Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Warnings: Voldemort, Malfoys family is messed up. The usual.

Adversary

Part the Second

Draco knew Voldemort was coming. When the Dark Lord was coming, suddenly everyone was doing something, servants bustling about to make sure every inch of the house was looking its best, his mother ordering people about, his father doing much of the same.

If Voldemort was coming though, that meant that some of the other families were going to gather there. This meant that Draco's only companions, Crabbe and Goyle were going to be there. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, neither was very quick or smart, nor did they like to do anything but what Draco would say they were going to do. They never had their own suggestions, they just followed him around. His father said it was only proper because as a Malfoy, his place was higher up than theirs.

Draco thought it was because Crabbe and Goyle were too thick to think of anything on their own. Of course, if the Dark Lord was coming, it meant that Draco himself had to be made ready. He was scrubbed by maids until he protested because they were turning his white skin pink, and then put in his best clothes, before being perfumed. Draco ordered them out on pain of death so that he could do his hair himself—they had never been able to get it right.

Then his mother collected him, so that he could be brought into the room that tea was being served in, and he could bow before the Dark Lord and the Dark Lord could make a comment about how he was growing properly and his father could look pleased. Then he was sent to go play with his friends. (His father said the word 'friends' like it was a joke. And he was right, Draco had never considered Crabbe and Goyle friends of any kind. They were just there to follow him around—they were lackeys.)

When he emerged from the tea room and saw the two of them, who were much taller and bigger than he was, they both straightened, waiting for orders. Draco examined the two, pacing back and forth in front of them, his left hand holding onto his right wrist behind his back.

"I wonder what they're talking about in there." Draco wondered out loud.

"They never tell us." Crabbe shrugged—that sort of thing wouldn't be interesting to him.

"Then we should spy on them." Draco decided. Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other questioningly and then back at Draco. "I know how too. Follow me." The two obeyed as Draco spun on his heel—his shoes had just been shined to perfection so they made a very satisfying squelching noise—and led them around. There was a secret door that one could enter behind a tapestry. This led to a pair of peepholes—Draco knew they were the eyeholes of one of the paintings.

There they were. Crabbe, Goyle, Malfoy, Nott, and Avery. Apparently the Lestranges couldn't make it. Others were missing as well. But these were the people who the Dark Lord seemed to like to meet with. The Dark Lord didn't reveal his face—and Draco had never seen it. He wore a hood that fell forward and cast his whole face in shadow. He had never had any desire to know what it was Voldemort was hiding.

"I hear that there is some sort of stirring in the North." Voldemort's voice was cold and inhuman. "If that fool Dumbledore thinks he can attack us, he will be sorely mistaken."

"Indeed my lord, indeed." Nott nodded his head eagerly. "Why, the strongholds we've built around the land far outnumber—"

"Silence, Nott." Voldemort spoke sharply and Nott immediately shut his mouth. Draco grinned despite himself. "This is no time for your sniveling. We must decide on a plan to defeat Dumbledore once and for all."

"We trapped him once." Lucius began, looking thoughtful. "Is it not possible to do it again?"

"He will be expecting something like that now." Voldemort commented icily. "But the Northern Mountains are home to the giants. They could be persuaded with the right gifts…"

"Dumbledore isn't a complete fool—he's probably already made some pact with them." Avery pointed out. "We'd have to find out what he's offered them and offer one better."

"But the Northern Mountains are probably also teeming with Dumbledore's foolish followers." Lucius put in. "We wouldn't want to alert Dumbledore to the idea that we were dealing with his giants."

"It must be done quite delicately." Voldemort's voice was silky. "If we plan this properly, Dumbledore will not know a thing. I may to bring in…one of my informants."

"Let's go." Draco whispered to Crabbe and Goyle, who started to head out of the small secret passage that they had to stoop in. Draco tried to think of what they should do next and he also wanted to think about what he had just heard. Voldemort was worried about some man named Albus Dumbledore? Interesting. Draco didn't know very much about Voldemort, other than he was obsessed with immortality. A weakness at best.

