Marked
By: Emmalaya
A/N: For all of you who read Going Incognito, this is basically the same plot wrapped up in a different beginning. I suggest you read it, even if you read the first chapter of the first version, because I've changed several things as well as the time and setting. Reviews would be awesome!
And a special thanks to my two reviewers from the old version, Searching for Inspiration and KateMarie!
Chapter I: Among Cowards
Xoxox--Draco Malfoy--xoxoX
Run.
It was the sole thought screaming through his mind; run. Run.
And he did. He bolted across the dew strewn grounds of the castle, slipping on the wet grass, stumbling and swearing as he went. The illuminated form of Hogwarts loomed behind him like an ominous, dreadful shadow; the castle's tower shadows reached for him like giant clawed hands. The Dark Mark glimmered like a ghost overhead, the serpent head swishing back a forth, eyes glinting as if it was alive. Flashes of spells and fire echoed from inside the stone halls, each one rattling his body as if every blast struck him. But he kept running. When he glanced back, he could see the tall, dark silhouettes of Death Eaters swarming, silent as wraths, across the castle grounds and into the Great Hall. He could hear screaming. Yelling. Laughing.
And he ran harder.
His robes were filthy with mud and grass stains. His school uniform had been burned twice and the knees had holes from where he tripped. He was sure that his throat, as raw as it was, would start bleeding any minute now, flushing his dry mouth with the irony taste of his own blood. It hurt to breathe, his lungs felt like they were being ripped apart with every step he took, and his legs were like lead weights. He must keep running. Frantically, he stole another glance over his shoulder. Every single fiber in his body tingled with the ice cold fear that one of the black-cloaked demons would spot him.
He let out a ragged sigh of relief—no one. But the warmth of that relief was short-lived.
Up ahead, the Forbidden Forest stood, murky and sinister. He came to a screeching halt in the dead leaves and sucked in a fearful gasp. Beneath him, his weary legs gave out, and he collapsed there at the brink of the tree line. Nettles and briers pricked his palms, rear, and back, but he was long past caring. Mechanically, he rose again, and held his shaking body against the solid form of a tree for balance. For a while he stood there, sucking in deep, gasping breaths; his fingernails dug into the bark. As he fought to regain his breath, his mind kept reminding him that stopping meant death.
They would kill him, he was sure. Both sides now; both the 'dark' and the 'light' would love nothing more than his head served up on a silver platter.
Ruined. His life was ruined. And it was all because he failed.
He failed. Failed—failed—failed! All of his work, his hard work, had been for nothing. His dreams, his ambitions, and his wishes were nothing more than a figment of his wildest imagination, for he had failed. Fists pounded the tree mercilessly. Failed! How could he have? He had had everything under control! The cabinets, the strategy—he had even dressed Crabbe and Goyle as girls for pity's sake! Alright, maybe his tactics for poisoning the old buffoon didn't prove successful, but he was positive he could have Avada'd him! Why didn't he? What was wrong with him?
When he pulled away from the tree, he almost fell down a second time, but caught himself in time.
He couldn't dawdle.
He had to keep moving.
If he wanted to keep up his pathetic excuse of an existence, he couldn't stop now.
The darkness of the forest swallowed him whole. It was an unnatural, unnerving darkness. Even with his pallid skin, he had to squint to see his hand in front of his face. The wand in his pocket could provide him with light, but it would attract unwanted attention from both forest and non-forest dwellers.
Every now and then he could hear the hoot of a wild owl or a rustle in the leaves above. Memories and rumors of what lived in this damnable forest washed over him like a cold wave of water, sending nervous shivers down his spine. But he clenched his hands into fists and ground his teeth together. He wouldn't die here like an animal. He was a Malfoy, and hell if that meant anything to whatever foul satanic spawn lived here, it did mean something to him. He would not die in the dirt, running from the people he once considered family and friends.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
With every step he took, he winced. The noise was like thunder in the silence of the forest, but he couldn't afford to stop or slow down, he could still see that damned mark over the thickening canopy. He could feel it burning into his retreating back as if the rays of light were daggers themselves.
He carried on until his legs shook with exertion and exhaustion, and then he pushed harder. Harder, faster, anything to get his arse away. His throat felt like flaming dust; every swallow he took gagged him. No longer could he see the rim of the Hogwarts grounds through the bramble and bush, nor could he see the sky above him. Everything was black, pitch black. And still he stumbled onward, tripping into trees and holes, the horrors of the hours past still fresh in his mind—screams still echoed in his ears; the maniacal laughter and bellowed curses of the Death Eaters still rattled.
