A/N: I am very nearly finished with this piece, and will be posting at
regular intervals, depending on the response I get. I apologize if this
first chapter is mostly background, but the story needed it. I promise the
intrigue and adventure will start in the next chapter. This is a Draco
romance, but it's also a war story. Trenches, deaths, spies, the lot.
Enjoy! Oh, and do give my OC a chance ... I know her circumstances are
cliched, but she gets more interesting as a character as the story goes on.
To Love a Spy
By Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Prologue
"Who d'you have there, Laura?"
"Number eighteen."
"He behavin' himself?"
"Oh, he's feeling macho. He'll settle down." Laura Taylor patted the neck of the horse she was leading vigorously. It threw its head up playfully, jogging a few steps. She jerked the chain across its nose a little, bringing it back down to a resigned walk. She was filthy all over: coated in mud and dirty, soapy water. Hay was sticking to her hair and her hands were oily from saddle soap. Her ripped tee-shirt was a dingy brown all over and her jeans were splashed with granite dust and dirt. There was a gray streak across her face where she had rubbed the sweat off. Her palms were scraped and scabbed in places and there were calluses there from hefting hay bails. Hot walking horses at a racetrack every morning will do that to a person.
The horse suddenly spooked, leaping up into the air and trying to twist itself away from Laura. As soon as his feet hit the ground, before he could go up again, she hauled hard on the shank, yanking him as hard as she could. The horse stood stock still, quivering all over, nostrils flaring, the whites of his eyes showing. He looked ready to bolt again at any second.
"Whoa, handsome – settle down there, horse," she said soothingly. Slowly, the animal began to relax and lower his head. "Okay there, handsome, walk on!" She clucked a little, but the horse didn't move. She tugged on the shank, but the horse still didn't move. It took her a moment to realize that the horse wasn't quivering anymore. As a matter of fact, it wasn't moving at all. Confused, she looked around her to see another hot walker and his horse, standing still as statues. What was going on?
It had been so long since Laura had been a part of the magical world that she had almost forgotten to read the signs. There was some familiar twinge in the back of her mind, but it took her a few moments to connect it with the past she had spent so many years trying to bury. Finally, though, she recognized the twinge and she looked around her for the caster of the spell. She was not unwary: this kind of big magic in an exclusively muggle society was a dangerous risk, and she did not know exactly who might take that risk, and for what purpose.
She relaxed when Dumbledore stepped out of a stall, half-moon spectacles resting on his crooked nose, looking as familiar and beneficent as the last day she had seen him, almost two years ago. She smiled a little.
"I thought I would see you again someday," she said.
"Yes. Leaving your wand with me left it almost inevitable," said Dumbledore, smiling as well. "You seem to have been looking after yourself." He observed her appearance amusedly.
A little warily, she let go of the shank. It fell loosely to the ground. Stepping away from the frozen horse, she flexed tired muscles and said,
"Yeah, I've done alright. What's got you all the way to Virginia, U.S.A.? It can't be just small-talk."
"Laura, I have come to ask for your help."
She looked up sharply and started to back away from him. She stopped when she bumped into the frozen horse.
"No. Uh-uh. No way. I said two years ago when I left, never again. I said I was leaving for good. I've spent two years forgetting. I'm not coming back."
Dumbledore sighed.
"Laura, please do not make your decision so hastily. There is much you do not know."
"There is nothing you can tell me that will make me come," she said, firmly.
"I cannot force you. But will you at least hear me out?"
The look in Laura's eyes brought to Dumbledore's mind a muggle expression: deer in the headlights. She looked trapped and hunted. But even as she was afraid, he could see the indecision in her eyes as she weighed her options. He knew Laura, though, and knew that she would choose to hear him out. Her nature was far too inquisitive and far too duty-bound not to listen to what he had to say.
"Alright," she said at last, not sounding happy with her decision. Follow me." Beating the dirt off of her hands on the thighs of her jeans, she led him to a stall that had been converted into an office. There was a beat-up desk in one corner and hooks with bridles and shanks hanging all around. A thick layer of dust, straw, and horse-hair was settled over everything. Laura sat down on the desk and pushed a brown, ripped-up roller chair towards Dumbledore, who sank down into it gracefully.
