It was one of the more gruesome killings he had ever witnessed. No, it was actually the most grusome killing he had ever witnessed. Even worse somehow than watching his former school teacher be devoured whole by a giant serpent.
Draco was in a sort of detached trance, unable to look away as he watched the meat being gnawed from the bones of a middle aged man.
The man had stopped putting up a fight after only a few seconds, but his abdomen was almost completely devoured before his moans trailed off and his eyes stopped seeing. His screams would forever haunt Draco.
"Nothing left to be done here," a Death Eater to Draco's right said. "We report back to the Dark Lord and tell him Project Flesh Eater is a success."
A success. He turned over the words in his mind. This was the intended result. It was not only barbaric, it was chaotic. Of course no one dared question aloud the Dark Lord's methods, but Draco wondered if he was the only one who believed him to be in over his head.
By the end of the very first day they received their first surprise. The corpses left untended to had opened their eyes. Even more startling, they got to their feet. They did not respond to verbal commands as the original Flesh Eaters did, and they did not restrict themselves to set targets as the others did. All newly formed Flesh Eaters were completely out of the Dark Lord's or anyone else's control.
Draco suspected the act of cannibalism has inflicted some sort of ancient, evil magic that even the Dark Lord himself had not anticipated and certainly couldn't handle. The originals were under command of the spellcaster, the unanticipated new Flesh Eaters were rogue. There was no spell that would put them down. They could only be temporarily subdued.
People around the country tried some desperate methods to rid themself of a threat producing horrendous results.
One Flesh Eater appeared out of thin air on the street with a Port Key stuck to it. Other times, a victim who tried to escape by Apparation would appear somewhere else with the Flesh Eater still attached to them. To make matters worse, the often splinched themself in the rush and panic, making escape impossible. They were usually devoured on the spot. Other times people apparated successfully but landed themself right in the middle of a horde.
Day two brought a second unwelome surprise. A Death Eater had been trying to subdue a rabid, newly dead Flesh Eater, but lost hold of his shield charm. The Flesh Eater bit a chunk from his wrist. Another Death Eater came to his aid, containing the Flesh Eater and healing his comrad's wound.
Throughout the day, the Death Eater became increasingly ill and went to lay down at their headquarters. That night, while the others were resting, he emerged from his room with vacant eyes, his entire wounded arm green with rot. Caught off guard, a little less than half of the stationed Death Eaters were ravaged in their sleep.
Project Flesh Eater had been in effect for an entire three days, and structure was already crumbling. Thousands were dead, at least. Nobody knew how far it haf spread. Bodies, or at least what remained of them, littered the streets. The muggle news was using words like "rapture" and "apocolypse". Wizard supremists used words like "cleansing" and "purification".
There was absolutely nothing cleansing about this.
Five days into Project Flesh Eater, any illusion of control had been abandoned. Pureblood casulties were being reported. The number of dead were seemingly outnumbering the non dead. A death toll that no one was counting was stacking up with no end in site. The disposal of corpses came to an abrupt halt.
By day 7, the Dark Lord had disappeared completely, and things were unnervingly quiet.
Chaos had been replaced by an eerie silence. Where there had once been terrible screams and waves of fleeing people, now was silence among abandoned houses and roads jammed with vacant automobiles. The only creature to dare make noise were the birds who remained unperturbed, except for the excitable crows that happily feasted on the decomposing corpses.
Flesh Eaters walked aimlessly, their eyes unseeing and their conscience scured, following only by sound and scent. Now that Voldemort had abruptly departed leaving no instruction, the few remaining Death Eaters were breaking rank, returning to their families, and seeking refuge from the chaos.
Today was day 13. Voldemort remained unseen and unheard from. The scenery was in shambles, and from where Draco was standing, the world appeared void of life.
Since Voldemort's departure, Draco had been travelling on foot with Theodore Nott. He had lost his broom to a horde a few days before, and had yet to get another. So together they walked, travelling throughout the day and seeking shelter by nightfall. Until this morning.
They had got separated by a pack and took off in different directions. When Draco circled back, Theo was no where to be found, so he lingered near the area hoping Theo had found a safe spot to lay low and would turn back up soon. He walked alone with only his thoughts for company.
Since his parents died, Draco had been merely drifting through life. The battle of Hogwarts had been tragic and traumatizing to all involved. He, like many others, had lost everything that night.
His parents were among the fallen. They had not even been fighting, just trying to make their way to him. Draco has seen them coming, and abandoned his duel to meet them. This was it, he remembered thinking, they were going to flee, leave the fight behind and move on with their lives together. Even though they couldn't return to the Manor, even if it was a meager life of hiding and moving, they would live on as a family.
