Author's Note
Hey hey! ^_^ This is my first Harry Potter fiction, and I think it's going to be slash. Therefore, if you're affected by this sort of thing, then please don't read. However, if you do, then by all means continue! I'd also be grateful for comments (which writer isn't, really?) and suggestions on how to improve this. Now, on to the story!
~ Chapter One ~
The tall, slender blond man swept through the door and down the corridor, earning half-curious, automatic glances from those who sat in the booths flanking the pathway. He ignored all of them, walking leisurely instead to the end of the doorway, where a plain, marbled brown door stood to the left. The name, emblazoned in small, cursive, golden letters about three quarters up the door, was certainly eye-catching, considering it's history and insinuations, right along with the fact that it had belonged in the heart of the Ministry of Magic for the past three years.
As Draco Malfoy murmured an incantation under his breath, the door to his office swung open, and he stepped inside. One hand loosened the neck of his fastened blue robes; the other hand reached behind him to nudge the door shut. Through the tall, tinted glass pane, a single ray of sunlight illuminated the room. He hadn't come back in almost two years, posted as he was in a remote area working out magical calculations for the harvesting of centipede blood for a potent antidote that could combat the recent rise in magical epidemics caused by a new breed of creature that somewhat resembled the Muggle mosquito.
He started forward, walking around the elegant, carved rosewood table, noting absentmindedly that the documents filed to the In box seemed to have increased by a solid three inches. He caught sight of his reflection just as he lowered himself into the high-backed chair, a matched set with the table. Immaculate, as always.
The month of rest he had decided to take before coming back here had done wonders. Draco had not imagined what he could be landing himself in when he had apparated to the doorstep of the Ministry building back then in what now seemed to be so long ago. Not that he had ever complained; he thrived under the pressure, and he had missed the activity of his occupation during the break.
It had been a direction to turn in, had been something to do after he graduated from Hogwarts, because by then, of course, Voldemort had already been completely vanquished.
Draco glanced around at what he privately termed as his real home. Four unlit lamps decked the corners of the room, polished silver stands glinting against the maroon walls; a stark contrast to the bronze and emerald Oriental carpet. One tapestry, a handcrafted masterpiece that depicted Salazar Slytherin, hung from a tiny hook beside the door; Draco had often glanced up in the middle of perusing a letter or two to meet those haunted dark eyes across the empty space. Other than that, besides his working desk and chair, the room was mostly bare except for a large, inconspicuous beanbag that sat below the tapestry. He chuckled to himself, remembering it.
The first Christmas after he had joined the Ministry, Draco had decided to take a walk in the Muggle world. It wasn't as though he had a huge party to go to, or family to spend the occasion with. Walking casually down the rain-slicked streets of London, Draco had passed by a furniture shop, and looked in.
A voluptuous young woman, wrapped thickly in a lavender shawl, was chattering animatedly to a thin, silver-haired lady as she fingered the various bolts of cloth on the counter. Nearby, a little child, dressed in smart corduroy shorts and a red shirt from which chubby arms stuck out awkwardly from, had been rocking on what appeared to be a large, lumpy black pillow. The boy's yellow hair, sticking up in tufts, framing dark gray eyes in a rosy face as he squinted in concentration, had made Draco pause. Strangely enough, Draco recalled that moment, where he had stopped and turned, placing one gloved hand on the slightly fogged glass of the shop, looking through the window, at that child.
One hour later, after the pair had left, Draco had entered the shop and purchased the strange lumpy pillow. The old lady had been reluctant to sell it, but Draco had been insistent, offering a ridiculous amount of money for it. He had also learned that it was called a beanbag.
Smiling to himself at the memory, Draco cast his eyes around the room again. Just a month away and so many things back in the real world, here, he had forgotten.
This time, his gaze landed on the bottom drawer of the desk. There were wards on it, but they seemed to have grown weak. It was like a work of his childhood. How long hadn't he touched this drawer? One of the spells must have been a Don't-Notice-Me, and only now that he was relaxed enough he had noticed. Most days he spent outside of the office, anyway.
He frowned a little as he tried to recall what was inside, before giving up and swinging his legs off the table from where he had propped them up, pushing the chair back a little and bending down to open the drawer before he realized it was locked. Sighing under his breath, he drew his wand out from beneath his robes and murmured a spell. The rusty metal popped open with a click.
He pulled the drawer open.
When the dust particles had finally settled, and Draco managed to stop coughing, he glanced inside. Immediately, his heart plummeted as he remembered what exactly he had put in that drawer, and why he had locked it.
It was his old journal.
*** *** ***
5 August
Father sent a letter today.
…I can't believe this. My hand is shaking too hard to write what I want to write. Okay, here goes.
He told me the Dark Lord was finally going to make a full, all-out attempt to kill Potter and…and Dumbledore. The plans have been set, the traps rigged, the Death Eaters summoned. They're all ready to carry out what they've always wanted; the elimination of magic's golden boy and the Light's most powerful wizard. Right after they do it, I'll be initiated as one of them, introduced to the flanks of the new power.
There. I said it.
It's what I've always wanted, isn't it? To hold power…that dark, brilliant power. Since as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a Death Eater, wanted to be sworn in to Voldemort's elite army.
I don't know when it all changed. Maybe it was watching Mother die, screaming, in the grip of an Unforgivable curse? Or maybe…maybe I grew up?
