Cadere Caelum

A/N: OK, this might sound like mpreg at first, but I can assure you, I'm staying well away from that after a brief bunny attack the other day. shudder An experience I wouldn't care to repeat. Mpreg…not…anatomically correct. Anyway, this is AU, as Dumbledore is alive and Draco and Snape are…around, and Hogwarts is open and people are there and stuff. I kept pretty much everything from HBP canon except for the final battle and the subplot leading up to it, meaning that Dumbledore and Harry got the fake Horcrux and had all their talks and Slughorn is there and stuff, but Draco hasn't done anything or taken the mark or anything, and no end battle. So there you have it. If I was a better author I wouldn't have to explain this. Damn. Uh…so…this will get slashy, I promise. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to make it slashy, but we'll work it out. Harry/Draco. And…so that's pretty much it. So….yeah….enjoy, review, don't kill me.

Chapter 1

Draco's journal

There's something inside of me.

It's…something terrible, an awful dark weight pulling me down constantly. Sometimes at night I can hear it in my head, and it sounds like a thousand people being murdered. Some days, and I've noticed that it usually comes on days when Father and his Master and his fellow Death Eaters are carrying out a mission, something feels like it might explode, like it's trying to get out, like it's only part of a whole and it needs to rejoin its other pieces to achieve some greater, massively important purpose. It's a strange feeling. Like a straining at my insides, an angry wind trying to escape me.

It's been there ever since I can remember, since I was a baby, in the days when my father went on "business trips." And now that the Dark Lord has risen again, it's more of the same, sort of. Father's gone and mother's always anxious and paler than usual. Of course, I know where he is now—Azkaban. So I thought that I might have taken the Mark by now, as his replacement. I suppose I'm too young, and Father wants an heir and doesn't want me killed before I marry off to a nice pureblood girl and produce a healthy baby Malfoy to carry on the family line.

When I was little I barely noticed the feeling. I was preoccupied with the trials and tribulations of being a small child. I suppose I just thought it to be a chronic stomachache or something equally unimportant.

But as I got older, I began to notice things. The screaming. The nightmares. The desperate need to get out, to go far away, to make something whole.

Recently, I've started to make connections. I saw that its insistence to part with me subsided when the Dark Lord fell, and arose with the greatest vengeance the night Potter disappeared into that maze three years ago. Ever since then, it's been like a constant buzz, sharper sometimes—usually when there's Death Eater activity.

I don't know what to make of it. Obviously there are links here, but what do they mean? And what am I supposed to do about it?

Pansy says to go to Pomfrey, but what could she do? I can imagine how that conversation would go. "Madame Pomfrey, there's this angry something inside me, and it's worst when there's dark stuff going on." She'd take my temperature and give me a potion for nerves, and what good would that do? It's not a calming draft I need. It's more like an exorcism. That's what Queenie suggested, anyway. Weird religious family.

Blaise's idea has stuck with me the most, though. He's notoriously soft-hearted when it comes to matters like the war against Voldemort.

flashback

"Draco?" It was breakfast, and Blaise was leaning over his cornflakes toward Draco.

"Mmm." Draco was tired, not having gotten much sleep the previous night. Predictably, the morning paper now reported that there had been a raid at a wizard town in Scotland. He felt like some sort of radar for dark activity.

"I…I was wondering about that…that thing you were telling me about," Blaise murmured.

"Which one's that, then?" Draco was sleepy, sure, but of course knew what he was talking about. That didn't mean he wanted to talk about it, though.

"That angry thing you say you've got in you. The thing that's worse when You-Know-Who's doing something."

"Mmm."

"Well, I was thinking—"

"Never a good sign, Blaise."

"Sod off. No, I was thinking that maybe you should tell Dumbledore."

"Bloody hell, Blaise, why would I want to do that?"

"No, listen. I mean, if it's got something to do with what You-Know-Who's doing…I mean, you knew about this thing that's in the paper today, didn't you?"

"I knew something was happening, or going to happen. And how did you know that I would?"

"Tough not to notice, Draco, you were thrashing around in your sleep a lot."

"Hmmph."

"But the point is, maybe you felt it right before they attacked that village, right? So…I dunno, what if you were to tell Dumbledore when you get that feeling, maybe he could act on it. You could save lives, Draco!"

"Why would I want to save the lives of people the Dark Lord is attacking, again?"

Blaise looked taken aback for a moment then muttered something about it being the "right thing to do."

"Sod the right thing to do, I don't want to talk to the Mudblood-lover about something like this and I don't plan to."

"Draco…think about it. What if it was Hogwarts? What if they were coming for Hogwarts and you knew?"

"How am I supposed to know what they're doing, Blaise?"

"Well…you sorta have a sense, don't you?"

"I'm guessing that it has a sense for dark activity at the most. But I can't predict what the activity is. I don't even know if I'm getting premonitions…it could just as well be that they affect me as they're happening. And remember, this is entirely speculation…for all we know, I really do have a chronic stomachache."

"What?"

"Never mind. The point is, the old fool would make more of it than it really is, I'm sure."

"But if it really is connected to dark activity…I mean, everybody knows that Dumbledore has spies and people working for him about that kind of thing. I mean, what if they had a suspicion about something that was going to happen and what you said confirmed or denied it?"

"So?"

"Yeah?"

"So, why's it my responsibility? Forgive me, but I'm not one to want to stand in the way of the Dark Lord."

"Well, I…"

"Yeah, Blaise, we all know how you feel about it. Go hug a Muggle, why don't you."

Blaise looked hurt and returned to his cereal, glaring. Draco didn't care much. He was in a foul mood and hated arguing with Blaise about things like this. He had to be one of maybe three Slytherins who disagreed with the Dark Lord.

Though riled by what he had said, Draco still thought about Blaise's advice through the day. It did seem like something Dumbledore would want to know about. But then, thought Draco, who am I, Harry bloody Potter?

He tried to put it out of his mind.

But that night, his insides were screaming again.

end flashback

Blaise made that suggestion a couple of weeks ago, and since then it's been getting stronger, and I've been getting desperate. I don't know what telling Dumbledore could do to help, but I feel like if I don't tell someone it'll kill me. It's been getting more violent, as have the crimes of the Death Eaters and Voldemort. Worse attacks by them tend to go along with worse attacks by this thing inside me.

I'm working on talking myself into the whole Potter-esque hero-complex thing that Blaise was rambling on about, the one about how telling Dumbledore could save lives. It's such a Gryffindor thing to do…so stupid, selfless. Not only is there nothing in it for me, but it's defying the Dark Lord and his supporters, which is the last thing I want to do right now. And what does Blaise know, anyway? Nobody knows if what I'm feeling is related to dark activities in any way, and there's no way to figure out what the dark activity actually is. What good could it do Dumbledore, and have when have I gone crying to him over a little discomfort? Shameful. Slytherins have always been the most distant from this headmaster, and I'm no exception. And what would my father think? If I hope to take the Mark sometime soon, I have to be loyal to our side.

Not that I'm even sure if I do want to take the Mark.

Ah, well. I'm a Malfoy. I can handle this just a little longer.

A/N: You can probably see where I'm going with this one. I'm a stealth master, I even put it in the summary. Go me. Thanks to betas Kät, Liz, and pretty much the entire rest of the world.