Chapter10: The Death of Lucius Malfoy

Draco had received the letter in mid-afternoon on Thursday but it was hours before he would open it, after all, he knew what it was and he had been ready for it, or so he thought.

Lucius Malfoy was one of those people you could tell weren't going to live very long and it was no surprise to Draco that when he opened the tan envelope, that Lucius had been found dead the night before. He did not let out one squeak, did not let one emotion escape him though they were there, bubbling just below the surface. He sat in his dorm Thursday night reading and re-reading every line of the letter as if it were a magazine or a book. He felt so detached it was odd, even for him.

Draconis Aquilus Malfoy,

The ministry regrets to inform you that your father was found dead in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The cause of death is unknown as of yet and we offer our greatest condolences. His service, if you choose to attend, will be on September nineteenth at four O'clock at the Malfoy mansion. Our best wishes to you in your education and we hope that your father's generous and caring nature will live on through you.

Cornelius Fudge

Minister of Magic

Fudge's last words made Draco's blood boil. His father had not been generous; he had been clever in bribing the right officials, Fudge included, into letting him keep his position. It made Draco ill to think of how much of their treasury had been wasted on bribery and when Draco took charge of the Malfoy manor's affairs that would be the first thing to change.

They would do something productive with the money Draco would attain as a death eater, if the dark lord's reign lasted to that point anyway. Even without that money, the Malfoy's were sitting on a pile of gold as high as Gringotts itself.

"Will you be attending his service, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape had asked. "I could sign you up while you're at your first lesson." But Draco had only smiled while shaking his head.

"Why would I waste one more minute away from school than I have to? My father said himself that in times of hardship, one must concentrate on the thing that will get them by. He said it would be foolish to assume myself above education even in the most appropriate circumstances." Draco said coldly. "If he would have wanted me there, he would have died during the summer or over holiday, he didn't, I'm not leaving. They'll bury him whether or not I am present."

"Very well, I hope that this will not be one of those things you regret as an adult." Snape had replied just as lacking in emotion. "I will get a copy of the will to you so you may read over it yourself." And like that, their conversation was over.

It was only after he had lain down to sleep that the emotion returned and it was like nothing he had ever felt before. His father, the man he had known his whole life, who had always been there over summer, over holiday, was gone, he was gone forever, just like that.

Most of all, Draco regretted their last conversation. He was leaving, Draco had watched him pack his bags, but it was so unfair. Lucius had promised that their summer would go uninterrupted by the whims and crazy impulses of Lord Voldemort. Draco hated the look on his mother's face when Lucius left on his missions for Voldemort and there was so little Draco could do to make it stop, to make her pain subside. All he could do was watch her fear.

The night his father left he remembered his mother coming into his room in the middle of the night.

Her black hair had been pulled back into a long elegant ponytail and she wore her dark green and silver nightdress that he had grown used to after he had been accepted as a Slytherin. She had had this look on her face. A look that said everything was so wrong that she didn't know how to fix it all.

It was then that Draco began to hate his father. Loathing him for everything he was and even more for what he wasn't.

"You know it's not us." Narcissa had begun. "Your father had to go, he has things he needs to take care of that are more important than you, or I." Her voice came alive in Draco's head and he tried to block the memory.

"Has Lucius always hated to be here?" Draco heard himself ask. "Has Voldemort always been more important?"

"Shush… Do not say that name." She had reprimanded quietly as she sat down at the end of his bed. She thought for a moment before answering, "No, I suppose he hasn't always had the same focuses. But that was before you-know-who."

"Did he ever love me?"

Draco choked on his pillow as he relived every second slowly and painfully.

"Of course he did, he still does. You're his only son and that means more to him than you will ever know." She paused, looking at him through bruised eyelids.

"He hit you." Draco said shortly, cringing away from the ugly scar on her beautiful face. "He hit you again. Why does he do it? Why does he hit you again and again and again!" Draco had stood and was pacing. He was so mad he thought that he should have shattered.

