Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: This is one of my favourite parts of this fic... I hope you like it. I want to thank my betas Minerva Solo and Lisa, any remaining mistakes are my own.
"Perfectly normal
Tragically awful
Perfectly normal day" - Speaker
Damn that black-booted git! He had to be stalking him. It was near impossible to go anywhere without bumping into the man, and every time they oh-so-accidentally met the man would smile and greet him heartily. This brand new stalker apparently passed his street on his way to and from work, but that didn't make up for all of the run-ins. He was severely tempted to go and try his luck in a different part of the city, or why not a different city altogether, or another country… But this was after all his home, kind of, and he didn't want to have to start again on another street. It had taken nearly two months for him to become what he was, and he didn't want to abandon his place. It wasn't worth it. He couldn't decide what to do and in the meantime the git was driving him crazy with his friendly smiles.
They had talked once. ONCE! Well, maybe twice, but that first time didn't really count. They had only talked once, and the moron acted as if they where long lost friends or something. It was DRIVING HIM CRAZY! He stared up and down the street before finally settling down. No sign of him today. No sign of him yet anyway. Searching in his many pockets he finally managed to find his paper-mug. He put a few coins in it before placing it in front of him and then hid his hands in the blankets again. The hurrying feet would soon put him in that trance-like state of mind that allowed him to think of nothing.
"Hello again!" He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden outcry, but he soon regained composure and glared at the intruder.
"You." he said with disgust as he recognised Black-Boots the Amazingly Annoying Wizard, "What do you want?" The other man ignored the question; instead he examined a white pebble on the ground.
"I recognise you from somewhere..." the wizard said thoughtfully and turned to look at him. He stared at the man in disbelief; that had sounded like a really bad pick-up line.
"Yes" he forced himself to say as he closed his eyes, "I believe we met yesterday."
"No not that."
He sighed. Screwing his eyes shut didn't help, the man was still there when he opened them again. "We also met some weeks ago." he explained patiently. He wanted to scream but had heard that lunatics should be handled gently.
"Yes I know that," the annoying wizard said and sat down more comfortably next to him "But I recognise you from somewhere else. Maybe we went to school together?"
"Not very likely." he ground out through gritted teeth. He sure hoped not anyway.
"No?" the man asked casually, "I guess I was wrong then." And with that Black-boots got up and was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. The space beside him felt strangely empty. He shook his head and glared in the general direction to where the man had disappeared. What the hell had that been about?
And why couldn't the man just let him be? "Please leave me alone" he whispered to the world in general. That was all he wanted right now.
~*~
Soon enough he began to regret that wish. Bumping into the man nearly every time he turned around was certainly annoying, but after over a week without seeing him at all he started to feel increasingly unnerved. Just because he didn't see the man didn't mean that the wizard wasn't there. He had the sneaking suspicion that someone was watching him, and various incidents proved it. Things like this. He stared unhappily at the paper cup in front of him.
There was a cauldron-cake in his cup. A cauldron-cake. He had no idea where it had come from. No, that wasn't true, he had very strong suspicions about where it came from, but he had no idea how it had ended up there without him noticing. Probably a clever banishing-charm, but it still annoyed him that he hadn't seen it coming. He might have blinked or looked in another direction for a few seconds and there it was. A cauldron-cake. He was severely tempted to stuff it down the wizard's throat next time they met, but his stomach got the better out of him and he ate it instead. It tasted better than he wanted to admit.
And it stirred memories, memories of home. The air felt stuffy, he needed to get away from here. Where did all the dust and smog come from? He crammed the paper cup in his pocket, without emptying it first, and fled.
"You promised me!" he yelled angrily. "I want my cookies now!"
"I know dear, I know I promised but we're out of them right now. See, the jar is empty." He had cried then, cried because he was rarely denied something he wanted. The girl - he couldn't remember her name, but he remembered her hands and her auburn hair - had tried to comfort him.
"Shush, it's all right, we can bake new ones, please don't cry."
He had gazed up at her through a thin layer of tears.
"Really?"
"Really, really." she said with a relieved smile.
He pushed his way violently through the crowd. Not caring about the angry glares and shouts he got from people when he shoved them aside. He didn't apologise - why should he? - They where the ones standing in his way, and they must be the ones making the air so damned difficult to breathe.
They had gone to the kitchen hand in hand, and the girl had searched the cupboards and pulled out packages of flour and sugar and baking soda. He had watched her in wide-eyed awe as she prepared the ingredients. When she had let him measure some of them, one cup of this, two cups of that, he had fallen in love. It was like some new kind of magic when the ingredients they mixed together turned into yellow-white dough to form into cakes. His cauldron cakes were askew but she told him they where beautiful.
Suddenly a ghastly man appeared in front of him. Black wild eyes with deep shadows under them glared at him. He staggered back in shock only to realise that it was his own reflection in a window that had startled him.
When his parents came home they found him and the girl sitting at the kitchen-table with a house-elf, laughing and eating home-made cookies. They didn't say much about it, but he never got that particular baby-sitter again. From that day on the cookie-jar was never empty, but he always remembered the cauldron-cakes he had made all by himself. In his memories they always tasted best.
