Chapter 4

"The unit has been dispatched to Great Hangleton. The one at Aberdeen awaits for your command," said one of the former Death Eaters, now better known as the Guardians.

Draco waved an impatient hand at the man, keeping his gaze locked on to the mirror in front of him, "Keep it clean. We don't want any of their filthy bloodhounds on our backs."

Conceited little fucker.

He smiled, and turned towards the Blue robed Guardian who was just heading towards the door.

Raising his wand, he said, "A bit of vanity never harmed anyone. Ignorance though…ignorance can be downright dangerous. Crucio."

He fell to the carpeted floor with a low thud, body bowstringing in a taut position, neck muscles spasming with a pain so intense, he couldn't even scream.

Draco ignored him.

He didn't like these handing out these idle punishments. He didn't even care what this little army of orphaned followers really thought him. They were simply tools for his operations, to be used, sharpened and discarded when the need be. But he had no patience for disrespect.

Moving silently about the room in contemplation, he finally took a seat on the high-backed armchair and refocused on the mirror ahead, which he realized he was quickly getting addicted to. He saw himself seated in this very seat, in the prime of his youth, smiling back at himself through the reflection. And he saw her perched on his right, dressed royally in a floor length hunter green dress. She was whispering kisses behind his ear, caressing his chest with one hand while the other was entwined in his own.

He held in the shiver that rose in him, and he could almost feel her as he closed his eyes.

She was everywhere.

He had never particularly been fond of anything inside Hogwarts. Even the blasted Room of Requirement was nothing but a symbol of all that he had endured and all that he had lost. His boyhood, his freedom, his mother. He'd stumbled onto this little artefact only by accident. The Mirror of Erised—of desire.

On the night of the battle, he'd been fairly surprised to witness what he had inside the reflection, and the discovery had only cost him his pride. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. After all that, he wanted her. A mudblood. Confused by this revelation, he'd gone looking for her. And the little vixen had thwarted him with a rejection so absolute, it was almost funny. The manner was not lost on him either, and it had been a slight giveaway though he was sure it was not meant to be one.

She'd kissed him.

And it had been no sealed lips, closed body business either. It was a proper kiss, almost as proper as the one he'd stolen so long ago inside that deserted classroom. He should've known then that it would ultimately culminate to this.

He'd sent his men to search for her, he'd looked inside every nook and cranny of the wizarding world that held even a hint of magical concealment, he had the Ministry beneath his golden thumb but the overpaid fools had yet to prove a Knut's worth to him. He had taken to muggle manslaughter in hopes that she would come out, even though he'd always maintained the opinion that it was a wasteful practice. He knew many saw him as a resurrected Voldemort, the next mass-murderer in line, and he resented this view they had of him. He was not a fool. And he was not some half-blood fraud, seeking to subconsciously validate his own filthy blood by propagating the idea of a Pureblood society.

Filth was a menace, but it could be easily handled if one knew the right methods. He sought no contact from muggle world. The world of magic held no need for them, so he didn't see the point in causing an unnecessary turmoil by associating with the magically-challenged. Let them contend with their own little toys and crude cultural ideologies. They were a different race, and just naturally inferior.

Mudbloods, though. He wanted them shamed. He wanted them out in the streets, rotting in whorehouses and gutters, begging for scraps of food and for cloth on their backs, he wanted them to feel the humiliation that a Squib suffered from being robbed off their magic. Mudbloods had no place in the Wizarding world and if they wanted one, it had to be beneath them. He had begun shaping the world around him as time passed, but he knew he had a long way to go. Not until he snuffed the resistance out.

They had formed a strong resistance against him. Though it wasn't clear if they were against him or against what remained of Voldemort's followers; he was aware that he was yet to reach a point where they began taking him seriously; and he had a feeling most of them didn't really know who they were fighting for, but they'd been as aggravating in their skirmishes as ever, as brutal and cold-blooded as his own men…almost as if Potter—

"Son."

He blinked out of his reverie and saw his father standing to the right, looking every inch the proud parent. He had been his meagre support system since Voldemort's fall, and had served him with a loyalty that had not been reserved for his erstwhile master.

"I assume you acquired a worthy collection?", he asked.

"The very best." Lucius beamed. "Well, as worthy as their kind can ever be."

With a snap of his fingers, an elf walked in followed by three young women, all muggle. They were naked. Sometime during their stay, they'd been bathed and groomed.

He scrutinized them for a long while, and then sighing in resignation, pointed towards the one on the left.

"This one will do."

The selection was accompanied by a frantic pounding of his heart, as he let his imagination run wild. He was barely aware of the elf leaving with the remaining girls, barely aware of his father as he watched his son impassively. He made the necessary tweaks in her appearance. Her brow lengthened, her lips became fuller, hair wilder and more vivid in colour. Her skin darkened to a honey tint and her fingernails were shortened to the length he remembered hers to be.

He left her eyes as they were, hazel and completely different in their shape. All his previous attempts at transfiguring them to perfection had only ended in disappointment. He could never get them right.

Now, for one tiny detail. He clasped her arm, stomping down on the burst of revulsion that rose at the contact. With a wave of his wand, bloody engraved letters broke across her skin. Mudblood.

A gasp of pain escaped from the girl's lips.

"Hush."

He snapped his fingers, and another elf appeared.

"Escort her to my chamber."

The elf bowed and left, taking the girl's hand.

He sighed deeply, and walked towards the mirror. Staring at her reflection for another moment, he draped a sheet over the image, covering it.