'I am a pathetic excuse for a Malfoy…'
And it was the truth.
When dawn's first rays of sunlight broke through the thick canopy, he collapsed against a dead tree still erect and standing and crawled inside the cavernous, hollow trunk. Despite the insects' buzzing, biting, stinging and otherwise complaining about the unexpected intrusion, he didn't care and couldn't if he tried. Pulling his legs to his chest, he wrapped his arms around them and buried his head in his knees.
Throughout the entire day he stayed there, huddled in a ball, falling in and out of a light sleep. But by the time the light began to fade, he knew had to get up, move, before darkness fell again.
His legs were stiff and it pained him to walk. His feet were sore, his head heavy, and everything about him was in some sort of agony.
A pattern ensued; he would fall asleep sometime near dawn and awaken just before night set, but the change was so difficult to see because the forest canopy was so thick Draco could never be sure if it was really night or day. Minutes meshed into hours, hours into days. Day after day he walked, stumbling through thickets and bramble, stream and marsh. He stopped when his legs gave out and ate whatever he could find. Now and again a curious creature would wander forth, and he would scare it away or attempt to kill it for food. His stomach was eternally empty and was his one and only talking companion.
He avoided using his wand. The magic put off by its use would alert the Wizarding World that there, indeed, was someone in the woodlands. One thing would lead to another and he would be discovered and, undoubtedly, killed.
One morning (or was it evening?) after a rainstorm, he emerged from his make-shift shelter of leaves and bracken wet and stiff. He stretched, feeling the strained knots in his back snap and crack and turned to move on when the hairs on the back of his neck snapped up. Quick as mercury, the years and years of Death Eater training kicked in and he swung around, wand drawn.
He almost dropped it.
The man before him held himself with a powerful, arrogant aura. His robes were black silk and swiped and nipped at his ankles as a soft breeze floated past, and instead of the hood hanging over his flat, snakelike features, it was patted down over his back. Gleaming, cruel eyes stared out at him with dark amusement. They were like giant, bright garnets against his pasty, greenish face. A smug smirk tugged at the man's lips, twisting and contorting his already mangled features into an expression to shake fear into his bravest enemy. He stood tall, proud, as if he were the most powerful wizard in the world.
And he had every right to be.
He was. Now.
Voldemort smirked. "Well, well, well. Draco Malfoy."
His voice, like silk in sound, made him shiver. Draco stood rooted to the spot. A numbing coldness had frozen his veins and body with terror. His jaw quivered, on the verge of dropping open. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and even his irises seemed to drain of color. All possible coherent thoughts vanished, leaving him standing there, stuttering. He was going to die today, he knew it, just by the looking at the spark of devious amusement in the Dark Lord's slitted eyes.
A fight against the Dark Lord was hopeless. Pointless. Suicide.
Draco was silent.
"One wonders what a… affluent boy such as yourself is doing in such a…precarious predicament," The almost nonexistent swish of the Dark Lord's cloak rippled ominously through his mind as the snakelike creature circled him. Once he had reclaimed his reason, he jumped to stay facing the man as he moved, stumbling twice on his unsteady legs. Why was he so damn slow? Hours of overexertion and malnourishment had finally taken its toll, he realized miserably.
Unfortunately, the Dark Lord's keen eyes had already taken that into perspective, and with a cruel, taunting grin began snaking this way and that, turning around on his heel at random times to watch the seventeen year old boy skitter and teeter. "Ah, one also wonders why he ran away after his failure to complete his Master's task. Tell me, what is your explanation, boy?"
He wanted to wince at the loose term 'boy' and the pure malevolence laced with every word, but by now the impassive mask drilled into his psyche had taken its place over his features. The shivers had been camouflaged, his back had straightened proudly, and his face was a façade of no emotion. He was silent. Voldemort grimaced, the sketchy lines of wrinkles lighting up around his flattened nose and cheeks. His nostrils flared.
"Answer me, boy."
Silence.
"I said, 'answer me'."
Still no response. The Dark Lord had stopped pacing circles, and the two looked intently at one another. Lord Voldemort waited a few more minutes for an answer, but all he got was the catcall of a mockingbird somewhere in the distance.
"Ignorant boy," He hissed, raising his wand, "if you refuse to cooperate with me I will force you to—Stupify!"
The second the Dark Lord had raised his wand, Draco immediately tensed in preparation for dodging or blocking. He dove down, raking his knees against a hard root and rolled to the side, just in time to see the lightning bolt of red sizzle out in the dirt beside him. Shit! His mind reeled as his body recoiled from the rough tumble-landing, and he bit down hard on his lip to stop a gasp of pain from his sore limbs. The Dark Lord's growl of irritation grew into another Stupify and he coiled his body like a spring and bounded forward.
