Draco woke with the sun the next morning. He was surprised at the amount of sleep he had managed on the cold and damp floor of a cave but put it down to sheer emotional exhaustion. It had been a long night after disapparating from Finlay's Crescent and coming back to the dismal stretch of beach, with nothing to keep him company but the endless possibilities of things that could go wrong in the next few days and the sound of the howling wind. He'd lit a small fire with his wand and huddled up close to it, but when he had stirred in the middle of the night it had gone out, leaving only the moonlight to cast jagged shadows across the small cave and a thick, salty December chill in the air.
Now, he sat at the small cave's opening as the sun rose, his knees drawn up to his chest. He could feel the warmth of the ring hanging from his neck and wondered if Amelia was awake yet, or if he merely existed in her dreams right now. He couldn't let himself hover for too long on imagining her small tent, or indeed any of the strange home comforts offered by the resistance as it tortured his mind. He was sore from an uncomfortable sleep, tired, and painfully hungry. With far less gusto than yesterday, he clambered to his feet, buttoned up his coat and made sure he had everything still secured and safely hidden on his body. Then, he apparated back to Finlay's Crescent.
After sneaking out of the medical tent, the rest of Amelia's morning was spent racing back and forth from the bathroom to be sick and as she sat at her kitchen table taking tiny sips of water, hopelessness set in. What she would give to have Draco – so tender in ways that always took her by surprise – by her side as she battled these stages of early pregnancy. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was approaching midday; she couldn't let this sickness steal any more of the day away. With a final sip of water, she grabbed her coat and left her home for the duelling tent.
To her surprise, when she arrived she saw both Harry and Henry in the duelling tent, faces red and glistening and sleeves rolled up. Others were scattered around the open space, some duelling in pairs, some aiming colourful curses at an object at the wall. Amelia smiled at those around her as she walked through the tent, sweeping her hair into a ponytail and tying it up.
"I forgot what you looked like outside of that tiny meeting tent," Amelia offered teasingly to her brother as she came to greet him and Harry.
"Thought we'd better remind ourselves of a couple of spells before we stampede into Malfoy Manor again," Henry replied with a grin; Amelia laughed. "How you doing?"
A comical question given the morning she'd had on top of Draco's departure yesterday, but Amelia ignored all the possible answers she could give. "Alright, thanks. I'm guessing you haven't heard anything from Draco?"
Harry wiped his brow and came to stand beside Henry. "Not yet. But that's not a bad thing," he added upon seeing Amelia's face. "I would've been surprised if he'd run into snatchers on his first day."
Amelia didn't know whether to be comforted by this or not. She thought again of the life growing inside her – equal parts her and Draco – and her stomach lurched. She gulped this down and took out her wand, intent on practising her offensive curses until her legs wouldn't hold her upright anymore.
It wasn't until the sun began to set in the late afternoon, and the alleyway Draco had now spent his second day in was blanketed in complete shadow, that Draco heard commotion nearby. He had been standing in the same alleyway, confident that no one had known of his presence the previous day, for hours now. From his earlier peaks around the street, he assumed there to be a small inn at the top of the winding cobbled high street. Loud and abrasive voices travelled down the road from the direction of the inn, jaunting each other and seemingly yelling at other passers-by. This had to be a bunch of snatchers. He couldn't be found in an alleyway though, he needed to look as if he were getting supplies for the guise to work.
Seeing this as his best opportunity, he wrapped his fist tighter around his wand, stuffed both hands into his pockets, swallowed hard and stepped out of the alleyway for the first time. It was a difficult feat, to attract attention but look as if you are in hiding, but he did his best to dip his head and keep his eyeline low as he went down the high street towards an apothecary on the opposite end of the street to the inn. Walking towards them would be too obvious; he needed to look as if he were avoiding them. It was busier now, having just gone 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and he had to duck through small crowds of shoppers and walkers in the street. He was sure that one of them mumbled his name in uncertain tones, but he kept his face hidden, his eyes determinedly fixed on the ground. His heart beat against his ribcage like a war drum.
Draco could sense something stirring behind him amongst the crowds and chanced a look over his shoulder: in the small crowds of people, a few were turning their heads towards him wearing quizzical expressions. He supposed that his blonde hair made him a fairly recognisable figure in a crowd. Beyond these small huddles of people several feet away, four snatchers marched along the street, their steely glare fixed on Draco as they pushed other witches and wizards to the side to wade quickly through the crowd. Draco ducked into the apothecary, a small bell ringing above his head as he stepped over the threshold, and closed the door behind him.
The room was musty and dimly lit. The walls were all lined with dozens of crooked wooden shelves held foreign objects floating in different coloured liquids, powders, dried herbs and magical trinkets.
There was a little old man at the desk of the shop, peering at Draco through spectacles that magnified his watery, crystal blue eyes.
"How many I help you?"
Draco took his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the old man, fixing his face into a menacing scowl.
