DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling owns all entities associated with Harry Potter and this fanfiction is in no way making a profit for myself personally.
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Chapter 2: Blood
Draco woke up the next day with gaunt, bloodshot eyes as he studied himself in the cracked mirror of the bathroom that he had managed to find. The throbbing ache in his head had faded to a dull groan and muscles relaxed enough from the soft bed – if you could call a yellow streaked mattress on the floor a bed – to regain basic movement without the use of spasmodic jolts that his limbs conducted.
And now he had to leave. He needed to leaveotherwise he and everyone else in this fucking shack were going to end up dead in a matter of days.
His head burnt with the images of the piles of discarded scorched toys, falling apart at the seams, laying abandoned in the gutter of a nameless street and being hauled along with the relentless wind paired with the distressed call of a child covered in the crimson paint of their parents as rain thundered aimlessly on, carrying on without a thought.
But he couldn't leave. How could he leave without his wand? He was just as dead out there as stuck here.
He clawed painfully at his face with raggedly chewed fingernails leaving swollen pink streaks in their path. The knowledge that they were coming while he was sitting around doing nothing was destroying him with the intensity of fire consuming oxygen like a rabid beast.
They were coming for him. With the light of everybody they'd killed in their sparkling, black, empty eyes. They were coming for him – His demons. Always hunting, never stopping. They would find him no matter how much he tried to evade them.
And here he was. Remaining in one place like a fucking sitting duck. He was trapped and there was nothing he could do about it because of the stupid fucking Order - his stupid fucking cousin.
Draco returned to his bedroom, making sure to shut the door firmly behind him.
With heavy limbs, he crawled back onto the mattress, letting his mind shut and for his body to become numb, the dreams overtaking him once again.
Because reality was where his demons waited.
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Food came at night, albeit cold food. But food nevertheless.
He hadn't even noticed how hungry he'd been. It was hardly at the top of the list of things to be worrying about.
Tonks carried the tray to the floor beside the mattress in which he was laying on. She gave a pointed look at the mess on the opposite wall, the glimmering glass shards still yet to be cleaned away… because nobody had room to care in the first place.
Draco nodded at the food and moved towards it, self-conscious of the fact that his cousin was still in the room watching him with distrusting and curious eyes.
He waited impatiently for her to leave so that he could eat in solitude, giving her a pointed look.
Tonks rolled her eyes. "Just eat," she said testily.
"Just leave," he retorted.
"I'm your cousin."
"I don't care."
The witch narrowed her eyes. "You're awfully snarky for a hostage."
"Am I a hostage now?" He spoke with a lilting gaze.
"You're valuable."
Draco shook his head ruefully, a crazed grin on his lips. "Dangerous too," he pointed out.
"You don't have a wand; you're no danger to us."
He scoffed. "Wand's only the tip of the iceberg."
"What, Malfoy?" She snapped angrily in impatience. "I'm your cousin. Do you really think that I'm going to hurt you? I saved you when the feral idiot Thomas was about to throw you out into the snow without a wand. You have no right to speak to me like I'm filth – like I don't understand."
He simply stared at her with detached eyes that burned with the ferocity of a lion.
She sighed tiredly, eyes drawn with smudges of blue underneath a gaze that had lost too much but gained so little. "What it is then, Malfoy?" She murmured with fatigue. "Wandless magic? Is that how you brought down the wards? Did You-Know-Who make you powerful as half a dozen witches and wizards?"
Draco raised his eyebrows at the grey faced lady before him. "He didn't make us like this. Our Fathers made us like this – soldiers. He made your Mom a soldier too. I'm nothing more, nothing less."
The vibrant haired witched bit her lip and watched pale pink streaks on his porcelain skin leak with scarlet blood. "I don't care about what you think about yourself, Malfoy. You're dreadfully powerful. Even I know that. We can all feel your magic radiating off of you. And you're a death eater. You are valuable – whether you want to be or not."
"I'm just the same as any other death eater."
"Any other death eater would've burnt the house down, not just walked into it."
He watched silently at the cousin that was staring at him with a piercing grey gaze, stoic as a soldier.
"Merlin's sake, Malfoy. Just give me something. What do you want?"
"I want to leave."
She scoffed. "We all want to leave. We all want to run away."
"You can."
"No, I can't. Look, just tell me one thing," she paused, hesitating, afraid to elicit a negative response from the violent young man. "How are you dangerous exactly?"
Draco raised an eyebrow with an obscure gaze. "Be more specific."
