DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: On a dark night, Draco makes a fatal error. A case of mistaken identity, blackmail and a cliche turned on its head. Noncon fade-to-black.
Laughing Last
Actions lie louder than words. - Carolyn Wells
The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction. - Aesop
Wind whipped his cloak and sent the edges of his hood flapping around his face. He pulled it closer about him to keep the movement from attracting attention from the house. Thus far the information had been accurate enough - the targeted house had appeared when the note was read, the movement of the occupants within had been according to the routine related to him - but there had been a close call with their two in Surrey the night before. No sense in being hasty; he'd had more than enough close calls to suit him for one lifetime. Tucked back in a stand of trees near the ditch, one shoe soaked from stepping in the same, he settled down for an uncomfortable wait. It was bitterly cold, his cheeks were frozen, his foot was wet and squished every time he shifted his weight, his nose was running and he didn't dare risk a warming spell lest it set off the alarms.
Lo, how the mighty had fallen. He needed a drink.
The minutes ticked past. He watched the clouds cover a new moon and was briefly thankful that even that little bit of light was being obscured. Only after he heard the leaves drip did he realise that they were rain clouds, and he cursed anew the whims that had selected himself for this assignment. Someone was getting a good kick out of this, that was certain. Through the faint drizzle and near-complete absence of light but for that shining golden from the house's windows, he could just make out the outlines of the squat brick building. It had the look of the old country pubs adorning back roads near his own home and the thought redoubled his desire for a stiff drink. He had been given such assignments before, though never with targets of quite this importance, and his modus operandi had ever been to get thoroughly pissed before and after. The only way to manage, sometimes. One does what they mustin these hard times. But not this time, oh no; this transcended mere sport, the little arrow darts at the opposition's morale. This was huge. Incredibly so, not only in what success would mean but in the danger to himself. He could get drunk later, if the miserable weather didn't kill him first.
He sneezed just as the door open, and froze. The silhouette of a man could be seen turned toward him, shifting on his feet to see better. His heart stopped beating; he couldn't breathe. The figure backlit by the warm glow from the door turned away and he inhaled ever so slightly. Merlin, he was a young man but one of these days this business would give him a heart attack. The group filed out and he counted them, sharp to get an accurate figure. Losing track of one person was a good way to get yourself ambushed. He counted nine and he counted again to make sure, then a third time as their broomsticks disappeared into the night. Eight men and a woman, just as his source had reported, leaving two targets in the house. He had his pick of which. The one he had marked should be in the front bedroom tonight.
Now that the bulk of the group had gone, he was impatient to be done with it and had to check himself several times to wait for the proper moment. Thirty minutes crawled by, then forty, then forty-five, before the front lights were extinguished. Disquietude consumed him, along with the knowledge that he had three hours at the most before the others would be back, but still he waited. The back bedroom light was still on. His toes throbbed with the cold - it was going to take two weeks in bed with hot soup to throw off the night's chill - and the wait was interminable, but finally the last light winked out and the night dissolved into blackness. Twenty more minutes, just to be safe. Leave it to others to battle their way dramatically out of a cornered situation - men like him didn't die in ditches.
The moment came. One, two, three... here we go. He edged his way clumsily out of the trees and crept by feel to the thick, knobbly wooden door. The old-fashioned latch was well oiled and made no noise as he lifted it and slid inside, one shadow among many. The house's interior was musty with the scents of ancient masonry and a thousand fires in the hearth but he ignored his nose and blessed the warmth as feeling gradually returned to his tingling cheeks. Delicately, he slipped his shoes off and set them by the door, then he waited in the dark to warm up and for his eyes to pick out anything he might trip over. The door to the front bedroom was next to the fireplace, exactly where it was supposed to be. It was also standing open. This was his lucky night.