"Leave – through the back door. Now!" He grunted. The old man looked confused, his mouth opening and closing as his eyes darted around his shop.
"You can't just come into here and demand –
Draco pushed up the sleeve of his left arm, revealing the – albeit very scarred – Dark Mark. The old man's mouth clapped shut and a look of resignation came over his face. Draco imagined that just about every magical shop owner lay awake at night worrying about this exact scenario: Death Eaters coming to loot their business. Guilt lurched within him as the old man grabbed his wand and scurried out of the shop through a back door. It was for his own good though – better a few potions get knocked off the walls than the poor shop owner get killed by some rogue snatchers looking for a jolly.
Needing a cover story for being in the shop and indeed, the village, Draco scanned the nearest shelf and found something plausible: a bezoar. He snatched it from the shelf and, remembering just at the last moment, took the veritaserum antidote and gulped it down. He tossed aside the empty vial just as the bell above the door chimed once again.
"Draco fuckin' Malfoy," a gruff, cockney voice said from behind him. Draco whipped around, bezoar clutched in one hand, wand outstretched in the other. "Thought it might've been your mop of blonde hair we saw waltzing down the street." The snatcher looked eager, excited as his eyes bore into Draco's.
The four of them stood abreast, completely blocking the door.
"I'm not here for trouble," Draco mumbled, his wand trained on the one who spoke – seemingly the leader of this group of snatchers.
"But you found it," he said, licking his teeth – yellow and crooked. "Or maybe you're not aware of the price on your little blonde head?"
Draco shifted his weight, pretending that this was indeed news. Come on, get it over with, he goaded silently.
"Snatch him, boys."
The leader stood still, grinning widely as the other three advanced through the small shop. Draco was convincing in his defence though; he waved his wand and an entire wooden shelf flew across the room to block the snatcher's path. It landed with a great crash in front of them, powders and potions exploding into the air, but one of them quickly swept it aside with his own wand. Still, Draco stood his ground, firing curses at all three of them through the haze of debris, but it didn't take long for them to surround him. They closed in on him as Draco still dodged and sent curses in every direction.
"Expelliarmus!" The leader by the door yelled, and Draco's wand flew across the room into his open palm.
Defenceless, Draco stood in the centre of the men, all with wands carefully trained on him. They were like a pack of wolves, but they didn't know that they had played right into the resistance's plan.
As they closed in on him, Draco raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. You have me," he sneered. "I'll cut you a deal to let me go. Money – I have money. Just name your price."
"Can't be as much as we'll get rewarded for bringing you straight to the Dark Lord," the leader said, his eyes hungry and dangerous.
"Fine – information, then. I can give you anything you need on the resistance. Hunting down the lot of them will get you much better praises than just me!"
All part of the plan… Make them think he's desperate… He knew that they wouldn't go for this – the price on his head was far too much to pass up.
The leader chuckled and the rest of the snatchers swiftly followed suit.
"Oh, I have a feeling that they'll be able to get you to talk either way, Malfoy."
The leader nodded and in one quick moment Draco had been seized by two of the snatchers. They pinned his arms painfully behind his back and cast a binding charm to keep them there.
"To the Ministry, boss?" One of the snatchers, a large but young fellow, asked.
The leader paced up to Draco, coming to stand so close that Draco could feel his hot breath on his face. "Nah, not for this one. Straight to the Manor for him. A lovely little homecoming for you, Malfoy."
Again he cackled and the others joined in as Draco struggled against the binding charm and their strong grip on his shoulders.
With one more breath, the small shop disappeared from vision and Draco's stomach lurched – something which had nothing to do with the apparation. He was returning to the place he hoped he'd never step foot in again.
Draco gulped as he traced his eyeline up to the tip of the gates to the Malfoy Manor estate: black metal, with twisting bars lined like a jail cell with pointed tops sharp as a stake or a dagger that seemed to stab the sky itself. These were gates that Draco had grown up with; they were visible through his childhood bedroom window and he had walked through them many times in his life. Dark clouds rumbled above in the evening sky as the lead snatcher stepped towards the imposing gates, clearing his throat as a one of the large handles – a coiled snake – sprung to life. The snake was black metal like the rest of the gate, but had red piercing eyes that had always made Draco uneasy as a child. He didn't feel much better about them now as an adult.
"We got something you'd like to see," the snatcher bragged to the snake. In reply, it hissed loudly and jolted out towards him, making him stumble backwards in fear.
The snatcher composed himself. "Alright, alright." He gestured to the others to bring Draco forward. Draco was eye to eye with the snake now, who looked him up and down with a slight bend of its head, its red eyes scanning him. Draco wondered naively if the snake would remember him as a member of the Malfoy household, but he knew that this sort of Dark Magic didn't work like that.
