Disclaimer: Goes for all chapters. It's not mine, k?
A/N I just enjoyed writing the last chapter, so I *had* to continue this!
~*~*~ CHAPTER 2 ~*~*~
Since my last writing, much has been discovered in a ancient Pensieve. Found completely intact near the ruins of Hogwarts, it has Ronald Weasley written on the side. It is a very exciting discovery for the Wizarding world, as it shows insight into the life of an extremely famous member of the Order, and artwork and spells lost during Voldemort's second rising are depicted graphically, as he used it to record lessons, we believe. However, the part of it which most interested me is an encounter with the 12yr old Draco Malfoy. Apparently, Draco was rather a nasty piece of work during his first few years at Hogwarts, as this demonstrates.
In this encounter, he insults Hermione Granger, who we now know he would form a close friendship with in later life. Enraged by this, Ronald attempts to hex him with a currently unidentifiable spell. The spell, however, backfires, and Ron begins to retch. We see Draco, laughing heartily, then the scene switches to another, more mundane aspect of Hogwarts life.
Then, in another part of the pensieve, we see a haggard looking, 30 year old Draco celebrating with Ronald, Hermione and Harry Potter. He looks very different from the earlier pictures we have of him, and very tired and anxious. We believe now, that Draco knew someone was out to get him, as all through this otherwise happy scene, he casts wild glances around the room. Other than this, he does not again appear in the pensieve.
This raises another question. If Draco did know someone was planning his death, why did he not confide in anyone? Or if he did, why is there no record of him doing so? Was the Deatheater prejudice then so bad that no one would accept even a proven Light Spy? Did it have anything to do with this mystery lover he seemingly adored?
Here, I plan to answer these questions. I looked up many of the books ex- Hogwartians and survivors of the War had written, and found a wealth of information in one A. Pucey's book on Pre-War Hogwarts. This book is often shunted aside by many historians due to the fact that Pucey was in Slytherin, despite the fact he fought for the Light openly right through the War.
Pucey claims that in Slytherin he was something of an outcast due to his refusal at his initiation ceremony. He found an unlikely friend in Draco Malfoy, who up until that point Pucey had believed to be "Voldemort II". Pucey saw a side of Draco few ever did. He saw the inner torment that drove Draco into the ranks of Voldemort, but never knew why he became a spy for the Light.
Only once does Pucey mention Draco's frequent disappearances, saying:
"Once or twice a week, Malfoy slipped away. I was sure it was not to meet Voldemort, as then half of Slytherin would be gone. I do believe it was to meet some girl or other. Simply rampant testosterone."
Pucey leaves it there, much to my disappointment. However, he more than makes up for that with his stolen entry from Draco's diary:
"I stole this from Draco when we were fifteen, hoping it might give me a clue as to who he was seeing all the time. All it did was show me the horror and torment he keeps inside. I wished I had not read it, for I would not swap all his riches and good looks if that haunted soul did come with it.
"And I can hear you scream. I hear it. Inside your head. Because when you're screaming I'm screaming. We're both screaming for different reasons, and you don't know I'm screaming, and I'm not screaming because you are.
But we scream. And it burns. You know it does. In your head it's burning, like ice does when your hands are warm.
That's what life is, isn't it? Screaming, I mean.
Some of us don't admit when we scream, it just happens. Something never to be spoken or thought of again. But I can tell. When people are screaming, I know they are. Especially you.
It's not because you're special. No one's special, despite what people say. We're all different, granted, but we're so very very similar too. We all scream.
Everyone's screaming. Not all the time, because it'd get out of hand then. But we scream.
I scream for lots of reasons. I scream all the time. I do. Don't think I'm lying. I have no reason to. But I have reason to scream.
I suppose everyone has a reason to scream, really. Some people have more reasons than others. And those people would imagine that I have no reason to scream.
See, that's what makes me scream. I'm so normal. Like everyone else. I just need whitewashed walls now. I'll be normal in years to come, as well.
You know something? That's what makes me different. The normalness. Oh yes, there are people more normal than me. But no one hovers quite here, in this grey.
Grey. Life is grey, do you know? No black. No white. Grey. Lots and lots of grey.
And screaming. Grey people screaming in their heads because it hurts and hurts and it won't stop and it kills you and then.
Then you get up, and go and finish what you had to do, and you were putting off. And some people cry then. Like me.
I want to scream. Really. But I'd try and I wouldn't be able to. Like when I open my mouth to give cheek to teachers. I close it again. Or when I give Weasel a dig. I pull my punches.
