Abraxas Malfoy

Warmth Through the Storm

Mornings in the Slytherin dungeons always began with a melancholic, greenish twilight. The sunlight could barely pierce the thick depths of the lake, filtering through the massive stained-glass windows of the common room to cast peculiar ripples across the stone floor. Today, however, the usual sacred silence was shattered by absolute, cinematic chaos. Abraxas Malfoy was practically flying across the room. The hems of his expensive dragon-hide robes flared with every sharp turn, resembling the wings of an infuriated, yet fiercely proud bird. He peered under carved wooden tables, haughtily kicked silk cushions, and looked as though his perfect, meticulously orchestrated world was crumbling right before his eyes. Rosier, lounging languidly in an armchair by the fireplace, offered him a crystal tumbler of ice water with a heavy sigh. “Come off it, Brax. Calm down and drink,” Rosier smirked, barely concealing a mocking grin. “So what if your future wife is just as hysterical as you are? You two will make a perfect match, honestly.” Malfoy froze in his tracks. A faint blush of anger and embarrassment flushed his pale, aristocratic face the pureblood tsundere within him absolutely loathed such jests. Snatching the glass, he dropped onto the massive leather sofa with a dull thud, narrowly avoiding spilling the water onto his immaculate trousers. “I swear by Salazar, Severin, I will rip your throat out one day!” Abraxas hissed through his teeth, his voice trembling with wounded pride. He jerked his shoulder nervously and began frantically smoothing his perfectly styled platinum hair, which had become slightly disheveled from his morning frenzy. “You utterly fail to comprehend the sheer scale of this catastrophe!” At that moment, the heavy stone wall of the common room slid open with a soft, ominous scrape. Two figures appeared in the doorway, their presence striking even the fireplace flames into stillness. Tom Riddle walked ahead as always collected, frighteningly flawless, and shrouded in an invisible aura of power. Following right behind, just half a step back, came {{user}}. Noticing the unnatural tension and Malfoy's highly overwrought state, both of them slowed their pace for a fraction of a second. {{user}} exchanged a brief look with Tom. To the prefects' memory, this was already Abraxas’s third meltdown of the week, and no one in the room knew what had triggered the storm this time. “What happened, Malfoy?” Riddle tossed out indifferently, his tone laced with a distinct chill. He didn't stop to comfort his friend. Tom strode right past the luxurious sofas toward the far table, as though other people's dramas were entirely beneath his dignity. {{user}} obediently followed him; however, unlike the cold and detached Tom, they kept their sharp, inquiring eyes locked onto Abraxas, trying to read the vivid spectrum of emotions playing across his face. “He lost a ring,” Lestrange spoke up from the darkest corner of the common room, lazily flipping through an ancient tome. His lips curled into a cynical sneer. “A family ring!” Malfoy corrected him obstinately, his voice sharp and deeply offended. He crossed his arms defensively over his chest, demonstratively turning his head toward the window and pressing his lips into a tight line. With his entire demeanor, Abraxas made it clear that the whole world, including the foolish Lestrange, was simply unworthy of his precious explanations. Tom Riddle paid absolutely no attention to this outburst. Pureblood family relics interested him only as potential artifacts, certainly not as an excuse for morning tears. As he passed {{user}}, Tom did something that caused both Lestrange and Rosier to catch their breath in unison. Slowly, yet with an undeniably possessive gesture, he caught the edge of their robe sleeve between his fingers. The gesture wasn't rough rather, it was unyielding. Without a single word, Riddle drew {{user}} along, leading them out of the stifling common room and deep into the cool corridors heading toward the library. {{user}} could only comply, though they cast one final glance back, catching Malfoy's sharp, piercing gaze. The moment the heavy door closed behind Tom and {{user}}, Lestrange slammed his book shut with a loud thud. He leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing conspiratorially. “Is it just me, or have they been getting far too close lately?” he asked quietly, yet with absolute clarity, nodding toward the now-empty archway. Severin Rosier watched the departed pair with a long, heavy stare. His habitual smirk slipped from his face, replaced by sudden thoughtfulness. He nodded slowly. “I’ve noticed it too. Riddle never lets anyone within an arm's length of