Chapter 4: First Assignment
As we emerged from the fireplace in Theodore Nott's living room, my mouth tasted ashy. Some of the floo powder we had used to get here had worked its way into my mouth as I screamed in frustration during the floo trip over here because of my inability to think of a way to make the dark lord believe I had not acted against the death eaters. I didn't have time to clear the powder out of my mouth though. As soon as we arrived at the fireplace my father had yanked me to my feet and was marching me off to the dark lord's chambers. "Quit your infernal screaming and come with me!" He shouted.
Theodore Nott appeared in front of us as we turned a corner. "Lucius," He said. "He's more furious that I've seen him in a long time. You'd best not keep him waiting." My father's face turned pale at that announcement but he did not respond. He shoved his way past Theodore and stopped just short of the large door that I knew Voldemort would be on the other side of.
He leaned down and whispered in my ear. "Don't draw attention to yourself in there. When the dark lord is this angry nothing good can come of drawing his gaze." I nodded back at him. He took a deep breath, pushed the door open and strode through it looking as confident and self-assured as he always did. I followed him through the door and stared at the ground floor.
Our entrance seemed to go all but unnoticed. The several hundred death eaters gathered in the room were shouting at each other in very agitated tones. Each of them seemed to be arguing over who they thought had been the one who had been working against them during the world cup attack. They're afraid, I realized with a start. They know there's a traitor in their midst but they can't figure out who. It gave me a strange feeling. To know that I was the cause of unease amongst the death eaters made me feel almost powerful. I liked that. I had felt so helpless and powerless before the death eaters for so long and now to feel like I had some semblance of power over them was a very welcome feeling.
My father strode confidently toward the front of the room where Voldemort sat silently seething with his snake Nagini hanging from his neck and I shuffled along behind him trying to do as he told me and not draw attention to myself. When I looked around at the death eaters arguing around me, I seemed to be succeeding. None of them even spared me a glance and I walked past them. All of them carried on their arguments about whom it was that had betrayed them and all the while I just continued to hope I would be able to survive this encounter with the dark lord. I knew beyond a doubt that if he learned it had been me, he would not hesitate to murder me right there on the spot in front of my father and every other death eater.
After a moment, my father and I had crossed the room and we sat down in our designated seats. Voldemort still did not act. Instead, he continued to sit silently at the head of the room and let the death eaters carry on increasingly noisy debate over the identity of the betrayer. Accusations were flying out of death eater's mouths left and right and to me it even seemed that a few of them were on the verge of cursing each other in the heat of their argument. After several more moments of this, Voldemort raised his head, and very quietly, cleared his throat. The death eaters at the front of the room, close enough to hear it instantly fell silent, and the wave of silence spread out over the room until even the most boisterous death eaters became quiet and waited for their dark lord to speak. After a moment, he did.
"All right," He said, in a tone as dangerous sounding as a horrible curse. "Which one of you thought you'd be able to betray me and get away with it! You should all know that I am the dark lord and nobody can best me! That is why you follow me! You cannot beat me! You are weak! You are subservient!" Now he rose from his seat. "WHO WAS IT! COME FORWARD NOW AND I'LL KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND. TRY TO HIDE FROM ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU WISH I HAD KILLED YOU!" None of the death eaters moved. They looked at the dark lord horrified. Many of them were obviously, in the same boat I was. I saw many of them just looking at the floor, hoping that Voldemort would not accuse them of being the culprit.
When nobody came forward Voldemort became even angrier. He brandished his wand and in his frustration shot a large ball of red light toward a wall. When the red ball struck the wall the ball exploded, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. The death eaters who had been sitting near that part of the wall quickly slinked away from that spot right away. "I'm warning you all right now. If I have to slaughter every last one of you to make sure I got rid of the betrayer I will do it without thinking twice." Voldemort threatened.
There was no way he'd make good on that threat, I told myself. Voldemort was indeed very powerful, but if he hoped to overthrow the ministry, he needed his death eaters. He was already not faring very well in his fight against the ministry, and now that his plan to kill Harry Potter at the world cup has been thwarted by one of his own, he could not afford to lose any more men than he absolutely must.
"NOW WHO WAS IT!" He shouted again. When nobody came forward, another spasm of rage hit him and he sent another ball of red light at a wall, creating another large hole in it. "WHO WAS IT!" This time, in his rage, he sent a green jet of light into the chest of one of the death eaters sitting nearby with his head down. The man lifted his head and screamed in agony as the killing curse connected with his heart and took his life.