Because I'm grey. Not black. Not white. Screaming. And grey."
We can only wonder at what other thoughts were circulating within his corrupt mind. This simple passage says a lot about Draco and his beliefs. Much of it centres around his madness, the screaming inside his head. We also see that he believes his is different, something obviously ingrained by the never satisfied Lucius Malfoy. Also, he states that everything is grey, demonstrating that he believes that nothing is simple, nothing is black, nothing is white.
He was seemingly always neutral, never believing anything really, because it was all 'grey'. It seems that he saw no logic in the Deatheater morals, or particularly even the Light morals. This person he speaks of, though. She or he seems to have been just as tormented as Draco, so tormented that she didn't notice anything else, so trapped was she in her own personal hell.
I believe that this is Draco's mystery lover. She must've been on the side of the Light, or Draco would not have changed sides. However, as I previously thought, they were not actually together as that point, it seems. He says that she didn't know he was screaming, so obviously this was a little unrequited love. So where, exactly, was Draco going on his nightly wanderings?
Perhaps, like a shadow, trailing his object of affections? No, this does not seem like the Draco we have seen so far. But then, his haunted writings were little like the Draco I find so interesting. He is quite an enigma.
Anyway, so far I have failed to answer any of the questions I put forward. Looking at the little evidence we have, I believe Draco knew his death was being plotted. At first glance it seems to be a Deatheater getting a final revenge on the traitor. This would be the most likely scenario, if all the ex-deatheaters had not been killed, the last one, as I said before, on the very day of Draco's death. So was it a drastically uninformed member of the order, trying to get revenge on a 'lying Deatheater turncoat' as he was once described in the seemingly popular Witch Weekly.
I believe this is a far more accurate possibility. During the war, and for several centuries after, prejudice against those connected even most remotely with anything Dark was high. Simply having been in Slytherin was enough to make you a complete social outcast, as Pucey mentions in his book.
This gave me a small lead. There were several anti-deatheater vigilante groups formed after the War. The most violent, The Remembered, actually wrote a book, graphically describing the torture of several Deatheaters they caught in the six months after the War and before the last formal execution. Naturally, the book was regarded as an insult to the literary community, and was thrown aside hastily.
However, in an old Gringotts vault, (All of which are now open, displaying ancient wizarding artefacts) I came across said book, titled innocently enough 'The Fall of Evil'. After reading it, in all it's distasteful glory, I discovered, written at the back: Live And Yet Die, SAF.
Who SAF is, or was, is currently unknown, but it is almost definite proof that Draco was killed by a vigilante group.
So far, I have answered only answered two of my questions. A vigilante group killed Draco Malfoy because of his Dark Connections. So that's who killed him and why he was killed.
However, I also set out to find if he knew of this plot. There were many questions unanswered, and I decided to start by looking at where Draco grew up. I journeyed to Malfoy Manor.
Today, Malfoy Manor retains much of it's former glory, except for the badly damaged West Wing. It is a wonder that there are so few visitors, as Malfoy Manor is now open to the public. But that was not the part I wanted to see. There was rumour, several centuries ago, of Draco Malfoy's secret room. I intended to find it. After obtaining special permission, I combed the house for any clue of this room. I found nothing of the sort, but during my search, a scrap piece of parchment in the attic caught my eye. It was written in an unfamiliar flowing script, but it was what it said that caught my eye:
I'm going to die today.
There was no date, or name, so there was no way to link it to Draco. However, I took it to magical researchers, who performed a complex charm to decipher who wrote it. I was proved, without a doubt, right.
Enough of death. Who was Draco's mystery lover? This has plagued me since I began writing. I may have answered all of my other questions, but this one remained. So far I knew nothing of her, (or even him), other than that she was tormented by inner demons, was not a school friend of Draco's (although she did attend at the same time as him), worked for the Light (openly I assume), and died after promising her that they would go public with their relationship.
I began my search by looking at the list of all members of the Order. It was too many, and we had no history of many of those mentioned. So where was I to begin? I spent months moping around, and had abandoned the rest of this tale, when, in a small bookstore in Hogsmeade, I found a picture of Draco. It was a brilliant picture, one of very few left undamaged after the war, but what was most interesting was the writing on the back.
'I love you in this picture. When you meet me at the Three Broomsticks, wear that shirt. And look in Snuffle's cave, there is a present for you!'
