THE MANOR
Disclaimer: Some of it's her's, some of it's mine. I'm sure you can tell.
Chapter 18 - Draco's Story
Draco walked confidently alone through the damp, cold stone passages of the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, certain of his route, knowing each path he struck. His father had given him a guided tour of the Manor when he had only been six, and since then, he had spent many long hours in the dungeons. It was a good place to be if the summer heat ever grew unbearable for the dungeons were coolest place in the house, when he wanted to hide from his tutor insisting on him doing more study, when he had to do potions work in the summer holidays, or when playing hide-and-seek with Greg Goyle and Vince Crabbe when he was younger.
Yes, Draco definitely knew his way around the Manor's dungeons. He did not wander around, lost, like Hermione and Ron had done, but moved assuredly, calmly, until he finally reached a patch of bare wall that looked much like any other patch of wall in the monotonous dungeons.
He muttered the password. 'The fall of King Arthur.'
The wall shimmered, flickered, and disappeared to reveal the polished corridors of his home. There were many ways of out of the Dungeons, but this was by far the fastest way to reach Hermione.
Hermione …
As Draco stepped out onto the clean wooden floors of the dark corridor, the occasional candle casting an eerie light on the portraits of Malfoys from generations past who snoozed lazily, he thought back to that girl.
He knew he often confused her by his behaviour, which confused himself sometimes. She tried to reach out to him, but he shied away so many times, unsure as to what to think. What to believe.
God … life had been, and still was, confusing.
Draco could remember clearly his life as a child. Unfogged, clear as crystal, and happily innocent. His mother loved him very much, always cooing over him, a loving, warm, gentle and beautiful presence in his life. His father was different. Strict and stern, but since Draco had never known any different, he accepted it. In fact, he grew up worshipping his father.
Until he was six, Draco had lived a very sheltered life, and rarely even made contact with other wizards and witches. He spent some time playing games with himself or with his mother or his nanny, and also liked to fly on his toy broomstick, either by himself, or playing catch with the head gardener.
But a lot of his time was spent learning. Draco was a gifted boy, and could not remember ever being unable to read or write, and since he was fluent in both, his father would set him books to read or study. He had a tutor too, whose task it was to teach him languages. His mind was set from the beginning. The books he read, dry dusty tomes, were about the history of his family, and translations of Latin, or French or any other language he was being taught, all had texts about his family history.
And then, when he was six, he was invited by one of his parent's friends – Gareth and Melissa Goyle, to their son's seventh birthday party.
Lucius and Narcissa thought it would be a charming experience for Draco, and Draco wanted to go, curious to find out what other people were like. He had been very excited, but before he left, his father gave him a very long lecture which he remembered well, even though he had yawned through a lot of it.
'Remember, Draco. We are superior to the Goyles,' Lucius Malfoy had said severely, his cane, which he had had forever, sitting on his lap.
'Yes, father,' the small Draco, cherubic in appearance, said innocently, watching the play of light on the silver head of the cane.
'In fact, we are one of the most superior families in Britain,' Lucius Malfoy said gravely. With that, he gestured towards a row of books in the library. 'These texts are full evidence that we have a lineage you must live up to.'
Draco nodded, serious. He knew that. He had read a great deal of those books in his "spare time." His father continued along that line for a while, before finally finishing.
'Take care to act as befits a superior family,' Lucius Malfoy said in conclusion, before letting his son go to the birthday party.
Draco had arrived at the Goyle home, not nervous but excited, at the prospect of meeting others. There were other children there – Gregory Goyle, the birthday boy, and his best friend, Vincent Crabbe. There was also a boy he remembered, Timothy Nott, and out of the girls, the one who distinctly sat in his memory was a girl who tried her utmost best to attach herself to him, with blond plaits and a pug nose, Pansy Parkinson.
'Who are you?' Greg had said, seeing Draco for the first time, even while he stuffed a pink-iced cupcake into his mouth.
'Yeah, who're you?' Vince said suspiciously, as he eyed a chocolate frog.
