Six years

Images of memory rose in him. He saw his twin brother Vanya and himself as little boys in his father's castle. For the first six years they lived like normal children. They played and planned pranks together. He, Draco, was the older by five minutes and he looked a lot like his father with his black hair and azure eyes, while Vanya with his auburn hair and green eyes looked more like his mother.

However, on her sixth birthday, her life changed drastically. While Draco felt the strict upbringing as a locksmith's heir, Vanya was taught writing and reading by his mother.

Draco's strict upbringing made him cold and hard. Vanya, on the other hand, was gentle and good-natured. Although they were so different in nature, they did a lot together and almost never argued.

When they turned twenty-one, Draco was supposed to marry a neighbor's daughter. The wedding should take place in May of that year. As a bachelor party, so to speak, he was given a trip to Venice for the carnival. At his request, Vanya was allowed to accompany him. So they traveled from their home Romania to far-off Venice with a well-filled travel budget. Once there, they stayed in one of the best hotels in town and immediately plunged into the fun. Everyone in the city wore masks and beautiful costumes. Each of the many ballrooms was freely accessible. He and Vanya went to see one after the other. When they entered a hall at midnight, they were immediately greeted by a woman in a wide-cut, red velvet dress. She handed them a glass of red wine. Both of them fell the contents in one gulp. Immediately afterwards two other women appeared and asked them to dance with them, which both gladly accepted. Again and again they were offered something to drink. At some point, late in the day, the women said they were hot from all the dancing and asked him and Vanya to accompany them outside. They left the room through one of the large glass doors and landed in a garden. After leaving the circle of light, the women stopped, turned to face them, and began to kiss them. He and Vanya would not have been men had they turned down this offer. And the alcohol did the rest. Their kisses became more and more passionate and the women were extremely revealing. They unbuttoned their shirts and began to kiss their chests. When he and Vanya could hardly stand it because of passion, they separated and each went with his companion to a different, even darker corner of the garden.

There Draco's company was extremely docile for his caresses. She allowed his hands to find a way under her dress and his lips to rest on her chest. Even when Draco leaned her against a tree and pushed her dress up, she didn't resist, on the contrary, she still helped him. She put her arms around his neck and kissed it. At some point in the course of the act Draco thought he felt a slight pain like a bite in his neck, but his excitement and alcohol made him ignore it.

His brother Vanya was no different, as Draco later learned. When they re-entered the hall, it was noticeably emptied. He and his brother also wanted to make their way back to the hotel because it was already dawn. The woman who had offered them a glass of wine upon entering again handed them a glass with a red liquid to say goodbye. They both rushed thirstily down that, too, without paying any attention to what its contents were.

Slightly drunk and still completely caught up in what they had just experienced, they made their way back without paying attention to the way. It was only when the lanterns became rarer and the houses looked poor that they realized they were lost. They had ended up in the poor part of the city. Suddenly some dark figures stood in front of them and demanded their gold. They had knives in their hands. He and Vanya gave them what they had in their pockets in the hope that they would then be let go. But this hope was deceptive, as soon as the men had what was required in their hands, they stabbed.

"Oh my god!" Draco heard a woman's voice. "Come on, Zerafina, help me carry these two into the house."

Draco opened his eyes to find that he was lying on the bank of a canal. An old woman was bent over him. He turned his head left and right and saw his brother lying next to him. A young woman stood by him and pulled him further to the bank.

"I can get up and run myself," Draco fended off the help of the elders.

"Well, come on, let's go to my house first," the old woman asked. "There you can first warm up and dry your things."

Vanya was also able to get up and so they both went to the hut of the two women. There the younger of the two, who was probably the daughter, handed them a blanket and asked them to take off their wet clothes. She would dry them over the stove in the kitchen.

When they were sitting on an old sofa, wrapped in blankets, the old woman asked to tell her what had happened.

Draco told her about the raid and that they got lost after leaving the ball.

“And where did the robbers get you? Let me see the spot, then I can treat your wounds, ”she asked.

But as much as Draco and Vanya searched their bodies, no injuries were seen.

Then the old woman wanted to know which ball they were at and what had happened there. Draco noticed that Vanya was embarrassed about the whole thing and so he reported about it. When he had finished, the old woman just nodded and then asked whether they were hungry or thirsty.

"Hungry less, but very thirsty," Draco replied.

Thereupon the old woman disappeared through a door that probably led to the kitchen and came back after a while with two cups filled to the brim.

"Here, drink this, then you will feel better." She demanded.

Without worrying about what was in the cups, both of them rushed the contents down in one gulp.

"And how do you feel now?" Giggled the old woman.

"Good." Draco replied and Vanya nodded in agreement. "It was delicious. And although it sounds outrageous, but I would like more of it. "

"I can imagine that." Giggled the old woman again. "But you have to get that yourself."

"And where do you get that?" Draco wanted to know.

“It's in every human being,” replied the old woman.

"How? What? I don't understand. ”Draco was irritated.

Before the old woman could answer, her daughter came with the two of them.

"So, here, they're dry, you can put them back on," she said and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Her mother got up and also left the room.

He and Vanya got dressed again.

"Let's get out of here." Wanja whispered to him. "The old one is scary to me."

"Immediately, but first we have to say thank you," Draco replied in a whisper.

They knocked on the kitchen door and Draco said, "We'd like to thank you and your daughter for the help and then we'd love to go back to the hotel."

Then both appeared.

"Here, another sip of goodbye." With these words, the old woman handed over another well-filled cup and watched as both of them drank it up in one gulp.

“And here, take this letter. Everything you need to know is in there. But don't open it until you're at your hotel. ”Said the daughter, handing Draco an envelope.

When Vanya and Draco left the house, the sun was high in the sky.

"Has the sun always been this bright?" Asked Vanya. "And the birds, have they always been that loud?"