looking at it that your nameless fruit would be rotted by the morning, disposed of with all the ceremony he deserved.

You must have plied him with the sweetest of words the night before, because he hurled such abuse at you that it took seven house-elves to toss him out your front door.

You could have done it yourself, but you’d always wanted to experience the joy of watching someone else do your dirty work. And why shouldn’t you? After having experienced the other side yourself?

And of course, there was the sheer humor of his situation. The indignity on that man’s face—to be thrown out of the Malfoy Manor and not even have the disgraced Draco Malfoy deign to do it himself? But to be tossed out with the grubby little magic of a house-elf while you dipped biscuits into tea?

Forgive me for never having truly appreciated your flair for the poetic until you told me of that moment. Though I suppose if I hadn’t understood it then, I certainly do now.



*****



It was the Ministry’s Annual Ball where you finally found your footing. You must have promised three women your hand in marriage (never mind your impending engagement to Astoria Greengrass), made them swoon with fabricated tales of your heroism during the war. Your disgrace, you claimed to them, was only to keep the trauma of your heroism quiet. The war had its heroes, you told them, you didn’t need to be one of them. Oh, no (and here you let your voice break), the safety of the wizarding world was reward enough for you.

I haven’t seen knickers that wet since Millicent Bulstrode pissed hers when we were three.

But why shouldn’t they have believed you? I would have if I hadn’t known you for so long. Your face was so pristine, so caught up in its lie that I almost worried that you believed your words. I remembered your portrait though, and I knew that if I looked at it, the eyes would crinkle in cruel mirth.

The artist was at the party, watching you the entire time. And I think you were doing it for him, putting on a show for him. At the time, I thought it was just a game. Maybe it was.

Maybe you just didn’t know that you’d won.

He didn’t say anything to you that night. Perhaps he thought he could go home and paint you from memory, have some version of you all to himself. But nothing is as good as the real thing. So instead, he showed up again and again. At dinners and parties where you marched in with your latest conquest and showed off your newest trophy to the crowd, he would be there. You would tease him, brush fingers along his arms and breathe heavy words into his ears, and then you’d leave in a whirl of innocent laughter as if the whole thing had been an accident.

You’d come to my bed at night and share the little victories of his shuddering breath and reddening cheeks, your cock hard as you delighted in the ways he tried to hide his desperation. You’d have me deep inside of you, telling me of all the ways you planned to show him what he was to you—a toy, a trifle, a plaything you coveted for the sake of coveting. I would implore you to tell me more, beg for more evidence of your intended debauchery. Never have I been as desperate for you as I was then; never have I wanted you as much as I did when I realized how cruel you could be.

But this, this is the cruelest of all.



*****



I saw him finally give in. Neither of you had the patience for privacy. I hardly remember the party anymore, just that I opened a door and saw you bent over the tacky floral cover of someone’s couch, clawing into the plush fabric as the artist dragged his lips down that curve of your spine I know so well. With a few fingers pushed inside of you, he drew a moan from you that was unlike any sound I’ve heard you make.

I’ve had you, begging and groaning in my bed. But this cry had a quality to it that still rings in my ears. Perhaps I attribute too much sentiment to your moans, but it sounded like fulfillment.

I never told you that I stayed to watch. But really, anyone in my position would have. For a pair of men rutting on someone else’s furniture, you two made quite a charming image. Certainly, if anyone could turn gagging on another man’s cock into an art form, it would be you. Perhaps not something to be displayed in museums, but cast instead into personal collections for private viewing.

The artist had turned you around and pushed your legs back when I became aware of how hard I was. I considered asking for an invitation to join, but there was a certain appeal in spectating. None of your clothes had completely made it off your body by the time he entered you. Your pants were still wrapped around one leg, the belt buckle making a clanging sound around your ankle as he thrust into you.

If not for cleaning charms, I would have lost a perfectly good pair of pants that night on you two.



*****



I assumed that this would be the end of your obsession with the artist. You saw, you conquered, and you certainly came. But where you tired of your other playthings quickly, you visited this one often. I marveled at how easily you convinced him to join you. I thought he would know better than anyone who you were, what your true nature was like.

Perhaps he knew what you were and was in denial. You have the sweetest smile when you lie. And after all, you wore the face he painted, and it is so hard to be objective about one’s own work.

I think it was the delusion of your own redemption that brought you two together. By that point, you’d started to believe it yourself. The painting gave you an insidious sense of innocence: you spent your days lying and manipulating and hurting others, and when you went to bed, you felt joy over a day well spent.

Your portrait had already turned into grotesque version of the original image. I would sit in front of it sometimes, talk to it like an old friend. You would have loved the things that came out of your mouth, but I think there was some small part of you that was afraid of it—that knew if you saw the evidence of your own shame, you might be forced to confront it.

Others would shiver in fear if they knew just what your portrait reflected at that time; I shuddered in delight.



*****



I think you would have fooled him if it weren’t for what you did to the Greengrass girl. She lasted much longer than I thought she would, suffering through the rumors and public flaunting of your indiscretions for the sake of an infatuation that was merely a pastime to you. But she was such a beautiful toy—as dull as marriage sounds, I can see why you would want to make sure that she was readily available to you.

Promising her marriage was a bold step; using your engagement party to seduce her younger sister an even bolder one. I believe she stole the show that night though. She made such a graceful figure, diving from your balcony while the guests listened to her last shriek of despair.

