Sleeping Beauty
Chapter 2: Dueling with the Devil
Everything belongs to JKR.
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Draco swallowed hard, praying that none of the others in the chamber could clearly see his features in the fitful light. He stepped up to the floating girl. Her eyes were closed, her face pale, her chest rising and falling steadily as she breathed.
Looking at her Draco conceived a daring plan that would probably be the death of both of them, but death suddenly looked much preferable to serving that freak who called himself the Dark Lord. His plan required much daring and risk, with not a little acting and outright lying. Thankfully, after 15 years of living with his father, he was an accomplished actor.
Draco Malfoy reached out one pale hand and fondled the flame red locks that cascaded to the floor. He turned to face Lord Voldemort and his father, still holding the soft curls.
"Surely," he said with his best smirk, in his oiliest voice, "there is a better use for this girl. She is quite pretty and the Weasleys are one of the oldest pure-blood families in England."
He turned back to the comatose girl, allowing his eyes to slip over her curves, allowing his smile to edge into the lecherous. "A much better use than as some sort of sacrificial goat to test my loyalty."
He walked a few steps towards his father, pulling the girl by her hair. "Just think, Father, what better revenge on that Mudblood lover Arthur Weasley than to have his only daughter in love with me, the son of a Death Eater."
His father looked livid at the very idea and Draco prepared himself to grab his wand. Before his father could say anything though, their attention was caught by an awful sound. The high pitched wailing of nails on a tin roof, the screech of brakes, the dreadful scratch of fingernails on a chalkboard. Lord Voldemort was laughing.
"Very good, young Draco," he said in his hissing voice. "This is an even better test of your loyalty to me."
Draco allowed himself to breathe, for a moment he had expected Voldemort to curse him for a fool.
"How so, Master?" Lucius Malfoy demanded. "How is my son debasing himself with a Weasley good?"
Voldemort's eyes flashed malevolently. "You overstep yourself, Lucius.
"Crucio!"
Draco watched dispassionately as his father writhed on the floor, screaming with pain, he wasn't that fond of his father. Voldemort eventually turned away from the weeping, shivering man on the floor to face Draco. "Come here, boy."
Draco released Ginny's hair and stepped in front of the throne. He hoped his eyes didn't reveal the almost incapacitating fear running through his body. If they did, he hoped the fear masked the sudden wild hope sparked by Voldemort's words. They might actually make it out of here alive.
That evil face split into a horrible smile, the red eyes glowing maliciously. "Boy, the only way to wake that girl is with true love's kiss." The fiend cackled. "Your test, boy, is to fall in love with that girl, revive her, then turn her into your slave, corrupt her innocent love for you into fanatical hatred."
The evil creature laughed harder. "Quite a test, boy, just remember you are the one who chose your path to damnation. Now go, return home." A malicious grin. "Good luck on your task." The masked wizards in the room laughed with the Dark Lord, mocking the young man who had thought to outsmart the Dark Lord.
Draco wasn't sure his legs would carry him even back to Ginny, much less back to the port-key that would take them back to Malfoy Manor. As he pulled the unconscious girl down the hallway, only determination and pride kept him mostly upright and moving. A tiny voice in his mind taunted him every step of the way.
~ you damned yourself, boy. you are the weapon of your own damnation. damned, you are, by your own hand. ~