(Green_Pig:- Things start to become weird in this chapter I admit…but It'll all sort out! Chapter 2 is about 8 pages long now, please don't forget to review or else I'll be very sad… check out the authors: Marie Goos and I.C. Fire, both ace writers! Snape fans MUST read their fanfics! Oh and thanx to Liz who was the only person other than Zippybug to review the first chapter after it had been up for a few weeks, so I thought I'd add the second chapter up just for you since you are my only reviewer ::cries:: I hope you enjoy this but I'm not gonna add very many more chapters until I have at least ten…geez, doesn't anyone out there care for me at all? Should I just NOT bother anymore??? SHOULD I JUST GIVE UP WRITING???!!!!)
DISCLAIMER: Almost all characters and settings are copyright of J.K. Rowling, the brilliant person who created Harry Potter on that train ride the day she began writing one of the greatest children's novels in the world. ::YIPPEEEEEE!!! I SEEN DA MOOOVIEEEEEEE!!::
Chapter Two
The Darkest Curse
Blurred vision returned in his eyes and he shakily lifted his aching head from the ground. Looking around he was still in the Arbour but it was late. How late he did not know, the garden was now shrouded in darkness and it seemed everyone had gone to bed. His head was throbbing and as he staggered up to get his schoolbooks and work he noticed they were gone, so he walked back to the front doors of the house and went inside. Immediately the dogs began to bark again and Lucius stormed out waving his accusing finger to his face.
"Where have you been Draco?!" He hollered. Then seeing his son's tired and heavy face changed his tune automatically. "You look like you've been hiding yourself somewhere with wine!"
"I haven't been drinking…"
"Well then where have you been for the last six hours?"
"Six?"
"Six." Lucius confirmed with a final nod. Draco rubbed his eyes and yawned.
"Dunno… Someone hit me."
"Who?"
"Dunno, just hit me and I've only just woken up." Lucius looked disbelievingly at his son, he didn't think Draco was telling the truth.
"None of the gardeners saw you, no one saw anyone else and you haven't been in that Arbour for six hours Draco, six hours. Now can you tell me where you've been without making up lies?"
"Where have you been Draco?" Narcissa said sternly as she walked from the lounge to stand by Lucius.
"Someone hit me mother," Draco sighed thinking to get her on his side with some sweet talk.
"Who hit you?" She said rather anxiously feeling Draco's brow looking for a bump anywhere on it – his sweet talk had worked and he smiled like a little boy enjoying her consideration for his pain, that of which had been getting heavier in his head.
"I don't believe you." Lucius said icily. "The boy's making it all up – he's probably been drinking somewhere secretly all this time!"
"I don't drink!" Draco winced after shouting so loud, his ears felt like they couldn't deal with anything of that volume.
"You've got some explaining to do!"
"I'm going to my room."
"You're going to stay down here and tell us where you've been!"
"I was knocked out!" He put his hands over his ears and started walking away up the stairs. "I have a headache, I'm going to bed…"
"You're not getting out of it that easily Draco! Come back down here!" Draco muttered something rude to him and in an instant Lucius had run up and hit him round the head.
"Never say that sort of thing to me again! Apologise to your mother for speaking like that in front of her!"
"Go away! Leave me alone you don't care about me anyway!" He lifted himself from the stairs and harshly shoved his father off the steps - Lucius fell back quickly and landed flat on his back on the hall floor breathless with surprise. That taken care of, Draco shakily ran and half staggered to his room where he shut and locked the door and collapsed onto his bed, then his eyes – that were still blurred from the moment he had woken – completely gave up and he was thrust into total blindness. He fell asleep almost instantly still dressed and face down on his bed.
"Good, good, put him on that table – it'll have to do." Draco couldn't see, he couldn't hear that well either but the voice defiantly was high pitched and eerie, it sent a shiver down the spine of his dreaming body.
"Was it hard to get him away? Did Lucius see you at all?"
"Not at all, it was a quick spell and he was out."
"Excellent." Draco couldn't tell what was happening around him; all he saw was deathly black and if he was feeling anything, it was just like floating in water, deep under its surface. The voice that sent shivers down his spine began to mumble words unrecognisable in the English language and he heard the turning of crackled pages – he smelt the smell of an old worn book and the damp stuffy air was hot because of the burning fire somewhere, somewhere he couldn't tell where. It was just all around him and he was just a pair of ears and a nose floating blindly inside wherever he was. He must have been dreaming.
The voice continued to chant, pages turned, the fire grew hotter and the air began to thicken and twist around him. Something that felt like the wind, Draco had the sudden idea that it was another sort of wind – a spirit – and it was drifting, twisting, wrapping around his body until he could feel it around his neck – or where he assumed his neck would be as he was completely blind and didn't think about the rest of him being there.
