Draco paced back and forth in his tiny room. The light from the window was fading into evening. Draco didn't notice as it got steadily darker, he wouldn't even have noticed if the room were on fire. Etean had left him alone to think, to come to terms with the situation and that was what he was trying to do. He had been trying for almost two days, he hadn't slept at all, instead he had sat by the window, then lain on the bed, then stood in the corner and now he endlessly paced the floor, trying to make sense of it all. But he was getting nowhere. He still couldn't get past the gut wrenching fear about what Etean had told him was to come. For the whole summer he had been so consumed with the pain and struggle of training for The Circle that he had never had any time to think about what was to come after he became a member. He had known that an encounter with Voldemort was likely, maybe even inevitable but he found himself completely unprepared for actually knowing that it was going to happen.
He walked over to the window and looked down at the street. The window of this room in the Leaky Cauldron looked out over the muggle street below. From here he could see a constant stream of muggles bustling past. The same thought that had come to him in the carriage on the way here returned. 'How many of them will die if I just turn tail and run? How many deaths could I live with?'
As he searched for the answer his thoughts returned to the deaths that had already occurred. Well the death really. He hadn't really known Percy Weasley that well. Sure he knew him, he had been Head Boy for Merlin's sake but it wasn't like they had been best friends or anything. Now Percy was dead. He wondered how it had happened, the paper he had been given didn't say specifically. He wondered if his father had been the one who actually killed him.
He supposed it wasn't really his fault, there was nothing he could have done to save him. But was there something Etean could have done? Was Percy's death just a detail? Just a snag in The Circle's perfect plan? The Circle had been the ones who planted the tablet in the Ministry. A good place to let Voldemort find it, Etean had said, therefore they had to expect that anyone in the Ministry, in that Department would be in danger when he actually came looking for it. 'It had to be convincing, Voldemort had to believe that he had really discovered the tablet. We couldn't just give it to him.' Etean's voice echoed through his head. Draco swore to himself, this was going nowhere. He had to get out. He didn't care that Etean had told him to stay put, that it was dangerous for him to be seen. He was going crazy stuck in this tiny room.
He pulled on his cloak and convinced it to make him invisible, then he crossed to the door and entered the outer room. His senses told him that it was deserted and he wasn't wrong. Etean still wasn't back from whatever he had run off to do that morning. Draco walked up to the door leading to the rest of the Leaky Cauldron. He paused before opening it, he sensed someone outside in the corridor. After whoever it was had passed by he silently opened the door and stepped out. He took a moment to get his bearings before heading out towards the stairs.
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Hermione was uncomfortable, how could she not be? Funerals weren't supposed to be comfortable. Not that this was a funeral, they hadn't really buried Percy, the truth was they couldn't find enough of him to bury. His body was completely destroyed by whatever Voldemort and his pack of monsters had done to him. Poor Percy, poor Mr and Mrs Weasley, this had to be so hard on them. They hadn't spoken about it since…since it happened, but she could see it in their eyes, they blamed themselves. The rest of the family weren't taking it any better. In their own way, each of them had convinced themselves that it was all their fault. So here they sat, round a single table in the Leaky Cauldron, she had never known the Weasley's to be so quiet, especially when they were all together. She felt worse for them when she saw how people were treating them. Everyone in the place was staring at them, whispering under their breath. With the silence of their table, every single whisper echoed almost as loud as a shout in the pub.
BAM!! Ron slammed his fist on the table, making them all jump. He stood up and glared around the room.
"Alright then," he bellowed, "you want to stare at something? Well stare at me? Here I am! Here we all are. The Weasley family. Yes that Weasley family. Yes he was my brother." He kicked his chair away and stepped toward a young couple at a table by the fire. "You want to whisper about something? I'll give you something to stare about." Harry jumped up and grabbed hold of him, trying to wrestle him back. He wouldn't have managed it at all if Charlie hadn't joined in. Between them they got Ron to sit back down but he didn't stay put. As soon as they let him go, he was up and gone, heading straight for the door. Mr. Weasley made to stand up, trying to follow his son but Harry beat him to it.
"It's alright Mr. Weasley," he said, "I think he'd be better off alone for a minute. I'll go keep an eye on him."
"Thank you Harry." Mr Weasley replied in a choked up voice. Harry turned and chased after Ron as the door slammed shut behind him. Mr. Weasley sat back down, Mrs Weasley buried her head in her husband's neck and sobbed hard. Beside Hermione, Ginny put her head down and started to cry her eyes out into her folded arms. Hermione put her hand on her back, she opened her mouth to say something but she stopped before making a sound. What could she say? She hadn't the faintest idea of anything she could say that wouldn't sound like some stupid platitude. In the end she just left her arm round Ginny as she sobbed and struggled hard not to burst into tears herself. After a few minutes, Mr Weasley spoke again.
