Shadow of a Malfoy
By Be Boring
Chapter 3: The Face in the Dark
Black shadows slowly wavered over Draco's wan features as he wove his way through the trees, always heading in the direction of the setting sun. He had no particular reason for heading that way other than at least he knew he wouldn't be traveling in circles. It would be safe to try Apparating as soon as he was sure that the Death Eaters were already attacking the camp, for his little bit of magic would go entirely unnoticed. Once again his fingers were persistently attached to his wand, his eyes continually scanning all around him. Someone would have seen him leave the camp, for he had been far from inconspicuous, but so far it didn't seem that he was being followed, which was something he would notice immediately. Four years of constantly being on the alert had greatly honed his observational skills.
When every last ray of light had disappeared from the west and darkness blanketed the forest floor around him, a chilling scream rang through the air. It was so distant by now that at first Draco thought he might be imagining things, but when he looked back to the east, he saw a faint glow just above the trees that he was positive wasn't sunlight. Just as he was about to face westward again and continue on his way, several green stars soared through the air above the camp and formed a giant skull with a serpent's tongue. It looked strangely dim, as though he were looking at it through a screen, then he realized that thick smoke was billowing skyward, which meant that the glow above the trees was coming from a fire.
Faint screams began to echo hauntingly through the trees, but Draco turned away from the source with a grimace. The entire situation strongly reminded him of the night of his escape; he had heard the Death Eaters screaming just like this as he ran away.
A sudden series of popping noises rippled one right after the other somewhere ahead of him, and he distinctly heard someone whisper, "Don't be scared, just be quiet and it will all be okay." The gentleness of the voice indicated that it was speaking to a child. Now the woods around him were no longer peaceful; pounding footsteps and the sound of brush being shoved urgently aside turned the former silence into a bedlam of panicked whispers and indignantly squawking birds who were surprised out of their nests by the cacophony. Draco slowed until he knew that they were all a safe distance ahead of him, then trailed after them carefully. Why had they come in this direction? If they had Apparated, why didn't they try to get farther away? They were barely more than a mile from the camp, the Death Eaters could still easily overtake them if they figured out which direction they had gone in.
"We're almost there," Lupin's voice reassured the others quietly. "It can't be more than a hundred feet."
His curiosity aroused, Draco remained directly behind them as they jogged due west. Perhaps they had another shelter hidden away out here, and if they believed it was safe enough for them, it would be safe enough for him. They didn't have to know he was there, as long as he was nearby he should have nearly as much protection as they did.
The group stopped so suddenly that Draco nearly jogged right into the middle of them. Luckily, they were all so busy focusing on Lupin that nobody noticed him slip back into the shadows beneath the nearest tree. He couldn't see very clearly, although even without any satisfactory light he thought he should be able to see where Lupin was taking them, but it looked as though they were in the middle of nowhere. The trees in this particular section of forest had long since died, it was like they were facing a graveyard. Lupin, however, seemed to have found what he was looking for. Running his hands over a tree that had partially tipped over, forming a crude, rotting archway of sorts, he finally found a spot that made his exhausted eyes light up in triumph. He pulled out his wand and gave the trunk two firm taps, and suddenly the archway formed by the tree was no longer just an entrance to the forest cemetery. Instead, the tree tipped completely over and curled into a perfect circle, magically revealing a stairway leading down into pitch blackness.
Draco hung back while the others scrambled down the stairs, but once Lupin had followed them through, the tree sprang back up into its original position. He stepped out into the meager light from the stars and approached it, but he couldn't see where Lupin had triggered it to become the entrance to their second shelter. He even walked through the archway, but it only brought him closer to the other dead trees, not down below them. He set off among the rotting wood, listening closely with his head tipped toward the ground, but it was impossible to tell whether he was over them or not.
This situation didn't make him feel much safer. He had thought just being near them would be enough, but right now he was right out in the open, perfectly visible to any approaching Death Eaters, while they were safely beneath the ground. No, being near them wouldn't be enough. He needed to get down there somehow. As he paced over the apparently thick, solid ground, an angry shout rang out from the living trees to the east.
"They definitely came through here, look how everything's been knocked flat!"
Draco didn't recognize the voice, but he knew it had to belong to a Death Eater. How had they known which direction to come in? He stepped behind one of the trunks that had still remained standing and tried to take stock of where he was. He was about thirty yards from the tree that had served as an entrance. How big was this place they were in? How far down did it start? No matter how much he didn't want to consider it, it seemed like Apparition would be the only way to get down there, but he had never tried to go through the ground before. He did reasonably well when he knew where he was going and there was no pressure to hurry, but the last time he had Apparated while running from Death Eaters hadn't ended as pleasantly as he would have liked, and that had been above ground. What if he ended up just planting himself in the earth and suffocating?
