index about this archive - biographies title: Like Light. author: Marvolo. The rain tumbles down from the heavens in streamlined drizzles, and he runs through the May shower without an umbrella. Everyone else in Paris clutches umbrellas in charcoal tones, blacks and greys for the men and demure whites for the women, but Tom slides past them with his hands low in his pockets and the collar of his trenchcoat turned up, letting the cold water splash on the spitpolish shine of his shoes. The city is dirty this time of year (or is it always? Tom doesn't know), filled with the genteel exhaust of motorcars and machinery, the clackity-click of trains on railroads and carriage wheels on pavement. It's a whirl of order, of Muggles and their proud creations on parade. Paris is said to be the city of love, and on every street corner you'll find fair-skinned merchants peddling such goods. For a few hundred Francs, any tourist can see god and glory in a back alley or hotel room; the war keeps most travelers on the other side of the border, though, and when Tom wraps his hand around someone's wrist, he's given a discount. Anything to help the local economy, he had sneered, and dropped the cold coins onto the bed sheets before adjusting his tie and slamming the door. Tom sees god in this boy, though, the one standing at the newspaper stand, all long legs and brown trousers and black braces. He's got coffee in one hand a paper in the other, a bored expression dangling from his light eyebrows as he keeps under the lurid awning. Tom first notices him for his brightly white hair, but then his gaze travels down his face, over the pronounced bones like those of something risen from a grave, pointed and delicate under fair skin. The boy is talking politics with the portly man selling prints, loudly stating his dime-store philosophies and paperback opinions to the night air as his companion nods dumbly and straightens the rack of dirty novels. When Tom approaches, he's saying something clever in an accent peppered by a British lull, and Tom wonders if his pale skin would grow paler from blood loss. "This is history in the making, my friend. We are living in the pages of a children's school book. Someday they will look back on this as the glory, the glory of the war. Death and destruction reduced to a few bogus paragraphs of text. That's what we're living for." The boy has moved to hold his newspaper over his head and step out into the rain when Tom grabs his hand; his eyes are blue and wide as Tom unbuttons the cuff of his sleeve with the two fingers and pushes the white cotton up, exposing a lithe tattoo curling around his right wrist. Their eyes met over the inked snake, and Tom could see his breath in the chilly air. "Slytherin vaincra." All pretty boys in this country are queer, and his blond one shines like a pile of new sickles when he's on his knees. Any questions in Tom's mind about him being one of those street-corner teenage wonders were doused the moment he got him into bed; this is the arrogant son of a wealthy family, probably raised to be so self-reliant that he thinks his thoughts on war and death and humanity are better than his parents'. He's an amazing fuck, though, so good that when he smiles at Tom through the haze of cigarette smoke afterwards, Tom wants to handcuff him to the bed so he can't go wander through the wet city streets and give himself to other money-covered travelers. If he could even find any in first place. Tom doesn't, though; he lets him go, lets him slip out the door and into the rainy world, and when his fingers close around the hotel room door that night, Tom lets him in and fucks him again. He doesn't ask for his name until the fourth night, when his hands are twisted in platinum hair and he has traced teeth marks across the other boy's neck. He giggles slightly at the question and tells Tom that he can't stand it, it's ridiculous and pretentious and bothersome and hell, it might be Cornelius, Cornelius Fudge. Tom just smiles lazily and rolls over. "Je l'aime." "Vous ne ce diriez pas si c'était votre nom." "Peut-être vous avez raison." Tom likes the way the French language sounds coming out of his mouth, likes the slight accent that even he can hear, likes the eyebrow raises it earns him. He can remember the first time he heard the language from one of the little boys at the orphanage, all fluid and silky and like a wet web of vowels. He can remember the long nights he kept the boy awake by pinching him, demanding lessons by the quivering light of a nighttime taper. There were times that boy would mumble and yawn in the middle of his instructions, and that's why even now Tom is known to not open his mouth quite wide enough when he is pronouncing certain words. No one ever dares to correct him on the point, though, and fewer would think less of him for it. Tom has a certain way with people that ensures that. Underneath the city there are pathways that few feet will ever fall upon, and there lurk the people who give Tom power. Suits and skulls and cigarette lighters; they are the people who mix magic with politics and science with religion, and when he inquires about Mudbloods trying to bring down the magical superiority, there is one word they can all agree on. Tom is only seventeen, but when his lips twitch with bemused horror there isn't an undead presence that doesn't snap to attention. The blond doesn't know what hit him when Tom strides through the door and throws him onto the bed, but when his voice comes in scratching English against his ear, something makes sense. "Did you think that I wouldn't know? Did you think that I wouldn't find out?" "Find what out? I --" "A real Slytherin, a pureblood, you fucking liar." "What? I -- oh, Tom, that hurts - oh stop, that --" Later, when Tom is walking by the Eiffel Tower, he reflects on the fact that Cornelius' skin did manage to find a paler shade to fade to, although when he left the room there was still enough blood in those veins to keep him alive. Tom wonders idly as he stops to look up at the tower if Mudbloods are like cockroaches in the way they don't die from most means, not the kind that would kill most beings like them. The rain trickles down the back of his neck, and he can hear it asking him the obvious question. "Non,"he answers in a whisper, and the street lights begin to flicker on, one by one. "Mon père ne m'a pas aimé." He turns slowly away from the monument and walks away; he's due in Germany in a week. [fin] [note: french bits -- Cornelius looks at the tattoo and Tom says "Slytherin will conquer"; Tom says he likes the name Cornelius, Fudge tells him he wouldn't think that if it were his name, and Tom sort of agrees; at the end, Tom says that his father didn't love him.] index about this archive - biographies