Harry/Draco

Prologue

Voldemort is still alive, and his power is steadily rising with increasing speed. Draco Malfoy has fufilled his dues to become a true Death Eater. He has his Dark Mark, and Voldemort's respect as well. Unfortunatly for Harry, all of his allies agree that he should go into hiding with Ron and Hermione. They are in an underground place of winding tunnels and dead ends. This place is underneath where the spider Aragog used to lie. Him, and his children dug these tunnels for themselves if something wrong ever happend. Because of Aragog's death, the spiders have abandoned this santuary, and left the Forbidden Forest nearly empty. Now, they are cowering in fear underground, while Voldemort raids the upper world with Draco Malfoy by his side.

Harry

"No more Herms, I'm done practicing! I'm tired, and I highly doubt that Voldemort is going to come and find me tonight!" I cried, exhausted to Hermione.

"Harry, you have to be prepared for anything that happens! C'mon Ron, I need your help with this," she replied, egging me to continue with the binding spell I'd been working on for Merlin knows how long. "Now come on Harry! The Dark Lord isn't going to just let you stand there and think up a spell quick! He's gonna hit you with all he's got!"

I rolled my eyes. Hermione could be so annoying. We'd lived together for only a couple months, and I was already getting sick of her. Whatever, I thought that after a while, she'd except the fact that she could never become a teacher because you can't exactly teach young wizards when you are hiding from the greatest source of evil on the face on the earth. Thankfully, Ron sided with me. "Oh give it a rest Hermione," he drawled from the corner. "Harry is tired. He can't..."

"Stupify!"

A red burst of light erupted from the tip of Hermione's outstretched wand. "Merlin, I'm so sick of him," she growled at his limp body as it crashed to the ground.

I, once again, rolled my eyes. This type of thing had been going on for the past month. We'd grown sick of eachother, even in our darkest hour. "You should revive him you know, Hermione," I insisted.

She groaned and raised her wand once again. "Please Hermione?" I grovled.

She finally muttered threw clenced teeth, "Rivivio."

Ron's previously closed eyes opened with a flash as the blue light from Hermione's wand filled the space around us. As the light faded, Ron stood up, annoyed. "Hermione! Why do you always do that? I hate when you stun me 24/7!"

She grinned deviously. "Well, it bothers me a great deal when you argue with my fair judgement Ronald!"

He threw his arms up, and sat back down on the mossy rock that he was on only a few minutes ago, before Hermione stunned him. "Fine Harry," Hermione said, turning to me. "We'll take a little break. For the rest of the night, we can just sit and talk, and plan our stradigy on Voldemort."

I smiled greatfully. "Thanks Herms," I sighed, leaning back on the stone, cold cave wall behind me. "Yeah, just talk. And think. And sleep a bit."

Ron rested his head on the wall as well. "What're we gonna do you guys? Here we are, trapped in this god forsaken hole in the ground, while Voldemort is up there, terrorizing the rest of civilization, killing hundreds every day! We can't just sit here, can we?"

Hermione spoke up, "He will find us eventually Ron. It's only a matter of time until he finds our friends that have been helping us, and then he'll get the information out of them that he needs. Then he'll kill them. That's how it's been in the past, and that's how it's going to end up in the future."

My mouth dropped open. I'd never seen Hermione like this. All down, and unhappy. She'd almost never said a bad thing about the future. She was always so optimistic about things. I spoke on this issue, "Hermione, you've never said stuff like this before! Why are you so unhappy all of a sudden?"

She shrugged, "I guess it's just that, well, this is a really hard time for us, you know? With You-Know-Who up there, hunting us down. I don't know how much time we have until he finds us."

I nodded. She was right. She is always right. Go figure. I shrugged the matter off, as we began to discuss our plans.

Draco

The long corridor seemed to go on forever as I made my way to the room where The Dark Lord himself, waited for me. He had sent one of his messengers to me the night before me, saying that he was going to assign me a new mission. I guessed it was to kill someone. The thought of murder didn't bother me, it was just who I was going to kill that made the difference. About a week ago, I had killed some of my fellow students from Hogwarts. These people included Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnigan, and Percy Weasly. They all new a little too much about the Dark Lord, and I had been sent to kill them. I felt bad about killing some of them. Especially when Voldemort told me that I had to murder Blaise. My old friend that had stood by me all those years of tormenting the teachers, and pestering the 1st years. I still remember what Blaise had said, as I backed him into a corner, wand outstretched. Prepared to say the words that I had been dreading to say. "Don't do this Draco," he said, with courage in his eyes that I could never understand. "I know you better than this. You wouldn't kill me. Don't you remember when we were in Hogwarts? We were the best of friends. We promised that we would tell eachother everything. I trusted you Draco Malfoy. When you told me your darkest secret. That you were..."

"Avada Kadavera!" I muttered.

Blaise's body crashed to the ground with a sickening thud. It pained me to kill him, but if the Dark Lord wished it, then it must be done. That's just how it was, and how it is now.

I reached the tall, thick, steel doors that would open to reveal the greatest source of power that the world had ever known. I touched the brass handle that had been shaped like a snake. I gripped it tightly with my shaking fingers, and pulled the creaky door open. There, sitting in the blood-red, velvet, throne-like chair sat him. The Dark Lord, You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Voldemort. Whatever you called him, he was still the most powerful being that had ever walked the earth. "Ah, Malfoy," he said, pleased that I had arrived. "Good. I see that you got my message. I am happy to give you your next assignment. Are you prepared?"

I gulped. His presence always terrifyed me. Even the atmosphere around him was almost more powerful than the rest of the world. "As always, my lord," I replied.

I had my wand in my pocket. That was all that I needed to carry out my duties. "What is your wish, my master?" I questioned.

He grinned, his pointed teeth showing like a creature from beyond the grave. "Good, good. I am always happy to give you my most difficult plans. I know that you will always carry them out successfully. You are, by far, my most trusted follower."

Without smiling, I bowed. "Your praise is always appreciated my lord. I will be forever greatfull to you."

I was pleased with my wording. I had been working on matching up to The Dark Lord's fantastic use of words and grammar. And it seemed to be coming along, for The Dark Lord had complemented me a lot more since I had began. "Of course. And now, for your assignment," he replied, with the voice of a snake.

He stepped off of his chair, and approached me with significant posture. As he came closer to me, I could feel the power almost lubricating off of him. He spoke to me, "My sources have confermed to me the location of Harry Potter, and his band of miscreants."

I stood there, dumbfounded. "But my lord, how could you have found them? I have been trying to track them down for months! And I haven't found even a single trace of them?"

The Dark Lord laughed menicingly. "Of course you couldn't. You didn't have the correct information. But that doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is that you do as I say, and you go to them. Then kill his little friends. But leave him to me. I want you to capture him, and present him to me so that I can finish what I have been trying to do for all these years."

I bowed low, and asked, "I'll do it. Where are they?"

The Dark Lord began walking around, hands behind his back, looking at me to follow him. "In the Forbidden Forest, if you look for the place where the great spider used to reside, and go down into the hole. Tunnels of great length are what you will find, but it will not be a problem for you to find them. Now, go. And do not fail me."

I bowed once again, and turned on my heel to leave. As I left Voldemort's room, I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret from aquiring this task. I couldn't understand how hard it was for me to accept the fact that I was going to have to kill Ron Weasly and Hermione Granger. It didn't seem stranger than all the other killings, but for some akward reason, I didn't want to do it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I didn't want to harm Harry or his friends. But especially Harry.