When I watched the man slump to the floor, his body completely limp, my breath caught in my throat and I let out an involuntary gasp of shock. Perhaps I had been wrong about Voldemort's threat being empty. Maybe he really was insane enough to destroy his death eaters over the world cup. In that moment, I began to wonder if I should step up and admit it had been me that betrayed him. He would certainly kill me, but at least I would die knowing I had kept my promise to myself of not succumbing to the dark side. "WHO WAS IT!" He said again. This time, when nobody came forward, Voldemort shot a purple jet of light from his wand. The purple light connected with one of the long tables in the room and blew that part of the table up. The death eaters sitting there let out cries of pain as they were thrown backward and slammed against the wall by the force of the explosion. Most of the death eaters who went crashing into the wall did not get back up again when they landed. WHO WAS IT!" He said, beginning to sound like a child having a temper tantrum. This time in response to the silence he was met with, he sent a killing curse at a random death eater again and watched with ecstasy as the death eater, a woman this time, wailed in pain and collapsed to the floor, unmoving.
I was convinced now. Voldemort really would kill every last person in this room to make sure he took down the person who'd betrayed him. Somebody had to step forward and admit to this or hundreds of lives would be cut short by the mad man in front of me. I started to stand up, but another thought occurred to me. Wasn't the end of the death eaters what I wanted? If Voldemort ended them all for me wouldn't that just save me a whole lot of trouble down the road? "WHO WAS IT!" Another killing curse, another scream, and another limp body on the floor. I averted my eyes this time. I knew it would be easier for me if I sat back here and allowed the death eaters to be punished for something I had done, but there was something inside me that wouldn't let me do that. 'These are death eaters though,' I told myself, and didn't they deserve what they were getting?
"WHO WAS IT!" Another purple jet of light, another explosion and more cries of pain. 'Yes, they are all death eaters,' that thing inside me said. 'But aren't you better than them? If you let them all die now because of you, how are you any different than them? You want the death eaters to be beaten, but you want to do it the right way, and letting them all be murdered here while they're helpless to fight back is not the right way and you know it.'
Well, my conscience had me there. As crazy as it sounded, I had convinced myself that stepping up and protecting the death eaters was the right thing to do. I stood up from my chair and prepared myself to meet my maker. My father noticed and he grabbed me by my death eater robes and tried to pull me back down. I looked down at him with disdain and knocked his hand away. "WHO WAS IT!" I was about to speak up when something caught me by surprise and shocked me back into silence. Before Voldemort could cast another spell this time, somebody shouted a disarming spell at him, and his wand flew out of his hand. Voldemort turned toward the wizard who had cast it. His bright red eyes were filled with rage.
The man who had cast the spell stood up and looked defiantly back at Voldemort. "IT WAS ME, MY LORD," he shouted, the words my lord were absolutely dripping with sarcasm and it was clear to everyone that the man no longer had any intention to serve Voldemort. "I TURNED ON THE DEATH EATERS AT THE WORLD CUP!" He continued. "KILLING AN ENEMY IN FAIR BATTLE IS ONE THING, BUT HOW CAN ANYONE JUSTIFY THE WORLD CUP ATTACK! I SAW CHILDREN BEING CURSED WHILE THEY WERE SOBBING AND CLUTCHING AT THEIR MOTHER'S LEG! I SAW A MAN KILLED FOR TRYING TO DEFEND HIS FAMILY! I SAW SO MANY THINGS THAT WERE INDESCRIBABLY HEINOUS THAT I JUST COULDN'T DO IT! I HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO DEFEND THEM!
Voldemort's fury was at the breaking point now. He did not even bother to find his wand that the man had sent flying away from his with his spell. Instead, he ran across the tabletops and charged down the man with his eyes wide with fury and his nostril's flaring. The man did not seem to care about Voldemort's charge. He continued his diatribe against Voldemort and the death eaters. "HOW ANYONE CAN LIVE WITH THEMSELVES AFTER COMMITING SUCH ATROCITIES IS WAY BEYOND ME! YOU CAN ALL-"
The rest of his words never left his throat. Voldemort reached him and wrapped his hands around the man's throat in an iron grip. I gasped in terror as I realize what he was doing. They tumbled to the floor, but Voldemort did not let up his grip on the man. Voldemort did not honor the man with words either. For the next few minutes, Voldemort stared down at the man and watched as the man struggled at first but gradually became limp as his strength deserted him. When the man breathed his last breath, Voldemort sneered down at him. Then a smile crossed his face. He stood up and looked around at the remainder of the death eaters around him. "Let that serve as an example to the rest of you. Anyone who crosses the dark lord shall receive no mercy from me and they shall have no place in my new world I create when I conquer the ministry and establish my supremacy over the muggle world!"