Although not experienced with dealing with others, Draco could tell instinctively that they were not being friendly, and he stiffened. 'I'm Draco Malfoy,' he said proudly, remembering his father's words. You are superior to the others. 'Who are you?' he asked, imitating his father's disdainful tone of voice.
The other boys had instantly changed their attitude, Draco's arrogant confidence obviously offputting for them.
'Greg,' Greg had introduced himself quickly after swallowing the cupcake.
'Vince,' Vince added, and then began eating his chocolate frog.
'Oh,' Draco said, already beginning, at the age of six, to affect the drawl – like a lazier version of his father's own arrogant voice – that he would use for the rest of his life. 'Happy Birthday, Greg,' he said, with only a hint of an condescending smile on his face, handing Gregory Goyle the birthday present his mother had bought the week before.
Draco saw the others a few times after that. He did not like any of them very much, preferring the company of himself, but they made a change of scene. He did not, and could not, consider them as friends, and vice versa. Greg and Vince were already friends before they met Draco, and as one, they bowed down to his authority. Draco could not stand Timothy Nott, who he saw less often, and Pansy Parkinson could be unbearable, although her flatteries were very nice for his ego.
No, Draco spent his time at home, reading, and learning magic from his father. When he was eight, he began to get the first hints of his father's darker past.
Draco was returning from a visit to a French aunt of his in Paris with his mother, to find a couple of men running from the Manor, with his father fuming angrily.
'What is it, Lucius?' Narcissa Malfoy asked, worried as she came into the house.
'The fools,' his father seethed. 'They dared, they dared to even set foot inside this place. Put their Muggle-born, tainted blood on this doorstep.'
'Muggle?' Draco inquired, curiously standing in the doorway, hands in the pocket of a new jacket that his mother had bought for him in Paris at a children's boutique she adored.
His father ignored him. 'They dared to, the nerve of them!'
'Why did they come?' Narcissa asked, voice as gentle as she could make it.
Lucius' face darkened. 'They were tipped off. By somebody, a traitor, or somebody careless, I don't know. They claimed they knew about the items I keep in the cupboard behind the second shelf in the library.'
Narcissa's face went white. 'You still keep them there?' she demanded.
'Of course I keep them there,' Lucius said, scowling. 'We will need them,' he said, smiling tightly, 'when our Master returns.'
Her eyes widened with fear.
'Don't worry, my love,' Lucius said, voice like poisoned honey, a subtlety that the young Draco did not catch. 'The Dark Lord will return,' he said, smiling cruelly one hand touching her pale face.
'Father, what's a Muggle?'
Lucius whirled around. 'What are you still doing here?' he snapped.
Draco stared at his father, hurt. Although his father was stern, he was never angry at Draco, not in this way, with eyes flashing coldly.
'I just wanted to know what a Muggle is,' Draco said, wounded. 'And look. I bought this in Paris,' he showed his father an ornament of the Eiffel Tower.
'You took our son into Muggle France?' Lucius Malfoy demanded of his wife.
Narcissa gave him a level gaze, shifting her chin determinedly. 'The best shops are in Muggle France,' she said coolly, one hand twisting the hem of her jacket.
'Fool of a woman,' Lucius said, contemptuously. 'Can you really think only of clothes, and jewellery and perfume?'
'Isn't that what you married me for?' Narcissa retorted.
'Now that you mention it, yes,' he said, smiling maliciously. He came closer to her, and to all appearances, embraced her. In a low voice, barely audible to the watching boy, he spoke in her ear. 'Isn't that why you married me?'
Draco watched his parents, bewildered. His mother was rigid in his father's arms, her face completely wan, and he listened to her soft response. 'I should never have sold my soul to the devil,' she said, voice low with a note of sadness.
'You're right, you should not have,' her husband said, the smile on his face growing wider. Draco's mother closed her eyes, her face pained, while one hand twisted the dazzling diamond ring on her finger, and Lucius continued relentlessly. 'You are trapped in a reflection of your own making.'
Draco stood, half hidden in the growing shadows, puzzled. 'Mother, father,' he interrupted, looking perplexed. 'Whatever is the matter?'
'Go away, Draco,' his father said shortly.
'But, what's a Muggle?'
'Go away!' Lucius Malfoy thundered.
