Summary: After Snape kills Dumbledore, Draco's nothing but a wanted man. How long will he survive before his savior does the unimaginable?
Confusion was a bitch, though for the most part it was a very nice bitch. The soft bed beneath him and the thick warmth of the downy comforter was acting as the sanctuary Draco had been hoping for. Despite his dislike for the cliché, Draco had to admit that total relaxation was just like floating on a cloud. It seemed as if the weight of his body was nonexistent and he was little more than a spirit floating in the air. He could feel a light pulling at his eyes, but he knew he was not dead because of the flickering motion; it was just a candle.
Aside from his calm breathing, nothing much else was making a sound. It was like he was in a void, which was fine with him because he really did not want human-to-human interaction. In fact, the farther away from beings he was, the better off he was. It was not as if he was ever willing to allow himself to get emotionally close to people, and physical proximity was becoming a bit of an issue nowadays.
It did not help his cause that nobody trusted him anymore. Within the past two months Draco had allowed the Dark Lord's followers (the Death Eaters) into Hogwarts, attempted to kill the Headmaster three times, became the reason that the Potions master of Hogwarts (Severus Snape) got into the school and in a "brave" attempt to save Draco's hide he killed the Headmaster, and on top of it Draco ran from the only person that would help him and attempted and failed a suicide attempt, though that was only once that he could remember.
With a casual laziness that his father had so eloquently scolded him for in his youth, Draco popped open an eye to test just how bright the candle really was. After the discovery that the candle was dim and it was not totally dark outside, he opened his other eye and tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Apparently though, the year's worth of fits during the night, all-night plotting sessions, and pre-murder anxiety had cause Draco's body to annihilate itself and relaxation was the thing it needed to make him completely stop moving to rejuvenate itself. His arms could not find the strength to life his upper body and the most he could make his neck move was from side to side; it would not lift off the pillow despite his efforts.
So there he lay, helpless, in a place completely unknown to him. It was in that moment of realization that he alighted that nobody knew where he was before, and he began to wonder if Snape had found him and had safely hid them both from the enemy, and from themselves.
When he heard the light footfalls coming up the stairs that seemed so like Snape, Draco's heart leapt with the hopefulness that his dream had become a reality. However, when the door was pushed open lightly on well-oiled hinges, it did not reveal the solid build of his mentor, but rather a petite feminine build which he had grown up with; it was the build of his mother. She walked in the room carrying a tray with a bowl of soup , a glass of water and a clear phial filled with light blue liquid, a common characteristic of the calming draught.
"Evening, Draco, I'm glad to see you're awake," she said sweetly as she set the tray down on the bedside table in front of the candle. Draco tried to move his body over to make more room for her as she sat down on the bed next to him but the steadying hand that she lay on his arm kept him still. "You're in no condition to be nice like that. If there was not enough room for me to sit next to you, I would have simply pulled up a chair. You need to take it easy, so lay down and rest," Narcissa lightly scolded him. When he had the decency to act ashamed of his actions she smiled down at him and placed a kiss to his forehead.
"Are you hungry?" she asked him, her face showing genuine concern. When he shook his head she gave him a reproving look after her eyes took in his too-thin frame.
"Mom, don't be like that. I'm just too tired to eat right now."
"You'd have more energy if you would eat something," she calmly stated, but she didn't push the matter. "Well, if you're not going to eat, you're at least gong to take that potion."
"Okay," he surrendered in a whisper, what little strength he had seemingly drained out of him. He watched as his mother took the phial and unstopped it. Placing a hand behind his head she tilted it up and put the lip of the potion container against his mouth. Two gulps later, Draco felt the tingling that was the calming effect take over his body from the inside out.
"Sleep well, my darling," he heard his mother's distant voice say as his eyes fluttered closed.
Over the next fortnight at Narcissa's hide-a-way, Draco's strength had begun to return more quickly than he could have ever hoped for. He was out of the bed within the first five days, though that was with assistance. A week and a half after that he found himself walking around on his own and joining his mother at the breakfast table after a painful trip down the stairway.
"We're going to visit someone today. He wants to be certain that you're alright."
"Severus? He made it away from the Aurors?" Draco said, the excitement building within him.
"He's still a little injured from when the bird attacked him, but other than that he's just fine."
An hour later Draco found himself walking down Spinner's End, a trip that he and his mother had often taken when he was a young boy. This time, however, she seemed a bit too anxious to get there as she kept bounding ahead of him, forgetting that he was drastically slower than usual. Eventually though, they reached the door and his mother knocked three times before pushing open the door and allowed her son's panting self to go inside ahead of her.
With stumbling steps, Draco walked inside and placed himself on the couch. Without meaning to, he fell so he was laying on the couch, with a leg dangling off. He heard a woman's cry of agony and suddenly he realized that his mother did not follow behind him. He sat up slightly, the pain in his chest hindering him. He heard footsteps coming up to the doorway and in their wake stood a bushy-haired, bucktoothed young woman who he hoped he would never have the displeasure to lay eyes on again, Granger. She stood in the doorway before him with a devious smirk.
"You," she started with a maniacal laugh, "You are daft enough to believe that I was your mother? You believed me for two weeks, oh, what a wonderful thing Polyjuice Potion is. I bet you're wondering why I did this to you. Simple reasons really. First off, you're you; second of all, you are the reason that Dumbledore's dead, no matter what you're beloved Snape has told you; and third Dumbledore's death cause Harry to run blindly into battle against Voldemort, and he ended up dead. I wont' let you get away that easy!" she fumed at him, her face turning a bright red.
Cautiously, Draco looked her over and it was then the he noticed she was holding something he did not recognize. It shone with a metallic sheen and it was in the shape of an almost "L" save for the bubble at the conjunction. His breath hitched with fear as she started to walk toward him. Sitting down on the couch, she leaned in close to the point where her face was directly in front of hers and he could feel her lips move against his as she said "It's going to be so much fun to tell the tale of how I killed the cowardly Draco Malfoy, pureblood extraordinaire with a Muggle weapon." His eyes went wide as she put the strange object to his temple, placed a cliché kiss on his lips before his world went dark…