He never saw the car coming, and that moment of inattention nearly took him out of his misery for good. The screeching of breaks and the furious honk of a car-horn gave him time to throw himself to one side without getting hurt much. He had felt the deadly Muggle-device sweep past, and he got a good close look of the cars hubcaps. Too close.
An old woman hurried forward to him. "You have to watch where you are going." she yelled and shook her umbrella at him, "Do you think you're invincible?" He thought she might hit him with that umbrella, but he didn't say that.
"No." he said absently and tried to stop her fussing over him. Her shrill voice hurt his ears. The car that had almost hit him was already gone, and no one except this crooked old woman seemed to have noticed anything. They don't care if a homeless beggar gets run over by a car, he thought bitterly. They probably think it would be a good thing as long as my brain doesn't make a mess on their newly polished car.
"I'm fine!" he said impatiently to the old woman, but he was silently thankful that she helped him up. He wasn't hurt, he might develop a bruise or two, and there was probably a small cut on the side of his face, but other than that he was fine, a bit shaken maybe, but fine. It had been a close encounter.
He managed to get rid of the senior citizen almost an hour later, but only after she had dragged him into a small, smoky cafe where the air made him cough. She force-fed him hot soup while trying to convince him to go see a doctor. Before she left him she pushed a couple of coupons in his hand, he later found out that each of the paper-pieces entitled him a free lunch at the small café. A sigh of relief escaped him when she finally disappeared behind a corner, but her words didn't leave him.
Do you think you're invincible?
No. A bit more than four years ago he had learnt once and for all that he was neither invincible nor immortal. It was a cruel awakening to realise that his father couldn't always save him. Just because Father once had the Ministry wrapped up round his little finger didn't mean that he still could make them fix everything his son got himself into.
"We need to contact your parents," the man said sternly. Contact his parents? Yes. Father would sort this out somehow. If only he could get his hands on an owl. What on earth did Muggles use instead of owls and floo-powder? He had learned that at Hogwarts, but he couldn't remember. He tried to think straight, but his head throbbed in a vicious headache. The man continued to ask him all kinds of questions, and he answered as truthfully as he could. He was 16 years old. Yes, he lived with his parents still. No they didn't live nearby.
After what felt like at least a hundred questions the man departed, and he was left alone with his headache and his thoughts.
It took the puh-leese nearly a week to track down his family, and when they finally did it was too late to save him. Minister Fudge had never valued a close co-operation with Muggle authorities and could do very little at that point. His case was too deeply engulfed in Muggle-bureaucracy and they would probably have had to do some massive memory charming to get him out of the mess. Apparently he wasn't worth that. His father's few remaining ministry contacts shook their heads and washed their hands clean of it. His mother seemed to drop it too, more or less. Other more important things apparently surfaced. He ended up behind bars for more than two years with a vague promise to be released when the Dark Lord took charge of things again.
Do you think you're invincible?
He felt betrayed.
invincible invincible invincible invincible?
Later he learned that he was quite lucky to take a Muggle-punishment for his crime. Father's contacts at the ministry actually encouraged his case to be left for Muggle puh-leese to sort out. Had he been forced to go through a proper trial at this time he'd probably ended up in Azkaban, as the son of a known Death Eater he was the perfect target to set an example. That was before Dumbledore's reform. He got to know that routine later… on a first-hand basis. That was when they killed his wand.
Invincible?
It might not sound that bad, to have ones wand snapped in half, but that wand had chosen him. They had lived and worked together for the better part of his life. It screamed when they murdered it, and he had been so very close to screaming too. A wand is as important to a wizard as the wizard is to its wand.
Do you think you're invincible?
Oh yes. They all thought they where invincible. Unstoppable. Immortal.
They where all cheerfulness and drunken laughter. On top of the world. Nothing could harm them on their way home through Muggle-London. Their clothes where black and green, generous layers of billowing fabric that seemed to flap happily in an invisible wind, or maybe snap after the Muggles passing by. A flash of silver from a belt-buckle crafted in the shape of a snake. The almost unnatural brilliance in his friends' eyes.
Some people turned to look at the strange party, but they dismissed the odd clothes as some kind of new fashion. A small underground group of kids with their music taste, their clothes and their special trademarks. Not one of the excited youth cared to conceal their newly acquired marks. Black skulls and snake-tongues stood out on pale skin. Some of the ones who saw the tattooed youth that night later claimed that they had felt a chill running down their spine at the sight of those marks. Of course they did. Who wouldn't shiver when they glanced at the face of death?
Not them, they didn't wait or stop to think. The black skull didn't scare them. They where high on adrenaline, alcohol and magic. No one could touch them, they were the kings and queens in a world of pawns and imbeciles. Invincible. Every wish is a command. And tonight they wanted to kill.
Years later in a dark alley the man that was once a wizard and a Malfoy cried out in pain and frustration. He couldn't stop thinking about this. The unwanted memories were back and now he couldn't stop them from returning.
Next chapter: Gilderoy returns, sort of. Ron feels like a secret agent but decides agains dying his hair green...