Draco fled to the dungeons where he moped about for a while, confused, before he decided to go to the library. Surely there he could find out what his father had been going on about. Quietly, he slipped in, unseen by his tutor who was sitting, dozing over a scroll of some sort. Instead of going to the shelf of books he was told to read, he headed off instead to find a thick dictionary.
'Muggle,' he frowned, and flipped the pages quickly, to find the entry. 'Humans of non-magical blood. Viewed by many wizards to be inferior, Muggles have been the cause for the restriction and secrecy of the wizarding community. However, at times, wizards and witches are Muggle-born, ie., born with no wizarding parents.'
Draco did not understand why Muggles should make his father so upset. He had seen some Muggles in France when he was with his aunt and uncle and mother. He had asked his mother why those people weren't using magic, and she had just said they were different, and that it was rude to point. He wondered why his father made such a fuss.
He continued his furtive search in the library, and looked for the second shelf his father had been livid about. Finding it, he used his expertise from his time in the dungeons, and running his hands lightly over the shelves, found a small lever, and pulled it. A door opened in the shelf, to reveal a cupboard. Draco's eyes brightened. He had found the cupboard his father was talking about.
Inside, he found many strange and curious objects, that for some reason, he felt wary about touching. There was a strange cloak of some black substance that did not look like cloth but a pool of darkness, and a length of soft rope that was speckled with redness. Also among the many odd items were vials of coloured potions that Draco could not identify, and also an old diary that looked of little interest to him.
Then, his stomach growled, and he left, to seek some dinner.
That night, after dinner, he found his father in his study, writing a letter to the Ministry.
'Father?' Draco asked tentatively.
Lucius Malfoy turned around, his eyes sharp, but not blazingly angry like he had been earlier.
'What is it, Draco?' he asked curtly.
'I was wondering. Why were you so angry about the Muggle-borns?' Draco said, voice innocently inquisitive.
Lucius nodded, as if pleased with the question. 'What do you know about Muggles, Draco?'
'They don't have magical blood,' Draco replied promptly, having read the dictionary entry previously. 'But they can't help that, can they?'
Lucius brushed that aside. 'Muggles are the scum of this earth,' he said calmly. 'Draco, Muggles are beneath us. Their blood is dirty and foul, and they seek only to undermine us. They are stupid beyond belief, and foolish. They know nothing, and do nothing of any good. Look at some of their contraptions. Why do they need their fellytones and pomcuters? They are worthless beings.'
'Why?' Draco asked. He was at the age when "why" was one of the most frequent words to pass his lips.
'Because they are Muggles,' Lucius said, with a note of finality.
From that moment on, Lucius took care to remind Draco of that fact, constantly, although he virtually never saw Muggle-borns. He spent all his time in the Manor, after all, and when he wasn't in the Manor, he would either be at Diagon Alley or another wizard's house. He never visited Paris again.
Then, when Draco was ten, he found out about Voldemort.
The Malfoys were having a dinner party, although, as usual, Draco was not allowed to attend, being too young. His mother looked absolutely beautiful, dressed in robes of emerald velvet, with shimmering diamonds around her swan-like neck. His father, was dressed severely in black dress robes, as ever.
Draco, curious, crept out of his bedroom and found himself sitting at the top of the stairs, watching the guests coming into the Manor.
'Daisy Parkinson! I haven't seen you in a long time!' Narcissa air-kissed the blonde woman with the pug nose.
'Lovely to see you, Narcissa!' Daisy Parkinson said in gushing reply.
'How are you, Gareth?' Draco watched his father greet Greg's father.
'Fine,' Gareth Goyle grunted.
'Is that a new painting? It's so charming,' Ellen Nott flattered.
'Thank you,' Draco's mother said, a little loftily. Lucius didn't like the Notts very much.
They were herded towards the dining room, and Draco slipped down the stairs quietly to stand behind the door, watching the adults. It just so happened that he was positioned behind his father who was talking to a man called Paris Mulciber on one side, and Bran Travers on the other.
'This is a ridiculous situation,' Mulciber burst out in a low voice. 'Living in secrecy, the Ministry breathing on our backs.'