"I shouldn't have talked back, it was my fault. I know how he feels about that sort of thing." She excused and Draco yelled at her to be quiet. "Don't you talk to me that way, Draconis Malfoy! I will not be mistreated by my own son."

"Father does it, why can't I? What is so different about it, mum? Is it because he's bigger than you?" He ranted.

"No, it's because my greatest ambition as a mother was to free you of the expectation to be like your father and in that at least, I have succeeded, or I should hope so." She admonished while standing. She walked to the door and turned back, her hand on the frame. "I do not think your father will be returning from this mission. As I've always told you, be prepared, and do not let his choices dictate yours." She finished with a short smile. "Oh yes, I will be gone for a while, good luck at school, Jessike will help you ready yourself, be a good prefect."

And that was the last he had spoken with her except for short correspondences between weeks. Just meaningless letters inquiring about school and his health. He wouldn't say he answered dishonestly, he just left out important details he thought she didn't deserve to know considering.

Draco admitted he shouldn't be mad at her, but now that Lucius was gone, who was there to hate? What was there to loathe, to make him so angry he could kill? Who was left but Voldemort, the ax that split his family apart long before he could remember what happiness was like?

Draco sat up in his bed and squinted his eyes. Reaching under his bed he grabbed his small but substantial stash of alcohol. Why no drink everything away? Why should Draco Malfoy be unhappy if he didn't have to? Why grieve for a father that wasn't worth a penny of the money he had to his name?

Draco stood quietly and grabbed his pants from the end of his four-poster. Pulling them up just under his hips, Draco paused to yawn. He buttoned his jeans blindly while grabbing his wand from his bedside table and putting it in his back pocket.

Draco pulled the first bottle from the six-pack and opened it with a flick of his fingers. Tipping the bottle back the bitter liquid met his tongue with a satisfying fizz that burned his throat. He knew that he shouldn't be drinking in here but at the moment common sense wasn't the only thing he was lacking.

Finishing off the first bottle Draco wiped his mouth vexatiously while grabbing another. Shirtless and slightly disoriented Draco walked down the dormitory steps six-pack in one arm and a fresh beer in the other.

By the time he reached the prefect common room he had drunk his was through three beers and started on another. Though his vision was becoming a bit blurred and his equilibrium was a bit off balance he felt as though his thinking was still quite clear for someone his age considering how much alcohol he had already consumed.

The fire in the grate was burning quite strongly, emitting a deep radiating heat that made him slightly drowsy as he stumbled forward into the dim room.

Looking around he noticed the lavished richness, which he had been missing out on in the Slytherin dormitories. There were four chairs and three couches placed strategically around the room. There was one blue chair and couch, one red chair and couch, two green chairs, and one yellow couch. It was then that Draco realized how truly large the prefectorial commons were. And there were still the two dorms per house that they were offered along with the badge and responsibility.

Draco staggered towards the green chair and cursed the fact that Slytherins had to be such loners. That was why there was no green couch; no Slytherin could stand being any closer to another than they had to, whereas the Hufflepuffs were the exact opposite. They had only a couch for their prefects.

He sat in the soft chair and leaned his head back into the cushion. He felt unnervingly calm, as if his mind was readying for war. Setting the box by the chair he opened his fifth beer and slowly began to down it, closing his eyes to let the feeling of complete calm that he loved overwhelm him.

"Well, well, well… Why am I not surprised? The great Draco Malfoy turning our respectable commons into a personal lounge." Said a very annoying and unwelcome voice from the doorway and Draco drowsily lifted one of his eyelids, squinting through the darkness of the room to see a familiar mudblood.

"Why don't you just leave? Go on…" He said motioning for her to exit through the in which she had come from.

"I'm not leaving, this is my commons just as much as it is yours." She snapped while stepping even further into the room. He could see the look of disgust on her face as she surveyed his unkempt appearance. It no doubt bothered her that he was not wearing a shirt and this thought made Draco smile slightly. "You know, as difficult as it may seem to be to grasp in your current state, Malfoy, your problems, whatever they may be, will still be here when you sober up."