Nobody spoke. Some of the death eaters nodded at him and turned their gaze down toward the tables they were sitting at. My father recovered from the shock of the brutal murder first and again grabbed me by my robes and pulled me back down into my chair. This time I was too surprised by what I had just seen to resist him, and I slid meekly back down into my chair and watched with empty eyes as Voldemort strode over to his wand, picked it up and put it back in its place, then sauntered his way back toward his seat at the front of the room beside me and my father.
I couldn't believe it. Voldemort's cruelty did not surprise me; it was that I had apparently not been alone in my actions at the world cup. If another death eater had been doing the same thing, maybe I was not alone in my hatred for Voldemort. How many more death eaters thought the way I did? If that man had been on my side, who was to say two or three or maybe even more death eaters would side with me if given the opportunity? The thought excited me a ton. To know that I was not alone amongst the death eaters was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.
Voldemort interrupted my thoughts when he sat down again. "Well now that we've exterminated the traitor, we can move on and get to business." He said. Oh that's right, I thought, since that man had stood up and taken the blame I was off the hook. The thought made me breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe I wasn't going to die today after all. "As for the rest of you, my beloved death eaters," Voldemort continued, "I have nothing but praise for what you accomplished at the world cup." He smiled down at them. His demeanor had changed instantly now that he had murdered the man he thought had been the only one to betray him. "You killed many of the civilians at the cup and even more of the ministry wizards. The people of the wizarding world will be as terrified of us now as they have ever been now that they know that no matter how much security the ministry puts on them, we can overcome it and destroy them."
"With so many of the ministry wizards dead, the ministry may even be ripe for direct assault very soon, and then NOTHING will be able to stop us!" Voldemort stopped for a moment and looked down at the death eaters as they cheered at what he'd just said. I watched them closely. Most cheered with seemingly real enthusiasm, but a few that I spotted only seemed to be cheering to fit in with the crowd and not draw attention to themselves. I tried to burn their faces into my memory. Perhaps one day I'd get the chance to talk to them privately and see if I could persuade them to rebel as I had done at the cup.
Voldemort interrupted the cheers. "But!" He shouted. The death eaters silenced immediately. "But, thanks to the efforts of the betrayer, whose name will no longer be mentioned, we must form a new strategy to kill Harry Potter. As long as he lives, the wizarding world will continue to believe that he is my equal and he may be able to defeat me. I will not stand for that. We must end him before Potter can help the ministry and the order of the phoenix work against me."
"My lord," A high voice came from right below me. I looked down from my seat and saw Bellatrix Lestrange standing up from her chair. Her eyes were wide with anticipation. "Let me do it! Let me be the one to kill him in your name! I can storm into his muggle home and murder him right there in front of his relatives!" She cackled, her high shrill voice bounced off the walls of the room. I found her laughter so disturbing it was all I could do not to cover my ears.
Voldemort chuckled from his seat. "My dear Bellatrix, I find your ruthless bloodlust inspiring." He said. Bellatrix looked up at him hopefully as she waited for him to accept or reject her plan. I was disgusted by her and her horrible plans that she seemed to be hatching constantly and putting in front of Voldemort for his consideration. Voldemort considered her for a few minutes as he mulled over her plan to surprise Potter and storm his house. "Bellatrix, are you confident that you can get the job done?"
"Oh yes my lord!" She said. "I will never fail you as the vile traitor did at the cup!"
"Very well then Bellatrix," Voldemort responded, "You have my permission to carry out your plan on the Potter boy's home. But you must be quick about it my dear. For the day after tomorrow he leaves on the Hogwarts express and with that old fool Dumbledore guarding him, he will be out of our reach."
"Thank you my lord. Before tomorrow night I will gladly deliver the Potter's body to you. Then nobody shall question your supremacy again!" She cackled again. That same demented laugh she let out a moment ago.