Apparently satisfied upon seeing what the snatchers were bringing in, the snake slithered back into its place as a handle, once again looking no more alive than the other bars of the gate. With a loud creak, they slowly began to open, revealing a long pebbled pathway up to the Manor itself. Draco was still being held by two of the snatchers, which felt unnecessary as they had his wand and his arms were clamped behind his back with a binding charm. They marched him up the path, pebbles crunching beneath their shoes. For good measure, he then felt the prodding of a wand between his shoulder blades. "Move, Malfoy," a voice behind him said.
"I am," he replied coldly through gritted teeth.
They stood before the door – a grand dark oak with a stone gargoyle hovering directly above them. Draco watched as the eyes of the gargoyle shifted down towards them; it would tell the occupants of the Manor that someone was at the door, this he knew. A seemingly innocent piece of magic, but his father had always used it as part of the protection of Malfoy Manor in case any unwanted guests or Ministry workers had ever come knocking and his father would need to hide any suspicious dark artefacts in the Manor.
He squared his shoulders, readying himself for whatever lay beyond the door. To think that just yesterday morning he had woken up beside Amelia felt impossible. The warmth of the ring around his neck gave him strength – it would all be worth it, so long as he survived whatever came next…
The door was wrenched open and it seemed that even the snatchers around him stiffened at the sight of Fenrir Greyback. Indeed, he was larger than most men, with a snarling face and crooked whiskers, looking much more like a beast than a human. He looked menacingly at the group of men in front of him, before his beady bloodshot eyes came to land on Draco and his mouth spread into a horrid grin which showed off a row of sharp, rotten teeth.
"My, my, didn't think we'd be seeing your face around here again, Malfoy," he said. His voice was vicious even when he spoke quietly like he did now, like he was playing with prey before pouncing – waiting for his moment.
Draco stayed silent as he was shoved inside the door and into the marble entrance hall. The wand in his back still plugged painfully between his shoulder blades, the hands on his shoulders steadying him as they led him down the hallway. Greyback walked in front, leading them. The lead snatcher tried to keep up with the werewolf's long strides, speaking all about how he'd spotted Draco and more or less singlehandedly apprehended him. It was a pathetic display as he tried eagerly to gain some sort of audience or approval from Greyback, who stared straight ahead, occasionally grunting at the story. The snatcher reminded Draco of a puppy begging for food, and he allowed himself the smallest of smirks at this behaviour.
They twisted through corridors and up and down staircases until they came to a standstill in front of a thin mahogany door. Greyback knocked before opening it.
Draco knew the room: it was a small drawing room, lined with books and trinkets capable of dark and twisted magic. His father's favourite room. He had retired here almost every night for all of Draco's life to sit by the fireplace and drink firewhiskey. In fact, he had died in this room too, in the tall leather armchair in which Bellatrix Lestrange now sat. Standing either side of her, as if it were her protection, stood two tall Death Eaters, masks on. Though Draco knew, of course, that she needed no protection.
She practically shrieked with joy at seeing Draco, jumping to her feet and bouncing over to him. The snatchers holding onto him released him, pushing him so that he stumbled forwards.
"Draco! My dear, dear nephew! Here I have been worrying that you were no longer with us," Bellatrix drawled in her sickly sweet voice. She extracted a dagger from her belt and toyed with it in her hands as she came nose to nose with Draco. It was presumably the dagger that she had plunged into Draco, and the healing wound on his side seemed to recoil at the sight of it. "I thought that maybe I had twisted my knife a little too far into you." Her voice feigned innocence and her mouth pouted, like her ramming a knife into Draco was some sort of clumsy accident.
She brought the dagger to his face, caressing each of his cheeks with the flat of the blade. The chill of it made the hair on Draco's neck prickle.
"But here you are – what a miracle it is," Bellatrix said in a lower voice, her face splitting into a sickening grin. "You appear to keep dodging certain death, Draco… like a cockroach. How very impressive." Her head snapped to the lead snatcher: "Boris – have you searched him?"
The lead snatcher, Boris apparently, stepped forwards. He eyed the others for a moment before stating, "O'course, Madame Lestrange." He sounded scared of her and truthfully, Draco didn't blame him.
Bellatrix looked expectant, tapping the dagger against her open palm. "And?"
"Oh – right. Here." Boris took out Draco's wand and the small bezoar from his pocket, handing it over to Bellatrix. Draco praised their idiocy at not searching him properly; for now, it seemed that what he had smuggled in his sock would remain safely hidden.
Bellatrix held the bezoar up to the light and began cackling. "This? This is what you've risked your life by leaving your little sanctuary for?!"
Draco tipped his head, lowering his gaze. Playing the part of a captured man.
"A humble bezoar," she held it up high above her head as if it were a caught golden snitch and circled the room so that they could all see. "This is what will bring down the resistance who try and fight against us! And this – she brought the stone up to Draco's eyeline now – is what will finally kill you." Her voice dripped with malice and Draco wondered if she'd been punished by the Dark Lord for letting him, Amelia and the resistance get away before Christmas. She tossed the bezoar aside.
Draco braced himself.
