Disclaimer time - ok . . .blah, blah no, I do not own Draco (much to my great dismay), Hermione or any other characters you may recognize, if I did the movies would get far more interesting, trust me. I need to say thanks to, Heather, my amazing beta reader, who brings a sense of order to my overly excessive use of adverbials, an almost obsessive impulse to insert commas and the ever-irresistible run-on sentences, I'm so fond of, and without whom this story wouldn't be nearly as readable ;). And of course, any typos & grammatical errors are, as usual, my fault . . . sorry. Anyway, let's skip anymore of the AN & get back into the story . . .
Chapter 28 - The Mark Of A Deatheater
Waiting for Draco to return, Hermione had wandered over to the now empty stage, still close enough to the dance floor, but also allowed for a bit of personal space in the crowded club. "Hmmm, still alone are you?" An unfamiliar voice suddenly spoke in her ear, all too close for comfort. Startled, she turned to face the stranger, the guy who'd been staring at her earlier. She tried to take an instinctive step back only to be held in place by his outstretched hand.
"Umm, I'm not really alone, my . . . . boyfriend just went to over to the bar to get a drink. He'll be back any minute." Her words sounded tremulous and halting to her own ears, she could only imagine how they would seem to this self-assured stranger. The oddly uncomfortable feeling that she had when she first noticed him returned with a vengeance. She forced herself to try and pull her arm free, but it was a halfhearted effort at best. She wanted to tell him off and walk away but for some reason, she found herself unable to do either. Something was wrong, but her mind was muddled and she was having problems trying to pin it down. Out of feasible options she looked down and her breath caught painfully in her throat as she saw it burnt into his arm – the mark of a deatheater.
"Boyfriend you say? Strange, I never would have imagined a mudblood delusional enough to think that Draco Malfoy would ever consent to be 'a boyfriend' to trash like you." He laughed menacingly. Hermione felt herself go pale. The crowd around them seemed to drop away and she stared at him transfixed in horror. His fingers dug into the flesh of her forearm with an exorable grip, as he dragged her towards him. She stared almost drunkenly into his eyes, a vast expanse of emptiness.
"Awww, what's the matter, little mudblood? Are you beginning to understand this dangerous game you're playing? Are you learning, at last, to be afraid? Because if you still believe that he's going to swoop down to your rescue, then it will be my pleasure to prove you wrong. But I must thank you for neglecting to inform anyone at Hogwarts of where you were going tonight, that will make disposing of your body that much easier." With each word he spoke, his voice seemed to grow colder. She half-expected to see his breath condensing in the air. Her world narrowed to his painful grip on her, the competition between what he was saying and her own frantic heartbeat and the blue of his eyes. If she could only scream or reach her wand, then she'd have a chance but whatever he was using against her made either action impossible, she felt frozen in place and effectively helpless.
Taking a deep breath, she gathered up the tattered remnants of her free will and forced herself to look away, breaking the compulsion to maintain eye contact with him, staggering with an effort that left her feeling weak. Over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of a tall figure with blonde hair making his way though the crowd, Draco was coming. She was suddenly filled with an intense sense of relief, but then she remembered the stranger's words – how did he know that she didn't tell anyone at school? Could she really trust Draco? Could she afford not to? She stared in the direction from which he approached, until a motion from the other man grabbed her attention. She gasped as she realized that he was drawing out his wand.
Draco cursed to himself as he gracefully managed to evade yet another self-absorbed dancer without spilling a drop of overpriced alcohol from either glass. Scanning the room, he saw Hermione and started to smile to himself until he caught sight of the person standing with her. His eyes narrowed as his stride dramatically lengthened. He paid no attention to the muggles unfortunate enough to be standing between him and his destination, least of all to those who wound up wearing the contents of the glasses he had been carrying as he threw them to the side, his hand reaching for his wand. By the time it took him to cross the dance floor, the situation had taken a precariously dangerous turn, Hermione stood between him and his target. He cut himself off mid-curse, there was no way to attack without risking her being hit by it, holding his wand at the ready.
"About time you showed up Draco, I was beginning to get bored."
"Hiding behind girls now, Gage?" Draco sneered, his eyes gleaming dangerously. "Why are you here?"
"Why," he asked, "well, obviously to save you from yourself. I mean, really, slumming it with mudbloods now," the dark haired man shook his head as if in pity, "I didn't know you were that hard up."