"There are things that, when you left two years ago, I felt that you were not ready to know, that you could not know," began Dumbledore. "I still have no intention of telling you some of these things, but to tell you the things that I intend to, it is necessary for me to begin at the beginning, and you will have to bear with me while I retell parts you already know." She said nothing, but watched him quietly, waiting for him to go on.
"When you arrived at Hogwarts in your first year, you were a tough little girl in a difficult situation. Repeatedly, I was amazed at the self- confidence that you possessed, even then. I did not think that you were quite strong enough then to know the truth about the death of your parents, but I felt in a few years that you would indeed grow to be mature enough. And, in your third year, I felt you responsible enough to hear the information that the father of a fellow-classmate had killed your parents and not act unaccordingly to that student. Once again, I was impressed with your self-control. You treated Draco Malfoy no differently than you had before, which was with surprising indifference for your young age.
"When you both were appointed School Heads, I felt confident that you would handle the situation beautifully, and I hoped deeply that you would be able to impart some of that surprising wisdom you had to Mr. Malfoy. All throughout his Hogwarts career, I had been afraid for his future. Mr. Malfoy was always bright, but he had been led so far astray by his father that I feared he would never be swayed back to the side of right and good. You did more than I could ever hope, however: you began to turn Draco from a path that I had watched him tread for years with so much regret."
"I didn't –"she began, bitterly, but Dumbledore interrupted her.
"I must ask you please not to interrupt."
"I'm sorry, Professor."
"You are the kind of person that people are able to instinctively trust, and you bring out the honest side in people. I was not surprised to find that once Mr. Malfoy began to confide in you, he would begin to realize that he himself was not the person his father had shaped him to be. I was equally unsurprised to learn that he had fallen in love with you, and you with he."
She looked away quickly, eyes fixing stubbornly on a crack in the wall. Why must Dumbledore bring up such painful memories?
"I was also unsurprised that Draco did not choose to remain with you, but rather to obey his father's wishes once more."
She looked up sharply.
"At seventeen," said Dumbledore, kindly, "Draco Malfoy was neither strong enough nor mature enough to defy the father that had controlled and molded him his entire life, and you should not think less of him for it. The fact that he had such a difficult time making the decision proves the drastic change that he underwent.
"So Draco went to his father's side and you continued your training outside of school, neither as happy as I would have liked to have seen you, but surviving nonetheless. I lost track of Draco for some time. I assumed that he was still undergoing his own form of training. Meanwhile, you became a trained auror, and soon became one of my top spies for the Order. I was continually amazed at the dedication with which you threw yourself into your work. I admit, I had underestimated the potency of what I had at first considered to be a school-days romance. I soon began to recognize the signs of a broken heart, and I was again unsurprised when you came to me the day we found out of Mr. Malfoy's eighth murder for Lord Voldemort and asked to be released from service. I was surprised, but gratified when you gave your wand to me for safekeeping: it gave me hope that perhaps one day you would return.
"When you left, Voldemort had returned almost six years ago. He had remained, as I had assumed he would, quiet for the most part. He was busy gathering followers, and after the disaster he was faced with during your fifth year, he was not eager to make any mistakes. While murders were indeed occurring, Voldemort was taking very few risks. I am afraid things changed shortly after you left.
"Here is where our stories diverge. You returned to your homeland, turning your back on the magical world in an attempt to heal your heart. I tracked Mr. Malfoy diligently, as he completed murder after murder."
There was a twitch in her face and she pursed her lips tightly.
"It has now been six years since you graduated from Hogwarts," said Dumbledore, "and the Order's need for you is greater than ever. Shortly after you left, Voldemort staged his first major attack on a little muggle village just south of London. Every woman and child was taken from the town and murdered. Their husbands found their bodies on a hilltop outside of town. The Ministry spent months modifying all of their memories and cleaning up the mess so that it appeared that there had been an epidemic in the town.
"Since then, his attacks have only escalated, and our numbers have decreased. We are sorely out-numbered. As you know, the Ministry allied itself with the Order the year you left Hogwarts, but while they offer as much protection as they can, Cornelias Fudge remains so short-sighted that he will allow Ministry members few acts of any real risk. Most of the useful Ministry members are Order members, and they have to keep this double-role a secret, despite the fact that they are allies. It has become a very sticky political situation – we are united only in theory, not in practice. And so Voldemort's strength has grown. His Death Eaters are sweeping the country, killing at will. The Dementors have been turned loose to administer the kiss as they please. Muggles and wizards are dying by the handful. Not a day goes by that I do not hear of at least three casualties."
