In Too Deep

by Sticks and Stones

(Slash) Draco dreams of Harry being kidnapped by an anti-Voldemort, anti-Muggle faction and awakes to see the same incident described in the morning paper. As a new year at Hogwarts begins, will Draco come forth with what he knows and help Harry?

2. The Dark Sunrise

Title: In Too Deep (2/?)

Author: Sticks and Stones

E-mail: sticks_and_stones101@yahoo.com

Rating: R

Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me. Sorry.

Warning: Slash, some violence later on, I guess . . . rated R to be safe

Summary: (Slash) Draco dreams of Harry being kidnapped by an anti-Voldemort, anti-Muggle faction and awakes to see the same incident described in the morning paper. Will Draco come forth with what he knows and help Harry?

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! I hope you're satisfied with this chapter.

Chapter Two: The Dark Sunrise

Draco felt like passing out. So it was true! His entire dream was true! Potter HAD been kidnapped the night before . . . and he was a witness!! He knew how many kidnappers there had been, had seen their faces, knew the exact time of the attack, knew that three Muggles had died without reading the full article . . .

Well . . . sorta.

He hadn't exactly been there to see it all, but he still knew. He vaguely wondered if anyone would believe him, would believe that he'd seen the whole thing . . . if he decided to come forward, that was. Draco snickered. Yeah, right. Like he was going to try to help the great Harry Potter. It would be a cold day in hell before that happened.

So Draco put on the most neutral face that he could manage and said calmly, "Well, father, wouldn't you, of all people, be happy about this? I mean, the Death Eaters finally have Potter and-"

"THAT'S JUST THE THING!!!!" his father roared. "WE DIDN'T GET HIM!!!"

What the hell . . .?!! Death Eaters aren't responsible?!

"Um . . . what? Are you . . . sure?"

His father looked furious and snatched up the paper. "Sure? SURE?! Of course I'm sure!!!!" He roughly yanked up the sleeve of his robe and furiously rubbed at the Dark Mark. "The Lord is calling us right now . . . this isn't good . . ."

His father stalked angrily out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Draco stared down at the forgotten newspaper on table before him, then hastily folded it up and slipped it into his robes. He would read the paper later, just out of curiosity, to see what the authorities knew.

What little bit of appetite that he'd had just minutes ago was now gone, and he no longer desired to be in the room. He nosily pushed back his chair and stood, attracting the attention of his mother.

"Dear, before you go," she said, "your owl from Hogwarts came. It's in the middle of the table."

He shifted through the pile of parchment on the table, picking out his school letter and another from Goyle. "Thanks, Mother." He quickly left and retreated to his room, where he shut and locked the door behind him.

Draco flopped down on his bed and tossed his two owls aside, pulling out the newspaper. He carefully unfolded it and spread it out before him.

'The Boy Who Lived- Kidnapped,' it began. 'The disappearance of Harry Potter, the boy responsible for defeating He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when he was just a baby, has rocked the magical world to it's very foundation. Reported just early this morning, the incident was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Magic when two of Potter's friends received no reply from him after sending birthday gifts to his safe house.

'Upon investigation, the Ministry found three Muggles lying dead in their home, apparently struck down by the forbidden Avada Kedavra. There was no ransom note left, and all of Potter's possessions were taken along with him.

'With little or no clues to go on, there are currently no suspects in the kidnapping. Many, however, speculate that Death Eaters are the culprits. Rumors of the rise of You-Know-Who have sparked this claim, although there is no evidence to his uprising, or at least none that the Ministry is prepared to share with the general public.'

Draco threw the paper aside and sighed heavily. So. Three Muggles were dead, and they had been killed by Avada Kedavra. But something puzzled him about the whole thing. If Death Eaters hadn't taken Potter as his father had claimed, then who had? The magical community absolutely adored him, so it didn't really make much sense that someone else would kidnap Potter.

Unless his father was mistaken. Maybe Voldemort hadn't told his lackeys about his victory yet, and that was why he was calling them now. Maybe . . .

Draco's vision swam and suddenly the room around him disappeared and was replaced by a very familiar scene. A chill raced up his spine when he realized where he was.