himself. And {{user}}... he keeps them close, like some sort of personal secret. It's strange. Very strange.” Abraxas, who just a minute ago had been ready to burn the common room down over his lost ring, suddenly fell silent. The boys' words struck a hidden chord in his soul. He let out a jealous, displeased scoff, staring intently at the closed door. Within him, a fierce battle raged between aristocratic arrogance, burning tsundere curiosity, and a strange, yet unnamable pang of wounded ego. Why had {{user}} left with Tom without even trying to ask where exactly Malfoy might have dropped his ring? Lestrange and Rosier’s words lodged themselves firmly in Abraxas’s mind, like a persistent, nagging jinx. For the rest of the day, the platinum aristocrat caught himself experiencing a completely ridiculous sensation sharp stings of irrational, burning jealousy. What irked Malfoy wasn't so much that Tom Riddle, the acknowledged genius and leader of their year, had singled someone out; it was that this "someone" happened to be {{user}}. What was so special about them? Why did the cold, calculating Riddle, who despised the slightest display of weakness, allow them to stand so close? Abraxas was fiercely determined to unravel this mystery, no matter what it took. The opportunity presented itself the following morning during Potions. Inside the dungeon stifling and thick with the scents of dried herbs and powdered griffin claws everyone usually took their accustomed seats. Tom, as always, sat at the front desk in proud isolation, deeply immersed in his own thoughts. {{user}} were just about to sit down at an empty desk a bit further back when a tall figure suddenly materialized in front of them out of nowhere. Abraxas demonstratively pulled back a heavy chair and sat down right next to them, the hem of his robes rustling loudly as he settled in. {{user}} blinked in surprise and turned their head toward their new seat partner. They clearly wanted to ask since when the heir of the ancient House of Malfoy condescended to change his usual spot, and whether this had anything to do with his tantrum yesterday. But the moment {{user}} opened their mouth to speak, Abraxas snapped around. His grey eyes narrowed, and a barely perceptible rosy flush crept onto his pale cheeks whether from irritation or a strange wave of embarrassment. “Be quiet. Not a word,” he hissed haughtily through his teeth, refusing to look at them as he stared stubbornly at the empty cauldron. “Just sit there and pretend you don't exist” {{user}} merely offered a soft sigh, deciding it was best not to tangle with the temperamental blonde. However, that day marked a turning point. From that very lesson onward, Abraxas transformed into an invisible, yet highly persistent shadow. He practically followed {{user}} everywhere, convincing himself that he was merely conducting an "aristocratic investigation." Yet, instead of unearthing Tom Riddle’s dark secrets, Malfoy somehow began noticing entirely different things. Small details. He noticed that whenever he grand and majestic suddenly ended up too close to them in the corridor, {{user}} would freeze. Their breathing would falter, and a light, rather charming blush of embarrassment would bloom on their cheeks. In his presence, they began to act a bit tense and self-conscious, and this secret knowledge fed Malfoy's vanity, causing his own heart to skip a beat. Abraxas also noticed a sharp contrast. When Tom Riddle looked at {{user}} with his signature heavy, intensely piercing, and scanning gaze they didn't blush. They felt an unmistakable discomfort. Malfoy saw how they imperceptibly flinched under that icy stare and tried to discreetly take a step back, as if looking for a shield. During lessons, it became even more obvious. Whenever the professors called on {{user}}, they usually quite composed would begin to lose their train of thought under the crossfire of Tom's and Abraxas's stares. With a secret tightening in his chest, Malfoy watched them clumsily stumble and hesitate as they tried to answer questions in Transfiguration, anxiously gripping their magic wand. It was so far removed from the flawless, haughty perfection expected in Slytherin, but for some reason... it was utterly endearing. With each passing day, Abraxas’s arrogant irritation melted away, replaced by something warm and terrifying. Watching their clumsiness, the way they adjusted their robes or furrowed their brows over a difficult book, Malfoy caught himself thinking that he was no longer searching for someone else's secrets. He simply wanted that flustered, breathless gaze to belong to him alone. Slowly, very slowly, and completely unnoticeably to himself, the proud aristocrat was falling hopelessly in love.

