CHAPTER ONE – TWELVE AND A MURDERER

Draco lay on his bed, staring at the high ceiling. He was fully dressed in his customary black. One arm hung off the side of the mattress, dangling close to the floor. His wand was limply held in his thin fingers. There was no reason to keep it near him really, but the firm smooth wood, worn down in just the right places, gave him a hint of security.

Footsteps could be heard on the winding stairs that led to the second floor, along the stone corridor, towards Draco's bedroom. The sixteen-year-old boy turned away from the door and closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to be slow and steady, trying to ignore the hitch in his chest. The locking charm that Draco had laid on the door was undone and the door opened quietly; Draco waited.

"Draco." His mother's whisper, hesitant and frightened. "Draco, are you awake."

Scrunching his eyes more tightly shut, Draco fought the tension threatening to make his shoulders go rigid and reveal the fact that he was actually awake. Maybe she would go away. Maybe if he just did not answer her . . . His hopes were dashed as Narcissa's footsteps echoed across the huge, cold bedchamber toward his bed. He couldn't help the twitch of muscles when her hands gripped his arm gently, ran down from his shoulder to his hand.

"Draco, you must wake up and come downstairs. Your father wants you."

"I don't want to see him," Draco hissed, still not moving.

"He has an urgent job for you."

"Tell him I'm sick. I don't feel well."

"Get up." Narcissa's voice went cold. Draco knew it was a low card to play – she might believe him, might feel sorry for him, but fear of her husband would stop her from displaying any sympathy or intervening on his behalf. Lucius Malfoy beat his wife just as often as he beat his son.

Draco got to his feet and yanked his jacket straight, turning to his mother and stowing his wand in his pocket. He kept his gaze on the space above her as he did so, then pushed past her to the door. The hallway was blindingly bright in comparison with the comfortable darkness of his room. He hurried along it, squinting and blinking his eyes to adjust them to the light.

Lucius was sitting in the dining room, in exactly the same position he had been during dinner several hours before. The dishes had been cleaned around him, but the goblet and wine decanter were still in place, if significantly less full. Lucius looked up as his son and wife entered the room, his eyes red-rimmed with too much drinking.

"There's a man," he said slowly, one hand working the head of his black and silver staff. "The nephew of one of the council members . . . He suspects me, intercepted several messages to Bella. With enough evidence I need him killed. Quickly. Tonight. Right now." He quirked his head as though getting a crick out of his neck, and turned to look at Draco. "I have his address here. Come and take it."

Draco felt his heartbeat speed up. Another job, another piece of work too dirty for Lucius to perform himself, another task too expensive for him to hire anyone else. Why would he bother wasting precious money, when he had a candidate for murder living under his own roof? A wizard with extraordinary potential, and someone who would be above suspicion – or at least, above the effects of suspicion. Draco hung back.

"I said come here," snapped Lucius, and his hand gave a particularly violent twist to the silver knob on the top of his cane. Draco darted forward, one clenched hand in his pocket where his wand was. It would be so easy to stun his father and his mother, to run out of the house. To never come back. But go where?

Draco took the piece of parchment with the man's name and address on it, looked at it once, and the refolded it and slid it into his pocket. "Can't I use my . . ."

"No," shouted Lucius. "You know we cannot risk you using your wand, it might be traced. You're to use the Muggle weapon, as always."

"It's so bloody," Draco whined.

"You've got plenty of clean clothes at home to change into. The Muggle car is waiting at the back of the house. If someone sees you, Apparate – but for heaven's sake don't come back here. We don't want anyone following you."

"Yes, Father."

"You complete several more jobs like this with your usual aptitude and I will present you shortly to the Dark Lord himself. You'd always wanted to become a Death Eater."

"Yes, Father."

"Now go."

Draco hurried back upstairs to his room, ripping off his expensive coat and pulling on an old ragged denim jacket his father had procured for such outings, and exchanged his shoes for a pair of sneakers. He pulled out his wand.

"Akio," he muttered at the stone wall. A block of rock slid out of place, revealing a small chamber in which laid a pair of leather gloves and a shimmering black steel weapon. A gun. Draco loathed touching it – it felt like evil itself in his hand, heavy with the lives it had taken. Like they were being stored in the butt of the weapon. One day they would break out and eat him alive.

Sliding on the leather gloves, Draco picked up the gun and put it into his jacket pocket. He placed his wand beside it as a backup, and hurried back out of the room after re-sealing the compartment. Any dawdling and his father would believe he was not anxious to perform.

"Be careful," whispered his mother at the back door.

Draco pulled up the fleece hood to conceal his bright white-blond hair and pale face from reflecting the moonlight. "You don't care," he told her, and left. She didn't, he told himself, because if she did, she would have stopped this long ago. She would have told his father no the very first time. Draco had been twelve. Twelve and a murderer. Well, he had been doing it for four years now and every time she said "Be careful", but she never said "Don't make him do it."

The Muggle car was a dilapidated wreck. Draco couldn't very well be driving around the countryside in the Malfoy family car or a broomstick to do his dirty work. Better to allow whatever chance observers there were to think that a Muggle had somehow penetrated the Wizarding World. Getting into the car, wishing he could just use his broomstick and be there and gone all the faster, Draco revved the engine.

I wonder what everyone at school would think if they knew I knew how to drive a Muggle car, he thought to himself as he shifted into reverse and backed up. I should probably arrange a demonstration sometime.

I wonder what they'd think if they knew you killed wizards, have been killing wizards for years, said the second voice in his head. It was something that had been bothering him increasingly recently, especially during times of stress. It just popped up and began contradicting him, putting doubts into his mind, posing stumping questions that would bother him for days. And it was so real . . . an actual voice, not just thoughts. What was worse, it sounded like Aunt Bella.

"Shut up," Draco snapped, shifting gear again and peeling around the side of the house, up the gravel drive, and out the opening iron gates.