Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter nor anything affiliated with it; if you recognize it, it isn't mine.

Rating: M (language) (adult themes)

WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH in this chapter, depictions of alcoholism, imagery that some may find disturbing.

Spoilers: I might refer to content from the books; be forewarned.

Author's Note: This is a very dark fic. I am serious about the warnings, people! If you think this fic is not for you, then by all means skip it, but if you choose to read please do not flame. And feel free to enjoy it if it's up your alley!


In the Face of Death

Chapter 1: Ashes

Draco Malfoy glared at the line of Ministry workers waiting to flush themselves in through the toilets at the employee entrance, smirking in satisfaction as they parted before him. There were some perks to being an Unspeakable, after all, and one of them was that people didn't often risk standing in his way. If he happened to be running twenty minutes late, say, as the result of a hangover after a weekend bender, he could shave off anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes by cutting in line, and no one was likely to begrudge him the additional five or ten when he made it to his office.

That was not to say he was a particularly high-ranking Unspeakable; he certainly wasn't involved in any of the highly secretive business that went on down in the Department of Mysteries, and never would be. They didn't allow former Death Eaters near any such thing. No, his office was part of the Auror department, and he was attached to the Auror division. His status as an Unspeakable was granted as a result of the type of security clearance needed for his particular type of work, an assignment as an IIA - an Internal Investigations Auror. It also prevented the head of the Auror department from being able to give orders to him, thereby causing a potential conflict of interests. His job was to police the Aurors themselves, and he was good at it, although it usually didn't amount to much more than background checks or sorting out whether an Auror was taking advantage of his or her position to get away with anything from fines over improper handling of magical transportation to performing inappropriate hexes on a spouse. Which essentially none of the Aurors currently in house would even think of doing; bunch of fucking Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, most of them.

Work was slow, these days. Potter ran a tight ship, much as Malfoy hated to admit it, and the bulk of his days were spent running background checks on new Ministry employees. He further hated to admit that the level of trust required to even consider him for this job was practically a gift in light of his history, a gift granted him by Harry Potter, no less, and that he would in all likelihood never do better. He was eternally aware of the glass ceiling caused by his past that would forever prevent his advancement to any position of consequence. It could be worse though. At least he had a job that allowed him to make use of his secretive tendencies and natural cunning. It had been made repeatedly and abundantly clear on multiple occasions after the war that the majority of people believed he was less than deserving of a job cleaning up puffskein excrement at a third-rate pet shop where the puffskeins were entirely feral and fond of biting.

Nonetheless, he was thorough in his work, and he set a high standard, and while absolutely none of the Aurors liked him both because it was his job to investigate them if it came to that and because he was once a Death Eater, albeit still virtually a child at the time, he didn't particularly feel that he needed to be liked in order to do his job.

He did, however, need to be respected, and for that reason, when his wife left him only a handful of months ago upon realizing he would never achieve real power, the fact that the divorce had been quietly and hastily finalized in a way that left him with very little of the very little that remained once the Ministry had seized his family's assets was a fact known to few. Astoria's secrecy in the matter was a part of the settlement, so while she had walked away with the remains of the Malfoy fortune, leaving him with a modest row home that had not so much as a single house elf, and a vault at Gringott's the contents of which after paying various people off to keep their mouths shut ensured he would have to work for the rest of his life, and work very hard indeed, at least the papers knew nothing of it. As far as they knew, the couple had parted ways amicably after citing irreconcilable differences and that had ended the matter. After all, when no one would talk, there was nothing to write.

And if, on some nights, the prospect of being alone became so unbearable that he drank until the next thing he knew the weekend had gone, he had three days' worth of stubble on his face, was laying in his own vomit, and was looking at being just a bit late to work yet again, well, the papers didn't need to know that either.

So it was that Draco Malfoy, with a searing headache and a cottony dry feeling in his bad-tasting mouth, but at least cleansed of vomit and stubble, stepped into the toilet, flushed it, and popped out from a fireplace in the Ministry Atrium a moment later. People scurried away from his ill-tempered glare here, as well, allowing him to catch the next lift. Aurors of his class were occasionally tapped to run investigations within the larger framework of the Ministry itself, after all. His momentary pleasure at this was wiped away completely when none other than Harry Potter boarded the lift with him.

"You're late," the dark-haired head of the Auror department chastised him.

"Only by ten minutes, Potter," Malfoy snapped. "Besides, I don't report to you. Not your fuckin' business."

Harry's mouth twitched up slightly at the corner, not the reaction Malfoy had expected.

"I was waiting."

"We didn't have a meeting scheduled this morning," Malfoy replied, his brow furrowing in confusion, an unasked question buried in his statement.

