Chapter Four
In Which Draco Is Himself

In the dirt and debris that covered the street and pavement after the fact, feet stepped carefully, raising clouds of dust and echoes.

"I'll be damned...!"

It was warm and white and safe.

Draco Malfoy floated for an indeterminate amount of time, calm and blissful in the pale. It would be pleasant if not for some nagging little worry at the back of his head, poking at him every time he got comfortable like a spoiled cat. He just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

... oh.

... right.

He opened his eyes and then immediately squeezed them shut, his temples clanging and an extremely unpleasant burning sensation all up and down his right side. Damn, damn! He'd fumbled it, screwed it up... how was he still alive?

"You're a very lucky young man, you know," said a voice to his left. He would have been alarmed if he hadn't been so preoccupied with the small carniverous elephant taking up most of the space in his head.

"Lucky? Oh, bugger... ouch, dammit..."

"Lucky indeed," said the voice. "By all rights, that explosion should have killed you instantly. Instead, it seems as though the force of the blast mostly just knocked you backward."

Draco managed to squinch his eyelids open. Dim light flooded in, diffused and crystalline as it passed through his watering eyes. His right eye was still squeezed almost entirely shut, and it felt bruised, swollen.

Remus Lupin gave him a friendly little wave, smiling. "You've grown since I saw you last, Draco," he said kindly, patting Draco's blanket-covered ankles. "You've become rather a fine young man."

"I... agh, dammit... what happened?" Draco touched his right eyelid tenderly, wincing as it stung, partially to wake himself up and partially to avoid eye contact with his former professor.

"The... mysterious explosion blew you back. Fortunately, we were only seconds away, nestled cosily in a domicile nearby. The windows blew in, mirrors cracked, plaster rained from on high, the works, but we were lucky enough to survive unscathed."

"We?" Draco glanced up. He could feel the muscles in his face twitching as blood flowed back into them.

Lupin's eyes flickered. "Mr and Mrs Weasley, along with myself and one of our close friends, with whom we happened to be visiting. And you... what were you doing there?"

A woman came into the room and set a tea tray carefully down on the bedside table, but didn't leave immediately. Instead she stood slightly behind Lupin's chair and gave Draco a guarded, yet encouraging nod. She was dark haired and pink cheeked, short and maternal.

"I... I was... just, you know, shopping. Looking around."

Lupin smiled. "These are dangerous times for a young wizard to be out on the streets. Were you shopping for anything in particular?"

"I..."

"Hestia, would you mind fetching the items from earlier?" Lupin interrupted. The woman smiled and scurried out, and the man nodded. "Go on."

"I... no. Nothing in paticular."

"Hmm. How curious." Lupin sat back in his chair, paused for a moment, and then smiled. "Draco, I hope you are not under the impression that we are oblivious to your reasons for being outside the house we were occupying."

Draco looked away hurriedly, and rubbed his aching right arm.

Lupin stayed silent for a moment. "This was to be a suicide mission, wasn't it?" he asked finally, his voice quiet in the dusty room. "You weren't expected to come back alive."

Draco sneered. "You'd be dead by now if the damn string hadn't..."

"Yes," Lupin said. "I know." He stood and walked, limping slightly, to look out the window, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm glad I survived, but I'm equally sympathetic to your plight. You've failed... if you go back now, you'll most likely be killed on the spot. Possibly tortured. Your mother... well." Lupin seemed to look intently at something very far away. "Let's not talk about that." The man turned a bit and stared straight at the boy on the bed. "But you know... they probably think you're dead."

They probably think you're dead.

The words hit Draco like a brick.

"I don't know whether you want this or not," Lupin said quietly, turning back towards the window, "but you're free now. You're missing in action, presumed dead. You can go be someone else. Lead a different life. Of course, you can always go back..."

"No," Draco said, cutting in more quickly than he would have liked. "That is... no. I... I don't want to die."

Lupin turned and smiled as he sat back down. "Good to hear," he said mildly. "Those of us on the edge... all we do is fight to stay alive. Are you with us on that?"

"On the edge," Draco muttered to himself, unconciously rubbing his arm.

"I'll give you time to make your decision." Lupin stood and moved to leave the room, and then paused, back to Draco, hand on the doorknob. "I feel I should warn you," he said calmly. "You only have three basic choices. One... go back to You-Know-Who and die. Two... turn yourself in to the Ministry and spend the rest of your natural life in Azkaban. Three..." He turned his head, slightly, slightly, so that Draco could see the curve of his lip and the soft look in his eye. "Three, you stay here in the gray. You stay here, and you don't betray us, and you don't die." He smiled, shot Draco a sideways glance, and opened the door. "You think on that," he said, and left.

They probably think you're dead.

Think on that.

Draco looked down at his throbbing side. The skin was red and raw and cracked, like scorched cardboard, and there were the telltale signs of heavy medical treatment.

They probably think you're dead.

Draco felt dead, too.

Think on that.