Even as he withdraws from prying eyes, the boy doesn’t know why he’s hiding himself away—the deck was a gift, not stolen, and reading tarot cards isn’t much to be ashamed of around here. Besides, he doesn’t really understand what the cards mean—the Lovers weep, Death smiles, and none of it makes sense to him. But that doesn’t matter much to him—the cards are beautiful things, if deceitful, and deceit has never stopped him from appreciating beauty.

He turns over another card and the Wheel of Fortune faces him.

"Do you know how those cards work?" the man asks. The boy is not surprised to see him, though he should be. The card folds slightly as his grip tightens, not from shock but from apprehension.

"No," the boy replies.

The man smiles—smiles don’t look quite right on him, even in the half-dark. He comes into sharper focus as he sits down across from the boy and he enters the orb of candlelight. He and the boy are alike and yet not alike, one and two all at once. The man has the boy’s face, except for age—there are over twenty years between them, and the man’s face is stronger, more defined. The man is taller, more wiry, broader across the shoulders—but there are few other differences. The boy’s dark grey eyes mirror the man’s, and the man’s black hair, though flecked with grey, falls in the same way as the boy’s. Only the boy knows that something prevents them from being one and the same, something besides subtle differences. He can’t tell what it is, but in some way he is as different from the man as fire from water.

His slender hands tremble slightly, but his face does not change expression.

The man is still smiling—such a queer expression, not quite authentic. "Here… let me show you how to use these." He extends a long, thin hand and holds the Wheel of Fortune between his fingers—the boy finally lets the card drop, watching the man with apprehensive eyes.

"To draw the Wheel of Fortune denotes a sudden shift of luck, a twist of Fate. Tell me, how old are you?"

"Fifteen," the boy says softly. Something in him wants to call for help, but his voice is caught at a murmur. "Does it matter?"

The man does not answer his question. He lays the card to the side and hunts for another, spiderlike fingers hovering over the disheveled spread of cards. He shuts his eyes—the candle spits and flickers, and its warm light suddenly seems icy cold. After a moment’s search the man finds Death, smiling wearily with his scythe in hand. "Abrupt change. Upheaval. I was curious at fifteen, wasn’t I?"

The boy understands. "Yes, I am."

"Nosy, even."

"No, just curious."

"Ambitious?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"And I was lonely. I looked for affection wherever I could find it."

The boy shivers. "Not exactly." He’s lying through his teeth, and pointlessly, as both of them know he’s lying.

"Yes exactly. Only desperation ever drove someone to the arms of a Malfoy for comfort." The boy shivers again, and the man gives him a reassuring smile. "But that changed, you see. I changed."

Twist of Fate. Abrupt change. Upheaval.

He hates change, just as he hates everything he doesn’t know how to control.

"What if I don’t want to change?" asks the boy. He is suddenly aware of how very small he is, how very alone. The man doesn’t count as company—he is a shadow, little more.

The man laughs. It’s a horrible laugh. "Don’t be childish. Take another card, aren’t you curious how your fate plays out?"

"No." His hand rises from his lap nonetheless, hovering over the scattered cards uncertainly. Before he can select a card of his own volition, he finds the Devil in his hand.

"It makes perfect sense," says the man comfortably. "Our destiny is to master control over our own destiny—the cards present such a paradox, but they never lie. Never to me."

"I don’t understand," the boy whispers.

The man gives another abrupt laugh and leans across the sea of cards—he seizes the boy’s shoulders and grips them tightly, until his knuckles go white and his sharp fingers bruise the boy’s skin. The boy gives an involuntary cry of pain, but the man ignores it.

"What the cards say," the man says with a smile, "is that you will never gain control if you don’t submit."

The boy tries to twist out of the man’s grasp, but his older self is stronger. "Let go of me," he hisses fiercely.

That horrid out-of-place smile in response. One of the man’s long fingers hooks itself in the collar of the boy’s pajama shirt lazily. "What a silly thing to say to yourself," the man smirks.

And for a few mortifying moments, the boy finds the man’s lips firmly pressed against his own.

He can’t even bring himself to struggle—he’s beyond fighting, beyond screaming, beyond murdering. Any kisses forced on him in the past were nowhere near this violating—the awkward affections of lonely orphans weren’t malicious or even sexual, and most of all, they weren’t him. The boy knows that he would never do it himself, but that he might grow up to be capable of it is enough to make a dismayed sob rise in his chest.

It’s only a few moments, but it feels like hours. Quite suddenly the boy finds himself alone in the room, lying on his back in a sea of tarot cards. He feels sticky tears on his face, though he can’t quite remember where they came from, or even why. His memory slips and he isn’t sure exactly what happened, but the tears keep coming anyway, and he hates himself for it.

The Devil card is still clutched in one hand, though by the time he falls asleep on the classroom floor it’s slipped out of his fingers.

End.