Laura winced imperceptibly. She had been watching him with wide, horrified eyes. Things had not been so bad when she had left. They had held the advantage over Voldemort, or so it had seemed. Now, it was apparent that even then he had not been weak: merely biding his time until he had enough followers. And now they had come out in real strength.
"The countryside is riddled with pockets of Dark Magic. People will touch a tree, or the side of a building, and the unlucky ones will connect with a pocket, and be killed. They are using spells that even I have never heard of. Order and Ministry members have been forced into hiding: we have secret keepers for the Ministry of Magic and Order Headquarters, and we have trenches dug all over England where members are hiding out. Everything that can be done, we are doing."
He sighed a little.
"I would not ask you to come back if it were not for the fact that I feel that this task is of utmost importance, and you can do it better than anyone."
She looked over to him.
"What is it? I mean, I'm not saying that I'll do it, but –"Her voice was hoarse.
"One of the reasons that it has been so difficult for us to combat Voldemort's Death Eaters is that we never know when they will meet, or what they will do next. We have a spy inside Voldemort's ranks, but he is a mere assassin and knows little of their plans."
"Snape?" she asked.
"No. Severus Snape was killed a year ago."
"Oh." It was all she could say. She had never cared for Snape, certainly, but she had never expected him to die. There were certain people whose ability to die seemed unreal. "Our spy has ascertained that Voldemort will be making an important move in a mere two weeks. Just how important, we do not know, but it is certain that will be substantial enough that even an assassin knows about it. We have got to know about this move, and I do not have enough men to spare to do this task and all the other things that must be done as well. I need someone with the capabilities to research this move, to find out exactly what Voldemort is planning, and plan countermeasures. I would not ask you to come back if I were not desperate."
There was a long silence and Dumbledore regarded her carefully over the brim of his half-moon spectacles, his piercing blue eyes tired and sad.
"I know this is difficult for you. But I am asking you to put your feelings aside for something greater. You have always been good at this. I ask you to show me your strength once more, and help us."
He stared at her a long time, and he could see the defeat in her brown eyes.
To Love a Spy
By Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Prologue
"Who d'you have there, Laura?"
"Number eighteen."
"He behavin' himself?"
"Oh, he's feeling macho. He'll settle down." Laura Taylor patted the neck of the horse she was leading vigorously. It threw its head up playfully, jogging a few steps. She jerked the chain across its nose a little, bringing it back down to a resigned walk. She was filthy all over: coated in mud and dirty, soapy water. Hay was sticking to her hair and her hands were oily from saddle soap. Her ripped tee-shirt was a dingy brown all over and her jeans were splashed with granite dust and dirt. There was a gray streak across her face where she had rubbed the sweat off. Her palms were scraped and scabbed in places and there were calluses there from hefting hay bails. Hot walking horses at a racetrack every morning will do that to a person.
The horse suddenly spooked, leaping up into the air and trying to twist itself away from Laura. As soon as his feet hit the ground, before he could go up again, she hauled hard on the shank, yanking him as hard as she could. The horse stood stock still, quivering all over, nostrils flaring, the whites of his eyes showing. He looked ready to bolt again at any second.
"Whoa, handsome – settle down there, horse," she said soothingly. Slowly, the animal began to relax and lower his head. "Okay there, handsome, walk on!" She clucked a little, but the horse didn't move. She tugged on the shank, but the horse still didn't move. It took her a moment to realize that the horse wasn't quivering anymore. As a matter of fact, it wasn't moving at all. Confused, she looked around her to see another hot walker and his horse, standing still as statues. What was going on?
It had been so long since Laura had been a part of the magical world that she had almost forgotten to read the signs. There was some familiar twinge in the back of her mind, but it took her a few moments to connect it with the past she had spent so many years trying to bury. Finally, though, she recognized the twinge and she looked around her for the caster of the spell. She was not unwary: this kind of big magic in an exclusively muggle society was a dangerous risk, and she did not know exactly who might take that risk, and for what purpose.