He was back in Potter's room again, back to the night the boy had been taken. Except everything was going much slower than it had actually happened. Like now, as the 'Death Eaters' came into the room through the window, they moved at a painstakingly slow pace.

What's up with this? Why am I seeing this again?

He watched as the three intruders neared Potter's bed to attack. Harry jumped up and dashed (okay, slowly dashed) for the door, pulling it open. Draco found himself roughly yanked along with Potter as the 'Death Eaters' followed after him.

He watched as the three Muggles came into the hall, heard Harry's yell, saw the three attackers raised their arms and then came the cries of, "AVADA KEDAVRA!!"

Suddenly the scene froze. Everyone was still, and even the deadly curse was floating in mid air.

Oooookay. Now what?

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder . . . Draco just stood around for a while, waiting for things to begin again.

But it didn't.

I want OUT!! He growled and angrily stomped around Harry, kicking his still body in the leg. Nothing. He was just about to aim his foot toward a higher, more painful destination when something caught his eye. Draco left the dream Harry alone and walked up to the attackers.

All three of them had their arms raised in the air, and their sleeves had fallen back. He walked around their bodies. There. There was the answer.

Two of the attackers were left handed, and both of their arms were clean.

No Dark Mark.

There was a bright flash of light and then a whoosh sound, and Draco found himself lying on his bed once more. "What the fuck was all that about?" he demanded quite loudly to no one at all.

Well, one thing was clear. Something had pulled him back into that dream and showed him something that could change the whole course of the Potter investigation. Voldemort hadn't been responsible, and he knew that the Ministry would keep thinking that he was until they received information that would lead them to believe otherwise. Information that would not reach the Ministry unless he came forward.

Draco snickered. Well, Fate, you've chosen the wrong person for this job. My mouth's staying shut.

He cackled evilly. Well, at least something good would come out of the kidnapping.

Both the Quidditch and House Cup were now in his grasp.

*~*

Remus Lupin held the morning paper close to his chest and watched as a groggy Sirius entered the kitchen of their tiny hideaway cabin deep in the middle of some forgotten woods. He immediately filled a mug with black coffee as he did every morning and sat across from Remus.

"Where's the paper?" asked Sirius, sipping at the steamy black liquid in his cup. This, too, was a routine. Sirius liked to keep up with current events and spent the early morning hours reading every article in the paper.

" . . ." was all Sirius got as a reply.

Sirius raised and eyebrow. "Remus? Hello, Remus? The paper?"

"Ahhh . . ."

Sirius spotted it in Lupin's grasp. He glared at his friend. "It's right there, Remus." He pointed at Lupin's chest. "Right there! Give me the paper."

Remus stood up and held it behind his back. "Um, Sirius . . . I . . . uh . . ." He knew that Sirius would go ballistic once he saw what was on the front page of the paper.

Harry's disappearance.

"Come on, now. I thought we were both adults here. It's not that hard. Give me the paper, okay?!"

"Let me just . . . warn you . . ." Remus began backing up from the table.

Sirius leapt at Remus and wrestled the paper away from the other man. "It's just a damn paper, Remus!" He proceeded to unfold the paper and turned it over to look at the front page.

Remus waited for the explosion.

" . . . WHAT THE HELL?!"

*~*

Ron warily rubbed his temples. With the news of Harry's kidnapping fresh in their minds, his family was a complete and utter wreck. Ginny was crying hysterically into her hands while his father was busy yelling into the fireplace, arguing with some official at the Department of Criminal Investigation.

"I DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT YOU PEOPLE ARE DOING ABOUT THIS!!!!" he shouted angrily to the man on the other end.

"We're doing-" began the other man.

"ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW, RIGHT NOW!!!!"

"I can't tell you anything! Everything is strictly confidential, Mr. Weasley!"

Ginny's crying got louder and louder.

"DO YOU HEAR MY DAUGHTER?!" Ron's father exclaimed. "SHE'S CRYING OVER HARRY, AND SHE WON'T QUIET DOWN UNTIL I GET SOME INFORMATION!!!!"

Ron couldn't take it anymore. He stalked out of the room and ran outside where his brothers were sitting on the grass, fiddling with some sort of new device they'd just made. Ron frowned and got angry. "Really, you two, how can you play with your stupid toys at a time like this?! Harry's gone, and you don't give a flying rat's ass!"