Draco's father gave a cold smile. 'Not mine.'
Mulciber scowled at Lucius, even as Travers spoke, voice calculated, but also very pompous. 'Listen, you idiot, our time will come again. We won't have to conform to their Muggle-loving ways any more.'
Our time?
'When?' Mulciber bit out furiously. 'It's been bloody nine years since our master fell.'
Our master?
'Remember what our Lord always said, Mulciber,' Lucius said calmly. 'Patience, is one of the greatest virtues one can have.'
'He wasn't very patient when he decided all of a sudden to attack the Potters.'
'You sound rather treacherous like that,' Travers said ponderously.
'Really,' Mulciber questioned sardonically. 'We must help him return. I am sick of a life of secrecy!'
'He will return,' Lucius said calmly. 'There are many ways to do it, and at least one of them will work.'
'Name one,' Mulciber demanded.
'I have one, but I need to wait until my son begins at Hogwarts before I can begin it. Then, we can start ridding the world of the Muggle filth,' Lucius said delicately.
'How old is your son?' Travers inquired.
'Ten. He will be starting next year.'
'Good.'
Draco crept away at that point. Clearly, his family was being downtrodden in some way. All of his father's teachings about the superiority of his family were taking hold, and he furiously wished there were some way to make things better again. He wondered, though, who was this master that his father spoke so reverently of, and decided to ask his father tomorrow.
The next morning, he went to his father's study, and knocked.
'Draco,' Lucius said, nodding, as Draco came in.
'Father,' Draco said in reply. 'Who is our master?'
Lucius looked at Draco sharply, and then, a smile crept onto his features. 'Our master, the greatest wizard of all time.'
'Who is this esteemed wizard?' Draco asked politely.
'Voldemort. He seeks to purify the world of all dirty blood, and we will be able to live free lives as wizards,' Lucius proclaimed. He frowned. 'I did not realise I had not yet mentioned our Lord to you.' He took a piece of parchment, and wrote down the names of some books. 'See that your tutor gets these books out of the library for you to read. You will learn more about our master in this way, for he will return, and we will stand proud and tall once more.'
'Yes, father!' Draco nodded, caught up in his father's speech. He knew what his father meant by pride. Often, when he was in Diagon Alley or some other place, people would bow respectfully at the sight of them. Others, though, would give them looks of disgust, which his father would always return. However, these looks of disgust would end, some day, his father assured him.
Draco went to the library, and spent most of the year reading such titles as The Greatest Wizard by B. Travers or The Lord of the Wizards by A. Wilkes. They were all fairly similar, but Draco read them obediently, the constant reading imprinting the texts, with the ideals his father believed in and had left in Draco since the beginning, drumming themselves into his head. He also read, in some of these books, about the fall of Lord Voldemort by the Potters. Draco felt a certain amount of admiration for Harry Potter although the books were not too fond of him. After all, this kid must be the same age as him, and to be able to kick butt like that!
On the twenty fourth of July, Draco received a letter by a barn owl. The letter was written on creamy parchment, in a thick envelope, sealed with wax. It was his school letter, which he had been expecting ever since the summer began.
'Mother, my letter,' he handed it over to his mother.
Narcissa smiled. 'From Hogwarts,' she said fondly, but through tears.
'What's the matter?' he asked, puzzled.
'I'll miss you, darling,' she merely said, and hugged him – a rare gesture in the past few years, since Lucius Malfoy frowned on any such coddling.
Lucius Malfoy came to the breakfast table at that moment.
'Father! My Hogwarts letter!' Draco said proudly, handing it over to his father. He knew he would be going to Hogwarts, and had known it for a long time, but now that he actually got the letter, he felt very proud of the fact. He had heard Greg and Vince worrying about not getting in.
Lucius barely glanced at the letter.
'Very nice, Draco,' he said absently. 'Sit down and finish your breakfast. Your tutor wants to leave early today, so you will have to start your studies earlier.'
Draco sat down, subdued, missing the glare his mother sent his implacable father.
'We'll have to go to Diagon Alley to get your school things,' Narcissa said presently, while she drank the juice she always had for breakfast.