The blonde-haired heir led the two other boys outside. Another grey day. There were too many of those. Draco informed them that they would go down the long path and into the woods. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to approve of this activity. They liked to go outdoors, Draco knew this. They also like to eat. It kept them occupied while Draco thought his own thoughts, walking ahead of the two, his left hand holding onto his right wrist behind him.

I wonder who this Dumbledore is…

And why Voldemort is worried at all…is it because Dumbledore could defeat him?

Now that was an interesting thought. For how many times he had heard about how great the Lord Voldemort was and how powerful and dangerous, he had never heard about anyone defeating him.

Soon they were in the woods, going over the dirt floor, which was coated in a layer of pine needles, and rocks covered in moss. There was a lot of exploring to be done in any woods and Draco liked to get dirty only for rebellious purposes. (After all, those silly maids had scrubbed him far too pink for his liking.) Draco sat on one of the rocks while Crabbe and Goyle picked up two sticks and began sword-fighting each other. Didn't take much to keep them amused.

He didn't admit that he half wanted to join them but knew it wasn't becoming of an heir to the Malfoy family. He sat there with his hands cupped around his face, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes staring forward, but not watching the elaborate show that Crabbe and Goyle were putting on. (Crabbe had just broken Goyle's stick-sword in half and Goyle didn't stop fighting for a moment.)

After a bit, the two broke their swords again and discarded them to roll around, wrestling each other. Draco finally picked his head out of his hands.

"Knock that off." Draco told them and the two got up, brushing themselves off. He rolled his pale blue eyes at them. "Let's go to the river." All three set off again until they got to the 'river'. It was really more of a large stream but Draco knew that it joined another stream to become a river about a mile further on. Therefore, it has always been known as 'the river'.

Stepping on the stones and keeping his balance while Crabbe and Goyle kept falling off and falling into the knee deep water, he was trying to loose himself in what could only be described as 'playing', though he was truly just watching others play. He didn't know why he didn't indulge in this pastime, because he was a boy of twelve, so he wouldn't be acting immaturely…he just didn't.

He just stood there, going from rock to rock with that cool, unwavering expression. The same expression that was on his face as he watched his brother balance on the edge of the roof.

Draco just didn't feel much like smiling, he couldn't really feel the amusement in jumping from stone to stone, though his mouth had twitched when Crabbe fell off another stone into the water before pulling Goyle in too. Other boys might be worried that they would pull him in as well, but not Draco. He knew they wouldn't. Draco was about to step unto the next stone along the river when he looked down.

There was a frog there, half-smashed in. Its intestines were lying on the rock next to it and it was twitching and oozing horribly as its life ticked away. He looked at it and wondered what had happened. Had someone come along and smashed it with a rock? He squatted down to look at it.

Crabbe and Goyle waded over to see what it was as well. The three boys stared at the slowly dying frog, not doing anything. Crabbe and Goyle both squirmed, wanting to leave the frog and go on splashing each other but Draco was fascinated with it and if Draco wanted to sit and stare at the dying frog, then that was what they had to do. For what Draco didn't know was that Crabbe and Goyle's parents had told them was to always do 'everything the Malfoy boy tells you to do'. It was some unspoken command that they stand there with him.

Draco pulled out his wand, which he always carried with him and pointed it at the frog. Crabbe and Goyle waited for him to utter a spell, maybe one to kill the frog, who knew. Instead, the pale boy looked up at the two of them.

"What's the spell for healing things?" Draco questioned them. Goyle and Crabbe looked at each other, looking for the answer on the other one's face. All three had studied magic so one of them had to know.

"There's not a spell for healing things." Goyle answered slowly. Draco thought hard, but all his lessons in magic were the Dark Arts—spells for hurting others, spells for killing, spells of destruction. But nothing of creation. Nothing of healing or…or anything like that.

It was at that moment that Draco realized something.

There are two sides to magic…the Dark Arts, and then the other stuff, the stuff that my father says I won't need to know. But is that wise to go with and not the other? Wouldn't knowing them both be more useful?

Is one side of magic more powerful than the other?

Or are they both needed?

They stood there and watched until the frog took its last breath. Draco could do nothing for it. He could ease its pain by killing it quicker but even that felt difficult at the moment. The side that his father was on, that Voldemort was on, that Draco had always counted himself on had always talked about its strength to kill and destroy.

