I decided to try my luck at a rather dramatic fic =) (Can I get a "Whoop, Whoop?" lol) I hope you guys like it.
Review and tell me what you think, I'm new at the drama department so what you guys have to say counts!
Chapter 1: The Free Man and the Puppet
The mood of Diagon Alley was full of animosity and fear. Ever since the war had started, everyone has gone into hiding, including, by the look of things, the sun. It was as if it were scared that the sheer darkness of the Dark Lord would envelope it in blackness and destroy it.
"Draco." Lucius Malfoy clipped out testily to his son who was lagging behind, as they made their way towards a dark alley, their dark coats swishing in the wind. "Do try to keep up." He said quietly, his eyes shifting uneasily. He scanned the dirty alley like the trained fighter he was. After the incident he pulled, he was more a coward than a fighter. At least the Aurors had a fighting chance, he however, did not.
Dark and damp, was the perfect description for the dingy dump they were in. The cobblestone ground was littered with rusty tin cans, blobs of stinky dark liquid, that Lucius didn't even want to identify, were found everywhere. It's walls that had peeling posters dating back from the previous war , had cracks the size of a giant's fist and was beginning to stem newer cracks , spreading out like individual spider webs along the pristine slab of concrete. This was not a place for a highly esteemed man and his son to be in. It was perfect.
Lucius barked a couple of profanities at his son and motioned him to follow him. "We are not in the position to keep the dark lord waiting." He growled.
The young man looked up at his father, his lips curled into a snarl. "And whose fault is that, Father?" he grit out with clenched teeth, his gray eyes flaring as it met his father's equally hostile ones. Lucius was taken aback.
With an animalistic growl he shoved his son against the wall, his face inches from his son's cold one. "I did it to SAVE YOU." He snarled clutching his son's black coat tightly. Draco's eyes flashed. "We have a bounty on our heads, father." He spat out with as much acid as he could muster up. "You've sealed our deaths!" shoving his father aside harshly Draco looked at the man before him, contempt clear on his pale face. "I am not going back."
A wide-eyed Lucius staggered back from the force his son used. "You HAVE to." He said desperately. "He'll kill you, Draco."
The youngest of the Malfoys sneered. "If he wants me that bad, he won't" He was kidding himself and he knew it. The Dark Lord waits for no one and an act of this kind from him wouldn't last long. It was only a matter of time before his time ran out.
He swallowed hardly, he was scared beyond anything. But this was his father's fault. He shouldn't be paying the price. "It's you, that should be worried, father." Draco sneered, propping his leg up the sad excuse of wall. "After that stunt you pulled, I'm surprised you're out and about."
Lucius let his eyes drop to the ground. "You must understand, Draco. What I did, I did for you and your mother."
"Mother is DEAD, father. Killed while doing the groceries." Tears welled in Draco eyes, but he bit them back. He would not cry, not in front of the man who had forsaken his family. "Nacrissa Malfoy, wife of a once esteemed deatheater, KILLED WHILE DOING THE BLOODY GROCERIES!" he kicked a nearby crate, wishing it was his father's head. "Don't say it wasn't your fault, Father because it was very much so."
The dark atmosphere of the alley grew darker and colder.
Draco's poison laced words hung in the air, stinging his father. A long silence followed as father and son stared at each other, both not knowing what else to say. Lucius, the head of the once renowned Malfoy family, now a wizard forced into hiding by his own selfish doing, looked at the boy—no, the man in front of him. Draco has come a long way from the snivelling brat he once was. The war has done him some good, teaching the boy independence and enhancing his skills. The younger Malfoy had also developed a better sense of perspective than the older man did. He knew that this offer was a double edged sword.
"You…" Draco whispered, diverting his eyes from his father's guilt-filled ones to the narrow pathway that opened out into the once-busy street a few feet ahead of them. "You didn't do it to save us." He said a bit more strongly as he snapped his head to the left to meet his father's anxious stare. "You did it because you didn't want to be on the losing end. But guess what father, he didn't lose and is as powerful as ever. And instead of being a part of his ranks, we are now a part of his hit list. Not only that, I am now being handled like a puppet." He grit his teeth. "A bloody puppet!"
"I know it is wrong to press on about this topic, you've declined this about a dozen times within the month the offer was made." Said the man with long hair. He looked at his son, who was staring back at him with a look of wariness on his fine features. Heaving a sigh, he pressed on. "But I urge you to consider it, once more." He pleaded. "Your time is limited, and you know that. There will be a time wherein you will have to choose, Draco. And I have the highest hopes, that you'll choose the right thing."
Draco's lips formed a thin line. "I will consider it." Came his curt reply. "I will seek you out if ever I do decide to take the offer."
This was progress. At least he has gotten him to consider it instead of declining at the mere mention of it. Lucius smiled, it was a rarity. Much so, that it caught his son off-guard. "I know you're prolonging your decision, Draco." He moved closer and put a thin hand on his son's tense shoulder. "But nothing you say will change my fate. He will kill me once I am no longer useful. I'm only needed to get to you, once he has you. I will die." The older man gave his head a shake. "You can't keep me alive."