'When will we go?' Draco asked, excited.
'Next week,' Lucius Malfoy said firmly. 'I am busy until then.' He stood up then, having finished his breakfast rapidly. 'See me in my study this afternoon when your tutor has left, Draco.'
'Yes father,' Draco said, puzzled. What would his father want to talk about?
He returned to the letters. 'Oh, that's terrible, mother. We can't bring brooms in first year,' he said, disappointed. He liked flying a lot, and had been hoping to gain some measure of acceptance in his new school through his flying skills. Although he never confided in anybody (neither his father nor mother), he wanted to make some friends, sort of like Greg and Vince were friends with each other. He thought it might be fun to play games with somebody a little brighter too.
'Don't worry, Draco. You'll be able to next year,' Narcissa said comfortingly. 'School Quidditch is terribly exciting, cheering on your own House,' she added dreamily, obviously remembering her own school days.
That afternoon, the ten-year old Draco went to his father's study.
'You wanted to see me, father?' he asked from the doorway.
'Ah yes, Draco,' Lucius Malfoy said, nodding to his son from his desk behind the heavy mahogany desk. Draco stood before the desk waiting obediently for his father's words, and waited for his father to finish writing a letter.
'Draco, you will be starting school on the first of September,' his father said.
Draco nodded. 'Yes, father.'
'You will be starting school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which, you will be attending unfortunately because there is no other school available. I am on the board of governors, which is why the school can be tolerable. The Headmaster is a fool of a man, Albus Dumbledore. A Muggle-loving bumbling idiot,' Lucius spat furiously.
'Yes, father,' Draco said.
'Do not be fooled by his smiles,' his father warned.
'I won't, father.'
'Good,' Lucius Malfoy said, satisfied. 'There are four houses in Hogwarts. Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor.'
'Yes, father.'
'I went to Slytherin.'
'I expect I would want to go to Slytherin, then.'
'Of course,' Lucius said matter of factly. 'All your ancestors were Slytherins. Your mother was, I was, and your grandparents, and their grandparents and all the Malfoys before then.'
Draco nodded.
'Ravenclaws are clever people, so they can be tolerated. Hufflepuffs are idiots. Good for nothings. But Gryffindors are even worse.'
'Yes, father.'
And so it continued, with Lucius Malfoy giving his son a thorough run-down on what he should, and should not like, about Hogwarts.
When Draco and his parents finally went to Diagon Alley on the 31st of July, he was deposited unceremoniously at Madam Malkin's.
'We'll leave you here, Draco,' his father said perfunctionally. 'We don't have any time to waste, I must return to the Ministry in an hour. Your mother and I will look at all the other business.'
Draco felt disappointed. He had wanted to spend time walking around Diagon Alley, having been shut up in the Manor for so long, but he sighed, and nodded. He knew protesting did no good.
After a while in Madam Malkin's while he had fittings, another boy walked in, who looked the same age as he. Messy hair, green eyes, fairly short. Draco tried talking to him, to sound impressive – he wanted friends, so he used the same tactics he used on Greg and Vince – pointing out what he had, and putting on a superior exterior. The boy didn't look too impressed.
When Draco finally went to King's Cross and boarded the Hogwarts Express, he found out that Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter who had defeated Voldemort, was coming to Hogwarts that year. Draco was excited – to meet the famous boy who he had read about in several of those books sounded very interesting. Yes, he had brought down the Dark Lord, but to do that, he must be powerful. He mused – maybe, when the Dark Lord returned, Harry Potter could join his side. He would be a powerful ally! Whatever, he wanted to meet Harry Potter, and maybe even become friends with this historical figure.
But when he found the Boy-Who-Lived, he found him sitting with a boy, with red-hair and freckles. A Weasley. His father had warned him about them.
'Their father is a useless incapable person who is a disgrace to wizards and the Ministry. He has more children than he could ever hope to feed and clothe. You can tell them quickly. Red hair and freckles. Gryffindors, I can tell you now,' Lucius had said as part of his pre-Hogwarts lecture.
And now Harry Potter, one of the most powerful wizards, wanted to be friends with a Weasley?