He felt the sickening coldness of the thing as it slowly curled around his chin and smoothed past his cheek. It was so cold. Suddenly he felt his jaws open of their own accord, he tried to shut them but something was holding them open. Then feeling the worst panic he had ever felt in his life he realised what was happening.
That 'something' was trying to get inside his mouth.
He screamed, or tried to, his voice was frozen in silence and he suddenly felt too weak to make a sound, his body convulsed in an attempt to get away and judging his death was very near Draco just accepted the truth and unbearably felt the freezing spirit squeeze into his mouth and slip down his throat. He felt the hard lump of it as it went down to the pit of his stomach and he felt cold. Colder than he had ever been in his life, but he was alive. Praise God he was still alive.
Draco awoke in a cold sweat and threw up in his bed where he lay, shaking terribly, he couldn't hold himself up and collapsed back into the remains of his last meal. He was so cold, freezing, his breath was struggling to come and all he could do was wretch. He felt terrible, like he had watched his death over and over again in slow motion all night, he could hear his heart pumping furiously around his body and all he could do was lie there in agony with his muscles weighing what felt like lead. Miserably he tried to whimper away his aching pain but he just had no strength, so he slipped back into sleep.
A week had passed and Draco was lying in his bed, sick and miserable. His mother and father had helped him under the covers and that was where he had been for the last seven days, he had not eaten a thing, was pale and hungry with such heavy eyes that he dared not open them. Darklis and Cecelia were not allowed to enter, only the nurse that had cared for them when they were young was allowed to care for him, give water to him, stay with him in that room. Narcissa often went in and gently stroked his head as she couldn't ignore her maternal instincts any longer, Lucius went in every day to see if he was any better but never said a word or tried to talk to him.
It was getting worrying, the nurse had no idea what it was exactly but all she could think up was some strong form of flu. She was dismissed as soon as she said that and a real doctor was called in.
He watched Draco lying half asleep in his bed and after being asked Draco struggled to open his heavy eyes to look at the doctor.
"Can you hear me? You can can't you? I'm going to see what it is you have been infected with, tell me if something's giving you pain." Draco shut his eyes but didn't speak.
"He just can't say anything doctor, he just doesn't have the strength it seems." Narcissa sighed. The doctor went over and gently poked and prodded Draco's forehead, lifted one eyelid to see that his eyes were indeed rolled up and nodded to himself.
"Hmm, yes he's slipped back into unconsciousness. What we have here, is a case that can be rectified as soon as we can tell which spell it was that got him. He has been cursed badly Mrs Malfoy, it is quite obvious when you look at him that the cause of all this is not any viruses in the air but of someone's cruel intentions. We must find out what curse was inflicted upon him and combat it with the counter-curse to get him better." Narcissa looked distraught; who would ever want to hurt her son? But they could find no cure, the curse for his sudden sickness was unknown and very soon after the doctor left Lucius returned to the room, watched his pale boy sleeping, maybe even dying before his eyes, left the mansion and disapparated to Voldemort's chambers ready to probably do the most foolish thing ever – ask the Dark Lord if the cause was his.
"Master." Lucius got to one knee before Voldemort and waited to be acknowledged.
"Yes, my friend?" The Dark Lord hissed gently stroking Nagini's neck as she lay wrapped around his neck. It was quite strange to see Voldemort look so… so… evil. Back in the days when Lucius was a younger man he hardly saw Voldemort because he was always out gathering Ministry information and tagging along with the one or two Muggle murders. Voldemort had never looked so evil, so sly and calculating. Nagini – the snake Wormtail had milked to bring back their master had turned into a sort of lap cat. It had begun to give him some horrible looks, like she was always thinking about how good your taste might be if only she could get one-little-bite.
Lucius tried to tear his quivering eyes from Nagini's but it was just a natural instinct to not let his back be turned when in the presence of something that could easily kill you in an instant. Voldemort smirked and whispered something in Parseltongue into Nagini's ear.
Do snakes have ears?
"Do not hide your questions Lucius, we have known each other for a very long time now."
"Er, yes." I hate that fucking snake. "Er, master, I, my son-"
"Ahh Draco, yes what a handy young man to have… I will need to see him more often Lucius." His suspicions were beginning to look as though they were all true. Did Voldemort inflict that curse on his son? What had he done to anger his Lord so much that he would take it out on Draco?