It was not signed. I was, however, intrigued. Who was Snuffles? And what was this cave? I knew what the Three Broomsticks was. An old pub, destroyed in the war. The Golden Wand had been built in it's place. I decided to go and have a look round the back, where the wreckage of the Three Broomsticks remained, still intact after centuries. Says something about ministry officials.
There was nothing there, at all. I was lost, yet again. In the months following this, I re-read some of my books. It was in Memoirs Of A Lost Soul, by H Granger, that I again stumbled across 'Snuffles':
It was during our third year we discovered what had really happened with the Fidelius charm. It was not Sirius Black, as was widely believed, who betrayed the Potters, but one Peter Pettigrew. After this, we formed a close friendship with Sirius, but as his innocence was not yet proven, we had to keep this fact a secret. When speaking about him, we had to call him 'Snuffles'. When he visited Harry, he stayed in a cave just outside Hogwarts. Near the Shrieking Shack, I believe..."
She then goes on to recount many anecdotes and other interesting facts, all of which are right now quite irrelevant. So, yet again, I had something to look for. I knew where the Shrieking Shack was, it was famous for being the hideout of Neville Longbottom on his run from Deatheaters. In just two days, he had apparated his way from London, to Scotland, then to France, all at the age of 16, without his licence.
I decided this cave would most likely be the other side of the Shrieking Shack, further away from Hogsmeade. I was proved right, or so I assumed. After twenty minutes walking, I discovered a largish cave. Making my way up, I discovered inside many things of infinite interest, including Harry Potter's personal diary, his old Firebolt, an invisibility cloak, and much much more of he and his friend's personal items, all of which are now on display at The Quirke Institute.
However, I also found, in a cavity in the rock, a letter, dated the day before Draco's death, and a beautifully carved statuette. It was magical, and moved continuously. This is also on display. The letter, however, I enjoyed more.
"Dear Draco, We can tell the world tomorrow, you promised me that. I know you are frightened, because of that stupid threat, but soon Nott will be dead, and you will have nothing to fear. Neither will I, of course. But just think of the Island, my lovely, where we shall be,"
Were all of history's writers that bad? I think so. Oh well, I have no further clue to his mystery lover, not really. However, I *will* find the 'Island' his love so passionately describes. Maybe.
~*~*~
A/N God I love writing this! Oo, if you like it please review!
A/N I just enjoyed writing the last chapter, so I *had* to continue this!
~*~*~ CHAPTER 2 ~*~*~
Since my last writing, much has been discovered in a ancient Pensieve. Found completely intact near the ruins of Hogwarts, it has Ronald Weasley written on the side. It is a very exciting discovery for the Wizarding world, as it shows insight into the life of an extremely famous member of the Order, and artwork and spells lost during Voldemort's second rising are depicted graphically, as he used it to record lessons, we believe. However, the part of it which most interested me is an encounter with the 12yr old Draco Malfoy. Apparently, Draco was rather a nasty piece of work during his first few years at Hogwarts, as this demonstrates.
In this encounter, he insults Hermione Granger, who we now know he would form a close friendship with in later life. Enraged by this, Ronald attempts to hex him with a currently unidentifiable spell. The spell, however, backfires, and Ron begins to retch. We see Draco, laughing heartily, then the scene switches to another, more mundane aspect of Hogwarts life.
Then, in another part of the pensieve, we see a haggard looking, 30 year old Draco celebrating with Ronald, Hermione and Harry Potter. He looks very different from the earlier pictures we have of him, and very tired and anxious. We believe now, that Draco knew someone was out to get him, as all through this otherwise happy scene, he casts wild glances around the room. Other than this, he does not again appear in the pensieve.
This raises another question. If Draco did know someone was planning his death, why did he not confide in anyone? Or if he did, why is there no record of him doing so? Was the Deatheater prejudice then so bad that no one would accept even a proven Light Spy? Did it have anything to do with this mystery lover he seemingly adored?
Here, I plan to answer these questions. I looked up many of the books ex- Hogwartians and survivors of the War had written, and found a wealth of information in one A. Pucey's book on Pre-War Hogwarts. This book is often shunted aside by many historians due to the fact that Pucey was in Slytherin, despite the fact he fought for the Light openly right through the War.
Pucey claims that in Slytherin he was something of an outcast due to his refusal at his initiation ceremony. He found an unlikely friend in Draco Malfoy, who up until that point Pucey had believed to be "Voldemort II". Pucey saw a side of Draco few ever did. He saw the inner torment that drove Draco into the ranks of Voldemort, but never knew why he became a spy for the Light.
