Breakdown
Harry was comfy and warm when he was woken up by Hermione in the early hours of Thursday morning. He had been dreaming about something that was mutated…like a sort of dog looking creature that only had back legs. It had been his companion since he was a child and it was called Chi Chi.
He opened his eyes and instantly reached for his glasses and looked to Hermione. She had stayed in his room that night in case anything happened over night at Hogwarts and they could both go to action quickly with out waiting around for each other. She had fallen asleep on the couch while she and Harry were discussing ways of getting Malfoy out of the school on the Friday but they came up with no reasonable suggestions, just a few which told him he was called away. But he would find them all too suspicious as that was the type of thing he was prone to doing to others when he was younger.
"What?" Harry grumbled.
"Hurry, wake up, there's in emergency meeting in the staffroom apparently one of the teachers had gone missing and they need a cover. They asked me…but well I thought you could cover,"
"Who's gone missing?"
"That's just it, Malfoy has, there's no sign of him anywhere, and they've even looked at the Marauder's Map…you know it's framed on the Sixth Floor? They can't find him; he's out of the grounds."
"Why would he want to leave?" Harry asked, suddenly feeling alert and awake and moving over to his trunk where he pulled out some robes. "Surely it is more important that we find him rather that cover a lesson?"
"No, listen you covering a lesson is a great thing to do, there is nothing that blond git can do, Dumbledore's changing the law temporarily, there's nothing to worry about."
"I can't teach potions," Harry said and he glanced in to a mirror on his far wall and gave a half hearted attempt to sort out his hair which ended unsuccessfully.
"Well how about we both cover the lesson? Anyway we have to go."
Harry and Hermione walked to the staffroom and there was an excited buzz about the school teachers. They went silent as Harry entered the room and immediately Harry looked to Hermione. Hermione was grinning cheekily.
"Well Mr Harry Potter, teaching at Hogwarts. Miss Granger here explained you couldn't do Potions so we've got out Dark Arts teacher to do that, now you can teach Dark Arts, you'll know all about that won't you?"
Before Harry could speak the staffroom doors burst open to reveal a small child. Harry recognised him as one of the pupils that asked a question to him in the Great Hall on the day he arrived.
"Ebbling why are you here?" asked a balding and short teacher,
"It's the Gryffindor Tower Professor, the statue is alive, it's been enchanted." All of a sudden all of the teachers ran out of the staffroom and left Harry and Hermione standing looking at the small boy.
"How is it possible?" Harry asked Hermione,
"Only by someone finding a loophole in your law Harry," Hermione said in a serious tone.
"You a Gryffindor then?" Harry asked the small boy. He shook his head.
"No, but then again neither were you, really, you were a Slytherin weren't you?" The boy's voice had lost all of its youthful innocence as it said that line and Harry looked to the boy with a look of surprise.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the Sorting Hat said you should be in Slytherin, then there's the fact that you are a Parselmouth and oh yes the fact that you had a remarkable connection with The Dark Lord." Hermione gave a small gasp. No one referred to Voldemort as the Dark Lord anymore unless you were a supporter.
"What?" Harry said in a whisper.
"Ah just give me a few more moments. The Dark Lord may be dead but the same that happened to you can happen to anyone else Potter, he can transfer his powers when he is weak and just before his was killed I received some of his powers." Harry shook his head,
"No,"
"Yes Potter."
At that moment an all too familiar phase occurred and the small boy, that Harry and Hermione believed to be the small boy James Ebbling started to grow taller and his pitch black hair started to grow and become blond. Within a few moments the boy had turned in to Malfoy.
Harry looked quickly to Hermione his hands were gripped and sweating and his head was swirling.
"This, this can't be, how, why would the school employ you? You weren't there?" Harry said and he took a step back away from both Malfoy and Hermione.
"No, a funny thing an invisibility cloak, but you'd know all about that wouldn't you?" Malfoy smirked but stayed where he was. The look on his face gave away that he had noticed that Harry was slowly backing away from him, giving him an immense sense of power.