"You are wondering if the curse on Draco is my doing, are you not?" Lucius' heart skipped a beat. "And you are also wanting to… get revenge on me for doing this…?" Lucius' heart stopped; how did he know what he was thinking? What would he do now that he knew? His eyes flicked back to Nagini who sniffed the air with her black tongue and gave him a look that suggested she was itching to please her master by getting rid of the annoyance quickly. She raised her head in a threatening manner, ready to confuse her prey and take it when it was not concentrating. Voldemort sniggered and whispered once more to Nagini in his strange language. Lucius had been wondering in the last three years since his coming back into the world, if perhaps Voldemort's relation with that snake was more than just good friends.
"I do not wish to discuss it with you Lucius, I advise you to return back to your little family and keep quiet, wait for your son to regain his health and then return to me. I will then, if I feel like it, tell you of my brilliant new plan and if it all works out, Draco will become perhaps one of the most feared men in the whole world, Muggle as well. He may even be a successor to me, though let us not hope that situation will ever arise." Lucius' face was as pale as Draco's, his eyes were glistening with anger and worry mixed into one and his muscles were trembling with fear so much that he was ashamed to admit it to himself. He got up and ran to the door but before he could wrench the handle round and escape, Voldemort spoke again in his iciest tone of voice.
"If you ever, do get it in your head to do something about this, mention it to the Ministry or attempt to save him for instance, then not only will your son die but I will also find something to do to your two pretty young girls. Cecelia and Darklis are their names yes?" Lucius' back was hiding his frozen expression from him, but Voldemort already knew how much the thought of anything harming his two daughters would strike terror into his heart. Lucius nodded and gulped some air feeling a lump in his throat. He walked out slower than he had entered and as he made it home to his mansion he couldn't hold in his grief any longer. Lucius clutched his throat and leaned up against a wall and wept, he wept because he had had enough of all the years of sneaking around trying to keep away from the Ministry, constantly afraid of Aurors as he walked past them in the street – they were secretive yes but he knew who they were because he had run from them so many times in his youth. When Voldemort had disappeared years ago he was finally happy because he never would be afraid of his powers again, but then he had a new fear – the Ministry and the public finding out about his crimes. When he had just managed to get his life back together again, raised a son and two daughters Voldemort had returned and since then it had been getting harder and harder to do his bidding and keep his innocence clear to the Ministry, the pressure of work in two jobs – one for the light side and one for the dark – had often left him feeling tired and strained like a wrung-out sponge. He took it all in and held onto it until someone made him lose it, let it all wash out and cause such mess that needed to be cleaned up quickly.
Now he had his son in his grasp – he had set some curse onto him that was surely killing him, slowly each day Draco was dying and he didn't know how to stop it, he couldn't, if he tried he'd die and then his two precious daughters would be taken just as harshly from him. His children were the world to him; he loved his beautiful daughters so much that if anything, if anyone hurt them he wouldn't care who he was fighting anymore, he'd just fight to protect them as much as he could.
And Voldemort also had him. He had kept him a prisoner to his evil schemes nearly all his adult life and now he was trapped in a cage even tighter than the last, he didn't have a key, no clue how to get out and nothing to pick the lock.
Another terrible week passed, even the servants who it seemed disliked the Malfoys as much as they disliked mud on their face were also hoping for the end of this misery. Draco hardly opened his eyes at all now, he hadn't shifted in two weeks and he was so deathly quiet they were all afraid to check up on him in the mornings for fear of the worst. Lucius knew what was wrong with him, up to an extent. It was a dark curse laid on by Voldemort that he didn't know how to lift.
But what had he said?
"Ahh Draco, yes what a handy young man to have… I will need to see him more often Lucius."
Did those words mean Draco was not expected to die, that Voldemort was just creating all this worry for the pleasure of seeing Lucius squirm? He did not like to think about it, he didn't know if he wanted to know the true intentions of the Dark lord.
One more week to the end of the holidays, Draco may not be able to return to Hogwarts for a few days, or weeks, it all depended on how long it would last. Ah yes, another thing Voldemort had said to him before he had left:
"I advise you to return back to your little family and keep quiet, wait for your son to regain his health and then return to me. I will then, if I feel like it, tell you of my brilliant new plan and if it all works out, Draco will become perhaps one of the most feared men in the whole world, Muggle as well. He may even be a successor to me, though let us not hope that situation will ever arise."
So maybe Draco was going to recover, Voldemort seemed pretty sure about it. But when? When? All this waiting and every day he seemed to get worse! Voldemort had told him not to return until Draco was well again. There was a plan. Draco was in it, Lucius was quite concerned as to what plans the Dark lord had made for his son… he wished he was far, far away from it all…
Voldemort consulted the book again.
