Disclaimer: I own neither the concept nor the characters of Harry Potter or Highlander, and am writing this purely for my own entertainment and, hopefully, that of others. No money has or will be made from this story.
Timeline: This story begins immediately following Chapter Twenty-Eight of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, approximately two months following the events of Highlander: The Raven, and about a year and a half following the end of Highlander: The Series. I am ignoring Endgame completely for the moment.
Author's Notes: This is the first story I have submitted, so I may not have all the bugs worked out yet. If this looks like gibberish, I will attempt to correct it. I have written the first few chapters of this, but it is far from finished, and I make no promises as to how quickly it may be completed. The rating of this story may change as it progesses. Reviews are welcomed, but have no bearing on whether or not I will continue or complete this story. Or maybe they will, I guess I can't really say for sure yet, but I intend to write and post so long as I am enjoying the story, no matter what sort of reviews I get, if any. Right, then. Wish me luck!
The Half-Blood Prince and Death
Draco Malfoy was confused. Confused, and not a little nervous about where he and his reluctant mentor, Severus Snape, were headed. This was supposed to have been his big day, the day he showed the old fool Dumbledore how badly he'd underestimated Draco, the day he let his fellow Death Eaters into Hogwarts and set into motion the eventual downfall of the Dark Lord's enemies.
It hadn't exactly worked as planned, however. Oh, certainly, his plan to get Death Eaters into the supposedly impregnable school went off without a hitch, once he'd figured out how to fix the vanishing cabinet, at any rate, but nothing else had gone according to plan. Once in the school, the Death Eaters hadn't listened to him at all, treating him as nothing more than a child. And somehow, the old fool's Order had been alerted to their presence and been able to respond with an equal number of forces before any serious damage had been done.
Draco had thought that, with Dumbledore away from the school, Hogwarts would be vulnerable to an attack. He had found that, contrary to his beliefs, his fellow students and their professors were more than capable of holding their own against the Death Eaters. Not for the first time, he wondered how many times his father and his cronies had forced the issue with Potter and his friends, and cursed their impatience. Those had not been serious attempts to kill his school rival, he knew that, merely to weaken his resolve, but if anything, they seemed to have strengthened Potter and his friends, giving them not only a sense of camaraderie that was missing from Draco and his friends, such as they were, but also affording them the opportunity to test their skills against adult Death Eaters in battle...and come out on top, more often than not. Draco had always attributed this to luck, and to Dumbledore's assistance, but now, seeing the younger two Weasleys and the Granger girl, not to mention Longbottom, fighting against seasoned Death Eaters Draco knew personally who were neither careless nor weak, and not only holding their own but winning, he was forced to reconsider.
By the time the Order of the Phoenix had arrived in force, the Death Eaters had scattered, hoping to accomplish individually what they couldn't en masse. Draco had passed numerous clumps of them on his way to the tower, noting uneasily that for all their vaunted skills, the only fallen wizards he had seen were Death Eaters. It looked as if his attack was failing, filling the youngest Malfoy with a burning rage. How dare they fail! Hadn't he risked everything to let them in, hadn't he practically handed them Hogwarts on a silver platter, without even the Headmaster to stand in their way! And now, now they fall to a bunch of half-trained students and schoolteachers!
By the time he had reached Dumbledore at the tower, Draco's rage was warring with indecision. Much as he hated to admit it, the old coot's words were getting to him, and he found, standing before the disarmed wizard, wand poised to Avada Kedavra him, that he really didn't want to kill Dumbledore after all. He was actually considering letting the old wizard go, but then there were other Death Eaters in the room, and they were readying to attack, and Draco knew if he didn't act, they would, and then they would probably turn on him, not being what he would call sane at the best of times. And then Snape was there, and Dumbledore was gone, and Potter was suddenly in the middle of things, and Draco realized that Potter must have been there for his entire conversation with Dumbledore, must have heard it all, and he had only a minute to regret that before Snape was pulling him along, countering the angry Potter's spells with ease, and Snape had killed Dumbledore, but why? Not for Draco, Unbreakable Oath or not, and not because he thought it would bring him an increase in power in the ranks of the Death Eaters - he was already one of Voldemort's most trusted - and certainly not because it would help him maintain his cover at Hogwarts.
Of all the Death Eaters Draco had witnessed in action that night, only Snape managed to impress him. No other was as ruthless, intelligent, or decisive. Where some stopped to play, Snape merely brushed others aside, hexing and dodging with a skill even Draco's father couldn't match, pulling Draco along behind him, even managing to continue to taunt Potter, yet, curiously, protecting the Boy-Who-Lived as well, for the Dark Lord, or so he had said.
It was only now, as the two continued their flight through the darkness, decidedly not heading for the Dark Lord, that Draco began to question his apparent protector's motives. Could the former Headmaster have been right about Snape all along? Was he only playing the part of loyal Death Eater? Was that why he had protected Potter, why he hadn't stopped to kill any of those he came up against, why he was so angry about the whole situation? But if so, why, then, had he killed Dumbledore at all? There was no mistaking that he had done it, nor that he had meant to, despite the old man's plea for mercy. Mercy. Draco snorted silently. If anything, it had only goaded Snape into a deeper fury. And now, here he was, on the run with a man he wasn't sure he trusted, wasn't sure looked favorably upon him, and yet who was, ironically, the only man he could trust to keep him alive.
"Where are we going?" he dared ask at last, breaking the silence that had lain between the two since their escape from Hogwarts. "Shouldn't we be returning to the Dark Lord?"