But yet, Voldemort's ultimate goal was to become immortal. To cheat Death altogether. So…so…

Which side is closer to immortality?

"I could jump. I could jump right now and nothing would happen. I would land because I can do anything."

You thought it was impossible for you to die…and then you did.

Did that frog know it would die? And what was it thinking in those last few moments as I watched it die?

Crabbe and Goyle sensed Draco's solemn nature and there was no more friendly shoving and messing around. They went back up to the manor, Draco's eyes on the ground in front of him. He was beginning to think about whether or not he was on the right side. He had no way of knowing. He didn't even know what the other side was like. Did they run on such strange logic as well? What separated them?

He thought of the peasants who were forced to run across the fields while his father shot at them idly. What were their terrified thoughts as they ran with all their might? That they could outrun the arrows? That they could outrun fate itself if they ran fast enough?

Perhaps Voldemort was no better than those peasants, trying to outrun death but never making it. Maybe it was an impossibility. This thing called immortality sounded like a fool's dream, something no one could have. If you only believed that this dark magic could give you what you wanted, then you had to be a fool. Because the Dark Arts had not held what Draco had asked for at that moment down at the river, crouching over that dying frog. It had nothing to make the vital ooze and organs rearrange themselves and put themselves back into the body before the skin sealed itself up.

The Dark Arts couldn't save a person.

When they re-entered the castle, his mother was there to tell him off for getting his best clothes dirty, and to tell off Crabbe and Goyle for being soaking wet and tracking mud onto her expensive rugs. These small bits of rebellion made Draco feel a bit of satisfaction. All he did was please his parents, it was nice to do something that had the opposite effect every once and awhile.

They were sent to the maids for another quick scrub—which Draco fought as hard as he could during—and then into new clothes before going to sit with the adults. The Dark Lord had left and Draco was glad he had because he didn't like the idea that someone was looking at him and he couldn't tell.

As they were ushered into the rooms, he saw Nott deep in discussion with his father. Well, Nott was prattling and his father was nodding his head. Draco crept closer so he could hear about what.

"…again! I know that you wouldn't allow such behavior and he's become so unruly…" Nott trailed off when he noticed Draco was standing near enough to hear. "So, that's why I'm requesting your help."

"I'll see what I can do." Lucius also noticed Draco. "There you are, boy. I hear you've been rolling around in the muck like some peasant boy."

"I was hardly rolling. We just went for a walk out in the woods." Draco flicked a stray blonde hair into place. "You know how mother feels about the smallest bit of dirt…"

"Then I would suggest you not give your mother an excuse to make you sound like a barnyard animal." Lucius' cool gaze didn't faze Draco in the least.

I know that our side has weaknesses.

That we have false confidence, like my brother standing on that edge…and false confidence can kill.

"As you wish, father." Draco's reply held the slightest bit of mockery in it. Lucius' eyes narrowed the smallest bit and Draco knew he father was looking for something to call him out on. Draco turned his gaze over to Crabbe and Goyle who were loading plates full of cakes over at the table, stuffing the small cakes into their mouths whole.

"Young Master Malfoy, I'm sure you would enjoy having a playmate your own age around." Nott began in but Lucius glare cut him off.

"Draco is not the decision maker in this household." Lucius' gaze turned to Draco who stared back steadily. "Nor does he have any weight in decisions that are made. I told you I would think about it."

Draco was curious to know what it was that they were talking about but knew that asking wouldn't help him. His father would probably just sneer at him. Well, let him. Draco wasn't half bad at sneering himself.

His mind wandered back to that frog and his brother. The expression on his brother's face and the way the frog's eyes goggled. Perhaps at the very moment when Draco saw them, they knew that they were just minute things in the grand scheme of things. That they weren't nearly as important to the universe as they had thought. And maybe that was the idea that had scared them the most. The realization that they had no more real power to stop events as anything else.

And perhaps it helped Draco also see his limitations. That he could not save either one from death. That he hadn't been able to stop the inevitable. The idea was terrifying. That his fate was in everyone else's hands. Did he trust anyone else with it?

Sometimes our fear can become our strength.

To Be Continued