When three Death Eaters stepped into the rotting, death zone, he knew he didn't have a choice. They would undoubtedly find him hiding here, and if he ran for it, he would be in the open. Fighting wouldn't be wise, they already outnumbered him and he was sure they were only the beginning. Others would surely be right behind them. Closing his eyes and trying to concentrate on the area directly below him, he turned on the spot.
When the extremely claustrophobic sensation had ended, he apprehensively opened one eye and peered around. Well, he was certainly underground, and thankfully not enclosed in dirt. He was standing at the very edge of a tiny cave, which was hardly more than a hollowed bit of earth. Roots dangled eerily all over the ceiling while every now and then a small clump of earth would fall to the ground, but the entire place looked like it could collapse at any moment. The ceiling wasn't held up by anything that he could see, but he recognized the hair-raising energy in the air that meant a great deal of magic was being used here. Goosebumps erupted up and down his arms even though he wasn't at all cold.
A great deal of shuffling nearby proved that he was indeed near the small portion of the resistance that had come this way, although from what he could see, he was completely cut off from them. Not that he could see very much, but there didn't seem to be any way out of this cavern. Perhaps there was some secret trigger in here like at the entrance to pass from one cave to another, but he couldn't see any reason to enter this bleak little hole. It was completely empty as far as he could tell.
Stepping away from the wall closest to the sounds of the others, he slowly made his way across the room, his arms held out to prevent him from colliding with anything, his wand held securely in his right hand. He guessed he was in the middle of the cavern when his feet struck something very solid and he tipped over, only catching himself just in time to prevent his nose slamming into the ground. Sitting up angrily and wiping the dirt off his hands, he reached out to find his wand again, but instead his fingers brushed against something else. He gave the object one strong prod with a finger, then pulled back in surprise. It had given way slightly, and it was warm, much warmer than it should have been down in this cave.
"Who are you?" he whispered hesitantly. Whoever it was hadn't protested when he'd poked them, but he was still sure that he had touched a person. What else could it have been?
When there was no answer, he urgently resumed his search for his wand, loathing the thought of being without it when he wasn't alone. The person lying next to him didn't move once while his hands scrabbled through the loose dirt that made up the entire floor of the cave. Triumphantly, his fingers finally closed around the solid wood of his wand and he whirled around, pointing it in the general direction of the person beside him. Whoever it was still hadn't done anything to even show he or she was alive, and even right now Draco didn't know if his wand was aimed at their head or their toes. Was it safe to risk a bit of magic? The Death Eaters wouldn't be paying attention to that right now, they were too distracted, and it wasn't like he was planning on anything complicated.
"Lumos," he murmured, holding his wand steady as a beam of light glowed from its tip. The gleam illuminated a pair of muddy, wrinkled jeans. He was sitting at the person's hip, and judging by the pucker of the fabric on top of the nearest leg, Draco had poked them in the thigh. Passing the beam up the body, he next saw a torn, battered gray T-shirt that looked unnaturally large on the scrawny frame beneath it. That's when the light glinted off something on the face.
As he leapt back in shock, the light vanished as his concentration jumped miles away from the spell he was supposed to be maintaining. He couldn't have seen that cprrectly. Of course not, it was just the stress of the whole situation playing tricks with his mind. Then again, stress had never made him hallucinate Harry Potter's limp body before.
Just as he had pushed himself to his knees to get a closer look, a light ignited from the far side of the cave before he had even attempted to rekindle his wand. "What are you doing here?" Ginny gasped, barely keeping her voice quiet enough to avoid being heard from the people in the parallel cave.
The light from her wand not only revealed the horror on her face at seeing him there, but it also made Harry perfectly visible, and from this close, it was impossible to confuse him with anyone else. Although he had lost a considerable amount of weight, far more than Draco or anyone he had seen so far, and his skin was almost ghostly white, his face and hair were still unmistakable.
"Never mind what I'm doing here," Draco finally replied, never taking his eyes off Harry's skeletal face. "What is he doing here?"
"Get away from him," Ginny hissed, dropping to her knees beside Harry and holding her wand right under Draco's nose. Although she was trying to sound defiant, her voice trembled and it was clear that the night's events had taken their toll on her, and this certainly wasn't helping matters. "Are you happy now? Going to go share everything with your boss? This'll be news to him."