Fred grinned. "Now, now, Ron, you're starting to nag like Hermione."

"Shut up!!"

George laughed. "Calm down, Ron. This," he held up a black box with a screen, a key pad and a satellite dish type thing on the end, "could help find Harry."

Ron looked interested and peered over the twin's shoulders. "Really? What is it? What does it do?"

Fred cleared his throat and put on his advertisement voice. "I'm glad you asked, Ron! You see, we call this the Seeker 2000."

"What?" asked Ron. "The WHAT?" Did it have something to do with Quidditch?

George took over. "The Seeker 2000. What does it do, you wonder? Explain, Fred."

"The Seeker 2000 can latch onto the location of a person's wand. Good for forgetful wizards like Neville, and the ideal piece of equipment for missing persons and kidnapping cases," finished the other twin.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "What? I still don't get it."

George sighed exasperatedly and Fred snickered. "Look," said George, "don't be stupid Ron!"

"Yeah, Ron! Think about it. Kidnapping cases! The Death Eaters took Harry's things with them, according to the article in the morning paper," explained Fred.

"And," the other boy said, "that means they probably took his wand with them. Now, providing that they haven't nuked it or something, we could find Harry by locating his wand!"

Ron's mouth fell open. Wait a minute. The twins had actually created something beneficial to society? Something that wasn't a gag? "Why'd you two want to make something like that in the first place?"

"It was George's idea."

"No, no, brother! It was yours!"

"No, yours."

"I must insist, it was YOURS!"

Ron rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter whose idea it was! It's . . . ingenious!"

Both twins grinned and said at the exact same time, "Just imagine . . . we'll be world famous for solving the Great Harry Potter Mystery!"

Fred nodded. "Tons of people will come to our joke shop to see the two brilliant twins who saved Harry Potter himself . . ."

" . . . which will lead to us making a huge amount of money . . ."

" . . . and we'll have stores all across the globe . . ."

Ron could almost see the dollar signs in their eyes. He shook his head. "How does it work?"

"Easy!" said both twins. They glanced at each other, then Fred began to explain. "Okay, like this. Now pay attention! We all know that no two wands are the same. While they made be composed of similar items, all are different. By punching in the items found in a person's wand here . . ." he gestured to the key pad, "we can lock onto the person's location. How far the person can be, we're not sure. That's why we're running tests."

" . . . does it even work?" muttered Ron skeptically. It all sounded horribly confusing and extremely complicated to him, and he still couldn't get over the fact that the twins (of all people) had created it.

Fred and George looked horrified. George spoke. "You doubt us?!"

"Well . . . YEAH! Look, just try it out."

George turned to Fred, who nodded and stood up. "Fred's going to go out and hide an old wand we lifted from Ollivanders-"

"LIFTED?!" demanded Ron.

"- and then we'll use the Seeker 2000 to find it. Turn your back, Ron, and I will too. Don't hide it too far away, Fred."

Fred went off to hide the wand while Ron and George had their backs turned. Ron watched as his brother typed in the components of the wand.

"OKAY!" shouted Fred, running back to them. "Go and find it."

George pushed a big button labeled 'ENTER' and grinned as a flashing green dot appeared on the screen. "Okay, Ron, the green dot is the wand, and the blue one is us. Now, you can zoom in and out, but since this is only our backyard, we don't need to do that." He and Ron turned around and took one step forward.

KABOOM!!

Something behind a bush not too far away from them exploded. Fred coughed and said, "I think that was our wand. That's where I put it."

Ron snickered, realizing that the dot that had represented the wand was gone too. "I told you it wouldn't work!"

"Hold on!" protested George. "Fred, go get another wand."

Fred raced into the house and came back out with a sack full of wands. Ron eyed the bag suspiciously, thinking that they must've stolen a lot of wands from Ollivanders. Fred pulled out a wand, read the components off of a slip of paper attached to it and ran off to hide the wand.

George typed the needed information in and waited for Fred's okay. When he got it, he turned around, stepped forward and . . .

KABOOM!!

Another explosion.

The boys tried and tried again, going through ten wands, but the same thing kept happening. Even as Fred put them at farther distances than he had before, the wand always exploded on their first step.

