Chapter 2: Laying Aside Old Grudges
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest
Draco absently stared at the headstone, the pale words standing out in stark contrast against the polished black marble. Sleep, he thought bitterly. If I had stayed asleep, Dad would still be alive. I wouldn't, of course, but he would. He became suddenly and acutely aware of the cool fall air, the damp earth, and the blazing sunlight that seemed to defy the events of the past few days. He stood shakily, wiping his face on his sleeve, and grimaced at the sight of the brown dirt and green grass stains covering the knees of his black pants.
"Are you all right?" questioned a soft voice. A gentle hand rested on his shoulder.
Draco turned to face his cousin, his eyes red and swollen. She was so unlike him, so different, so…calm. Didn't she care?
Katherine stepped back a pace. "Be-because Aunt Narcissa s-sent me t-to look for y-you," she stammered, taken aback by his icy glare.
Draco roughly slapped her hand away. "'All right'?" he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "'All right'?" His voice rose slightly in anger. "You of all people should know I am not 'all right'!" Wheeling, he stumbled away and broke into a dead sprint for the woods.
He finally stopped out of sheer exhaustion. His neck throbbed in time with his racing pulse. Reaching back, his questing fingers encountered a thin gash and found blood, the gift, no doubt, of one of many brambles. Draco staggered as memory came flooding back: the coppery, sickly-sweet scent of blood, screams of agony, glass shattering, then…nothing. He frowned and looked at the bright crimson staining his fingertips…red. What was it about that colour that disturbed him? Why did he- the dam broke, and Draco remembered that last word before the nothingness: Obliviate.
Suddenly, white skulls with glowing blood-red eyes seemed to be lurking behind every tree. One of them unfolded skeletal limbs under jet robes and advanced, a dark wand held by impossibly long fingers.
"So, you've finally remembered, have you?" asked a thin, cruel voice. "That's good. Oh, dear," it mocked softly, "I seemed to have frightened you. What to do, what to do? Let me see." The crimson eyes blazed maliciously. "Oh, yes, I know: Excrucio."
The curse hit Draco in the stomach. He doubled over and sank to his knees, a pained and nauseated expression on his sweating face. He dropped to the ground and stayed there, not even able to scream; the pain had stolen all of the air from his lungs. He couldn't move; his muscles had spasmed until they were paralysed. Just as quickly as it had come, the pain was gone.
"I won't kill you, not yet. You might still be useful, hopefully more so than your father." With an evil smirk, Voldemort was gone, and Draco found himself alone once more in front of his father's grave. He gingerly touched his neck; the cut was gone. He had evidently taken his father's place as a Death Eater.
"Think again," Draco murmured as his fingers gently traced the chiselled words LUCIUS EDWARD MALFOY. "An eye for an eye; a life for a life."
A/N: sorry for such a short chapter! It was all I could think up in one of my hour-long inspirational moments. BE WARNED: ALL FLAMES WILL BE FED TO MY MUTANT BLACK LAB NAMED LILY, IN ORDER TO MORE FULLY COMPLETE HER ALIENNESS. No, really, I have a half-lab, half-daschund runt.