"Let her go. Whatever your problems with me, she has nothing to do with any of this. All you're doing is creating a scene in public and pissing me off, neither of which is exactly in your favor." Forcing himself to remain at least outwardly calm, Draco cautiously took a few steps towards them, waiting for an opportunity to act. From the looks of things, Hermione wasn't going to be of much help and knowing Gage, Draco could only guess what curse he had used on her. The thought of it made his temper slip a notch and his fingers tightened around his wand in an effort to regain his control.
"Oh no, Malfoy, you're wrong. She has everything to do with this."
Then the bastard laughed, he actually fucking laughed. Draco was infuriated, wanting nothing more than to wrap his hands around his throat and to personally throttle the life out of him. But his eyes widened in alarm as he watched Gage dig for something in his pocket. As if prescient, Draco's hand shot out to grab Hermione's tightly, just to experience an all too familiar gut-wrenching tug from his center of gravity. Landing roughly, Draco made sure he had a strong grip on Hermione's wrist and quickly pulled her securely behind him. Damn, he almost admired the bastard's strategic skills, he'd obviously given this some thought even bringing a bloody portkey along. Too bad for Gage that he had so poorly underestimated his victims, because – and Draco cruelly smiled at the thought – under these circumstance he left the young Slytherin with no reason to further restrain himself.
Hermione landed with a thud, sprawling out on the ground behind Draco, not sure where exactly they had been sent to. She had the oddest feeling that there was something she was supposed to be doing, but thinking was too much of an effort, so instead she looked around at her surroundings. It looked like they were in the ruins of some castle that looked vaguely familiar, in Wales, maybe?
"So now what, hmmmmm?" Draco asked, his voice dangerously soft and eyes iced over.
Gage frowned. Things weren't quite going to plan, but he couldn't figure out exactly where he had lost control over the situation. He had lost the mudblood in the jump, and while that was annoying, he was definitely more concerned by the feral expression that crossed his younger opponents face. At this point, the boy should have been apologetic and fearful of this information getting back to his father or even Voldemort, not so stubbornly defiant. This wasn't the Malfoy he remembered, granted he hadn't seen him in person for nearly eight years, but the information and stories he'd been regularly receiving since the boy had entered Hogwarts had never hinted at this kind of intensity and confidence that was . . . unnerving to say the least. Despite himself, he felt a slight tremor of uncertainty run down his spine.
"I'm going to kill you and your little whore," he quickly swallowed as he watched silver eyes flash angrily, "of course." Gage had striven for self-assurance, but had a sinking feeling that his words had come off sounding as hollow as he felt.
"You mean that you're going to try," Draco gently corrected him, "and fail." His delivery of the words was enough to raise the other mans hackles. "You wanted me angry, congratulations, you've succeeded. You want me dead, well, I'm standing here," he punctuated his sentence with painfully restrained gestures. Biting off each word that grew just a little louder the longer he spoke. "But whatever was your intent, you should have never been stupid enough to threaten what is mine." Draco raised his wand ominously.
Time to regain control, Gage decided, firing a blasting curse at Draco only to watch him sidestep and divert it with a repelling charm.
The dark note in Draco's voice seemed to trigger something in Hermione and she raised her head to try to find him. She was startled to see him engaged in a wizarding duel and shook her head impatiently to try and clear it, wincing slightly at her sudden headache. Why didn't this make any sense and why couldn't she remember what was happening?
"Oh come on, surely you can do better than that. You had better if you think you're going to survive this time," Draco taunted him recklessly. "I thought you were supposed to be all bad ass. My father's fucking prodigy, what a joke. You're barely more talented than a squib or are is it just the technical skills that you lack?" He waited a moment, before he smirked and waved his wand in a sharp motion, "Expelliarmus!" Not giving the other man the chance to respond, he quickly followed up with, "Accio wand!" Draco deftly caught the wand as it flew into his free hand. "Any other brilliant ideas now, Gage?"
"Shit," he breathed, racking his brain. Gage realized that he had badly underestimated Draco, but at least he still had the portkey back to the club to escape, the only question was how to get his wand back. Could he bluff his way out of this? "Don't do anything you might regret, Draco. Did you really think I came on my own?"
Draco broke out into sinister laughter. "As if I'd ever regret killing you. This is the opportunity I've been waiting years for and I'm more than willing to bet that you were stupid enough to come alone. Tacitum!" Draco gleefully smirked as he watched Gage suddenly realize that he was now incapable of speech. Now the only question was whether he should torture the bastard to death or simply kill him. He wasn't surprised when he saw him try to grab the portkey out of his pocket and was ready for it. "Petrificus Totalus! You're not getting away that easily, Gage." He walked around the deatheater smugly at his leisure, the bastard was at his complete mercy now and he was enjoying every minute of it.