Draco guffawed then took a swig of his drink. "I'm Draco fricken Malfoy, for Christ's sake! I don't have problems, I have everything." He slurred loudly but softly while he sat up.

"That's rich, I don't normally see men who have problems drink like this." She said smartly.

"And what men do you know, Granger?" He asked spitefully. "Potter? Weaselby?" He gave a short laugh and took another drink. "I bet they haven't even gotten laid yet."

"Yes, that's what makes a man." Granger said mockingly and Draco stood angrily while brandishing his half-empty bottle at her.

"Get the fuck out." He whispered but the tone behind the words stung, he could tell by the way that she recoiled.

"My pleasure, I didn't want to witness your disgusting display of lack of impulse control in the first place." Draco was suddenly so angry and he had no idea what had triggered it, but then again, it was Granger. Know-it-all, I-always-have-an-answer-hello-I-have-my-hand-raised Granger.

"Fuck you, Granger, what do you know about anything?" He half-shouted. He held the bottle to his lips and finished off the contents in one swallow.

"Nothing, Malfoy, nothing at all." Draco reached woefully for the last bottle and opened it. "It's funny, I actually felt as though I owed you something for finding my necklace, but you know what? You can go to hell, I'm done trying to be civil with you, Malfoy."

Granger turned to leave but Draco felt the need for company, whether it was unpleasant or not. "No, wait…"

"I'd rather not." She said crudely.

"No, honestly! It's me who's forgotten to be civil, come and have a drink or two." He offered innocently as if she could not decline his offer.

"You can't be serious?" Granger scoffed. "Alcohol is a vile substance that renders even the most admirable men into mindless and sex-driven jerks though I'd be highly surprised if you weren't there before you started to binge."

"And? Do you happen to have any more completely useless words of wisdom to share? I'm growing bored listening to you drone on, you're beginning to sound like Binns, you know that?" He paused. He was saying everything as it came to him and for once it he got to be brutally and offhandedly honest. "You really think you know everything don't you?"

"I never claimed to be any smarter than I was. Just because you are intimidated to think that a muggle-born may know just as much, maybe even more than you. You who has been raised and groomed to be 'perfect.'" Draco clenched his fist. How dare she even assume what he was being groomed for! If only she knew, Draco thought wickedly, it would wipe that arrogant, know it all smile off her face in an instant.

"If you're so smart why didn't you do yourself and the wizarding world a favor and do yourself in? You're never going to be accepted, never!" He shouted. "There will always be wizards like me to remind you of what you are, unworthy of the name of magic." He would make sure she knew exactly what she was. A black mark on the world of magic, a blemish on the face of the Hogwarts' enrollment lists.

Tears filled her eyes as he glared maliciously at her and she clenched her small fists at her sides as if she was ready to fight him. "Go on, if you're going to think it so loud go ahead and hit me, I'll have your ass on the floor before you even swing." He threatened drunkenly.

"You're disgusting." Though she said the words only loud enough for him to hear it was as if she had yelled at him at the top of her lungs, called him every foul and despicable name there was. And then she turned around as if she was just going to leave…

Following after Granger blindly Draco stumbled over the coffee table that he suddenly noticed was placed in front of his chair and fell. He pulled himself up groggily staggering hurriedly after her as she left the commons and he called after her. "I'm not done talking to you, mudblood!"

"Well, that's funny, I'm done listening." Granger said thoughtfully as she nearly double her pace just to get away from him.

"You know what?" Draco asked and she whipped around.

"What?"

"You're such a bitch, Granger." He vociferated, his expression one of complete seriousness.

"How mature. Ten points from Slytherin for you being such a filthy little git." She said while placing her hands on her hips and glaring across the hall at him.