He crossed the room without incident and similarly made it into the bedroom. Soft breathing could be heard in the narrow bed against the wall and long hair lay splayed against the pale backdrop of a white pillow was the only thing he could see in the almost palpable darkness. The wind howled outside, rattling the eaves, and he shuddered at the thought of what the ride home on his broomstick would be like. Gently he closed the door and pulled a woman's hair comb out of his pocket. It was small and delicate and handed down to him from his father for just such a purpose. When set into place it induced a deep languor in the wearer - a neat trick to keep them from screaming for help. Or from beating him, neither of which was an appealing thought. Once the comb was properly on and he could see from the deep, slow rise and fall of the rib cage that the effect was taking place as desired, he hefted the slight form onto the floor (mattress noise could be a fellow's undoing) and arranged some blankets to provide comfort for his elbows and knees. He checked his watch. Plenty of time left. He unfastened his cloak and draped it over the cot, where it would hopefully dry a little before he left, and then he stood with his hands in his pockets for a few moments. Truth be told, he rather preferred being given these chores as a solo assignment, as it took him a while to work up the old bravado. Small consolation: it wasn't some filthy Muggle this time. He ran down his usual list of all the reasons why he did this but finally he reminded himself of how drunk he could get when it was over and unbuttoned his pants. It wasn't as if he had ever truly had an option except dying, and that wasn't an option at all.
If there had been anyone around, they would have seen a dark form stagger out of the house some time later. They might have watched, from sheer curiosity, as he collected his broomstick from his hiding place and mounted it. If there had been anyone around, they would have received the shock of a lifetime as he pointed his wand skyward and, with a shout, set the Dark Mark above the low brick house. Perhaps they would have tried to stop him, perhaps not. It was all a moot point, because there was no one around to keep him from getting away scot-free. In a sick twist on the spaghetti western hero who rides off into the sunset, he flew off under thick cloud cover in search of a drink and no one was the wiser until a very bedraggled and bleeding group of comrades-in-arms arrived back to their safe house near dawn. He was drunk as a lord by the time they had evacuated the safe house and moved to the next, a Medi-witch meeting them there. He was even drunker when his master ordered others to make a raid on the second, tactically less defensible, safe house. It was a brilliant strategy, meticulously planned and flawlessly executed with everyone doing their part like puppets on a string; not only would they be conveniently vulnerable but the assault on his girlfriend would leave Potter emotionally at disadvantage in an attack. Kick the knees out from under him, so to speak. Maybe then someone would finally succeed in killing the little bastard.
He was awash in the fumes of a firewhisky bottle - damn the glass, a glass was no good for this job - at the precise moment his old school nemesis cut down his father in battle. The break in the line was exactly what the little band had been desperate for and they made a run for it. Hermione never saw the spell coming. Ron did, though.
Hermione killed her first Death Eater that day. She set him on fire. He was still burning as Harry dragged her away, screaming for blood, for vengeance, for Ron.
Draco, unlike Hermione, did not get the luxury of burying his dead anywhere but in his heart. The master's ire was great over the botching of the perfect plan but, from some wellspring of good fortune as yet untapped, Draco was sent on assignment to Bulgaria. He unpacked his bag in an opulent hotel and spent a morbidly entertaining hour in front of the mirror, watching the lines on his face deepen as the cares weighed him down and he wondered what the hell had happened to his life. Not for the first time nor the last time he wished with all his soul that he was back in Potions class, with Perfect Potter cheating off of his pet swot, Weasley freckling up the room and their great prat headmaster off in the background somewhere mooning about with kindly eyes. No, not for the first time nor the last time.
He was visiting Durmstrang a few weeks later, eating some supposedly hearty sort of stew wherein cabbage figured large and discussing recruitment with their Dark Arts professor, when he spotted the Daily Prophet on the table. Desperate for the English language, he gave up both cabbage and conversation as a bad job - the man's accent was impossible, really - and settled down with a cup of coffee. It was a ridiculous little rag, printed the most preposterous tripe about how Lord Thingy's minions were on the run with Aurors howling at their heelsbut at least it was in his native tongue.
"Ginny Potter, wife of Harry Potter, recently arrived home from Romania, where she had spent the past seven months awaiting the birth of their firstborn child. She is currently residing in an unknown location with family friend, Hermione Granger (see pg. 23 for current list of captured/killed Death Eaters, credit cited where known)."
Where the ruddy hell did they get their information? Was there anything in this paper that wasn't made up out of whole cloth? Might as well be a bloody tabloid. He added more sugar to his mug and checked to see if the spoon would actually float in the mud they passed off as proper caffeine. The slim fingers stopped their stirring suddenly and he stared off into space. Gracious. So Potter's little chit hadn't been in the safe house after all. But then... well, no matter. Mentally he notched his source's credibility down and decided that, important as this bit of intel might be, it wasn't his job to ensure Lord Voldemort read the newspaper. He folded it up and set it aside, trying to remember what the word was for "hot shower". Only three more weeks until he could get back to civilisation. He really needed another line of work.