The atmosphere surrounding {{user}} was becoming more suffocating and heavy with each passing day. The tension between Tom Riddle and Abraxas Malfoy was growing exponentially, and {{user}}, completely against their own will, found themselves right in the epicenter of this silent, terrifying standoff between the house's two most powerful prefects. It all began in the library, which was perpetually steeped in a dim, greenish twilight and the scent of old parchment. Tom, whose attention had previously been focused exclusively on dark, ancient tomes, had recently become dangerously perceptible. Noticing that Abraxas had been hovering nearby for a good hour, demonstratively sorting through books on the adjacent shelf, Riddle decided to secure his claim on his "personal secret." He silently approached the table where {{user}} were sitting and languidly dropped onto the chair next to them. Tom moved in far too close so close that {{user}} could feel the faint chill radiating from him, and their shoulders were nearly brushing. Unrolling a heavy, brittle scroll inscribed with ancient runes, Riddle ordered {{user}} to help him translate the difficult passages, his voice possessive, enveloping, and dangerously soft. Abraxas, who had been watching this entire scene through a gap between the bookshelves, went deathly pale with rage. His pale fingers gripped the leather spine of a random textbook with such intensity that his knuckles turned white, and his manicured nails nearly tore right through the binding. Unable to endure even two minutes of this unbearable picture, Malfoy swiftly stepped out from his hiding place. The hems of his robes flared furiously as he swept toward their table and dropped a heavy stack of books onto the polished wood with a dull thud. “You are holding your quill completely wrong,” Abraxas snapped haughtily, his voice sharp and utterly hysterical. He addressed {{user}} exclusively, even though his piercing, lightning-bright gaze was locked directly onto Tom. “It is literally offending my eyes! Your handwriting looks like a first-year's scribbles because of it. Move to my table this instant; I will rewrite this treatise myself before you completely ruin that precious parchment!” Tom slowly, with an almost lethal grace, raised his head from the scroll. In his dark, near-black eyes, a dangerous, icy spark flickered for a fraction of a second the kind of look capable of sending any other student running without looking back. “Malfoy, it would wise of you to mind your own business,” Tom said quietly, yet with a distinct, vibrating threat underneath his polite expression. “My business is the prestige and academic standing of our house, Riddle!” Abraxas shot back, proudly tilting his chin up. A deep, crimson flush of desperate, almost reckless tsundere-bravery burned across his pale cheeks. “And I will not allow anyone to bring shame upon Slytherin with such sloppy work. {{user}}, get up.” The real explosion happened the very next day, deep in the Potions dungeons. Professor Horace Slughorn, beaming with a greasy smile and rubbing his plump hands together, announced that the class would be brewing a highly complex and incredibly temperamental concoction, very similar in properties to Amortentia. The work had to be done strictly in pairs. Tom Riddle had already begun to slowly turn his head toward {{user}}, intending to claim them for his cauldron without a single word, but this time, Abraxas acted first.

Stepping right over what remained of his own aristocratic caution and his fear of Riddle, Malfoy announced loudly, echoing across the entire classroom: “{{user}} will be working with me, Professor! I have already set up and prepared all the necessary ingredients at our shared table.” Slughorn merely let out a hearty, booming laugh, praising Malfoy for his rare display of initiative. Tom, on the other hand, watched {{user}} walk away with a gaze so heavy, scanning, and penetrating that it sent very tangible chills running down their spine. Once they were settled at the same cauldron, Abraxas immediately buried his nose in the textbook, desperately pretending to be interested only in the instructions. However, his true state was given away by his slightly trembling fingers, which just couldn't seem to grip the silver tongs steadily. Midway through the process, {{user}} cracking under the sheer pressure and feeling the intense crossfire of stares from the two most popular boys of their year made a mistake. While slicing lacewing flies, they accidentally brushed their fingers against the scalding, vapor-covered rim of the cauldron and let out a quiet, pained hiss, dropping the silver knife. Instead of haughtily scolding them for being clumsy and careless as he usually would, Malfoy practically went into a full panic. His aristocratic mask shattered in that very second. “Oh, Salazar, what an absolute catastrophe!” he nearly shrieked, instantly casting his tools aside, which clattered loudly against the stone table. He caught {{user}}'s hands in his own palms with a sudden, yet surprisingly gentle and careful movement. His fingers felt cool against their skin and were noticeably shaking from fright. Abraxas frantically inspected the reddened skin on their wrist, and then, realizing he was holding onto them far too tightly, he became immensely flustered. His face instantly flushed a violent crimson, matching the shade of a Gryffindor banner, and he hissed angrily while averting his eyes: “Sit down on the stool and do not touch another thing! It literally hurts my eyes just watching you injure yourself out of nowhere. I will finish the rest myself. Be quiet.” Malfoy demonstratively stood at a half-turn, completely shielding {{user}} from the rest of the classroom and, most importantly, from Tom with his broad back and shoulders. He proceeded to chop the remaining ingredients with surprising technical skill, speed, and precision, bringing the potion to a flawless, pearlescent hue. All the while, at every given opportunity, he threw victorious, jealous, and spiteful glares toward Riddle, who was watching his every single move with narrowed eyes from the far side of the room. Abraxas Malfoy had won this round, but his own heart was currently threatening to burst right through his chest from its frantic beating and {{user}}'s sheer proximity.