"Draco . . ." Hermione's weak voice caught his attention and his head dropped slightly as he half turned to face her.
"Don't worry, Hermione this is almost over." Draco's voice was cool and dispassionate enough to rouse her from her stupor.
Sitting on the broken stonework on the ground, she saw him walking, no it was more like stalking around the dark haired man – the deatheater - she remembered from the club. She tried to stand up, stumbling as she did. Draco was quick to rush over and steady her with a hand at her elbow.
"You should sit back down until I've finished with him, it'll just be a minute more." Although he was relieved to see that she suffered no ill effects, he was disappointed that she had recovered at that particular moment. This was bound to be trouble.
"Draco," her voice was still weak, but growing stronger, "you have to stop, you can't just murder him – "
"Murder?" Draco turned to stare at her in disbelief. "Murder?" He repeated stunned. "Did you hit your head? He is a deatheater, Hermione, a deatheater. Exactly what part of that don't you understand?"
"I know what he is," she shook off his hand to stare back at him, "but you've already incapacitated him, Draco. He's no longer a threat to us. Killing him like this would be murder."
Turning away from her, he ran his hand through his hair and tilted his head downward, letting his bangs all but obscure his face. "I don't fucking believe this! He would have killed you and me without a moment's hesitation. I know for a fact that he's killed before and would do it again in a heartbeat. And you're standing here defending him, how the hell do you justify that?"
"I'm not defending him, Draco. I don't give a damn what happens to him. You're the one I'm worried about. Killing him in cold blood? You're better than that, Draco. That is something he would do." Her voice started to rise higher in pitch, despite her best efforts to keep it all together, as she desperately tried to find a way to reach him.
She'd thought she could predict his mood swings, but she had never seen this side of him before and it was scaring the hell out of her. He was actually ready to kill this guy and she didn't know how to stop him, short of outright attacking him, and she really didn't want to let it get to that point. Nevertheless, she steeled herself just in case, because she wasn't prepared to watch him throw his life away like this.
"Don't you ever compare me to a monster like him," Draco hissed, his voice as cold as she had ever heard it.
"Draco, I'm not, I never – "
Cutting her off, he exploded. "The hell, you're not. Don't you get it? Even if you don't give a damn what happens to me, you'd think that you would at least have some sense of self-preservation? Because even now, if he got the chance, he'd kill you and he'd enjoy it, Hermione. He'd make it slow and painful just for his own amusement."
"Even more reason to have him thrown into Azkaban, where he can be made to suffer for his crimes as he deserves. But killing him when he is defenseless – it's just not right." Hermione pled her case, but she could see from Draco's darkening scowl that she wasn't getting through to him.
Hearing a faint grumbling ahead of them, they both turned, raising their wands to see Gage fighting back against the bonds of the spells that Draco had cast upon him. Aggravated by the interruption, they both pointed their wands at him, shouting, "Expelliarmus!" The impact sent him flying off into a broken stone wall, and slumping down to the ground unconscious, while they continued their argument without missing a beat.
"Azkaban?!?" He scoffed, "is that your solution to everything? Whose side are you fucking on, anyway? Why don't we just hand him back over to my father, it's the same end result." Draco was beyond frustrated. He was so close to killing to Gage and then Hermione with her painfully proper code of ethics had to recover just in time to try and stop him. He wanted Hermione, but he also wanted Gage dead and it was becoming clear to him that he couldn't have both or at least not at his moment, anyway.
"Like your solution of killing him is any better?" She yelled back at him, wondering if she was going to have to stun him to get them out of this. Hermione didn't know what had the hell happened before she had come to, but Draco's anger seemed entirely out of proportion, even considering what Gage tried to do. Taking a slight step towards Draco, she stumbled, grabbing her head with her free hand.
"Dammit, Hermione, will you sit down already?" Sighing angrily, Draco quickly crossed the foot or so distance between them, to gently push her down to the ground after reminding himself to keep his temper in check.
Landing somewhat gracelessly, she looked up at Draco, who squatted down next to her and grudgingly thanked him. "What is wrong with me? It can't be the alcohol, I didn't have that much to drink."
"You're probably still feeling the aftereffects of the Obsecutus spell, but it doesn't last very long, so it should fully wear off pretty soon." Draco commented, as he absently noted her shivering in the cool night air. His eyes turned a moody dark grey and he shrugged off his jacket to loosely wrap it around her shoulders.
Tugging the jacket tighter around her, she flashed him a brief but grateful smile. "Obsecutus, I've never heard of it before."