He'd been wrong earlier. He supposed muggles did have their uses.

At Shell Cottage
8 PM.

Healer Bayard hovered over the bed, performing the standard checks on Harry's still body. He pursed his lips as he noted down something on the file, before tiredly rubbing his eyes and looking at her.

"I'm afraid I have no good news to convey to you Miss Granger. His condition is stable and the same. Although I'm still in the process of devising a spell that should tell me what exactly is going on inside his body, all I can tell you at this point is that he's in a magical stupor, the equivalent of a muggle coma. But you already know that."

She looked back at Harry's face, trying to subdue the waves of grief that were lapping at her soul. It was five months since the battle of Hogwarts, and she had yet to see the sparkling green of his eyes. Healer Bayard was the best chance they had, and she trusted him, but her hope was slowly dying.

After escaping from Hogwarts, she and the remaining of the Order hadn't known what to do with Harry. Madam Pomfrey had told that his state was beyond her healing expertise and understanding, and that he was in need of immediate medical attention, preferably at St. Mungo's, but she couldn't risk that. So they had Apparated to Shell's Cottage, which was now serving as their temporary headquarters. For months they had called upon the services of various Healers, almost jeopardizing the secrecy of the place, but they had yet to prove deceitful. They hadn't proved all that competent either, until they'd sent Healer Bayard who had run his own diagnostics and thrown some light on the situation.

"This is very rare, and something not commonly encountered in the magical world," he'd said gravely, "A normal person is not bodily equipped to counter the force that is packed inside the Killing Curse, no matter what magical protections he or she has been subjected to. The architecture of the body does not sanction its own spontaneous arrest, it has to be done through force. Harry has had to withstand this force not one, but two times. And it seems to have sent him into a stupor."

This also explained why she felt so physically weak all the time, having been subjected to Voldemort's curse, and having survived it because of Harry's protection.

"But will he ever come out of it?" she asked.

"Alas, that is beyond the realm of Healing, and you will have to look for the answer in the magical basis of it. As for his body, it's presently stable and functioning adequately, but I cannot tell when he will come to. I will regularly come to check on his state, but only time will tell."

She finally bid the elderly Healer farewell and came to sit by Harry.

"Where are you?" she asked him softly and for the millionth time, willing him to respond.

"Please come back to us. We miss you so."

She lightly traced his scar with her finger.

"Yaxley's dead. George killed him yesterday. Rowle was captured too. We're still trying to figure out what to do with him, though. With Kingsley gone over for his muggle obligation, we don't really have anyone who seems up for the questioning. D'you reckon Bill would be up for it?"

"Ginny's well, if you must know. She's finally started eating her favourite Shephard's pie. Ron is…getting by. I think Luna comforts him, who would've thought, right?" she shook her head, smiling.

"I got an owl from Professor McGonagall yesterday. She's trying to hold Hogwarts by the seams. Filch quit. Can you imagine that? And the Carrows are still there, so I don't think a visit to the library sounds safe at this time. I should've asked her to mail some texts over to us, but we don't really know what we're looking for…"

Her voice broke towards the end.

"Harry…come back to us."

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see it was Ron.

The war had taken a toll on him. His blue eyes that used to shine so vibrantly in the summer were now dimmed with suffering.

"What news?", he asked.

"The same."

He sighed heavily and came to sit on the other side of Harry.

"It makes me so…angry. What does that Ferret really want?"

She knew what he wanted, but she didn't want to disclose it to Ron. She'd felt his want back in the small store that night, had seen the angered betrayal flash across his face before she'd Stunned him. She knew he would stop at nothing to have her, and she couldn't give him the satisfaction.

She operated behind closed doors, laid down the framework of their plans and missions, did meticulous research, tended to Harry and cooked for them. Staying back at the sidelines was not in her nature, but her current predicament warranted her lack of active participation. What's more, her physical health was far from being up to scratch.

In addition to all of this, she had to endure the nightmares. He starred in nearly all of them, haunting her dreams and plaguing her reality. He whispered tantalizing invitations, hissed insults in her face, and chased her down in the confines of her own minds, only to utter 'mudblood' when he finally caught her.

He was everywhere.

She could see the world changing around her as time passed, and every time they issued an offensive mob, something had seemed to have altered in the surroundings. The muggleborne population was being hoarded out of their residences and sent off to unnamed places. Children were being uprooted from their homes, half bloods were being interrogated, muggles were being tortured and killed. She hated him for it, for corrupting her world as she knew it to be, for carrying out his threat and in such an inhuman way, as if he were trying to send her a derogatory message, fulfilling some long forgotten prophecy..

She blinked.

The Prophecy.

Blinking rapidly in astonishment, she put a hand to her lips. Why hadn't she thought of it before?

She tried to recall what she remembered of it from what Harry had told them.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ..."

"Ron.." she whispered.

"Hmm?"

"What happened to Voldemort's body afterwards?"

"Dunno…probably left to rot around somewhere. Why?"

"No Ron…I—I think it was still alive. He was still alive. I'm pretty sure Malfoy and his goons took it back with them."

Ron's eyes bulged. His mouth moved wordlessly for a while, before he finally came to his senses.

"So..what now?" he asked, grim determination in his voice.

"I need you to arrange for a meeting with Professor Trelawney as soon as you can."

A/N: Huehuehue. Slight cliffy there, but I wanted to stretch it out to five chapters.

Please tell me what you think!