"Mind coming round for dinner tonight?" Harry asked. "Ginny would enjoy seeing you again."

"Your wife would enjoy nothing of the sort, and you know it," Malfoy growled, casting Harry a sidewise glare as a thought occurred to him. "If you're trying to stage some kind of intervention..."

"Why, do you need one?" Harry asked with a thoughtful glance and a half-smile.

"I absolutely don't," Malfoy snapped. "And again, not your fuckin' business. Now, why don't you get to the point?"

"This is off the record… for now," Harry said at last. "I've been working on a case that might be getting transferred to you sometime in the near future. I don't want to get into too many details here. So, dinner?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes and growled his assent. Going to dinner at Potter's home was, in truth, the last thing he wanted to do next to what he'd heard of Muggle dentistry, but he hardly had a choice if Potter was going to pull this the-walls-have-ears shit. The head of the Aurors, The Chosen One, The Boy Who Bloody Lived, was not someone whom he could afford to alienate, especially given that the insufferable prick had gotten him his job. Plainly, simply, he both owed Potter, and needed him, bugger it all.

"Good enough. Here are the details," Harry stated cheerily as he slipped Malfoy a folded note, stepping from the lift and hurrying ahead to the Aurors' offices.

Malfoy stuffed the note in his pocket without reading it, made his way to his own office, and settled at his desk. He didn't give a second thought to the little piece of paper as he pulled the first file out of a stack of new cases that were undoubtedly complete shit: a complaint that a lower-level Obliviator had taken advantage of his position to rob a neighbor of her memories regarding a hexed pet chicken. Clearly, as the woman remembered enough to make the complaint, the man either wasn't a very good Obliviator or hadn't done it to begin with. Malfoy was inclined to believe the latter, but that still left the matter of the chicken…

And so the day passed in miserable fucking ignominy, but at least he was paid enough for his shame that he could buy copious amounts of liquor if needed. And it was always needed.

Looking at the clock, he cursed as he realized he ought to have left work an hour and a half earlier, and then he remembered the note. He fished it from his pocket, half hoping that he'd missed the dinner, but luck wasn't with him. Dinner was slated for seven-thirty, and if he hurried he would just make the seven o'clock Portkey to Godric's Hollow as the note advised, with directions to an Apparition point near their home outside of town noted afterward.

Malfoy frowned as he scanned further down the note. There was a hastily scrawled postscript that hadn't been immediately evident as it was under the last fold of the note.

There may be a leak in the Department. Don't know who to trust. Tell no one of our plans.

Bloody hell, if that was Potter's idea of discretion… Malfoy read the note again. Not only was Potter's missive worded in a way that all but spelled out the situation to anyone Potter couldn't trust, it simultaneously managed to tell Malfoy absolutely nothing. Well, the bit about a leak in the Auror Office was fairly clear, but what exactly that meant in terms of outside involvement could not have been murkier. The leak, if indeed there was one, could be reporting to anyone from the press to Slytherin's ghost, for all Malfoy knew.

What was plain, yet all the more mysterious, was the fact that while Potter apparently couldn't decide who to trust in his own office, he'd apparently decided to play spin-the-wand and had somehow managed to land on Malfoy. Malfoy was not a person people trusted with much of anything, both by his personal nature and that of his job. Moreover, he was used to not being trusted. Indeed, if asked, anyone but this supposed leak (if there was one) would probably peg him for it, and the leak would pin it on him anyway. That Potter would choose him of all people had to have more to do with his position than anything, Malfoy decided. It was only for professional reasons that Harry Potter could have chosen to trust him. Or perhaps it was because he might as well have owed Potter his fucking soul.

Nonetheless, Malfoy found that his steps were hurried as he rushed to meet the Portkey, joining a small clutch of wizard-folk who were gathered around a ratty, moth-eaten sweater and casting furtive glances about as they waited for departure. No more than a minute after he'd grabbed hold, the familiar sensation of being tugged by the gut gripped him, and moments later, he was making an ungainly landing in the village of Godric's Hollow. While he'd long since gotten past the point where a Portkey would dump him unceremoniously on the ground, he had yet to fully master the grace with which some wizards descended. Or perhaps it was the lingering hangover that was to blame.

Malfoy glanced around as the other arriving witches and wizards headed for their respective destinations before reaching into his pocket and once again withdrawing the note. He read through the directions again.

"He can't possibly expect me to Apparate somewhere I've never been," he grumbled as he looked over the looping scrawl on the parchment.

More likely, Harry had intended Malfoy to walk there, taking note of the apparition point on the way for ease of use in the future. Nonetheless, it was possible - if he focused very hard on wanting to be at the apparition point near the Potter home, he should be able to make it happen. It was risky, however, as it is very difficult to concentrate on being somewhere one has never been. He had nearly resigned himself to walking when the urgent postscript caught his eye yet again.