Father wrote me only to tell me to stay out of the way, keep my head above water. Hah. When have I ever done anything otherwise? All fifteen years of my life, I don't think there has been a situation that I haven't been in control of.
That time with Potter in Madam Malkin's so does not count, all right?
Obviously, I'd never admit it to anyone, but I guess I am feeling kind of scared.
19 August
It. Didn't. Happen.
Even as I write this, I can't quite decide whether that's good or bad. I'm sitting alone in the garden, but even this far from the castle I can still see the ruined portion of the building. Actually, that section happens to be the Slytherin dormitories, which is also the reason for that sudden, magically built shelter next to the castle. The place where I'm supposed to be right now, and hey, this book's a little burnt, but that doesn't matter right?
Oh god. I'm babbling.
It's just kind of numb inside right now; you know what I mean? Like I don't know what to feel, even when I'm crying. Yea, it's been ages since I last did, and I have no idea why I'm doing it, but I know why I don't make a habit of crying. My eyes are all puffy, and my nose feels like it needs a plug.
The castle resisted. I mean, to me, right there in the dungeons, it felt as though the ground beneath was rising up and closing in on itself. I grabbed my wand and made it outside mere seconds before the place collapsed, and just fled. I had no idea what was happening, but I could see flames, fire and smoke the moment I tumbled out the landing. All from the Gryffindor tower. And inside the school too.
Professor McGonagall was the only person I could see, and she was shouting, screaming. I've never heard anyone so terrified, as she directed the mob outside, pointing her wand at the entrance and begging for it to widen so that others could escape faster. I've never seen anything like it; the bricks collapsed like an invisible hand was poking holes through the walls, and from inside, so, so many of them, poured out like water, all of them beyond desperate to escape the evil within. It was like a black mist, eating into the school; I swear, when I stood there too shocked to move, and if I just reached out, I would have touched it.
Somehow now, the thought freaks me out more than anything. I didn't think so much when I froze up back there.
20 August
They pulled Crabbe out from under the wreckage today. He looked like a beaten, twisted rag doll, all smashed in. I think I'm going to be sick. That's one more dead, and from where I am now, alone in the makeshift dormitory, looking down from the third floor, I can see more bodies. All decorated with blood and bones, all familiar faces and bare memories.
Is this what evil is all about?
21 August
I'm the last existing Malfoy now. They found Father early this morning.
*** *** ***
Draco closed the book softly.
That entry, on the 21st of August, had been the last one. Somehow, the journal had stayed with him, even if he hadn't used it. Now, looking at it again, relieving the memories, it was like a fateful remainder and reminder of the events five years ago.
Exhaling slowly, Draco shook his head slightly to clear the memories, bowing and letting his hands fall to his lap, cradling the journal. It was another five minutes before he could compose himself enough to put the book back carefully into the drawer, before raising his wand and casting a series of new and more complicated wards. He bound the spells delicately and firmly around each other, before layering it with a final protection that would bind the entire ward as a whole.
The journal had stirred up recollections. Bits and pieces of memories that he had shoved away brutally from his waking mind.
*** *** ***
As the last piece of earth fell over the fresh grave, Draco stood stock-still, his hands by his sides, quietly watching. The house-elves finished their job, and then scuttled to kneel in front of him, their shovels and spades clutched tightly in their knobby arms. He considered them once, and then, almost unwillingly, gave a sharp nod of thanks before dismissing them.
"Father," he whispered to the dying wind as it caressed the surrounding blades of green, green grass still wet with morning dew. The honorific fell empty, limp and unhearing to the silence. It was a poignant stitch in time for him, these last few private moments with the man who had taught him everything and nothing, just the two of them alone together.
Or so he had thought.
When he turned to leave, another figure emerged from the gloom of the dark stretch of forests that flanked this strip of abandoned ground. At first, Draco thought he was seeing things, but as he got closer, it became obvious that this was no apparition.
They stared each other down across the infinite, too-small space of ten feet, neither one speaking.
Draco didn't know what to say. What was there to say, anyway? Congratulations? Sneering didn't seem appropriate either, but he continued looking stonily at the person before him.
"I'm sorry, Draco."
Draco blinked. And then a slow, cold feeling of ice grew around his heart, with it a burning question that formed and took shape into a certainty.
"You were the one who killed him."
A direct gaze, sweeping over him, considering him. And then a short, quick nod. Just like that. No denials, no excuses. Draco wanted to go over to him, to kill him, to hit him, to burn him.
They stood there as the wind picked up speed. Draco's carefully combed hair didn't yield a tendril; the force of the air whipped the other's ebony locks into a messy tangle. It was like a cliched tableau; neither of them moving, only locked gazes, within which passed the words that had never been spoken.
Until Draco bowed his head, walking forward to close the gap between them. For a second, it looked as though he would walk past without acknowledging anything else, but his feet came to a stop right beside the intruder's.
"Please." It somehow came out more like a croak than a command, but Draco was past caring for pride.
"Please…just go away, Professor."
And then he collapsed into Severus Snape's arms, and cried.
*** *** ***
Now, the ghosts of the past haunting his vision, Draco wondered if anything would have been different if not for that encounter. Would he have ended up turning to the Dark Side, building on the extolled fantasies of a young boy? Pursued a hopeless, cracked dream? He had never allowed the subconscious wondering to cross his mind openly; now he let it, leaning back into the chair and closing his eyes.
Could I…have become the next Voldemort?
He could have. Truly, he could have.