Yes, yes he can the young man thought. But to keep his father alive, he'd have to take the offer quick. , Draco snapped his eyes shut. But if he did take the offer, he'd lose the only thing that seemed to bring back his humanity.
The tears stung and were getting harder and harder to suppress. "I can't..I— I lose her if I do. "Salty tears were threatening to fall now, how could he choose between the woman he was starting to care about and his father's life. But Draco knew he was going to lose more than that. He just had to make himself believe that it wasn't that bad.
It was stupid bringing up the topic of a girl, how could he think about a girl right now? A man's lack of a love life did not matter when his actual life is threatened. It simply was not logical.
Lucius' eyes hardened, his jaw becoming set. "I die either way, Draco. It is inevitable" He turned hotly on his heels and stormed deeper into the narrow alley stopping only to tell his son one more thing. "My fate may be sealed, but yours isn't, he wants you alive. And if you take this offer, he WILL protect you. Don't waste this stroke of luck on a little mudblood."
What luck? This offer has not brought him luck, it has brought nothing, but suffering. The young Malfoy heir was confused, angry and frustrated. Damn this war.
Draco had remained standing in silent fury even until his father had left, balling his hands into fists in anger, the young man pushed himself off the wall and into the deserted main path of Diagon Alley.
He strode away from the dump he was in earlier with quick long steps. He had only gotten so far when a high pitched scream echoed throughout the vicinity followed after by a maniacal cackle, bouncing off the stone floor and walls, making the little hairs on Draco's neck stand.
His aunt Bellatrix has just arrived.
Scared to death, he sprinted forward frantically, nearly tripping on his own two feet. Breathing heavily, he looked for a place to hide. The Dark Lord may still want him alive, but he could have already changed his mind and was now after him and his father. Sweat began to cover his forehead at the thought. Has his time really run out?
Skidding into a halt and avoiding a nearby barrel, he threw himself into a small dark path that led to a dead end. His ears picked up a sweeping spell being muttered and knew that this was it.
"Come out, nephew." Bellatrix Lestrange screeched, her thin lips pulling back into an evil grin, her sharp incisors glinting even with the absence of the sun. "I can't kill you. Unfortunately, I just come with a message."
No response.
Nacrissa's sister shrugged her skinny but able shoulder. "I can feeeeel you, Draco." She said, walking agonizingly slow, each step echoing throughout the wizarding market.
Draco dreaded his Aunt's voice. Her voice reminded him of death, it was a fitting adjective for when she arrives, she always brings death. ALWAYS. Opening his mouth, shakily, he was about to speak when a crash was heard.
"I found him, Lestrange." A masked deatheater claimed, dragging Lucius Malfoy out to show the crazed witch.
Bellatrix twirled around and sauntered over to Lucius. "Happy to see me, brother in law?" she breathed, their nosed almost touching. Unlike Lucius, Bellatrix looked like she hadn't aged a day. She threw her head back and laughed. " You don't look too good. Oh,How's the brat taking his mother's dignified death?" she jeered. Lucius glared at her with hatred. "She's your sister, Bella."
Bellatrix stopped laughing and frowned, her curly ink-black, hair bellowing around her head. She narrowed her eyes into slits, acknowledging the man in slacks and a turtle neck. "WAS my sister." She growled out looking feral, her dark frock not helping with her appearance in the slightest.
The masked deatheater coughed.
The only female in the group threw her hand out, wand ready to cast a killing curse, and pointed it at the deatheater."DON'T," Bellatrix looked at her accomplice. "RUSH. ME." She turned back to Lucius. "I bear a message from the Dark Lord. He is becoming irritated by your lack of progress and will kill you if improvements aren't made."
The witch looked at the alley where Draco stood frozen. "Did you hear that, Draco? Your daddy is going to die if you keep being a bull about this."
Draco burst out of his hiding place, brandishing his wand. "Is that all, Aunt Bella?" he asked, feigning impertinence, though his insides felt like mush. Taking in a shallow breath, his cold gray eyes met his aunt's loony ones.
"The Dark Lord waits for no one, Draco. It would be wise to take him up on his offer." Her eyes flashed, an emotion bubbled at the surface. Jealousy, Draco thought. "He chose you."
Black smoke began encircling her. "Accept the offer, and your father might just live." With a final cackle, Bellatrix and her accomplice shot up into the sky "He'll let you play Auror for a while, but you WILL come to him, Draco Malfoy. You will be his." She called out before vanishing in a swirl of smoke.
A wild-eyed Draco looked at his father, shaken. "Well father, there's your second chance at freedom." He turned away. "At the price of MINE." He finished, never stopping to give Lucius a second glance.
Who would've guessed that Lucius Malfoy, the man who was under the dark lord's thumb for so long, would be the one free, and his son, the unwilling deatheater to become, the puppet.
How was it? =) Can you guys guess what the offer was? Hahaha REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW 3 and yes, DRAMIONE is implied in this fic but it is not essentially focused on them entirely, as you can see from Draco's predicament. There is much more to it than just romance.