"Fuck it," he huffed, concentrating on his desire to apparate to Harry's home.

The familiar sensations of compression and tearing away from reality gripped him momentarily, and hardly a second later he was unceremoniously spit out at the other end. He stumbled slightly, for apparition under less than ideal circumstances generally went a bit rougher, but he was nonetheless trained as an Auror and had managed the action without splinching himself.

When he glanced up from his self-inspection, however, his heart caught in his throat. He was only a short walk from a quaint country cottage that he assumed was Harry Potter's home, seeing as it was smack in the right place, yet it was immediately apparent that something was horribly wrong. Windows all over the structure were shattered, sitting empty of glass, and there were scorch marks and small fires burning all over the place. The front door was blasted off its hinges and lay smoldering in the front yard, and there was not a light to be seen within.

Those observations were the result of training, and were made with little thought, for they were secondary to the first thing he'd noticed, which had seemed to still his heart in his chest.

There, above the battered, burning house, the Dark Mark hung in the night sky.

The attack had been recent, Malfoy could tell that much. The fires burning were spreading rather than dying down, for one thing. No one had yet reported a sighting of the Dark Mark, for another; there would have been chaos at the Ministry had that been the case. No, the persons responsible had most likely attacked just after dusk, after lying in wait for their probable target to arrive home, and that meant some very fucking bad things indeed.

Potter would have been home for the attack.

Malfoy had probably missed the attackers by a matter of minutes.

If, in fact, he had missed them.

These unfortunate thoughts plowed through Malfoy's head in rapid succession, and with the last he dashed from the road where he'd stood and took cover behind some bushes. He'd do no one any good getting his bloody arse cursed off by standing about in the open.

He had to contact the Ministry.

Firing off a Patronus here, in the dark, with unknown assailants possibly still lurking nearby was not a smart move, but it was the appropriate one. It would summon aid the fastest. Malfoy drew his wand and uttered the incantation as discreetly as he could, no easy feat considering the difficulty of the magic and his increasingly negative state of mind. The harshly whispered incantation came out sounding almost like a violent sneeze as he held onto the happy thought that at least there were no dementors present. At least, he didn't think there were…

The silvery wisp that erupted from his wand coalesced into the shape of a dragon, albeit a small one; it was hardly bigger than a large dog. He gave it the message he needed delivered, turning to observe the house as it departed as a speeding ball of light.

xxxxx

Neville Longbottom manned the Auror Office, having drawn night desk duty during this scheduling rotation. As a higher ranking Auror he had the right to abstain from the night desk draw, but he had good-Gryffindor-naturedly refused to do so, even if it meant cancelling a date. He felt it would be unfair to use his privilege of rank in such a way, and besides, he didn't mind desk duty. Most of the Floo calls that came in only needed to be sorted for action in the morning, and those that didn't typically only involved waking the necessary people, and were rare at that.

He nearly fell from his chair when the Patronus formed before him. He knew whose it was immediately, even before it began to speak; the Aurors all knew each others' Patronus forms so they could be recognized in case of emergency, and a dragon was an extremely uncommon form for one to take. This one, Neville recognized as a Hebridean Black despite the whispish milky color of the Patronus itself. Then it spoke in Malfoy's voice, and its words were the stuff of nightmares.

"Dark Mark sighted over Potter residence. Auror Malfoy on site, entering residence alone. Requesting backup. Wands out."

It repeated its message again before it vanished, as it had no doubt been instructed, or perhaps Malfoy had simply said everything twice before he dispatched it. In any case, by the time it was gone, Neville already had his fist in the Floo pot. It was time to wake the other Aurors… and the Minister. Bloody hell, it was time to wake everybody.

xxxxx

He'd have to go in, he realized. Harry Potter had been home. That Harry Potter was not in sight, possibly attempting to disarm anything that moved, told Malfoy that one of three possibilities was in play: Potter was either inside and injured, gone by his own will or someone else's… or he was dead.

Malfoy found that he was distinctly dreading that last possibility. Harry Potter was the hero of the wizarding world, and not for nothing. Though he had never rallied to Potter's cause, had in fact hated him in school, and didn't much like him even now, the fact was that Potter was something of a linchpin in the structure of the post-war rebuilding of just about everything. He was a crucial part a society that Malfoy, for want of a better term, loved, and Malfoy did not enjoy entertaining the notion of the kind of upset that would be wrought with his loss.

Breaking from cover, he dashed across the road and sought cover there, creeping almost silently toward the house. He was ever-mindful of the possibility of stumbling upon someone sneaking stealthily just as he was, but he encountered no one.