She relaxed when Dumbledore stepped out of a stall, half-moon spectacles resting on his crooked nose, looking as familiar and beneficent as the last day she had seen him, almost two years ago. She smiled a little.
"I thought I would see you again someday," she said.
"Yes. Leaving your wand with me left it almost inevitable," said Dumbledore, smiling as well. "You seem to have been looking after yourself." He observed her appearance amusedly.
A little warily, she let go of the shank. It fell loosely to the ground. Stepping away from the frozen horse, she flexed tired muscles and said,
"Yeah, I've done alright. What's got you all the way to Virginia, U.S.A.? It can't be just small-talk."
"Laura, I have come to ask for your help."
She looked up sharply and started to back away from him. She stopped when she bumped into the frozen horse.
"No. Uh-uh. No way. I said two years ago when I left, never again. I said I was leaving for good. I've spent two years forgetting. I'm not coming back."
Dumbledore sighed.
"Laura, please do not make your decision so hastily. There is much you do not know."
"There is nothing you can tell me that will make me come," she said, firmly.
"I cannot force you. But will you at least hear me out?"
The look in Laura's eyes brought to Dumbledore's mind a muggle expression: deer in the headlights. She looked trapped and hunted. But even as she was afraid, he could see the indecision in her eyes as she weighed her options. He knew Laura, though, and knew that she would choose to hear him out. Her nature was far too inquisitive and far too duty-bound not to listen to what he had to say.
"Alright," she said at last, not sounding happy with her decision. Follow me." Beating the dirt off of her hands on the thighs of her jeans, she led him to a stall that had been converted into an office. There was a beat-up desk in one corner and hooks with bridles and shanks hanging all around. A thick layer of dust, straw, and horse-hair was settled over everything. Laura sat down on the desk and pushed a brown, ripped-up roller chair towards Dumbledore, who sank down into it gracefully.
"There are things that, when you left two years ago, I felt that you were not ready to know, that you could not know," began Dumbledore. "I still have no intention of telling you some of these things, but to tell you the things that I intend to, it is necessary for me to begin at the beginning, and you will have to bear with me while I retell parts you already know." She said nothing, but watched him quietly, waiting for him to go on.
"When you arrived at Hogwarts in your first year, you were a tough little girl in a difficult situation. Repeatedly, I was amazed at the self- confidence that you possessed, even then. I did not think that you were quite strong enough then to know the truth about the death of your parents, but I felt in a few years that you would indeed grow to be mature enough. And, in your third year, I felt you responsible enough to hear the information that the father of a fellow-classmate had killed your parents and not act unaccordingly to that student. Once again, I was impressed with your self-control. You treated Draco Malfoy no differently than you had before, which was with surprising indifference for your young age.
"When you both were appointed School Heads, I felt confident that you would handle the situation beautifully, and I hoped deeply that you would be able to impart some of that surprising wisdom you had to Mr. Malfoy. All throughout his Hogwarts career, I had been afraid for his future. Mr. Malfoy was always bright, but he had been led so far astray by his father that I feared he would never be swayed back to the side of right and good. You did more than I could ever hope, however: you began to turn Draco from a path that I had watched him tread for years with so much regret."
"I didn't –"she began, bitterly, but Dumbledore interrupted her.
"I must ask you please not to interrupt."
"I'm sorry, Professor."
"You are the kind of person that people are able to instinctively trust, and you bring out the honest side in people. I was not surprised to find that once Mr. Malfoy began to confide in you, he would begin to realize that he himself was not the person his father had shaped him to be. I was equally unsurprised to learn that he had fallen in love with you, and you with he."
She looked away quickly, eyes fixing stubbornly on a crack in the wall. Why must Dumbledore bring up such painful memories?
"I was also unsurprised that Draco did not choose to remain with you, but rather to obey his father's wishes once more."
She looked up sharply.
"At seventeen," said Dumbledore, kindly, "Draco Malfoy was neither strong enough nor mature enough to defy the father that had controlled and molded him his entire life, and you should not think less of him for it. The fact that he had such a difficult time making the decision proves the drastic change that he underwent.