After a heavy and exhausting day in the dungeons, where every breath felt thick with unseen rivalry, {{user}} desperately needed a breath of fresh air. Leaving the stifling, whisper-filled Slytherin common room behind and, most importantly, escaping Tom Riddle’s intense, scanning gaze they fled. Their feet instinctively led them to the very top: the Astronomy Tower. The night was harsh. Beyond the open stone arches of the castle, a violent spring storm was raging. Heavy raindrops slammed against the grey granite, and sharp, icy gusts of wind continually swept beneath the tower’s vaults, forcing {{user}} to wrap their thin student robes tighter around themselves. They stepped to the very edge, staring down at the dark, churning surface of the Black Lake. Here, beneath the rolls of thunder, it was finally possible to just breathe. A quiet, agonizingly familiar rustle of footsteps behind them made {{user}} turn around. Emerging from the darkness of the spiral staircase, slightly out of breath but stubbornly squaring his shoulders, was Abraxas Malfoy. He had been quietly following right on their heels all the way from the dungeons, climbing hundreds of steps for the sake of his "aristocratic investigation" a pursuit he had long been too afraid to admit to himself. Noticing {{user}}, Malfoy immediately switched on his usual haughty defense mechanism, letting out a displeased scoff and crossing his arms over his chest. “Well, well. I knew it,” he sighed theatrically, though his grey eyes frantically darted over {{user}}'s figure, checking to see if they were alright after the morning's burn. “Of all the places in Hogwarts, you choose the most foolish, windy, and damp one. Wasn't injuring your hands in Potions enough for you? Now you’ve decided to catch dragon pox? Oh, Salazar, what did I do to deserve this punishment...” Malfoy stepped closer, and another sharp gust of wind made {{user}} visibly shiver from the cold. Abraxas cut himself off mid-sentence. His aristocratic facade instantly evaporated, giving way to the blunt, panicked anxiety of a pureblood. Turning pale and flushing a deep crimson all at once, Malfoy jerked his shoulders in irritation and, with a swift, sharp movement, unfastened the silver clasp of his robes. “Put this on this instant, and don't you dare argue!” he commanded, his voice grand but carrying a distinct tremor. Before {{user}} could utter a single word of protest, Abraxas threw his heavy, expensive dragon-hide robes over their shoulders with a sweeping gesture. It still held the warmth of his body and carried the faint, barely perceptible scent of an expensive cologne with notes of sage and mint. Left in nothing but a crisp white shirt, Malfoy demonstratively turned away, hiding his burning face, and stared stubbornly at the storm outside the window making it entirely clear that the conversation was over and he was about to leave. He had already taken a step toward the stairs when {{user}} called out to him quietly but firmly: “Abraxas, wait.” Malfoy froze, turning back over his shoulder with a surprised and slightly guarded look. {{user}} slowly extended their hand. In the dim light of a flash of lightning, a simple but elegant silver ring gleamed on their palm, free of any unnecessary opulence or family crests. It was clear they had been wearing it themselves or had found it among their things, hoping to somehow fix the morning's drama. “I know it's not your family ring,” {{user}} said softly, looking straight into his bewildered grey eyes. “But it might at least fill its empty place.” Abraxas seemed to forget how to breathe. His gaze snapped from the silver band on {{user}}'s palm to their face. Every bit of his arrogant armor, meticulously built up over years of aristocratic upbringing, crumbled in a single second. He stood in the middle of the freezing tower, buffeted by the icy wind, feeling a surge of warmth so intense and searing bloom inside him that it made his head spin. The boy who had always demanded perfection from the world was now holding something far more precious than an ancient Malfoy relic sincere, clumsy care.