Tonks sighed in frustration at the lack of response while at the same time, clinging to the last shreds of decency that this boy had left. "How are you dangerous? Is it because you're powerful? Is You-Know-Who training the death eaters? Is he casting magic enhancing spells on you? Just tell me something."
His eyes focused steadily on hers with locks of long hair hanging above his brows. "Yes, he's slipping us magic enhancing potions in our daily cupcakes."
Tonks narrowed her eyes in dire aggravation. "Look. I give up! What is wrong with you? It's like―"
"What is wrong with me? You mean what is wrong with you," he snapped angrily. "Why can't you just leave me fucking alone? What do you want from me? Information? Fine, I'll answer your questions. Yes, I am powerful. So what? I already told you. It wasn't my choice. I wish was pathetic like Weasley. At least then, nobody would notice me. I would just be another snivelling Death Eater. But I'm not. People notice me. And I fucking hate it. I don't want to be fucking noticed. If only I could just disappear and have nobody notice. I don't want this. Imagine not even being able to do a single fucking thing without someone noticing. Imagine making one fucking mistake and everybody knowing. Because guess what, that's what happened." He sucked in a deep breath of gratifying air that burnt in his coarse windpipe. "And no, the Dark Lord is not training death eaters. He's training beasts. We're not even human, anymore."
The witch paused and sighed. "Draco. Why are you here? What happened?"
"Nothing," he bit.
"You said―"
"Fuck off."
"I―"
His eyes suddenly glinted with the palest of silver, as sharp as a blade. "I said fuck off. Send in Granger if you want to annoy me."
"You're awfully snarky for a hostage."
"Repeating old lines now are you?" His tongue moved in perfect verbal inflections, like a snake with the silkiest of scales and the deadliest of bites.
"Why don't you just leave then? Surely you don't need a wand due to your superior skill with magic," she taunted.
Draco glared in turn, lips pursed. "You know I can't."
Tonks breathed in a sigh and turned away from the cousin that seemed so far from what she was. She did know. It didn't matter if he could wield magic without a wand. It was still pathetic in comparison to a wand. He was one of the most feared characters according to most and would be killed on sight alone. He wouldn't stand a chance.
The silence penetrated through their pores, leaking into their bloodstream – shared blood, shared responsibility yet still poles apart.
Eventually, the purple haired witch gave up and acknowledged the fact that she wasn't going to get anything else out of the unyielding blond, leaving Draco to eat and sulk in nervous anticipation, trapped the dilapidated cell of inferiority – he was nothing without a wand, no better than a muggle.
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And so began the routine.
Every night, food would come and so would they. Sometimes it was just one and sometimes in pairs.
They continued pestering him for knowledge with each passing day and Draco remained resolutely silent.
Despite their evident hatred and irritation of him, they tiptoed around the blonde as if he were a crazed maniac. All except for Granger at least.
She would try coaxing answers out of him before soon losing her temper in the most smooth fashion and storming out of the bedroom in which they'd begun to call 'the asylum'.
"Has it fucking occurred to you, Granger that I didn't mean any ill intent? That I just stumbled upon you by chance?" Draco said, hotly.
"You're a death eater. Why would I believe you?" She argued, suspicious.
"Then why are you trying to get information out of me when you don't believe a word I say?"
She opened and closed her mouth in surprise, words failing at her faulted logic. "Shut it, Malfoy," she hissed before stalking out of his room.
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She would always sigh in relief each time the door clicked shut behind her as she headed to her room, physically exhausted from keeping up with his onslaught of emotion.
She'd file away each conversation they'd had for use on another day and she couldn't help but feel true curiosity burn after each and every word he'd speak.
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He would always sigh in relief at the sound of the door clicking shut.
And after each long night, Draco would tumble into a fit of restless sleep, listening to the clock at the corner of his room counting down the remaining time left. Emotions were inconvenient and weak, yet the quiet dread seemed to seep into his very pores as time slipped away through his fingers. Until the time his demons would finally catch up.
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Hermione sucked in a deep breath and staggered to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water. The door to the asylum was decisively closed and she was beginning to panic. It'd only been a few days. A few days and his gaze alone seemed to be breaking apart her barriers. She knew she was imagining it but she would feel positively drained after each and every encounter.
He didn't even look like he was trying.
His moods would just swing so suddenly and Hermione did her best to keep up, recalculating and evaluating in a fraction of a second – so fast it became painful.
She didn't know if she could last much longer at the rate things were going.