He was outraged, and tried to put the famous boy-wizard right. It didn't quite work out, and instead, Potter managed to humiliate Draco in front of a Weasley. A Malfoy humiliated before a Weasley? He began disliking Potter intensely. No wonder the Dark Lord wanted to get rid of him.
When he arrived at Hogwarts, he was Sorted into Slytherin – and as a Slytherin, he soon found himself the object of suspicion and dislike from virtually all the other houses. It was not a sensation he liked. Yes, some feared him, but Draco disliked the feeling. Every time he was humiliated before one of those other lowlifes in the school, his face would burn, imagining his father's speeches about the superiority of the Malfoys. He tried to stand tall and proud, to live up to the Malfoy name, to live up to the tradition his forefathers had built up, even as everything crumbled about him – he would lose at Quidditch, while Potter (who got to play in first year because of his scar) won; he would get scolded and reprimanded because of them; he even had to serve detention in first year because of them; his father was dismissed from the board of school governors; Potter got on the Triwizard tournament; he was turned into a ferret by Moody!
He hated it all, and the hate festered in him, so that he longed for the return of Voldemort.
And Voldemort did return, at the end of his fourth year, when Cedric Diggory, a Hufflepuff was killed in the presence of Potter. Dumbledore, the old fool that he was, tried to praise Potter, but Draco refused, silently gloating at the news he had heard. That the Dark Lord had returned.
He went home that summer eagerly, and in a short while, Voldemort himself moved into Malfoy Manor, and Draco's fantasies of family pride disintegrated to dust.
His father, the same father who had brought Draco up on ideas of family superiority, on their superiority to Muggles, on how they should never bow down to anybody, on how their family was better, suddenly turned into some subservient creature, who fed off the praise of a pale, serpent-like wizard. The slightest command, and his father would do the bidding of his Dark Lord.
Even commands of – 'I feel hungry,' would be responded to too quickly, 'I'll send somebody to fetch a snack for you, my Lord.'
In short, Draco was disgusted and disillusioned.
The changes in his thoughts were subtle – at first, he refused to believe that this was possible. Maybe his father was just so glad that the Dark Lord had returned, but after a couple of weeks, it became clear, that his father was no master of his own life, but merely a servant, a follower. He rebelled against the thought, but it crept into his mind and insinuated itself so that he would watch his father's actions in disgust.
His mother was upset, he could see, and that made it no better. He couldn't even talk to her, she hid in her chambers, and when he did see her, her face was always white and still, and her eyes would look perpetually blurred with tears.
He began questioning, to his discomfit, the merit in all his father had said. Was he better than the Weasleys? Was he better than Muggles and Muggle-borns?
Along with all that confusion, there was also something about him changing. The whole magical creature business that perplexed Hermione, was just as confusing and bewildering for him, although he didn't let her know that. It had started in the holidays, the strange feeling he had, when he walked past a captive chimera at Macnair's home. Almost as if he could talk to him. He ignored it, but then, in Diagon Alley, he had found that book. It was fascinating, and he studied the brilliant pictures in interest.
Then, school had started, and he had seen Pegasus. He just knew, somehow, that he could go up to Pegasus and communicate with him.
Pegasus had, rather unnervingly, identified him peculiarly.
You can speak to me? Pegasus had asked a little nervously. He was a young horse after all, at only a couple of centuries.
It seems so, Draco thought back. Isn't this remarkable.
Y-you are the Golden One! Pegasus said, amazement in his thought.
If you say so, Draco said dubiously. I've never heard of the Golden One.
Well, you are only human, Pegasus said patronisingly.
Well thank you, Draco said sardonically.
You're welcome, Pegasus replied with equal sarcasm. Then, after a pause, would you like to fly? I want to stretch my wings.
Draco blinked. Fly on Pegasus? Sure.
It was amazing, and Draco found he could talk with magical beasts. It was unusual, but it must be some extra facet of his own abilities. Many people varied in their abilities – he knew, for example, that Paris Mulciber was a specialist at casting Imperius curses. He also knew that Albus Dumbledore was very strong telepathically, while his own father was very strong at inducing fear.
