Author's Note: This is what I get for watching the Discovery Channel and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Chapter One Warning: Mentions of sad things
Disclaimer: Story number eleven...guess what...yep, I still don't own Harry Potter.
"Walk the dark path
Sleep with angels
Call the past for help
Touch me with your love
And reveal to me my true name."
Nemo by Nightwish
Chapter One: Boys
"Good morning, boys. We have a crisis on our hands, and after careful consideration (and much persuasion), you are the group of people that we have chosen to try to stop it." The statement was the truth. Glancing around the room, our small group of four could acknowledge that those seated around them had a great skill that could be used to aid in the problem. The only surprising fact of the meeting so far was that the room's informant had gotten away with calling us "boys".
Okay, so maybe the term "boys" was not quite as offensive as some would make it out to be. Rodney, the gentleman in front of us (and the leader of our investigation) had at least eighty good years on his life, sixty of which were spent at the Ministry.
"So, here's how today is going to work. First, it's already twelve since a few of you decided that sleeping in was a necessity today. Therefore, the four of you are going out to eat for one hour, together so that you may get to know one another. This means that you have to go to the same place to eat, because it just wouldn't work if you went to different places. Secondly, when you return, you will be debriefed on the situation because, believe it or not, what you've heard from the Daily Prophet is not all that there is to the story. Thirdly, after the debriefing you are to go home and get a good night's rest. Tomorrow I expect you here at six o'clock sharp so that we may begin transporting you while it is still dark outside."
"It's the beginning of June, Sir, it's not going to be dark at six in the morning."
"I never told you that you were stationed here in Europe, now did I? One hour; be back here at one-o-five this afternoon."
Without another word, the four of use stood and took a stack of multicolored papers from a woman who had appeared on the other side of the doorway. It seems weird that this lunch really is not needed because we were all in the same year at Hogwarts. There was something else notable about our group, but I could not quite place it.
To my left stood Ernie Macmillan. Now, Ernie was not a bad kid, but from my experience at school, the boy had about the same chance of making up his mind as the Chudley Cannons have at winning the Quidditch Cup. Walking in front of us was a pair that I would not normally associate with except under circumstances like these. As it turns out, Terry Boot and Harry Potter had no problem pretending like I did not exist. Ernie got asked if he had any protests about where he wanted to eat; I, however, did not. To be fiar though, I was not in the most sociable of moods and I did not once initiate a conversation with any of them. I guess when I sit back to think about it, it's worry that was plaguing me that day... and the worry was not from the anticipation of the upcoming mission.
Walking passed the restaurant's tinted glass window, I caught a glimpse of my reflection and I must say that I did not like what I saw. Apparently, many weeks of near sleepless nights was enough to change my appearance so that I barely recognized myself. The first major difference was that my skin was paler than normal, turning into an almost sickly gray color. My gray eyes lost their sheen and now looked like a pale concrete-colored paint that one would use in a waiting room to a doctor's office. Add to that fact that it looked like I had been punched in both eyes numerous times and the look of hopelessness is complete.
I followed the other three into a small eatery that I otherwise would not have notices and we sat down in a booth in the back, away from prying Muggle ears. In what seemed like an instance, a waitress was at our table to hand us menus and order drinks. I must have spent a while staring at the menu because I heard Potter's voice order me a coffee and a tea while Terry's hand began waving in my face. Slowly, I raised my head to let him know I was not completely dead and all I could concentrate on was his blue eyes which were full of worry. This was not the first impression that I wanted to give my temporary teammates, but some things cannot be helped. The waitress walked away and Terry's quiet voice asked, "Draco are you okay?"
My answer was not one that I would expect myself to give but I replied to his question with "Most likely not." The three of them just stared at me. The waitress came back with five mugs, setting one down in front of each of the others, but setting two down in front of me. Quite honestly, I was not in the mood for anything, be it drink or food, but my fellow teammates seemed Hellbent on making sure I got something down.
After glancing at the tea and the coffee respectively, I looked back up across from me to see Terry nodding at the waitress before she gave me a sympathetic look and a small pat on the back before she scurried off to the next table.
I guess it must have dawned on Terry that I had missed what she said because he looked at me and said, "She asked if you were all right. I just told her that your grandmother was in the hospital and we were treating you to lunch. Ernie picked a chicken dish for you under the pretense that you 'can't go wrong with chicken'. Hope that's okay."
It surprised me that that was all that happened in what I thought was a couple seconds of a glance. It turns out that I apparently looked worse than I felt. "That's fine, thank you," I said quietly. I reached out and wrapped my hands around one of the cups, not really being concerned with which one it was, and savored in the dull warmth of the ceramic piece.
"So now, Draco, I know for a fact that your grandmother is not in the hospital because that would just be redundant considering their life statuses. However, at the mention of hospitals you had an angry arch to your eyebrow that just could not be ignored. Tell us, what's wrong?"
Despite the fact that the previous statement sounded like something that would come out of the mouth of a psychiatrist, I honestly did not want to tell them what was wrong, because I myself did not know all of the details, I felt as though I had an obligation to tell them what was really bothering me. "Do you want the long story or the shorter version?" I asked with a sigh.
"Whichever is going to help us figure it out," Potter's voice said quietly.
"Okay, well we'll see if we can keep this short. Basically, my son Scorpius has been sick, and getting sicker, for two years now. The sickness is apparently very rare, so rare that no one knows what it is, even after we took him to thirteen different magical hospitals around the world and none of the idiots with degrees can tell us what's wrong with him. The sickness is random flu symptoms like coughing, throwing up, fever and chills. Plus, he keeps getting these random paths of bruises on his body that seem to have no significance to the others, but they hurt him badly.
"He has troubles sleeping through the night, so on top of twelve hour shifts here at the Ministry, I go home to try to help him get through the night. Asteria helps him as much as she can during the day, but she still deserves a break at night. So, that's the story of why I look like I'm three seconds away from committing a mass murder."
The three of them did not know what to say, and I can honestly admit that if I heard that story, I would probably not be able to say anything either. Folding my arms across my chest I leaned my head back and took a deep breath in and then released it. Save for the doctors at the hospitals, this was the first time that anyone had ever heard this particular tale of my life.
It was almost unnerving how much I was afraid of what they would say but, fortunately, our silence was broken by the sound of the plates clinking against the worn wood table. While the dishes that were ordered looked delicious, I knew that none of us were going to have an appetite after this.
It seems that I have messed up our lunch, but the recollection of the tale made me want to go home to my son and I knew that I would not be concentrating wholly like I should be during the debriefing. Perhaps it would be best to drop out of this mission before I end up getting us all killed.