But Draco watched as his parents were caught in a crossfire of curses. His father shielded his mother from the first, a green jet striking him in the back. He fell like a crumbling statue.
His mother took her eyes off Draco to look down at her fallen husband. He could hear his mothers scream over all the other noise, as if it was somehow the only sound in the world. Though it lasted only seconds, listening to it felt like an eternity. Draco's body was frozen in place, shocked, but a still functioning part of his mind urged him to get to his mother.
He made it one step when her anguished screams were cut short by another jet of green light, and she landed next to her husband.
It was unclear who or even which side cast the curses that killed his parents. There was no way of ever really knowing. The remainder of the battle was a blur. Draco did not lift his wand to cast the first spell after that. He stayed with his parents' bodies, sheilding them the best he could, waiting for his curse to come, but it never did.
He faintly remembered the Death Eaters retreating on Voldemort's orders. He remembered the cries as people began realizing Potter had been killed. Draco remembered feeling as if none of it was real.
The Dark Lord and his Death Eaters returned to their base at Malfoy Manor. Draco apparated his parents bodies home. That night, while the followers celebrated and others around the country mourned Potter in defeat, Draco dug one large grave by hand under the Hawthorne tree near the gardens. The sun was up by time he finished.
Malfoy Manor was destroyed that next evening. Voldemort along with most of the Death Eaters escaped before impact, but several were killed, including Draco's uncle by marriage, Rudolphus Lestrange. This was no loss to Draco personally. Even Bellatrix hardly mourned Rudolphus, but this wasn't surprising. Everyone knew her only true devotion was to the Dark Lord.
Time passed, and Draco continued to walk with the Death Eaters as he had no where else to go. He knew leaving would mean certain death, some days he would have welcomed it, but he trudged along holding a faint hope that one day things would change.
They changed alright
Draco kept his wand steady as he moved stealthily through the streets. A shrill scratching caught his attention as he passed by a stretch of empty homes. He looked around and spotted a Flesh Eater clawing at the window of a brick house, no doubt trying to get to whoever was on the other side of it. Draco passed by undetected.
It was almost dusk. Draco needed to start considering where he would stay once night fell. This area was mostly abandoned, it was a muggle village that had been wiped out in the first few days. He had been here once before. He moved further down the street. Up ahead, a single Flesh Eater was shuffling around. As though it sensed his presence, it changed direction and headed toward him. He readied his wand as it approached, but soon realized something was off.
"No," he heard himself whisper.
Theodore's eyes were glazed over and his mouth was gaping involuntarily. He had red on his teeth and chin. His outstretched hand reached for Draco, and near his wrist was a ring of teethmarks, tinged black and green with infection.
"No," Draco muttered again without meaning to. "Theo?"
Theo lunged for Draco but stumbled and landed disgracefully on his face, having no reflexes to catch himself. Draco backed away as Theo sluggishly got back on his feet. He lowered his wand, knowing there was no spell to fix this.
"Sorry, mate," Draco said, hearing the thickness in his own voice.
He turned his back on Theo only to see that the Flesh Eater from the window was now steps away from him, and two more figures were looming on the horizon. He had made too much noise.
Draco dodged them, running enough to get a little ahead. He hoped maybe they would trail off in another direction, but deep down he knew better. His speed had atleast bought him a few minutes to plan his next move. Losing Theo was another great blow, but there was no time to focus on that right now.
Storm clouds were stealing the sun early, it was time to settle in somewhere. Mingled with the rolling thunder in the distance, another dinstictive sound could be heard. A horde was near, probably passing through.
Draco moved further down the street, but stopped in his tracks to listen to another sound. A voice, a girl's voice. He followed it, making a left onto a side street. He spotted the source of the voice up ahead just before several Flesh Eaters blocked her from view.
"Protego!" Draco heard her shout.
The Flesh Eaters before her were pushed back several paces, the force knocked two of them off their feet. Her shield held them momentarily at bay, but more were closing in behind her. She backed up and almost right into them.
Draco feared shouting would distract her. Instead he cast a nonverbal spell, and sent the ones behind her soaring into the air. They made a sickening thud when they landed, but their rattling groans continued.
The girl whipped her head around, spotting the displaced Flesh Eaters sprawled out some distance away, one already getting haphazardly back to it's feet. She then began searching for the source of the spell.
Draco approached cautiously, unwilling to startle her incase she mistook him for one of them, but at that moment she turned toward him, and they locked eyes. He could see the disbelief mirrored in them.
"Granger?"
A/N: Hello readers, I'm happy you're here! If you chose to try out this fic, you either love Dramione, love zombies, or you're like me and you love both. I had this idea brewing for a while and this spooky time of year really got me in the spirit to continue working on it. I hope you'll stick around. As always, feedback is very much appreciated. XOXO