She'd learnt absolutely fucking nothing except for the fact that he would easily escalate into anger.
But what was anger in the face of a maniac?
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A few days later came the first attack.
He knew it had been coming. He had even frightened himself into believing that he was already dead and in a constant loop of events created by the demons to haunt him. It was as if the dread that had silently festered with ruthless indignation, feverish with each passing day had finally burst.
His entire body seemed to shake as the far too familiar sounds of a fight travelled to him lying abandoned on his mattress.
The clatter of footsteps, the sizzling sound of spells whizzing through air with deadly accuracy, the painful awareness that his death was waiting for him right outside the door slashed through his mind like a knife.
This wasn't unfamiliar territory but the familiarity of all of it showed him what would soon occur.
"Give him his wand!" A distressed voice sliced through the crashes of battle outside his door.
"We can't, Tonks. He's going to turn on us and go trotting off back to You-Know-Who."
"I said, give him his wand," Tonks hissed as the door opened with a delightfully tender sharp creak of wood flying off its hinges.
Draco raised his eyebrows in recognition at the ruffled figure of his relative standing before him.
"The Death Eaters are probably here to fetch their little baby," Dean hissed malevolently, walking in behind her.
The blonde chuckled calmly despite the overpowering urge to flee, anxiety begin to claw like a rabid beast into his mind. "Death Eaters have no sense of protecting their own kind. They're not fetching me…" He trailed off. "Well they are. But not in a way that's particularly pleasing."
"What are you talking about, Malfoy?" Tonks paused, stepping forwards towards him, hair already soaked in sweat and the blood from a gash on her head.
However, before she could cross the distance between them in rush movements, an unearthly bloodcurdling wail travelled from the room adjacent to his followed by a sharp crack of flying debris hammering against the wall.
"He needs to be able to defend himself!" She said urgently to Dean. "Give him his wand!"
The Gryffindor staggered as the ground shook beneath their very feet.
Draco tried to suppress the anxiety that was welling up within him. He needed to get out of here. He was going to die tonight.
"THOMAS!" She shouted, clinging onto the doorframe to keep her balance. "That was Hermione's scream just then. Luna is out there too. Just give him his bloody wand."
"He's going to escape!" He exclaimed.
"He is my cousin and he needs to be able to defend himself."
The young wizard froze for a second before reluctantly muttering an incantation underneath his breath.
Stupid fucking bastard was still uninjured, Draco thought to himself as he observed the seemingly neat and tidy set of clothes that the Gryffindor was wearing.
However his train of thought immediately disappeared as he felt the hum of magic in the air and with a blindingly painful suck of air from the room, Draco's wand materialised, hovering for a moment before clattering onto the weak floorboards.
His breath caught in his throat at the sight of his wand. His protection. It was odd that an inanimate object could be of so much worth. How odd it was that this wand to Draco, signified time. It was inevitable; his death. But this wand gave him time.
With shaking limbs he picked himself off of the dirty mattress and reached for his wand, resting it between two pale aristocratic fingers.
He felt power surge through him once again.
He was no longer indistinguishable from a muggle. He was a wizard.
"Fight," the soft voice of Nymphadora Tonks murmured. "Them or us."
Draco stood, lips pursed, the wand still resting loosely in his hand, throbbing with unused magic that tempted him like a little child. "I've given no reason for you to trust me."
She nodded solemnly. "I know."
"You trust too much. You should stop," he said steadily.
She simply looked at him with the scarlet blood marring her features – the blood they shared.
And with a swift sidestep, the slow unrushed words were called to a halt as panic seized him and in turn, franticly furious, disconnected movements of limbs began to move in spasmodic jolts. He stalked swiftly out from underneath the collapsing doorframe and out into the chaos of the narrow corridor, power radiating off of him in waves as he flexed his fingers, reacquainting them with the old familiarity of his wand.
With sharp and rapidly paced strides, he pursued the glimmer of light in the living room, ignoring a piercing cry from his left behind a closed door, senses on high alert for any shift in air.
He needed to get out.
They were too close.
They were here.
They'd caught up … finally.
With an unsteady hand, he pushed open the frame of the shattered glass door and stepped into the living room lit with a pale dim glow of the stolen sun creeping away to give way to night. It was empty. It was vast, decaying and empty, silent except for the screams that probably didn't make it silent.
There was no use.
There was no fucking use. He couldn't escape death's grasp because he was already in it. He just had to keep running and hope that time gave him wisdom.