Too long, it wasn't supposed to take this long!
He flicked through the pages, skimming sentences about the dangers of the nether regions of the universe - the places where even he felt were a little too disturbing for him. The faint glowing candles in the room were dying, the whole room was cold and uninviting but Voldemort didn't seem to notice.
Tonight he was on his own, no Death Eaters and no Wormtail. Alone except for Nagini curled and sleeping in his chair like a cat, snoring delicately and flicking her black tongue out with every breath. Voldemort frowned as an irrelevant thought crossed his mind.
Do snakes snore?
He shook his head angrily and slammed the book shut, then opened it at the first page reading down the list of contents. It was all written in an ancient language so that made things slightly more annoying, nevertheless he was the only one he knew that could at least read it much easily than others. Of course, it would be – it was in his blood.
Each moth eaten page that he turned was spattered with blood stains, the very blood stains of his ancestor Salazar Slytherin when he wrote the book centuries ago, just before Hogwarts was built. It had been in his family for years, the language was old and forgotten, remembered only through historians, extremely intelligent scholars and of course through Slytherin's decendants. It had only been in the last year that he dared to read it, it was where he got his new brilliant plan from.
The information held within these pages were the key to the source of all Black magic, Voldemort had to get the key and the only way he could get it was to find the door. Find the door and you can figure out the key needed to open it. When he had realised this, Voldemort had spent almost all time for three months in searching the most desolate areas of the world for the places where Dark magic leaked from the Dark dimension into this world, he had of course failed with absolutely no leads at all to where the door was. Then he had left it, read through Salazar's book again and learnt more dark spells, curses and hexes that Salazar had apparently discovered by dabbling with the notion of there being a dimension of pure Black magic.
There were no windows in this room save one tiny one, it was only big enough for owls to fly through and that suited Voldemort fine – less room for any bird Animagus' to get in. He found the page, near the back of the book and reread what he had read every day for the last week:
'The summoninge of a Beinge is ae danjerous and diffecult task, one which maye resulte in deathe or severe pain and losse of the soule. It cane be done but requires extreme skille and powere.'
There was a lengthily explanation of the spell and necessary body positions – for the summoner and the victim – and many gory diagrams that Voldemort assumed Salazar had enjoyed drawing. Everything was written in his blood. What kind of a man must he have been anyway?
'Ine ae fewe dayes followeing the insertion the victime wilt becometh a rogue and loseth all care fore the worlde. He wilt groweth in powere and becometh a strong mastere of Dark magic. The Beinge wilt driveth oute alle goodness and the victime wilt be thyn slathe.'
Of course that was how it was written if you could translate it all into English. But Salazar said it would be in a few days, two weeks now! Two weeks was more than a few days! Voldemort slumped in his chair making sure to remove Nagini and let her wrap around his neck. What had he done wrong? Draco Malfoy was the perfect guinea pig to use and lucius was one of his most loyal followers. If he could take control of that boy, then he could find the door, find the key and release all evil unto the world!
The idea was positively alluring…
Two little blonde girls in shimmering white dresses ran to the door, lifting their skirts and lightly skimming the ground with their toes. They both came to a halt at the end of the corridor like stealthy cats, one head looking round in one direction, the other peering through the keyhole.
"He's in there." One whispered, the other hopped round and pushed her sister out of the way.
"Yes, ready? Let's go in and wish him well!"
"Dark, are you sure about this…? Mother said no one apart from she and father are allowed in there. He's very sick they say." Darklis rolled her eyes and took a hairpin from somewhere beneath her mass of curls.
"It doesn't make sense why Draco should just get sick all of a sudden, we were with him the first three weeks of the holiday and he didn't look the least bit ill. I refuse to believe that this is all the fault of a wind blown virus!" Cecelia stared back blankly and moved away so Darklis could pick the lock. When they went in they locked the door again and walked slowly and cautiously up to the side of the bed and looked down at Draco's sleeping figure. They watched him nervously for a few minutes unsure of what to do next until Cecelia gasped and hurriedly pointed to the necklace around Darklis' neck. She cupped the jewel in her hands and mouthed her disbelief watching as the white snake twisted and grew inside its stone.
"Why is it moving? It's never moved before!"
"Shush Cecie! I don't want to miss anything…" They watched it as the black stone began to glow and then Darklis gaped at the necklace on Cecelia's neck.
"It's glowing too!" The silver serpent had always been moving, sometimes but not often it stopped and relaxed but now it squirmed and wriggled just as much as Darklis', their stones were glowing white and the light emitted from them beamed out likes searchlights in their faces.