"Yeah?" Draco asked without hesitation. "Twenty points from Gryffindor for you being an insufferable know-it-all that is incapable of keeping her filthy trap shut." He yelled.

"Oh, fifty points from Slytherin for you even existing, Malfoy." She shouted back, matching not only his tone but his sincerity as well.

"One hundred points from Gryffindor for… well, just because!" Granger's jaw dropped and Draco was panting. Silence filled the hallway and it seemed as if Draco's words were echoing, repeating again and again. Draco just stood there, very satisfied with himself at the moment.

It seemed as if Granger was just about to retort but she didn't get the chance for someone was walking down the hall towards them. He saw Granger tense as McGonagal came near enough to distinguish and he could have laughed. He was feeling highly untouchable at the moment, which could have been due to his complete inebriation.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy? What on earth are you two doing up and about in the castle at this time of night?" She exclaimed in disbelief. "What did I tell you two?" She asked her mouth twitching slightly. "Explanations, and you better make it good." She added the option sternly as if she had not originally planned on hearing their reasons.

"I was going to go to bed in the prefect commons and I saw Malfoy waiting in there and so I asked him if he wanted to make a quick round of the school just to be safe." Granger said quickly while stumbling over her words as she tried to say them as quickly as she could.

"Yes professor, you know how much of a coward Granger is, so she begged me to go along." He slurred over-dramatically and the mudblood glared, turning back to McGonagal.

"That's right, but when I saw that Malfoy jumped every time there was an odd sound I immediately regretted it." She retorted calmly.

"You wish." Draco snapped.

"No, I wish that you would-" But she didn't get to finish her sentence.

"Enough from both of you!" McGonagal intervened. "Miss Granger, a word please."

"Yes professor." The mudblood asked, a familiar dread filling her voice. McGonagal pulled her over to the corner but Draco could still hear every word they said as clear as if they were standing right next to him still. The hallways were charmed so as not to echo.

"Why aren't you sleeping in the Gryffindor dorms?" McGonagal asked her voice not lacking in concern.

"You know why. They all hate me and I'm tired of them acting like I'm invisible, like they can say whatever they want when they think I can't hear them."

"I see." McGonagal said slowly. "Go on to bed and do not let me catch you out of bed in the middle of the night again!" McGonagal looked to Draco then at Granger then eerily slowly back to Draco. "What happened to Mr. Malfoy's shirt?" She asked and both him and Granger froze.

"It was too hot in the commons and I didn't have time to grab one." He said noxiously while yawning and stretching like a cat and he saw the mudblood roll her eyes.

"From now on if you are to make rounds, you will both be fully attired, robes and all." McGonagal admonished. "If not, you will face great consequences. Now, goodnight Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy. Go straight to sleep! I will not tolerate this sort of mischief." She said with sickening conviction. You may be prefects but prefects are to use their power to reinforce the rules, not to break them." McGonagal turned and walked back down the hall. Draco saw the mudblood let out a sigh of relief similar to the one he had just released.

"Don't you ever defend me again, you mudblood." He spat contemptuously I'd rather get expelled and packed off to Azkaban than be defended by you." He said coldly as they walked back to the commons.

"It wasn't for you, believe me, it was for me." She replied just as coldly. "It would have been suspicious if we had just stood there with no answers and I am not ready to be expelled, not after five years of perfect grades and hard work."

"I'm sure that is the first thing you thought of, eh?" Draco snarled viciously. "I'm surprised it wasn't Potter or Weasley. Oh what ever would they do without me there to stick my filthy nose in their business and boss them around?" He mocked insolently while feigning distress. "You're you incorrigible, Granger."

"I'm incorrigible?" Hermione asked in utter dismay. "You're the one that still holds onto cruel eighteenth century practices and the belief that all witches and wizards of mixed blood are evil." She said with a wicked laugh as she crossed her fingers in the shape of a cross in front of her and hissed.