Only once does Pucey mention Draco's frequent disappearances, saying:
"Once or twice a week, Malfoy slipped away. I was sure it was not to meet Voldemort, as then half of Slytherin would be gone. I do believe it was to meet some girl or other. Simply rampant testosterone."
Pucey leaves it there, much to my disappointment. However, he more than makes up for that with his stolen entry from Draco's diary:
"I stole this from Draco when we were fifteen, hoping it might give me a clue as to who he was seeing all the time. All it did was show me the horror and torment he keeps inside. I wished I had not read it, for I would not swap all his riches and good looks if that haunted soul did come with it.
"And I can hear you scream. I hear it. Inside your head. Because when you're screaming I'm screaming. We're both screaming for different reasons, and you don't know I'm screaming, and I'm not screaming because you are.
But we scream. And it burns. You know it does. In your head it's burning, like ice does when your hands are warm.
That's what life is, isn't it? Screaming, I mean.
Some of us don't admit when we scream, it just happens. Something never to be spoken or thought of again. But I can tell. When people are screaming, I know they are. Especially you.
It's not because you're special. No one's special, despite what people say. We're all different, granted, but we're so very very similar too. We all scream.
Everyone's screaming. Not all the time, because it'd get out of hand then. But we scream.
I scream for lots of reasons. I scream all the time. I do. Don't think I'm lying. I have no reason to. But I have reason to scream.
I suppose everyone has a reason to scream, really. Some people have more reasons than others. And those people would imagine that I have no reason to scream.
See, that's what makes me scream. I'm so normal. Like everyone else. I just need whitewashed walls now. I'll be normal in years to come, as well.
You know something? That's what makes me different. The normalness. Oh yes, there are people more normal than me. But no one hovers quite here, in this grey.
Grey. Life is grey, do you know? No black. No white. Grey. Lots and lots of grey.
And screaming. Grey people screaming in their heads because it hurts and hurts and it won't stop and it kills you and then.
Then you get up, and go and finish what you had to do, and you were putting off. And some people cry then. Like me.
I want to scream. Really. But I'd try and I wouldn't be able to. Like when I open my mouth to give cheek to teachers. I close it again. Or when I give Weasel a dig. I pull my punches.
Because I'm grey. Not black. Not white. Screaming. And grey."
We can only wonder at what other thoughts were circulating within his corrupt mind. This simple passage says a lot about Draco and his beliefs. Much of it centres around his madness, the screaming inside his head. We also see that he believes his is different, something obviously ingrained by the never satisfied Lucius Malfoy. Also, he states that everything is grey, demonstrating that he believes that nothing is simple, nothing is black, nothing is white.
He was seemingly always neutral, never believing anything really, because it was all 'grey'. It seems that he saw no logic in the Deatheater morals, or particularly even the Light morals. This person he speaks of, though. She or he seems to have been just as tormented as Draco, so tormented that she didn't notice anything else, so trapped was she in her own personal hell.
I believe that this is Draco's mystery lover. She must've been on the side of the Light, or Draco would not have changed sides. However, as I previously thought, they were not actually together as that point, it seems. He says that she didn't know he was screaming, so obviously this was a little unrequited love. So where, exactly, was Draco going on his nightly wanderings?
Perhaps, like a shadow, trailing his object of affections? No, this does not seem like the Draco we have seen so far. But then, his haunted writings were little like the Draco I find so interesting. He is quite an enigma.
Anyway, so far I have failed to answer any of the questions I put forward. Looking at the little evidence we have, I believe Draco knew his death was being plotted. At first glance it seems to be a Deatheater getting a final revenge on the traitor. This would be the most likely scenario, if all the ex-deatheaters had not been killed, the last one, as I said before, on the very day of Draco's death. So was it a drastically uninformed member of the order, trying to get revenge on a 'lying Deatheater turncoat' as he was once described in the seemingly popular Witch Weekly.
I believe this is a far more accurate possibility. During the war, and for several centuries after, prejudice against those connected even most remotely with anything Dark was high. Simply having been in Slytherin was enough to make you a complete social outcast, as Pucey mentions in his book.
This gave me a small lead. There were several anti-deatheater vigilante groups formed after the War. The most violent, The Remembered, actually wrote a book, graphically describing the torture of several Deatheaters they caught in the six months after the War and before the last formal execution. Naturally, the book was regarded as an insult to the literary community, and was thrown aside hastily.