Many of these special 'niches' appeared in adolescent years, which would be about right, Draco thought. He always meant to look up his abilities, but never got around to it his year.
Draco blinked. He had reached the door he was aiming for. There was nobody guarding it – why would they need to? One after all, needed Death-Eater blood to enter. But Draco technically had Death-Eater blood, having been conceived after his father became a Death-Eater. So, he reached for the door-handle, and pulled, to see a group of a dozen or so Death-Eaters – some from the Inner Circle, some their underlings – all sitting in a crowded throng, muttering, in the antechamber.
'Draco!' Lucius Malfoy gasped.
'Father,' Draco said smoothly, with an assured smirk.
'What are you doing here?' Lucius demanded.
'Wagging classes,' Draco said cheerfully, and shrugged. 'Seriously, I want to talk to Voldemort.'
'Why?' his father challenged, startled.
'He wants to talk to me,' Draco said carelessly. He moved towards the door at the other end of the small chamber, when Peter Pettigrew barred his way.
'Let me tell him first,' Pettigrew said. 'He can get a little impatient if he's interrupted while he's torturing.'
Draco's stomach fell, and his heart thudded painfully, but he nodded calmly. 'Do so, and hurry, Wormtail,' he said contemptuously.
Peter Pettigrew left, and the Death-Eaters stared at the implacable Draco, who refused to say a word.
The door opened again, and Pettigrew stepped through, followed by Voldemort himself.
'Young Draco,' Voldemort said, a smile twisting his thin lips as one hand massaged his head, while he grimaced as if in pain.
'Can we talk privately?' Draco requested.
Voldemort gave a careless shrug. 'If you wish. Leave us,' he ordered the Death-Eaters. The Death-Eaters all gaped, and again, grumbling, left yet another room to leave Voldemort alone.
Draco took a deep breath. 'I want to become a Death-Eater.'
Voldemort looked speculatively at him. 'Good idea, boy,' he said softly. 'We can arrange the initiation rites for next week –'
'No. Right now. You can do the rites straight away,' Draco insisted.
'Draco, I don't think you understand. I am preoccupied at the moment,' Voldemort said severely.
'Finish your little amusements later,' Draco said, trying to look casual by rolling his eyes. 'Put your games aside for now, or else, I might change my mind.'
Voldemort's eyes narrowed. 'Why?' he demanded.
'Does there have to be a reason for everything?' Draco complained boldly. 'To be completely honest, I am sick of listening to that imbecilic headmaster at Hogwarts. I want to do things, and he won't let me. But I'm still an indecisive teenager,' he said innocently. 'I may change my mind quickly,' his voice trailed off, hinting.
He could see Voldemort considering his proposal. Voldemort wanted him, he knew that. He wanted him as much as he wanted Hermione and Harry, but he would think he could just put Hermione aside for now. Besides she was unconscious.
'I will finish dealing with, my prisoner, later,' Voldemort said finally.
'Good,' Draco said, approvingly, although his heart thumped with fear.
Author's note: I had a terrible time starting this chapter. And I had a terrible time writing it. And looking at it, I think its terribly finished (first draft) but it'll have to do. I needed to get it up quickly. Hopefully, it'll give you an idea about Draco's point of view before we return to the action. And I'll probably re-do it later. It's simply terrible. My apologies.
Anyway, reviews!!! Wow! Keep them coming … :-)
gx-Silver - thank you!
Harlequin - I know he used to be short, but I thought he might have grown by now, because, you know, he had to get new school robes and stuff in bk4.
Lady Prongs - here's the answer to your question. Yeah, Imperius is the best to be subjected to, but it was used specifically for Hermione for a specific reason, which I will disclose at a later date, of course …
VaNeSsA - thanks! I'll try and continue, but it'll be distracting when Order of the Phoenix comes out.
Porphyrophobic Grape - you liked Voldie! He'll be touched. I'm just curious, what's with your name?
LilyFlower - I used to be a Ron/Hermione shipper, but I got turned traitorous by some very good D/Hr fics. I still think the books are going to be R/Hr though. (sigh).
Headmaster Cromwell - will try to in the near future!