It was news to Draco as well. "So he's been alive all this time, and the Dark Lord never knew?"
"Of course he never knew, otherwise I'm sure he would have had all of you on the lookout for the past four years." Suddenly, she pointed her wand at him and snapped, "Expelliarmus!" Before he could react, his wand was ripped out of his fingers and landed lightly in Ginny's outstretched palm. He didn't even think about it, he dove over Harry's body and slammed into her, grabbing her left hand and wrenching his wand right back out. There was no way a Weasley was going to deprive him of his wand. While his attention was on her left arm, however, she threw her right elbow into his mouth. His lip began bleeding afresh, but he merely shoved her away and sat back, pointing his wand furiously at her.
"What the hell was that for?" he snarled, trying to keep his voice down so that the people in the next room didn't hear him. The last thing he needed was an audience right now.
"Well, I couldn't very well have you cursing me and running off to tell Voldemort everything you've seen, could I?"
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, grimacing when some dirt slipped inside. "I was going to do nothing of the sort. Well, cursing you wasn't entirely out of the question."
Before she could respond, several tiny clumps of dirt fell from the ceiling onto Harry's chest. Both Draco and Ginny looked up anxiously. The roots above them were shifting slightly, and suddenly Draco realized that the Death Eaters were literally right above their heads at that very moment. He wasn't too confident in the ceiling's ability to hold under the weight, but every time a Death Eater moved off one spot, the roots would grudgingly squirm back to their original position, although a fair amount of dirt dropped onto all three of them every time.
When Draco turned his attention back to the situation at hand, trying to ignore the way his heart had begun to crash wildly against his ribs, it was to find Ginny staring at him with an indiscernible expression on her face. She looked like someone had told her something completely unbelievable.
"What?" he finally snapped, annoyed with the way she didn't seem to be blinking, quite similar to how her son stared, actually.
"You're not a Death Eater, are you?" It wasn't an accusation, instead her tone held a faint glimmer of hope.
"What makes you say that?" he muttered evasively. He had absolutely no interest in being asked to join the pathetic little band of freedom fighters in the next cave.
"When the Death Eaters walked over us, I think you were just as scared as I was," she replied softly, still looking at him as though not daring to believe the conclusion she had already arrived at. "You don't want them to find this cave any more than I do, do you?"
"I don't really care if they find this cave or not, I just don't want to be here when they do," Draco declared finally. "It's no matter to me whether they find your precious Potter or not."
"That's not true and you know it." Now Ginny's eyes were narrowed darkly, but the suspicion was no longer there that he had already become accustomed to seeing. "You heard what the Daily Prophet was saying about him before he fought Voldemort. They called him the Chosen One, the only one who would be able to defeat Voldemort, and they were right. Once Harry's dead, all our hope is gone."
"But why isn't he dead?" Draco asked in frustration. After so much time of thinking Harry had just developed an astronomical ego from his fame, it infuriated him that Potter had been right all along, that he really was more special than everyone else. "He certainly doesn't look too far from it right now, but obviously the Dark Lord thinks he's dead, so why is he laying here still breathing? Even if he didn't finish the job the first time, I would have expected the Dark Lord to come after him again."
"Well, he survived then because he was better protected than Voldemort expected, and he's still alive now because Voldemort obviously didn't count on him surviving the Killing Curse twice."
Draco rolled his eyes contemptuously. "Great, when he finally wakes up he won't be able to stand with that ridiculously bloated head on his shoulders."
Ginny seemed almost on the verge of jinxing him, but apparently thought better of it. "You'd think four years of hiding would have forced some better manners into you, but I guess not. I really can't believe you're not a Death Eater."
"I never actually said I wasn't, did I?"
"That's because you always liked having that cool, evil image," she said sarcastically. "When it comes right down to it, you're a coward. You couldn't actually do anything you bragged about. Some people may have taken that as a sign of hope, particularly when you couldn't kill Dumbledore, but I know better."
Every cruel, biting reply that his mind had conjured when she called him a coward evaporated upon hearing Dumbledore's name. "How did you know about that?" He tried not to sound as stunned as he felt, but it was a futile act.
Ginny nodded her head toward Harry. "Harry was there that night under his Invisibility Cloak. Dumbledore was holding him under a Full-Body Bind the entire time you two were talking. That's why he was chasing you and Snape once you made it outside. Did you know he actually wished to find you after that? He knew you weren't ready to be a Death Eater and he really wanted to get you away from them. I think he pitied you for what you were going through."