That level of public humiliation and personal desperation was an achievement few could have achieved, not to mention the widespread damage you inflicted on her sister’s reputation. People will whisper about it at dinner parties for ages, clucking their tongues over the poor Greengrass girls while gleefully passing the tale on to anyone they can send an owl to.

The artist might have even loved you if you’d left him for her. He would get off on the idea of being a sacrifice—of being your sacrifice. But there are certain acts that can pierce through the thickest of illusions, and he’s never truly understood the wonder of your malice.



*****



That was when he first began coming to me. He was worried, you see. Oh, so worried. Oh, so heroic and desperate for your redemption.

When would he realize? This was your redemption. I had saved you in ways he could never dream of, and this was the culmination of everything you had promised to sink to when you were young. This was you at your most free, and you chose to listen to your basest instincts.

We should all be so lucky.

But I played the part of a mutually worried friend well with him; I don’t need a portrait to feign innocence. I would join him in his flat, listening to his war tales as if I cared. I saw the paintings he doesn’t show anyone, and I understood. He needed you redeemed for his own sake. He needed to know that someone could be more than what they’d been molded into in their youth. He needed to know that they could rise above the weight of expectation.

And who better to hope for than you, you who were so confused, so quick to follow whatever path others laid for you. But you were never meant to be his salvaged soul, brought back from the depths of darkness to see the glorious light.

And then one night, he asked to see your portrait. I told him that you had put it away, but he begged, and you know how hard it is for me to resist a man on his knees. I brought him to the attic, parted the curtains, and watched as he gazed on the reflection of your many triumphs. A man like him has seen enough magic to guess. He raised a finger to it, brushed it gently as if he expected the paint to come off. Your face was barely recognizable, so twisted and contorted with schemes and hurt, but your portrait held out a hand to him as you have so many times before. It was only then that he turned away.

But he didn’t close the curtains.

Not when he dropped to his knees. Not when he let those dirty, paint-covered hands of his roam across my thighs. If you had asked me to, I would have stopped him. But the look on the painting’s face showed me that you needed this. You needed to lose him. It would free you from the shackling hope that you might be good. It would be the best thing to happen to you.

And still you stood in that painting, your hand reaching for him. If he hadn’t silenced your portrait, he might have heard the words I saw your painting form. But his head was in the ground, his eyes staring into the wood as he cried out for every thrust I gave him. I dragged my fingers through his hair—that insufferable, untamable hair—and dragged it back so he could see the portrait again, so he could look into your eyes and appreciate what a beautiful work of art he and I had made.

That shame in your portrait paled in comparison to the guilt in his voice as he came, spilling onto the rough wood.

And then you were there in the flesh—innocent, wide-eyed, and standing at the door. He didn’t see you at first, but when he did, his shock and shame were so beautiful to behold. You reduced him to that. You brought him to a point that the darkest forces couldn’t, scarred him with wounds no one will worship.

But every time I see his misery now, I’ll smile because I will know that it was all for you.



*****



The portrait should have worn your shame for you, should have taken on that lost, red blur that your eyes became when you saw what hurt you’d caused this time. But perhaps the portrait had reached its limit. You certainly seemed to have reached yours.

I must say, you’re a dreadful fuck when you’re in tears.



*****



I would catch you staring at the portrait. That should have been my first clue. You would sit for hours in this attic and just stare.

And then you would go downstairs and pen another letter begging for him to talk to you. You would go to parties to see him. You were beginning to lose your charm then, or perhaps you simply stopped trying.

Then you tried to be good, as if you could convince him you were a changed man. You tried to make your smile genuine, your words honest. You kept your distance from men and women, and stayed even further from the more ignoble vices. But no matter how much you controlled yourself, you were never really good. Even the portrait knew that. You would run to it, hoping to see some mark of your change, but there was none. If anything, the portrait bore the harsh shading of your shallow charity.

But I loved you still. I would have loved you even if you were a fucking saint who spent weekends feeding birds in the park. Isn’t that what it means to love someone?

Even now, I love you.



*****



I came to see you tonight. The house-elves told me you had spent the whole night in the attic, that they were told not to disturb you.

I thought I might see the portrait damaged, see it slashed and destroyed beyond recognition. But it was pristine. Whatever you poured into the frame betrayed you to protect the painting. And whatever you did to destroy it has destroyed you instead.

There’s a stillness where your chest should rise, a silence where there should be a beat. Sometimes I think I hear a breath, but then realize that it’s only my own.

You are barely recognizable like this, and it’s not even because of the blood. (And oh, there is so much blood—thick, dark clumps in your hair; little red rivulets down your face; deep stains in your clothes.) But I think only I would recognize this face that you wear, the face that the portrait wore for you and has now returned.

The portrait has taken its face back, wearing the artist’s work while you wear ours.



******



He could never have painted you the way I did. He painted you pretty, an innocent smile across your face while your eyes shone with hope. He painted you into a blank canvas for the world to make its mark on as it’s done so many times before.

I painted you beautiful. I brushed strokes of sin like paint across a canvas, traced lechery across your lips to make them red. I made a masterpiece of vice and crime in you—for you.

And now you’ve gone and destroyed it, Draco. You’ve destroyed the thing that saved you. I gave you the greatest gift, and you threw it away, for what? Love? Goodness? But this hasn’t made you loved or good. The sins on your flesh paint a picture that even your Dark Mark can’t rival. I made you beautiful, and you threw it away for this.

Oh, but to be so beautiful.