"I never said evil." He replied, his lip curling into a sneer of its own accord. "Less than me? Yes. Unworthy? Definitely. Filthy, disgusting, grimy, little-" But he was interrupted by Granger's annoying yet narrowly soothing voice.

"We're here." Granger said shortly and Draco leaned against the wall a half-cocked smile still on his face.

"Good thing too, I was beginning to run out of vulgar adjectives to apply to your kind." He said wistfully whilst pointing in her direction.

"I'm not surprised considering your lack of intelligence and your indisposed state of mind, but I suppose that is none of my business and I could honestly care less." She added with a spiteful smirk of her very own. "Hephalump." She said arrogantly but nothing happened and her shoulders slumped slightly. "God damn it, Hephalump!" She shouted while hitting the stone with an open palm, he could tell she just wanted to get as far away from him as possible in a short period of time. "That is the password, right?" She asked turning desperately to Draco who made sure he had that same know it all smirk on his face.

"Had you been at the meeting this morning, "He began jokily. "You would have received the information on the prefectorial quarters, Granger, I dunno if it's my place to share with you the confidential information that this little paper-" He began to dig around in his robes. "Has to offer." He finished while waving it mischievously just out of reach.

"I didn't get one, you prat, I was with McGonagal this morning." Granger said angrily while crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him loathingly.

"So you say…" He began with as a sly idea came to him suddenly. "Say please or no passwords." Draco said with a half-serious grin on his face. "Please, is all I ask." He whispered quietly, almost tenderly and Granger bent to his will.

"Please just give me the fucking password."

"That a girl, didn't know if you had it in you." He said while shoving it into her outstretched hand. "I've got it memorized. The password changes every Thursday night at midnight, which is why you got in earlier. Don't lose it." He warned and she guffawed as if his worries were completely unfounded. Gryffindors are the ones that seem to have a tendency to lose lists of passwords when crazed fugitives are running about the place…

"Gandalf? Ariel?" Granger asked interrupting his comically perceptive thoughts. "Who came up with these?" She asked in amusement as she skimmed through the list, laughing at the ridiculous passwords all the prefects had thought of that morning without her. "They sound absolutely ridiculous…"

"Had you been there you would have had a say in what the passwords were but because they weren't interested in eternum mortalis I suppose we should be gracious to embrace an eccentric wizard from a fantasy trilogy and a Disney character straight from the pages of virgins international." He said, reproval and disgust echoing in his voice. He was insulted at the so obviously Hufflepuff choices.

"Right." Granger said and he could tell she had only been half-listening, which pissed him off. He more than deserved her attentions. "Gandalf." The tapestry with the Hogwarts crest on it blew aside revealing a hole in the wall just big enough for humans to pass through but as soon as they entered it became solid stone again except for a small handle.

"Well, I guess it's off to bed for the little mudblood." Draco simpered coolly. "Suits me just as well then. G'night." But she had already walked into her quarters and slammed the door loudly, the sign on the door falling to the ground with a thud. "Don't need a filthy mudblood to ruin my night." He said quietly to himself. "She'll just put a damper on the whole celebratory evening… G'bye dad." He whispered while mock saluting the air. "Farewell, you served your purpose well you wretched loathsome beast." And not before long he had another six pack at his side and one by one he tipped them back drowning himself in the pleasures each beer allotted one like him.

But twenty minutes later he was feeling quite differently about the whole thing. He sat on his hands and knees retching all over the blue, red, and green 3000 thread count rug and to make matters invariably worse, himself.

He knew he was loud but he didn't really care, not that he could help it. He wasn't about to be courteous when it felt as though his insides were being forced into his throat and out his mouth. Granger would have to bear the inconvenience of listening to him wretch his pretty little Slytherin guts out all over their floor.

But after a few minutes he discovered that she wouldn't bear it silently. "Can you knock that off?" She shouted from her dormitory.

"I would if I could you filthy little-" But he was interrupted by another wave of sour, acrid vomit.

