CHAPTER 7

Without a thought, Ron pushed Hermione behind him and yelled at Malfoy "Revenge?! For what?! I don't know whether you remember properly, but it was you that made our lives hell till the end of last year!"

Draco snorted at that as he leaned comfortably against the dining table, "It's not you I want revenge against Weasley" he scoffed with an air of someone trying to explain a complex arithmacy problem to an impudent child. "By the way, you do realize that those are useless against me; I'm dead." They still kept their wands up though as he went on. "No. It's not you I want revenge against; I want retribution against the ones who used me as a pawn in their pathetic war."

"Until last year, I thought being pureblood was the greatest thing in the world". He said he had a humorless smile on his face as he continued "My father taught me, he told me that it made me better than anyone else, anyone with mixed blood. I soon found out what a hypocrite he was. With all his talk of pureblood supremacy, he had no qualms about bowing down to a half-blooded totalitarian, who turned out to be an even bigger hypocrite". They could feel his anger as it radiated off of him in waves and it was making them nervous, every cell of their bodies telling them to run.

Harry had felt like this before, on multiple occasions, in fact, every time he had come face to face with a life-threatening situation, namely Voldemort. He knew what it was, his self-preservation instinct. 'Wait' he thought 'does that make Draco as dangerous as Voldemort now'. He turned back to the subject of his thoughts, Draco had his head bent, he was taking deep breaths, calming himself down it was unnecessary for them to see that side of him right now, in fact, it would be counterproductive.

"When it came down to it when I started to truly realize what it meant, I didn't want to serve him, I didn't want to be a Death Eater", he said looking at them again. "But when my father failed him, my opinion didn't matter anymore, it was expected of me being a Malfoy" the contempt with which he referred to his second name surprised them. "I wanted to live, enjoy the pleasures life had to offer, but no, I had to be the one to protect the honor of the Malfoy name. I tried to pretend to be one of them at first but the things they did didn't appeal to me."

" My mother tried to help me, going so far as to make an unbreakable vow with Severus in order to protect me" a bark of laughter escaped his lips but there was no humor in it. "A lot of good that did. He found out. My parents both made grievous mistakes."

"In the end, it doesn't matter if you are pureblood, half-blood or Muggle-born if you displease the Dark Lord, the end is the same Death." He took a pause and then spoke again "It not fair" "IT IS JUST NOT FAIR" he screamed and threw the chair resting against the table at the kitchen door where it shattered on impact and the door swung open falling outward to the floor dislodged from its hinges. It happened in a blink of an eye, they hadn't even seen Draco move. It was surprising no one heard the racket from outside, but then, the others were quite a distance from the main house.

"Do you understand now, I want revenge on him, on Voldemort! And I will do anything to get it." while they were stunned by the conviction in his voice they were even more stunned at the fact that he had used Voldemort's name. They had put down their wands long ago, now they just stood there and looked at him. Harry was the first to come forward "Look Malfoy, that's all well and good but what do you want from us?" Draco looked at him with a familiar smirk playing on his lips. "I heard from a reliable source that the three of you have a plan to take down the Dark Lord I simply want in." "What! Hell no!" Ron shouted, "Harry we can't trust him". " If you don't take me with you I'll just end up following your magic, didn't you hear what I said, I will do anything to see his downfall. He manipulated me, made me feel worthless and venerable. Now, I want the same for him. Plus a vampire & ex-Death Eater in your corner might just increase your chances.'

"If we do take you with us, how do we know that one of us won't end up a meal?" "I have my supply of blood in blood bags" he replied touching a lump under his cloak which the others just noticed was there. "How do you know about blood bags?" asked Harry to which Draco replied, "A friend, she was a Muggle before she was turned and I can feed on animals too." "What about the bloodlust?" "Nothing escapes you does it, Granger, it's under control if it wasn't I would have probably sucked one of you dry instead of breaking that chair and door."

Harry was still unsure could they really trust Malfoy with this but then no one understood better than him where Draco came from. "Malfoy can you give us time to discuss this?" Harry asked." Fine, I'll come back in an hour," That said he was gone. "What do you think?" Harry asked turning to his friends. "I think it's bloody mental! I mean you've seen what he did to that chair what's stopping him from doing that to us if we end up fighting or pissing him off." Ron had a point, "Hermione"? "It could have been worse; he could have done more damage he controlled himself. Not to mention we would have an advantage with him on our side, what I'm worried about is his power of compulsion. But we could get vervain for that the only problem is I don't know where to find it."

"What's vervain?" asked Ron on his and Harry's behalf. Hermione resisted rolling her eyes at their ignorance "It's a herb that is toxic to vampires, it weakens them. It also protects from their compulsion." replied Hermione quoting her herbology textbook to the T. "Ok we can ask mum if she has any in storage." "Won't she get suspicious Ron if we ask her for a Vampire toxin?" asked Harry "Nah, she's so busy with the last minute wedding preparations, she won't think too much about it. So then, does that mean were letting the blond git come along?" "Yeah, I think so."

The hour was almost up Ron asked his mother about the vervain and he was right she hadn't given it a though after which Harry and he went to look for it in the Weasleys' portion store in the attic it was 50 minutes past 2:00 when they came back to the kitchen and five minutes later they were joined by Hermione. Unlike before the house was now starting to fill up so the three of them moved to the Weasley Garage cum storage shed. "So did you get it?" Hermione asked the boys. Both the boys looked dejected as Ron put a hand into his breast pocket, fished out a green stem as long as his thumb covered in minuscule purple flowers and held it up to Hermione's disappointed gaze.

"That may only be enough for one of us." She said sadly "any way we can try and find some later Ron put it back in your pocket he should be here any second. " will he be able to find us, I hope he doesn't go wait in the kitchen." "Don't mistake me for a fool Potter." Came Draco's voice from the sheds entrance where he stood leaning against the door. "So... what's the decision?"