"I never needed his pity," Draco sneered, rage bubbling beneath his skin so powerfully that he wouldn't have been surprised to look down and see his skin rippling with its force. What right did that egotistical famed brat have to pity him? Did it make him feel like a better person to feel sorry for the boy he had hated for six years? If the roles were switched, Draco knew he would feel no pity. Whatever Potter got, he deserved, and that included being unconscious for four years.
"You're truly pathetic, you know that?" she spat at him. "You don't have the guts to do anything you raved about, but you're still too full of yourself to accept anything other than spite from anyone you don't like. You know what? I pity you too." At the fire that leapt into his eyes, she plunged on furiously, "That's right, I pity you. I can't imagine being forced to be alone for so long because I didn't have the courage to pick sides. Neutrality will never work in this war, Malfoy, it's either the Death Eaters or us."
"If it weren't for your precious Golden Boy fucking it all up, I wouldn't have to choose! I ran away the night he wound up like this, and because of him, I've had to live off next to nothing for more years than I ever would have thought possible. If I had thought for one moment that I'd be living like this for so long, I would have stayed! Then you would have been completely justified in accusing me for every evil deed that exists, although I wouldn't have had to listen to it because I would have killed you the moment I stepped out of your fireplace!" In the fiery heat of his rage, he had risen to his feet to nearly shout down at her, although still not loud enough to carry to the next room.
Following his lead, she jumped to her feet as well, and although she was at least seven inches shorter than him, it was every bit as impressive due to the blazing fury on her face. "So you're telling me you blame Harry because you were stupid enough to run away? That's not Harry's fault, that's your own idiocy coming out. Actually, I find the whole idea hilarious, because you basically cursed yourself in the foot. You cut yourself off from the Death Eaters, but you knew you could never join us. You dug your own grave, Malfoy."
"What is he doing here?" Lupin asked from the edge of the cave. Draco and Ginny both paused and turned to look at him, startled out of their private circle of hate. Lupin stepped forward into the light still emanating from Ginny's wand so that the lines in his face became darker and more prominent than ever. He looked closer to sixty than his mid-forties.
Ginny dropped back down beside Harry, unconsciously brushing the dirt from his clothes. "I don't know why he's here, we never got around to that."
When Lupin's shadowed eyes moved to Draco, he muttered, "It was through sheer accident, believe me."
Lupin obviously didn't understand his continued presence there, so Ginny announced rather abruptly, "He's not a Death Eater. He's just a coward who's been hiding for years."
Without lowering himself to look at her, he growled, "Thank you for that little introduction, but I can explain things myself, thanks."
Stepping between them to prevent any continued arguing, Lupin concluded quietly, "Now is not the time for this kind of discussion. It's been a long night, I'm sure we're all tired, and the last thing any of the children need is for a fully grown witch and wizard to start a duel in the middle of the night. They've been scared enough." Turning to Draco, he added, "You can stay here tonight, because at the very least you're not against us, but I would like a word with you in the morning." He raised a hand before Draco could protest. "You're intruding on our sanctuary and I have been kind enough to share it with you, the least you could do is give me something as trivial as a conversation."
After he had satisfied himself with glaring callously at the other man, he finally nodded. Lupin glanced briefly down at Harry before adding, "And it's probably not a good idea for you to sleep in here. You'll need to come to the main cavern. I wouldn't worry about a poor reception, everyone is quite distracted at the moment."
Leaving Ginny at Harry's side, they walked into the shadows at the edge of the cave. Lupin reached up and prodded a particularly large root with his wand. Almost immediately, a very slim crack opened in the wall of dirt and Lupin pressed his narrow body through it sideways. It was very lucky that they were both exceedingly skinny, because even someone of normal build would have found it very difficult to cram through the opening.
Lupin was right, he didn't have to worry about anyone noticing him. He could see Ron on the far side of the cave, but he was currently very preoccupied with Vera, Brian, and another couple children approximately the same age who were clinging nervously to him, apparently viewing him as a solid, secure point around which to gather. Many other people had already settled themselves onto the floor to make the best of things for the night, which seemed like the only thing to do right now. Finding a corner where the light of the many candles the others had arranged couldn't reach him, he sat with his back against the wall, his hand just inside his robes and wrapped securely around his wand. He didn't foresee actually getting much sleep, but as he settled back and watched everyone else making themselves as comfortable as was possible in the damp, earthy environment, it vaguely occurred to him that this was the first night he had spent in the company of other people since the night before he ran away.