"Aargh! What's going on?" They both mumbled – they didn't scream because they knew they'd get in trouble if anyone heard them in the room. In a few minutes, or seconds, it was over. The light vanished and blinking furiously the twins let go of their stones and broke out into smiles as Draco's eyes twitched, opened and he turned to look at them.
"…Wha…?" He said groggily. It wasn't much but it was more than he had said in two weeks so they jumped up and down on the spot and clapped their hands with joy. It was Draco's first reaction not to look at their smiling faces but at the two stones on their necks. Both the snakes inside were still and smaller than they had been. He wondered afterwards why he had focussed in on those two snakes and why he had felt like Death had been driven away from him, right now though he just blinked and wondered who he was and what he was.
"Draco! Draco you're okay!" Cecelia laughed, Darklis slapped her hand over her mouth.
"Shush sister! We are not supposed to be here remember?" She hissed.
"Oops, sorry, but isn't this great?! Now he can come with us to Diagon alley on Friday!" Draco let them talk and started fitting reality back into places. His whole mind, his memory was blank. He wanted to know how long he'd been here.
"…H…h-oww…" He swallowed with terrible effort, his mouth felt so dry and dead. "H-oWW, Loong hav-v-ve I beeeen…" He stopped, giving up and sighing but they knew what he had asked.
"Um… two weeks, you've been ill Draco." Cecelia said, Darklis nodded confirming her. He could feel how stiff his backbone was, he tried to get up anyway and felt the strain on his neck, God his head was so heavy! How on Earth could he have been able to lift it before now? Everything was a blur to him, he knew these two girls were his sisters but anything concerning the time they spent together this holiday was gone. All he knew of it was sitting somewhere at the back of his mind, he sensed it was there but he just couldn't recall the memory. Something else was blocking it.
He had such a headache.
"Are you sure you should be getting up? I think you'd better lie down." Cecelia flittered as he somehow managed to sit upright and swing his legs off the bed.
"I'm…fine…" He reached out a hand and Darklis held it helping him to stand. He was still dressed in the green and silver robes he had worn two weeks ago, but with no shoes. He suddenly had a strange sensation run through him as his legs took his weight for the first time in two weeks - he really, really had to go.
"Help me…walk. I've got…to…get out of, this room." The twins held one shoulder up each and guided Draco out as he shambled doggedly with them. "Not, that, way… I have a call of nature…" He said rather embarrassingly, they nodded slowly as realisation slipped in and changed direction to another room further down the corridor, afterwards they helped him back to the bed and told him what had happened while he was under the curse.
"Yes, I think I can make it to Diagon alley father, I'm not ill any more." I wouldn't believe it so soon.
"You were ill for two weeks Draco, you can't expect me to allow you to run around as normal after that, that -"
"-Curse. Do you know who might have done it to me?" Lucius knew, but he couldn't say. He really should have gone to Lord Voldemort by now. Draco had been up and about the last five days and seemed to be perfectly healthy, but, but there was something wrong still, something not right about him.
"I, don't know… understand me though when I ask you not to accompany us to Diagon alley. We can get your new things; the list came this morning. Stay here, please, until you have to leave on Monday Draco please stay at home and make sure you're fully recovered." Draco threw his arms up.
"But I am well! I'm fine! I don't need this constant mothering from anyone!" They were in the study, just he and his father.
"You are not well! I won't allow you to go out until you are!" There it was again, Lucius thought, that little glint in his eye, it appears every time we talk about this. There's something wrong about his behaviour, he shouldn't be so unruly to me!
"Draco," Lucius said rather testily. "We will discuss this tomorrow morning. I won't have any of this tonight."
"But you go tomorrow, let me come just this one day. A few hours is all, it won't hurt." Maybe it was because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn't agree, maybe he just had enough and gave in, whatever the reason Lucius allowed Draco to come and the next morning the family left the mansion for Diagon alley to shop for Hogwarts things. There, when they walked into Gringotts to take out money Lucius looked round cautiously to Draco who smiled innocently back, he breathed in and hoped the day would go well.
"Mother and my sisters will go off shopping on their own,"
Mother and my sisters will go off shopping on their own, Draco recited in his head.
"Then when they're out of the way I'll get rid of my father,"
Then when they're out of the way I'll get rid of my father,
"And find someone to kill." Draco's mind hesitated for a moment.
"And find someone to kill." The voice said louder, Draco's lips moved thinking of the words but not sure why he was thinking them.
And find someone to… kill. His heart shuddered, Lucius looked round at him and automatically he smiled back, when Lucius turned away he repeated the words to himself.
And find someone to kill. This time he thought of them a bit more strongly than before.
"I can see we will become great allies, Draco my soul…"