Five minutes later he heard her growl loudly and stomp to the door. Flinging it open with a flourish she stepped into the faint glow of the fireplace light and glowered down at him importantly. "I have lessons to attend tomorrow Malfoy, and the last thing that I need is to spend the whole night listening to you vomit all that alcohol up onto our floor!" She shouted. Granger brandished her wand professionally and said the incantation, "Scourgefy!" The vomit disappeared and she looked down at him as if he was dirt beneath her pink frilly slippers.

"Get up." She said sternly while grabbing him by the arm. He was too weak to resist so he just tried to help as much as he could. "Come on, just to the fricken chair, Malfoy, you can do it." She encouraged without any zeal whatsoever. "There, now sit." Granger finished forcefully. She rubbed her hands together and looked at him, no looked through him with her serious brown eyes. "Now first things first, you need to sober up." She took the bottle from his hand and he made a failing attempt to maul her.

"Mine!" He shouted loudly and she cringed only for a second before letting him have it.

"I am trying to help you, you pathetic little rich boy, now sit down and behave yourself." He suddenly felt like a chastised young boy at church. Did she just call me a pathetic little rich boy? He realized too late he had said it out loud and Granger complied by adding a clever comment of her own.

"Yes I did, because you are just that, a spoiled little rich brat. I'm sure you're father is the one who bought you these and smuggled them onto Hogwarts grounds. He is just as much to blame-"

"Don't talk about him." Draco murmured solemnly.

But Granger went on as if she hadn't heard him. "You need to accept that daddy's not always going to be here, I mean if Dumbledore…" But her words faded as her first statement hit home. His father wasn't there anymore, he wasn't anywhere…

"Granger, can I ask you something?" He asked in an almost indiscernible slur as he looked up at her sadly through deliriously glazed eyes.

She gave a curt nod and said, "What?"

"Should I feel sad he's gone?"

"What are you talking about, Malfoy? Who's gone?" She inquired interestedly while changing all his beer into bottled water.

"My father… He's dead. I know- no, I feel obligated to hurt, to be said that he's gone. He was my father for Christ's sake." He stated bitterly. "But you want to know the truth, Granger?" He asked, not caring if she did or not. "I don't even miss him, not even a little. I don't feel sad that he's gone, I feel suddenly free."

He knew he was rambling but Granger seemed very intent on what she was doing. He doubted she was even listening and despite that he didn't even know if he was saying anything.

"He used to hold such a tight leash around my neck when I was a first year, but I think I grew stronger from then…" He said while rubbing his neck nervously. "I don't really understand how I feel about him being… you know, dead and all, but I know it's not normal…" His voice became raspy and faded as he tried to keep from drowsing.

"Well," Granger said rising from the floor after cleaning up all of his sick up off the carpet. "Your father was not a normal man by any standards, was he?" Draco shook his head.

"He always seemed so… out of reach. Inhuman, you know?" He asked and she smirked. He had the feeling she knew exactly what he meant and it wasn't at all unrelated to him. "I don't think I loved him… Hermione. I don't think we cared about each other enough to really pay any attention to petty attachments, weaknesses." He stuttered inarticulately. "I feel like there's this hole where my emotion should be, like someone's run me through."

"You never really showed much of a knack for being very emotionally coordinated." She said, unmoved by his openness. "What in this Merlin's name makes you think you can start now?"

"I have emotions," Draco began rather loudly. "Just because I don't parade them around like you bloody Gryffindors doesn't make them any less existent." He paused as if to think. "Weakness, this is just a bout of weakness." He excused mildly enthused. "Dunno why I'm talking to you, not like you listen." He snapped.

"I am listening and what you're saying doesn't make a lot of sense." Granger lectured quietly. "You need rest, you know that. Stop whining and go to bed, Draco." She said while turning. "Quite frankly I don't know why you told me all this. You know it will end up ammunition for our war."

"I had to say it to someone, even someone like you." He said spitefully and she turned back to face him.

"And who exactly am I?" She asked while crossing her arms over her chest defensively.