"So Draco went to his father's side and you continued your training outside of school, neither as happy as I would have liked to have seen you, but surviving nonetheless. I lost track of Draco for some time. I assumed that he was still undergoing his own form of training. Meanwhile, you became a trained auror, and soon became one of my top spies for the Order. I was continually amazed at the dedication with which you threw yourself into your work. I admit, I had underestimated the potency of what I had at first considered to be a school-days romance. I soon began to recognize the signs of a broken heart, and I was again unsurprised when you came to me the day we found out of Mr. Malfoy's eighth murder for Lord Voldemort and asked to be released from service. I was surprised, but gratified when you gave your wand to me for safekeeping: it gave me hope that perhaps one day you would return.
"When you left, Voldemort had returned almost six years ago. He had remained, as I had assumed he would, quiet for the most part. He was busy gathering followers, and after the disaster he was faced with during your fifth year, he was not eager to make any mistakes. While murders were indeed occurring, Voldemort was taking very few risks. I am afraid things changed shortly after you left.
"Here is where our stories diverge. You returned to your homeland, turning your back on the magical world in an attempt to heal your heart. I tracked Mr. Malfoy diligently, as he completed murder after murder."
There was a twitch in her face and she pursed her lips tightly.
"It has now been six years since you graduated from Hogwarts," said Dumbledore, "and the Order's need for you is greater than ever. Shortly after you left, Voldemort staged his first major attack on a little muggle village just south of London. Every woman and child was taken from the town and murdered. Their husbands found their bodies on a hilltop outside of town. The Ministry spent months modifying all of their memories and cleaning up the mess so that it appeared that there had been an epidemic in the town.
"Since then, his attacks have only escalated, and our numbers have decreased. We are sorely out-numbered. As you know, the Ministry allied itself with the Order the year you left Hogwarts, but while they offer as much protection as they can, Cornelias Fudge remains so short-sighted that he will allow Ministry members few acts of any real risk. Most of the useful Ministry members are Order members, and they have to keep this double-role a secret, despite the fact that they are allies. It has become a very sticky political situation – we are united only in theory, not in practice. And so Voldemort's strength has grown. His Death Eaters are sweeping the country, killing at will. The Dementors have been turned loose to administer the kiss as they please. Muggles and wizards are dying by the handful. Not a day goes by that I do not hear of at least three casualties."
Laura winced imperceptibly. She had been watching him with wide, horrified eyes. Things had not been so bad when she had left. They had held the advantage over Voldemort, or so it had seemed. Now, it was apparent that even then he had not been weak: merely biding his time until he had enough followers. And now they had come out in real strength.
"The countryside is riddled with pockets of Dark Magic. People will touch a tree, or the side of a building, and the unlucky ones will connect with a pocket, and be killed. They are using spells that even I have never heard of. Order and Ministry members have been forced into hiding: we have secret keepers for the Ministry of Magic and Order Headquarters, and we have trenches dug all over England where members are hiding out. Everything that can be done, we are doing."
He sighed a little.
"I would not ask you to come back if it were not for the fact that I feel that this task is of utmost importance, and you can do it better than anyone."
She looked over to him.
"What is it? I mean, I'm not saying that I'll do it, but –"Her voice was hoarse.
"One of the reasons that it has been so difficult for us to combat Voldemort's Death Eaters is that we never know when they will meet, or what they will do next. We have a spy inside Voldemort's ranks, but he is a mere assassin and knows little of their plans."
"Snape?" she asked.
"No. Severus Snape was killed a year ago."
"Oh." It was all she could say. She had never cared for Snape, certainly, but she had never expected him to die. There were certain people whose ability to die seemed unreal. "Our spy has ascertained that Voldemort will be making an important move in a mere two weeks. Just how important, we do not know, but it is certain that will be substantial enough that even an assassin knows about it. We have got to know about this move, and I do not have enough men to spare to do this task and all the other things that must be done as well. I need someone with the capabilities to research this move, to find out exactly what Voldemort is planning, and plan countermeasures. I would not ask you to come back if I were not desperate."
There was a long silence and Dumbledore regarded her carefully over the brim of his half-moon spectacles, his piercing blue eyes tired and sad.
"I know this is difficult for you. But I am asking you to put your feelings aside for something greater. You have always been good at this. I ask you to show me your strength once more, and help us."
He stared at her a long time, and he could see the defeat in her brown eyes.