"And what, precisely, do you expect him to do once we arrive, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape sneered. "Reward us with a ticker tape parade?"
Draco frowned. Snape's tone of voice indicated that the Dark Lord would not be pleased with the two of them. "But we killed Dumbledore," he said in confusion. "We did what he wanted."
Snape stopped dead, and sighed in frustration. "Mr. Malfoy. I understand that you are young, but surely even one such as yourself is capable of seeing what an unmitigated disaster this night was. Not only did we fail to capture Hogwarts, but we failed to eliminate any of Dumbledore's forces, instead losing a good portion of our own. Furthermore, I was forced to sacrifice both my cover as Dumbledore's spy and my position at the school in order toretrieve you from your mess!"
"You didn't have to!" Draco yelled, finally giving in to the fury that was still contained inside him. "I was about to do it myself! And even if I hadn't, one of the others would have."
"And if they had?" Snape asked, his voice lethally soft and silky. "What do you suppose they would have done to you then? Congratulated you on a job well done? No, they would have turned on you, like a pack of rabid wolves, sensing weakness and acting to eliminate it. Were you serious about killing Dumbledore, the deed would have been done long before I arrived on scene. The only reason I made my way to the tower was to get you clear. Dumbledore was nothing more than an inconvenience. I killed him, yes, but not because it suited my purposes - no, I did it because you could not and I was left with no other choice but to do it myself. While the Dark Lord may, indeed, be pleased Dumbledore is dead, he will not be pleased that you were unable to do it yourself, nor will he appreciate that he was defeated, yet again, by the Order, and he most especially will not care for the fact that I have lost whatever trust and good will I had managed to accumulate there. No, if we dare go to the Dark Lord, he will torture us at best. At worst, he will order your death and keep me by his side, as he does Pettigrew and Bellatrix - a pawn too dangerous to be trusted, yet too useful to be discarded.
"Now, come. We have but a little further to go." With that, Snape resumed their trek, his anger evident in his every movement.
Draco followed Snape in silence once more, thinking over the words of his so-called mentor. It was nothing more than what he had told himself, although he had not stopped to consider Snape's position in all this. Now that he had, he was able to see that the Dark Lord would not, in fact, be happy to have lost his spy in Dumbledore's camp. And yet, had Snape not acted when he did, Draco had no doubt but that Dumbledore would have died anyway, nor that he, and most likely Potter as well, would have been next. Snape had, for whatever reason, managed to get both Draco and himself, along with Potter, out of a dangerous situation with considerable ease. But he had had to pay by sacrificing his cover, his position, and by killing the one man Draco suspected truly would have helped him, had he only trusted him to do so. But he hadn't, and now Draco was forced to live with the consequences of that decision.
A wraith-like figure emerged from the darkness ahead of them, and Draco blinked in shock as he recognized his mother, beaten and bloodied, stumbling toward them. "Severus," she called out weakly as she recognized him. "Is Draco--"
"I'm here, mother," Draco responded, rushing to embrace her, wincing in sympathy with her injuries. "What happened to you?"
"The Dark Lord has heard of your failure at Hogwarts," she told them, pulling back to look at Draco with pity. "He took his displeasure out on me, then allowed me to go. I am to bring the two of you to him at once. You, Severus, are to be protected, while Draco is to be punished. I do not believe he seeks Draco's death, for the moment."
Draco felt he was missing something as Snape and his mother exchanged looks. "Protected," Snape repeated sarcastically. "Imprisoned, more like."
"You have replaced Bellatrix as his most trusted," his mother said, looking as if this was not something to value.
"Then she will be out for my blood as well, not that she wasn't before," Snape responded. "And the Dark Lord's favor is fickle, as we all know. I am valuable to him now, but how long before he decides to sacrifice me in an attempt to gain more power, as he did Lucius?"
"He will never allow you to leave him should you return, Severus," Draco's mother stated with dismal certainty. "He believes you to have more power than you have shown in the past, power you yourself may be unaware of. The reports of your flight from the school, as well as the death of Dumbledore, were impressive. He has said he wishes to adopt you as his heir, to instill in you the same sort of power he himself holds."
Draco had not thought it possible for Snape to pale further, but it happened as he watched, still confused as to what was going on. "And Draco?" Snape asked at last.
Narcissa looked sorrowful. "I suspect he already plans Draco's eventual fall, although he will try to make more use of him before then."
"Would the two of you cease your riddles!" Draco exploded, frustrated with being left out of the conversation. "If the Dark Lord commands our presence, should we not make our way back to him?"
"Draco, darling, there isn't time to tell you properly, but the Dark Lord...is not quite as you have always believed him to be. Should you go to him, you will be going to your death, and I cannot let that happen. Severus will protect you as best he can, while I return to admit failure to our lord. I will die, but you may yet live," Narcissa explained gently. "I have already lost a husband to this madness, I will not lose a son as well." With that, she kissed his cheek and disapparated, leaving the two men alone once more.
"Well, come then," Snape barked, after he and Draco had stood in silence for some minutes. "We are no longer safe here, and I do not wish to encounter any more of the Dark Lord's messengers until we have a more secure position." He produced his wand, pointing it at a fallen branch nearby, and muttered an incantation under his breath, ending with portus. A portkey, then, but to where, Draco didn't know. Left with no other choice, he grasped the branch with one hand, his wand in the other, as Snape activated the key, and then, with the familiar pulling at his navel, they were gone.