"I'd be surprised if you had. It's a nasty little Dark Arts spell, a weaker version of the Imperius curse. It's basically the wizarding equivalent of a ruffie - sapping the victims free will and leaving them docile prey. You're lucky I showed up when I did, if he had activated the portkey before I had gotten a hold of you, you don't even want to think about what he would have done." His eyes turned a darker shade, a stormy winter sky, as he brushed a strand of hair off her face as he contemplated what might have been.
"Great . . . " Hermione said faintly. "I never even saw him do it."
"Don't feel too bad, you wouldn't have. He probably hit you with it from somewhere across the club. It's designed to take the person by surprise from a distance, so they can't offer up a defense that, after all, would defeat the purpose. Typical cowardly deatheater shit." He gave a short mirthless laugh. Reaching out with a finger, he tilted her face up to his and with narrowed eyes he examined her face for a moment. "But don't worry, you'll be fine. It's almost entirely worn off by now."
"How can you tell?"
With a hint of his usual sardonic humor, Draco arched an eyebrow. "You don't believe me? Take off your shirt," he silkily ordered.
Her mouth fell open. "What?!? Hell no!"
"I rest my case, you're fine," he smirked, as she rolled her eyes at him. "What?"
"How can you think about that at this moment?" She asked him, clearly exasperated with him.
"You refused as I knew you would, which means that you're recovered. What more do you want?"
She refused to dignify that with an answer, instead asking, "So what should we do with him?"
Draco shot her a cynical look. "I don't suppose that you'd be willing to turn a
blind eye and let me – " He trailed off, seeing the look in her eyes. "No?" He asked bitterly, "Yeah, I figured as much. Ok, in that case, I'd suggest breaking his wand, obliterating his memory, taking the port key back to the club and leaving him here. He'll know something happened, he'll suspect me, but he won't know for sure and that will fuck with him." When she hesitatingly nodded, he went about taking care of things.
Arriving back at the club, neither of them was in any particular mood to hang around for too long, so they quickly left, apparating to Hogsmeade and walking back to Hogwarts. Caught up in their own thoughts a heavy silence fell between them. Finally as they began to approach the castle, Hermione asked the question that had been bothering her. "Draco, you wouldn't have really killed him, would you have?"
He shrugged his shoulders, refusing to meet her eyes. "You really shouldn't ask questions when you aren't prepared to accept the answers."
She nodded her head, in his own oblique way, he had given her the answer she had expected. "Why?"
"Did I ever tell you about Maddie?" Draco abruptly changed the subject, an odd note of . . . tenderness crept in his voice. Startling Hermione enough that she stoped dead in her tracks to stare at him, but his eyes were inwardly focused and a soft heather grey shade.
"Maddie?" She barely breathed, afraid of spooking him back into silence.
"Madeline Malfoy, my sister."
For the second time in nearly as many seconds, Hermione was stunned. "You have a sister?!?" It was only until he responded that she realized that the words escaped her lips.
"I had a sister." Hermione froze, instantly concerned at his sudden lack of emotion. "If she hadn't been murdered, the two of you would have gotten along. You're a lot like in her in some ways – that's probably the reason I noticed you as early as I did in first year."
"What happened?" She asked quietly, carefully placing a light hand on his forearm. His muscles bunched up under her touch and she had to force herself to keep from flinching away from him.
He glanced down at her hand on his arm almost like he was seeing something alien. "She was so beautiful, Hermione. The only truly goodness that ever came out of Malfoy Mansion." He paused, his face expressionless, except for a distant, faraway look in his eyes and Hermione knew he was seeing something else, somewhere else. "I was nine when it happened, the summer just before I came to Hogwarts, and Maddie was sixteen. My father was the one who ordered it, but that bastard Gage . . . "
Draco trailed off briefly, before he continued and she could hear the violence in him just barely restrained. "He was the one who actually did it. He slit her throat and bled her dry. When it was clear that ritual was a failure, they all left without even a shred of remorse, back up to their party. I don't know if Lucius forgot that I was there or if it just amused him to leave me there, but eventually the Imperious curse wore off. But by then, it was far too late, of course. Rigor mortis had already set it and she was cold, Hermione, so unbelievably cold." His voice broke painfully for a moment. "I remember pulling Maddie into my lap, it was difficult because she was so stiff. I desperately wanted to clean her up, because I knew how much she would've hated looking that way. I sat there with her body for what seemed like hours, maybe it was, I don't know. The next thing I remember was waking in the morning in my bed, like nothing had ever happened."