He held his wand aloft as he entered, pointing it forward rather than upright, ready for an attack that did not come. The darkened structure was lit on the bottom level only by the faintest glow from the fires burning above. As Malfoy stepped forward, his foot collided with something that seemed soft, yet heavy and unyielding. Fighting back a sick sensation that arose within him, he whispered, "Lumos."

The illumination from his wand cast the still features of Harry Potter into sharp relief, his eyes wide and staring in death.

Malfoy swallowed roughly, a curse escaping his lips as he steadied his wand hand. There was nothing he could do for Potter now… but Potter had a family, didn't he? Yes, he'd spoken of the wife that morning; Ginny. He was married to the youngest Weasley and had a small son, or so Malfoy seemed to recall.

He stepped over Harry, feeling like hell as he did, but the body was blocking the doorway. Probably, Malfoy thought, he'd caught it when they'd blasted the door open, and never even knew what hit him. Possibly, he'd even thought it was Malfoy arriving early when he'd gone to the door in the first place, a notion that filled the blond man with a cold bitterness that reached his very core.

Too many people had already died because of him.

Pushing the thought away, he focused on his surroundings. He swept through the ground floor systematically, but found no one until he went upstairs.

Parts of the roof were blown away, or burning, and the air was veiled with smoke, though in that respect the holes in the roof were actually helping. Malfoy held part of his coat over his nose and mouth as he moved forward, checking what looked to be the nursery first. What mother wouldn't go there first?

This door, too, was blasted from its hinges, and he was reminded eerily of the stories he'd heard about the night Voldemort was defeated the first time. Of course, those stories varied widely; Malfoy doubted that very many people beyond those closest to Potter knew the true version of the tale, and Malfoy was certainly not amongst those trusted few. If the consistent points of what he'd heard held true, however, there would be a dead mother and an orphaned child waiting for him.

And there she was on the floor, her red hair spread out around her head like a bloodied halo, and oh yes, there was blood, shining in the light of his wand. It was the red hair that did it; he was swamped by memories of her at Hogwarts so many years ago, of those occasions when he had encountered her, most of which had ended in him receiving a hex from her wand. He felt suddenly as though he could not breathe, though he couldn't say why, although no matter how much he tried to blame it on the smoke he knew that wasn't it. No, it was her; something about seeing her lying there, still as the grave, made his heart feel as though it, too, had died.

Just as he had regained his senses enough to realize that he saw no child anywhere, alive or dead, Ginny gave a great wracking cough that startled him so badly he jumped, and actually screamed very abruptly. It was one thing to rely on one's Auror training to muster the courage required to enter a house with the Dark Mark over it, but there was no training in the Auror curriculum that kept one from being thrown when someone who seemed dead turned out not to be.

A second cough brought his focus back to him. She was alive, but judging from the blood each cough had brought up, she wouldn't stay that way for long. He wouldn't be able to wait for backup to arrive; she would need to be side-along apparated to St. Mungo's immediately if there was to be any chance of saving her. Fortunately, Auror training did cover side-along apparition of the critically injured. As he knelt beside her and began to gather her to him as carefully as he could manage, one word slipped from her lips as hardly more than another shallow breath.

"James…"

Malfoy's brow furrowed but only for an instant as he realized James must be the son he'd vaguely recalled earlier. Her hand was extended unmoving along the floor, reaching almost under the crib, and on impulse he looked underneath. The point of his wand illuminated a small boy, hardly more than an infant and not quite fully a toddler. The boy was painfully still and for a heartbreaking moment, he thought the child, too, might be dead… but then he saw the boy's sides move with breath.

He reached under the crib, pulling the boy out as gently as possible, which was far less gently than he felt was appropriate, but one could only be so picky given the circumstances. A cursory glance led him to believe the child had been Stunned, albeit very lightly - he doubted a child so small would have survived a Stunner at full strength. That was odd, for who would cast a stunning spell at only partial strength…?

His mother, Malfoy realized as he spotted a wand on the floor. Ginny Weasley - no, Ginny Potter - had Stunned her own son and hidden him. By the look of things, she'd managed it only just in time.

There was no question that they needed medical attention immediately. He cast his Patronus again, leaving it behind with a message for whomever would next arrive on scene – Longbottom, most likely, as the prat had taken night desk duty. Gathering both mother and child in a firm hold, Malfoy disapparated with them as the first mistings of Aguamenti charms began to rain on the burning house from the wands of other Aurors arriving too late.


A/N: That's the first chapter; sad, I know. But if you liked it, please review and let me know! Again, no flames, please; if you choose not to continue reading, that is okay by me.