Apparating was useless – he'd tried. The wards prevented it … obviously.
Draco's eyes focused on the room and immediately found the front door in which he had passed through the first time that seemed so long ago now.
He didn't encounter a single Order member on his way… thankfully. He wouldn't know what to do if he did.
I need to leave, he thought as blinding anxiousness stole his breath away in a vice-like grip.
A scuffle of movement from behind him registered in his ears however he refused to turn back and instead, his unsteady gaze focused on the exit. He could feel the panic and anxiety begin to swallow him; the sheer knowledge that his demons had found him.
The air was teaming with the sound of disaster and pain, thickened by stealthy silence of those who waited.
He had no idea how many there were. He had no idea what chance he had of getting out. But he had to leave and run. Run. Run for the rest of his life. Forever running away and never stopping. Forever running away from his demons that stalked him like predator did prey. Because what else was there to do? Wait and die? Wait for death? Wait for the constant figure of darkness that loomed forebodingly with the disaster it brought? Wait for the constant figure of darkness that seemed so constant it was familiar and so familiar it was comforting?
Draco's scuffed shoes crunched on broken glass and weak floorboards, tattered with drops of dried and fresh blood.
They were after him. The Order just seemed to get in the way. And now, it was time for him to run.
He had his wand now. He could run and never look back. He could and he would.
The pressure of trembling panic coursed through him as his hand enclosed around the rusted bronze doorknob, wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for the inevitable attack.
And it came far sooner than he would've liked.
"Malfoy," a deliciously snake-like voice hissed with painful clarity. "You knew we'd find you."
His quivering hand slid off of the door. He had to face them. He had to face the taunting, menacing figures that had wrecked fear on all the Death Eaters who thought traitorous thoughts. With the bravery of a Gryffindor, he gasped a hiss of a snake and turned to face the living embodiment of his demons.
"Malfoy," the death eater snarled once again and with a flick of his wand that seemed so fast it cut like a whip through air, Draco was thrown off of his feet and raised high into the air, upside down like a ragged doll.
Yep, maybe bravery wasn't a good thing, he thought as the blood immediately rushed to his pale face, deeming it fit to turn rosy red as his clammy hands slipped on his wand.
With another crack of harsh magic, he was back on the floor, feet thudding as he staggered, his ankle snapping painfully at the sharp angle of landing.
Despite the pain, he raised his wand in all desperate savagery, miraculously aimed at target. "Avada―"
A sudden impact knocked him over breathless and Draco hissed at his betraying weak body. His nose flared at the detesting body that was pinning him down.
"Get off of me," he snapped, pushing away the large, sickly bony body. "You repulse me."
"You're not one to talk – Sordid, loathsome, foul traitor." The words pierced like blades of ice at the snowy haired wizard's mind.
The hunter stood up languidly and with an easy flick of a wand, Draco's wand was out of his hands and his limbs sagged before being lifted and hanging in the air like a marionette.
"Time to die, traitor. The bloody Order won't be able to protect you from us."
He protested with resolute stormy grey eyes, his lips clamped shut in pride, cursing his traitorous body as his limbs were a weapon against himself, eyes focused on his newly reacquainted wand that lay a few feet away from him.
"We're your demons," the blood thirsty mouth slithered, hungry for more. "Nobody can protect you from us."
Draco grunted with force as a table lifted from the corner of his eye and he forced the pure pressure behind his eyes on the large, clumsy pile of wood, propelling it to his assailant in a panic induced roar of power.
Without a glance, the table that had stolen all his energy was kicked aside and he nearly collapsed onto the floor from exhaustion if it had not been for his marionette-like state.
The sinister wand was raised and Draco closed his glassy eyes, thick with turbulent, illustrious life. Fuck this ending was too fast. But the hunters weren't those who wasted their time playing with their food.
That was something to be grateful about, I guess, he thought, picturing the flow of magic within his body as that would be the last he'd ever feel it. He sucked in a deep breath of precious air, readying himself for the flash of green light that was going to be the last thing he would ever see. Time had caught up with him – only too soon.
His escalating heartbeat stammered to a halt as he felt light flash behind his lids.
AN. Okay, well this is just a little bit late. In my defence, I was busy with school. However, it is the holidays now so I have now thus written chapter 3 and halfway through chapter 4.
Now this chapter is fairly crap in my opinion, sorry. Like, I personally think I'm terrible at anything action which is ironic seeing as this story is set during the second Wizarding War so advice would be very much appreciated.