"Oh my God, Draco." Hermione's eyes were bright with unshed tears. Unconsciously her hand tightened on his arm as she listened to him, growing more horrified by the moment. She could feel her heart lurching in her chest. "I am so sorry."
"Yeah. Me too." Draco pulled out a cigarette and quickly lit it, the brief flash of light made the hollows of his cheekbones stand out, as he stubbornly refused to meet her eyes. "Don't look at me like that." His voice was flat, calm . . . dangerous. "I don't need your pity, Hermione. That is the absolute last thing I would ever want from you." She felt a chill she couldn't quite suppress run up her spine and took a deep breath to steady herself, before she raised her eyes to his. Without thinking about it, she pulled her hand back and wrapped both of her arms around herself. The ice in his eyes melted a few degrees as he focused on her and she sighed in relief. He shrugged his shoulders, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Then again," he mused aloud, "Nietzsche was insane. I don't know."
"Why are you telling me all this? You never tell me anything and now you start telling me all of this. Why?" Hermione flinched, but it was too late. Her thoughts were spoken, before she could even think to call them back. To her surprise, he didn't seem offended or taken aback.
"You wanted to know why, aside from tonight, I wanted him dead. Now you know. I don't even really know why I spared him tonight, chances are that I'll wind up regretting that mistake, but it's done now. But next time," and he paused, drawing his words out slowly, "next time, he dies."
"Draco – " she began impassionedly.
"No, Hermione." He held up his hand against her. "I don't want to hear it. Somehow despite everything that you've seen and everything that you know, you still have this naïve belief in 'what is right and what is wrong,' 'the good guys vs the bad guys.' It must be nice to live in a world where things are so clearly defined, but in the real world, things are never that simple. This is a war and there is no honor in war, it's all just a matter of survival. Everybody from Dumbledore to Voldemorte is more than willing to use whoever they can to achieve whatever they want."
"I know that – "
"No, no, you don't." He cut her off again, his voice growing more exasperated. "If you did, we wouldn't be having this bloody conversation. I don't know why or how the hell you managed it, but you can stand there and argue morality with me, when it's all bullshit! Killing Gage wouldn't be murder, even ignoring what he tried to do tonight, it's the closest thing to justice that I know. He deserves to die and I've more than earned the right to kill him. Good and evil are nothing more than abstracts."
"That's not true!" Hermione yelled back at him, sick of being ignored. "If it was, aside from your need for vengeance, you would never have passed information to our side."
He laughed cynically. "Have you ever met Voldemort?" At her disbelieving stare, he continued. "He's a joke, Hermione, nothing more than your average mass-murdering fuckhead and believe me, I'd know. I've met more than a few in my life. Assuming that the deatheaters actually did win, where do you think it would stop? After conquering the wizarding world, they would move onto the muggle world and eventually they would turn on each other, self-destructing and taking everything else down with them. Only death lies that way, I know it, anyone even halfway intelligent would see it, but they're too caught up in their power hungry ambitions. It's absurd. I choose to help Dumbledore because I'm not particularly suicidal, not out of any misguided ideals."
"I'm not Harry fucking 'Saint' Potter, Hermione. I'm not the hero or even a good guy here and you had best understand that. No matter what I do or who I align myself with, it's a fairly good certainty that I won't survive this. I know that, but I'm trying to find a way, anyway." She reached out her hand to him, only to have him roughly shrug it off. "You're on Dumbledore's side with all your little friends, Lucius is on Voldemorte's with the rest of Slytherin, and I'm on my side, Hermione, 'cause Merlin knows that no one else is."
He stopped abruptly and she walked right into him. Despite the obvious anger in his words and the tension in his body, his hands gently pushed her back onto her feet. "Here's the tower, you should be fine on your own now." And without a backward glance, he turned on his heel and walked off into the darkness. Hermione watched the moonlight glinting in his hair and the burning tip of his cigarette, before he viciously stubbed it out and his figure faded into the night. She realized that she was still clenching his jacket around her and took a hesitant step in his direction. Before she turned and instead walked up to the door and quietly let herself in.
Standing off into the shadows, unseen by either student, Dumbledore shook his head regretfully and stroked his beard.
TBCOk . . . as usual, if you've left me your email, then I've added you to my mailing list for this story, so you get a happy little email each & every time I update, if you didn't get one, well obviously I don't have your email or I missed it somehow. If you review this chapter & leave your email in the review or I can get it off your profile, I will gladly add you. Don't forget reviews are like candy & I'm nothing if not a sugar addict. So please, read, enjoy & if you didn't hate this chapter then please review ;)