"A bloody Gryffindor." He said and she nodded. As his vision finally blurred and he was lulled to sleep by her eccentric ranting, Draco dreamt of very odd things.

It was Granger, except she was in a dress, a really short dress, a dress he could imagine on a prostitute's body… Granger wasn't a prostitute… not in front of everyone else anyway.

Please god, tell me I am not having sexual fantasies about Granger, Draco mentally groaned. Wake up, just wake up! This is what he got for getting drunk and having Granger be the last thing he saw before falling asleep.

But Granger wasn't taking off her clothes. She just stood there staring at him, slowly fading out of focus until she was but a white blur in the center of a dark as black room. Then everything fell away and was replaced by a jungle. Draco ran forward trying to push his was through the thickest of the underbrush but not before long he was caught and unable to move a single limb. It felt like the vines were curling around him, twisting, constricting to the point where he found himself unable to breathe.

He had to move on, he had to get away. There was something in forest he needed, something that was everything to him. He felt a sickening lurch in his stomach when he realized he couldn't remember what it was. But that feeling was soon replaced by an even greater fear. Death. It was coming over him like water rushing over a waterfall but it seemed as if time was being extended, but he could not get over the feeling that it was not for his benefit alone…

As his dream self became disoriented from lack of oxygen memories began flashing before his eyes. A first birthday, his fist broom, magic pre-school, his first trip to Hogwarts, his last, his wedding day, his last birthday, and his death. He hadn't even witnessed any of the last memories but they were as clear as if he had been the one seeing it all himself even though it was impossible.

"Don't die, Draco." Whispered a soft voice somewhere beyond his vision. Everything was growing dimmer yet lighter at the same time. "Find me, I need you. Don't die, Draco." The voice was getting further and further away the longer he sat there giving into death. He felt a particularly vicious vine wrap around his neck and he conceded sadly that this was the end of Draco Malfoy.

"Don't die, Draco." Came the voice again and suddenly Draco's vision came back with an all new tuned sharpness.

"No!" he cried out in a short gurgle. He ripped at the vine around his neck and pulled it roughly away from his flesh then began tearing madly at the other ones. "Let me go!" But as he fought more fiercely, they too attacked harder and quicker than before. But in the end Draco escaped gouged and scratched with a broken arm and wandered through the silent underbrush utterly alone.

He listened and he listened for the voice to lead the way. He needed to find the voice, he needed to or he would die. Tripping over a hidden stump Draco fell to his knees and cried out as a branch tore the tender flesh of his left inner forearm. Looking down he could have died from shock.

Beneath a fresh, bloody gash was a black tattoo, one that Draco had never expected to see on his own arm. It was a morbid skull with a snake winding it's way through the vacated eye sockets and the snake's head came out of the skulls mouth, its tongue sticking out.

He reached into the pocket of his robe and tore out the lining. Placing it quickly over the wound he tore his robe sleeve and tied the frayed strip of cloth tightly around his arm to prevent the wound from bleeding out. Afterwards he stood and continued on. It was grown dark again, so dark that visibility was reduced to three feet in the most.

Eventually Draco reached in his other pocket to grab his wand but what he pulled out was nothing like wood. It was cold steel encrusted with jewels. It was the Malfoy dagger. He had seen it in their family's treasury chambers deep below the ground level floor of the Malfoy manor. What it was doing in his pocket was anybody's guess but that was not his greatest nor most pressing worry.

Draco could feel something drawing nearer to him every second he wasted. It was still dead silent but he could hear the soft scratching sound of robes on underbrush so near that he shivered.

Suddenly there was a break in the darkness and the full moon shone through the clouds above the dank forest. Draco looked up and felt a stirring within. It was too late. He could not react with the dagger before he was bowled over and crushed by the strong, sinewy body of a werewolf.

Draco heard one loud scream of a woman before he was most likely torn apart limb by limb, but he didn't get that far before he was jolted awake by a soft touch on his shoulder…