"My lord," a soft voice said from beside me. It took me a moment to realize that it belonged to my father. I looked over at him surprised that he was even capable of such a soft tone of voice. I had never heard it out of him before. "I'm not certain that Ms. Lestrange's plan is the wisest course of action we have available to us."
Bellatrix looked over at him with disdain clear on her face. I knew that the two of them had been competing with each other for the title of Voldemort's favorite servant for some time now and that competition had stirred up quite a rivalry between them and more than a little bit of animosity. "Shut your mouth Malfoy," She growled at him. "The dark lord has already approved my plan and I intent to-"
"Silence Bellatrix," Voldemort interrupted. "Lucius is a reliable and trusted death eater and I always value his thoughts. I would hear his input on this matter." Bellatrix sat back down in her seat reluctantly, still shooting daggers at my father with her eyes. My father paid her no mind and he stood up before the gathered death eaters and paced the floor for a moment before speaking.
"My lord, while I don't doubt Ms. Lestrange's magical prowess," My father began, "I feel we have a much more effective way of killing Harry Potter than by simply storming his home and attacking blindly. There is one death eater among us who has a thirst to prove himself and will soon be spending nearly a year in a confined space with both Harry Potter, and his greatest protector, Albus Dumbledore. I propose that we give the assignment of killing Potter to him. Think about it my lord. Even if this death eater should fail at killing Potter once, twice or many times, it will not matter because he will be afforded many more opportunities because he will have all year to come up with a successful plot to murder Potter."
Dread began to form in the pit of my stomach as I realized what my father was trying to do. I looked at him pleadingly and silently begged him not to get me into this. He either did not notice my pleading look or he did not care.
"And why stop at killing Potter my lord?" My father continued. "Since this death eater will also be spending such a long time in a confined space with your hated enemy Dumbledore, I also propose that we give this death eater the task of murdering Dumbledore along with Potter. Should he be successful, and I honestly believe that he could be, then by the end of this year the world will be without Harry Potter to believe in. And the order of the phoenix will be without its leader to rally behind. With those two out of the way, the ministry would fall before like a tree before an avalanche and nobody would ever dare question your power again."
I sat frozen in my chair. My stomach was so full of dread I feared I may break down and panic right here in front of all the gathered death eaters. "Your plan is most intriguing Lucius." Voldemort said. "But I must say I don't know which death eater you are speaking of. Enlighten me if you would."
My father smiled at him and turned his head to face me. I gave him one last pleading look not to get me into this, and again he ignored it entirely. "The death eater I speak of is my son my lord. He will soon be spending a year at Hogwarts with Potter and Dumbledore." My father said. Every eye in the room turned towards me as I squirmed in my chair wishing they would look away. "Draco served you loyally at the world cup and he has a great desire to prove his worth to you even more. I'm sure he'd be honored to take the assignment of killing Potter and Dumbledore. What's more he is a very gifted wizard for one of his age and I am certain killing those two is well within his abilities."
"A very fine plan Lucius," Voldemort said. "I commend you." Then he turned his bright red eyes toward me. As he studied me, I tried to stop myself from squirming in my chair and tried to stop the quivering of my lip so he would not see me as being weak. I knew all too well what he did to people he considered weak. Voldemort seemed to reach a decision and he nodded. "Yes," he said. "Draco you have yet to prove yourself truly worthy of being one of my death eaters. So I hereby give you this task. By the end of this term at Hogwarts, you must kill both Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore. Only then will I consider you to truly be one of us. Should you succeed at this, I will grant you great power and wealth and ensure that you receive a very generous position in the new world I will create once those two are out of my way." He paused and after a second his face turned dark. "However, should you fail at this task, you will suffer the consequences." He did not elaborate on what those consequences would be, but it terrified me to imagine what they might be. Voldemort stood up and addressed the death eaters gathered before him. "This meeting is dismissed, get out of my sight." He told them.
I continued to sit in my chair absolutely crippled with fear. I don't know how long I would stayed there if my father had not come up to me and dragged me to my feet and forced me to start walking out of the room. Our walk to the fireplace passed in a blur. In my head I was reeling in shock and dismay. How could my father have volunteered me for this assignment? There was no way I could pull it off even if I actually wanted to. Dumbledore was far too powerful and intelligent for me to get the best of him and if he really was watching over Potter there was no way I would be able to get around the protection Dumbledore would have placed on him.