Ron was just about to make a smart-mouthed comment when their mother came outside. She looked them over, then said, "Come in, boys! We've got company!"

Ron left his brothers and hurried inside the house. "Hermione!" he exclaimed when he saw her sitting at the kitchen table. "What are you doing here?"

Hermione smiled weakly. "I heard about Harry and came right over. I wanted to see if you were taking it well."

"I'm okay, I guess. Well, as okay as can be expected. I'm just a little . . . upset. I mean, how in the world did Death Eaters get into Harry's house? I thought Dumbledore had some sort of protective spells around the place."

"So did I." They stopped talking when the twins, looked dejected, came into the house. Hermione noticed the box in George's hand. "What's that?"

George looked around, then lowered his voice. "Something that'll help find Harry."

She jumped up. "REALLY?! THAT'S AMAZING!!"

"IF they could get it to work properly," Ron muttered under his breath.

Hermione heard him, then frowned. She sat back down and said supportively, "Keep at it, boys! I'm sure you'll get it."

They nodded, then walked off, still looking upset.

Hermione scowled at Ron. "You should encourage them more often, especially this time when their invention could save Harry!"

"Yeah, whatever . . ."

Before Hermione could reply, a scream came from the living room. Ron and Hermione quickly got up and went to see what was wrong. Ginny was jumping up and down, pointing at the fireplace where someone was coming through the flames.

"IT'S SIRIUS BLACK!!! IT'S SIRIUS BLACK!!! HELP!!!! HELP!!!!!!!" she shouted loudly. The rest of the Weasleys came running into the room to see what the commotion was about.

Ron groaned. It WAS Sirius coming out of the fireplace. Harry's godfather stood before his family, taking them all in.

Sirius smiled hesitantly. "Um . . . hello."

*~*

Unfamiliar surroundings met Harry as he slowly opened his eyes. He was sitting in the middle of an empty room, tied to a chair and a gag firmly tied over his mouth. Harry gagged, then began to struggle against his bindings. He winced. The rope used to tie up his wrists tore at his skin with every movement of his arm. Harry stilled and settled back against the chair. No use fighting if he was only going to end up hurting himself.

Harry was vaguely aware that his leg wasn't hurting anymore and it seemed to be all fixed up. He frowned out of confusion and suspicion. Why would Death Eaters heal my leg? That doesn't make any sense . . . In fact, I should be DEAD by now!

Harry looked up as a door appeared on the wall to his left. He was one hundred percent positive that it hadn't been there before, so it must've been some magical door, like the ones at Hogwarts.

Three people stepped in, and harry recognized them to be the Death Eaters who'd attacked him that night. Then another man followed, pushing his way in front of them.

. . . wait a minute. Who is THIS guy? He certainly wasn't Voldemort. No, this new guy wasn't as ugly as the Dark Lord. In fact . . . he wasn't ugly at all. He looked very young, about twenty or so with long pale blond hair like Draco Malfoy's that fell to his waist and dark blue eyes. He sort or reminded Harry of an elf because of his short stature and long pointy ears. Not to mention the slight curl at the end of his shoes.

"Remove his gag," said the elf guy and one of the three stepped forward to do so.

He must be in charge. I wonder who he is . . .

Once the gag was removed, Harry croaked, "Who are you? One of Voldemort's lackeys?"

Strangely, the elf man looked insulted. "A follower of Voldemort? Hardly. My name is Diamante, and I am the leader of the Dark Sunrise."

"Dark . . . what?"

"The Dark Sunrise. An anti-Muggle group, also out for the defeat of Voldemort. Do not worry, Harry Potter, we are not out to hurt you. You are the ticket to our success, and we need you alive."

Author's Note: What's with the Dark Sunrise? Why do they want Harry? Will the twins ever get the Seeker 2000 fixed and get the fame and fortune they've always wanted? Draco's out for both of the Cups this school year . . . will he ever come forward?? And where in the WORLD did Fred and George get all of those wands?! I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. (I'm just winging it right now . . .)

Oh, yeah, just in case anyone wants to know, Diamante is the name of a car (a Mitsubishi) and I just thought it sounded cool. J

Please review! They are appreciated. (E-mails too . . .)