However, in an old Gringotts vault, (All of which are now open, displaying ancient wizarding artefacts) I came across said book, titled innocently enough 'The Fall of Evil'. After reading it, in all it's distasteful glory, I discovered, written at the back: Live And Yet Die, SAF.
Who SAF is, or was, is currently unknown, but it is almost definite proof that Draco was killed by a vigilante group.
So far, I have answered only answered two of my questions. A vigilante group killed Draco Malfoy because of his Dark Connections. So that's who killed him and why he was killed.
However, I also set out to find if he knew of this plot. There were many questions unanswered, and I decided to start by looking at where Draco grew up. I journeyed to Malfoy Manor.
Today, Malfoy Manor retains much of it's former glory, except for the badly damaged West Wing. It is a wonder that there are so few visitors, as Malfoy Manor is now open to the public. But that was not the part I wanted to see. There was rumour, several centuries ago, of Draco Malfoy's secret room. I intended to find it. After obtaining special permission, I combed the house for any clue of this room. I found nothing of the sort, but during my search, a scrap piece of parchment in the attic caught my eye. It was written in an unfamiliar flowing script, but it was what it said that caught my eye:
I'm going to die today.
There was no date, or name, so there was no way to link it to Draco. However, I took it to magical researchers, who performed a complex charm to decipher who wrote it. I was proved, without a doubt, right.
Enough of death. Who was Draco's mystery lover? This has plagued me since I began writing. I may have answered all of my other questions, but this one remained. So far I knew nothing of her, (or even him), other than that she was tormented by inner demons, was not a school friend of Draco's (although she did attend at the same time as him), worked for the Light (openly I assume), and died after promising her that they would go public with their relationship.
I began my search by looking at the list of all members of the Order. It was too many, and we had no history of many of those mentioned. So where was I to begin? I spent months moping around, and had abandoned the rest of this tale, when, in a small bookstore in Hogsmeade, I found a picture of Draco. It was a brilliant picture, one of very few left undamaged after the war, but what was most interesting was the writing on the back.
'I love you in this picture. When you meet me at the Three Broomsticks, wear that shirt. And look in Snuffle's cave, there is a present for you!'
It was not signed. I was, however, intrigued. Who was Snuffles? And what was this cave? I knew what the Three Broomsticks was. An old pub, destroyed in the war. The Golden Wand had been built in it's place. I decided to go and have a look round the back, where the wreckage of the Three Broomsticks remained, still intact after centuries. Says something about ministry officials.
There was nothing there, at all. I was lost, yet again. In the months following this, I re-read some of my books. It was in Memoirs Of A Lost Soul, by H Granger, that I again stumbled across 'Snuffles':
It was during our third year we discovered what had really happened with the Fidelius charm. It was not Sirius Black, as was widely believed, who betrayed the Potters, but one Peter Pettigrew. After this, we formed a close friendship with Sirius, but as his innocence was not yet proven, we had to keep this fact a secret. When speaking about him, we had to call him 'Snuffles'. When he visited Harry, he stayed in a cave just outside Hogwarts. Near the Shrieking Shack, I believe..."
She then goes on to recount many anecdotes and other interesting facts, all of which are right now quite irrelevant. So, yet again, I had something to look for. I knew where the Shrieking Shack was, it was famous for being the hideout of Neville Longbottom on his run from Deatheaters. In just two days, he had apparated his way from London, to Scotland, then to France, all at the age of 16, without his licence.
I decided this cave would most likely be the other side of the Shrieking Shack, further away from Hogsmeade. I was proved right, or so I assumed. After twenty minutes walking, I discovered a largish cave. Making my way up, I discovered inside many things of infinite interest, including Harry Potter's personal diary, his old Firebolt, an invisibility cloak, and much much more of he and his friend's personal items, all of which are now on display at The Quirke Institute.
However, I also found, in a cavity in the rock, a letter, dated the day before Draco's death, and a beautifully carved statuette. It was magical, and moved continuously. This is also on display. The letter, however, I enjoyed more.
"Dear Draco, We can tell the world tomorrow, you promised me that. I know you are frightened, because of that stupid threat, but soon Nott will be dead, and you will have nothing to fear. Neither will I, of course. But just think of the Island, my lovely, where we shall be,"
Were all of history's writers that bad? I think so. Oh well, I have no further clue to his mystery lover, not really. However, I *will* find the 'Island' his love so passionately describes. Maybe.
~*~*~
A/N God I love writing this! Oo, if you like it please review!