This time he felt the vibrations from the spell impact bounce from his ankles and groaned inwardly.
"How long do you think you can keep this up, Draco? I can see you faltering. Such a shame, you were always so promising…But alas, I don't plan on killing you now. Maybe I'll even let you live…"
The bastard's voice cut through his mind like a knife. Idiot! Idiot! Stupid idiot! Stupid body! Move—move—move! He urged as he twisted in another direction as yet another Stupify jolted toward him. This time, the stitch in his side caught his breath and he hesitated. It was only a second, but it was enough. The spell hit him squarely in the chest and slammed him back against a tree.
His frozen body toppled forward and soon enough his nose was getting chummy with something that used to resemble a mushroom on the forest floor. He couldn't see anything; there were plants in the way. He could hear the approaching footsteps of the beast of a man he once believed to be his hero and wished he had the time to damn him repeatedly. Something hard—a foot, most likely—kicked him hard in the stomach.
The Dark Lord's voice rang like morbid bells of death somewhere above him. "All bark and no bite, I suppose. You were such a promising boy, Draco, but I suppose you didn't have the stomach to actually bite and draw blood. Shame, you're a clever one, too.
"No," The man's voice trailed off, almost wistfully, "No, I'm not going to kill you, Draco Malfoy. I have a use for you yet. You see, I can smell your cowardice. You will do anything to preserve your own life—and that is what I need. I need you to stay alive."
Then he uttered a foreign spell, and Draco's world bowed to darkness.
x-------------------------------(0)-------------------------------x
Later on, although how much later was a mystery, Draco's eyes opened slowly and he sat up groggily. What had happe—Voldemort!
His back stiffened, and he blinked furiously to clear his vision. Where was he? Where was the Dark Lord? His head whipped around violently, making it throb. His hair went this way and that, and through his silvery locks he made out this: he was still in the forest, and the Dark Lord was nowhere in sight, and nor any sign of a camp. His speculation that if the Dark Lord wished to, he could easily make a tent invisible to even Mad-Eye Moody's great, swiveling eye, but then, there was the question 'why?'.
In the aware, coherent corner of his thoughts, he doubted the Dark Lord would want to make camp in the middle of the Forbidden Forest (or wherever the hell he was by now) just for the sake of waiting for him to wake up. If anything, he would have gotten one of his minions to do it, or gotten said minion to carry his unconscious body wherever the man/snake pleased.
Realizing he was alone, he staggered to his feet and moaned, clutching his head. His knees buckled. Oh, sweet Merlin, it hurt! It felt like someone had taken a dozen knives and stuck them painstakingly into his head and then poured salt onto the open wounds. Threading through his hair, he dropped to his knees and massaged it, vainly hoping that it would quell the ache.
It didn't.
How long he sat there he wasn't sure, he could barely think with the constant throbbing. But once he could open his eyes without seeing stars and colorful dots dancing, he tried to stand again, this time slower. He tried walking; each step was like another knife, but it was bearable. And so, he staggered forward, blindly, hoping to get anywhere but to the Dark Lord. He tried hard not to think, for it sent his head off its rocker with pain and it wasn't nearly as hard as it seemed.
Before he knew it, his pace was steady and all was going—oh, wait, his feet were wet. Cold. His mind registered that he must be standing in water, moving water. A stream, or perhaps a river.
If he followed it, he would find civilization. But before he could blink to take in the stream, the ground beneath him disappeared into thin air and he was falling, falling, falling…
Cold water swirled and coiled around his body like a million serpents. The water hissed and roared in his ears and rushed up his nose and mouth. Every time his mouth opened another mouthful of water came swarming in instead of air, fogging his already dim mind. He flailed around, spashing, trying to grab something to hold onto, but all his fingers caught was water, and it slipped through his fingers like air. He kicked—he couldn't touch the bottom! He thrashed weakly with his legs and grappled with the surface break, but it was already pulling him down underneath the waves. The river, fueled by the recent rains, thundered onward, sucking Draco underneath and inside.
Now numb with cold and lack of oxygen, he tilted his head to the light of the breaking waves above him, locating the faint orb that was the sun. It was noon.
A/N: And there you have it, chapter one! Chapter two should be up sometime soon! Look for updates!
Review! Or I shall send my army of evil squirrels of DOOM to murder you in your sleep! ''