"How? Why weren't you on the map?" Hermione asked, putting her hand in to her pocket and finding her trusty wand,
"Anyone can make a map you mud blood, anyone, even Potter I should think." Malfoy gave a laugh. "The map which you think is on the Sixth Floor is in fact stored away in my office and I made a duplicate that just doesn't show me. Really rather simple." Hermione felt her self blush but she gripped her hand tighter round her wand. "Now, the question is what do I do now? Do I let the whole of the Wizarding world know that I have got Harry Potter and Hermione Granger held hostage or do I just kill you both now? Let the world think it was some horrible accident and that I, sadly, discovered you both, laying dead."
"You can't, you wouldn't," said Hermione and she looked to Harry who had turned white and was yet sweating and shivering. "Harry?" Harry didn't move. Hermione looked quickly back to Malfoy, "What have you done to him?"
"Nothing," Malfoy replied quickly and he lowered the wand that he was holding in his hand. "I haven't done anything,"
"Come off it Malfoy,"
"Honestly," Malfoy for a second seemed to sound almost worried for Harry but then he changed again, "I planned to have a little fun with you both before you had mental breakdowns but it seemed to take not a lot for Harry,"
"What do you want?" Hermione asked, "Tell us what you want and we'll do it, just leave us alone, no one wants more living when they have to fear for their own lives all the time,"
"I do," Malfoy said and he raised his wand again, "I want people to fear me instead of laugh at me, all those people that mock me when my own father was killed by none other than Ronald Weasel,"
"Weasely," Harry jerked,
"I want people to fear me, instead of laugh at me," Malfoy repeated.
"No one is laughing at you," Hermione said softly. It was apparent then that Malfoy had noticed the immense kindness that Hermione had in her voice as his cold eyes suddenly became warmer and his wand dropped by his side and Harry shivered once more and reached for his wand in his pocket so quickly and shouted "Evefer Foria," at such a speed that Malfoy had no time to defend himself. Malfoy suddenly lost the ability to move and to speak and his wand fell to the floor. Malfoy then closed his eyes and his head bowed down and he became motionless.
"Harry?" Hermione said suddenly after a moment of complete silence, "I though that was a Dark Art? How could you do that? He's not-"
"No he's not dead," said Harry quietly, "He's asleep and when he wakes up he won't remember anything so if we were to put him in his bed he'll think he just over slept. Yes it is a Dark Art…" At that point the staffroom door burst open and all the staff appeared at the door. They all gasped at seeing Malfoy standing motionless and then looked to Harry and then to Hermione who was glaring at Harry.
"Oh we were so worried," said Professor Davis, the headmistress, "we went to see the statue and, well it was fine but next to the statue was a note written by Professor Malfoy." She then proceeded to read out the note but Harry wasn't listening, he was too busy going through, in his mind, the terror that he had suddenly felt when he thought that a power almost as bad as Voldemort could possibly return.
When he had stopped thinking of what had just happened his looked to Hermione and saw that she was explaining exactly what had happened since they found out what Malfoy had said firstly about the Veritaserum, and then going to see Dumbledore and finally how Harry managed to stop Malfoy… "Which I really don't understand how he did," Hermione finished and she turned to Harry. Harry smiled and shrugged.
"I actually listened to what Malfoy said and in the night I snuck in to his classroom and unlocked his store cupboard and poured undiluted Veritaserum on my wand. That way if anything were to happen before Dumbledore had time to put in a temporary law, my wand would be as powerful as Malfoy's and at least in the event of us duelling the fight would be fair." Hermione shook her head and smiled and winked at Harry. The teachers all muttered amongst each other excitedly and then one teacher said,
"So Harry Potter had in effect saved the day again, again," he chuckled. Harry said nothing and simply shrugged again.
"It was luck."
"Ah but Harry, it was just luck, I didn't meant to kill him, I said the wrong thing, I wanted to put the 'Blinde Curse' on him, said the wrong thing and well, he died. I can't say I feel bad though, I mean Lucius Malfoy, and the world isn't going to miss him. I doubt Who-Know-Who even knows his name. I can't wait to see Malfoy's face next time I see him. He won't be able to harm me, I feel unstoppable right now, you know?" Harry nodded. "I was so lucky though, some people in the Order have asked me how I did it and that's all I can say, it was luck, pure and simple luck." Harry smiled and patted Ron on the back, feeling so proud for his friend that he just couldn't find the words.