My father and I arrived at the fireplace and he threw floo powder into it and dragged me by the robes into the fireplace with him. "Malfoy manor!" He shouted. Our wild trip home passed in a blur as well. I hardly even noticed the fact that I was whirling around at incredible speeds through the floo network back to my house. When we emerged from the fireplace back in our living room I couldn't hold in my feelings toward my father anymore. I got up off the floor where the floo network had spat me out and marched over to him. Before I lost my nerve, I shoved him onto the floor and started on a furious diatribe toward him.
"HOW COULD YOU HAVE VOLUNTEERED ME FOR THAT ASSIGNMENT!" I screamed at him. "THERES NO WAY I'LL BE ABLE TO PULL IT OFF! DUMBLEDORE'S TO POWERFUL ME TO EVEN HAVE A PRAYER OF SUCCEEDING! PLUS HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED THAT MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, I DON'T WANT THIS LIFE OF BEING A DEATH EATER?! WHAT IF I'D PREFER TO BE SOMETHING ELSE?!" I would have said more but just then my father picked himself up off the ground and slapped me across the face with such force that it drove me backwards and caused me to fall to the floor. Now it was his turn to scream at me.
"DON'T BE STUPID DRACO! YOU SHOULD BE DOWN ON YOUR KNEES THANKING ME FOR GIVING YOU THIS CHANCE!"
"THANKING YOU?!" I retorted. "I OUGHT TO BE-"
"SHUT UP!" he said. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT KIND OF REWARDS THE DARK LORD WILL BESTOW UPON YOU IF YOU CAN DO THIS? YOU'LL NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT A DAM THING EVER AGAIN IN YOUR LIFE! THE DARK LORD REWARDS THOSE WHO PLEASE HIM GREATLY! HOW DO YOU THINK I WAS ABLE TO BECOME RICH AND LIVE IN SUCH A NICE MANOR LIKE THIS! HE GAVE IT TO ME! YOU WILL CARRY OUT THIS MISSION AS THE DARK LORD WISHES OR YOU WIL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES FROM ME AS WELL AS HIM! NOW GET OUT OF MY SIGHT BEFORE I CURSE YOU DAMMIT! I DON'T WANT TO LOOK AT YOU RIGHT NOW!"
Angrily, I picked myself up and slowly turned away from my father toward the staircase trying to seem as defiant as possible. My father came up behind me and gave me a hard and swift kick to my behind. "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT I SAID. SO HELP ME I'LL HEX YOU INTO OBLIVIAN RIGHT HERE AND NOW IF YOU DON'T HURRY YOUR ASS UP!
Fearing another kick, or something worse, I hurriedly scurried my way up to my bedroom and closed the door behind me. Again, I had a million thoughts racing through my head. Some of them were hatred for my father, the death eaters and lord Voldemort while others were fear and trepidation about the task that now lay before me. Automatically I pulled my diary out of the drawer I kept it in and poured my heart out to it.
Diary, I wrote.
He's really gone too far this time. My father volunteered me for a mission tonight that I absolutely did not want and don't have a chance of succeeding at anyway. How could a father do this to their child? HOW? I swear that that man cares more about that dam lord Voldemort than he cares about me, his own flesh and blood. How does he even expect me to pull this off? Killing BOTH Potter and Dumbledore? It's just not possible. Even if I wanted to kill them, which I DON'T, there's no way I'd be powerful enough pull off such a thing. Maybe my father just wants me to fail at this so that Voldemort will kill me and he can be rid of me like I'm sure he's always wanted. That's really the only reason I can think of about why he would make me try to do something so beyond my abilities.
After a few more moments of writing, I felt at least a little bit calmer. If failing at this mission was to be my fate than who was I to stand in its way? I went to bed that night telling myself that if fate had something better in store for me, and I sure hoped it did, then a new course of action would present itself to me. In the meantime however, I may be stuck trying to please my father and Lord Voldemort.
I fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed of my father and Voldemort both urging me to slay a helpless Potter who was dangling by his feet in front of me. The next morning, I awoke more tired than when I had fallen asleep and surrounded by my own cold sweat.
End of chapter 4
Author's note: Hey guys. I hope u enjoyed this chapter. Be sure to drop me a review and let me know what you think of the chapter and of the story. Getting more reviews, positive or negative, certainly motivates me to write new chapters and update for you guys faster.