"We shouldn't have come here, we should be at home."
"Don't be silly Dad," Bill replied, "none of us wanted to go home, not tonight. We are better off here. At least here people leave us alone."
"Maybe, but at home, NOBODY WOULD BE STARING AT US!" He shouted the last part, causing everyone in the pub to suddenly grow very interested in their drinks as they desperately tried to avoid being caught looking.
"Awe Dad, don't you start shouting too." Ginny stood up and wailed at him through her tears. At the sight of her red eyes, Mr. Weasley welled up, he tried to say something to his daughter but his voice failed him. Hermione looked away from him to see Charlie signalling to her from the opposite side of the table. Catching on, stood and put her arm around Ginny again.
"Come on Gin. It's been a long day, why don't I take you upstairs to your room and you can lie down for a bit?" Ginny shook her head.
"No, I'm fine here."
"No you're not, you're tired and your upset. You'll feel better after a rest."
"Yeah go on Gin, you look shattered." Bill joined in. Ginny relented. She allowed Hermione to lead her away from the table towards the stairs. They didn't say a word as they walked up the three flights to the room the two of them were sharing. Hermione made sure Ginny didn't want anything and left her to sleep. She turned and walked slowly back down to the main pub, though she wasn't in any hurry to get there. At the bottom of the last flight of stairs she stopped as a fit of coughing took her. 'Damn it, I still haven't shifted this blasted cough.' She dug in her pocket for the bottle of medicine. 'Blasted stuff doesn't seem to do anything.' She opened the bottle and took a big gulp of the medicine. The coughing subsided, 'for now'. She leaned against the wall and tried to get her breath back. Damn that cough, she had been barking like a dog for two days now with no sign of it getting any better. Really this was beyond a joke. She had all the respect in the world for her parents but muggle medicine that was another thing. Her father had given her this vile stuff and promised that it would make her cough better, but it didn't seem to do anything except taste bad. She was looking forward to being back at Hogwarts. Madame Pomfrey could deal with this cough in a heartbeat.
"Are you alright?" She almost screamed in fright as Draco materialised out of the shadows beside her. She spun round and fought down another round of coughing.
"Jesus Christ Malfoy! What the hell are you trying to do, scare me to death?" Malfoy looked strange, like he was worried about something.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just heard you coughing and I wanted to see if you were alright that's all."
"Well in future don't go around hiding in shadows if you don't want to scare people. And I'm fine since you ask, its nothing, just a silly cough."
"Oh," he replied, "good." This did not sound like Malfoy.
"What's gotten into you?"
"What?...What do you mean?"
"I mean that you are usually hard set to even talk to me Malfoy. And now you're concerned about how I am?" He drew back, only then did she realise how close he had been standing beside her.
"Sorry Hermione, I was only asking. I'll leave if you're going to take it personally." He made to walk past her to the door, she reached out and grabbed him.
"Hermione?"
"What?"
"You called me Hermione?"
"Yes, it is your name isn't it?"
"Yes but since when do you call me Hermione? I'm normally Granger or," her tone turned sour, "Mudblood."
"Yes, well, not anymore." He tried to leave again, she held him back.
"Oh no, not so fast. What do you mean not anymore?"
"I mean that…well I mean that I don't care what I used to call you. I used to do a lot of silly things…Look I can call you Mudblood if you like?"
"Why would I like being insulted Malfoy?"
"Well you don't seem to want to be called by your name so what do you want me to call you?"
"Well…I guess…well Hermione is my name so…"
"Fine then, goodbye Hermione." Again he turned to leave, this time he got his hand onto the doorknob before she stopped him. "What?" He snapped.
"Don't go…"
"You want me to stay Gra…I mean Hermione. Whatever for?" His face twisted into a wicked grin. Hermione sighed, 'yep, the same old smarmy git'.
"Get over yourself Malfoy. I was going to say, don't go that way."
"Why not?"
"Because the entire Weasley family is out there." He looked at the door and then closed his eyes. He let out a long sigh.
"Oh."
"Oh, and I don't think they would appreciate seeing the son of the man who killed their son, their brother right now do you?"
"No, I don't suppose they would." He paused for a long moment before he turned and headed the other way, to the back door into Diagon Alley. He got ten paces before he paused.
"Thanks Hermione." He said over his shoulder. And he was gone, she was alone in the passageway, confused. Was that really Draco Malfoy? What the hell had gotten into him all of a sudden. She shook her head and went back into the pub. Ron and Harry were back, but they were sitting on their own in a booth by the windows. Hermione hesitated before heading over to join them. They made space for her without a word and she sat down. They just sat in silence for hours, no one said a word. As she sat there, surrounded by her friends pain, Hermione felt a little guilty because her mind kept wandering, she kept replaying the incident with Malfoy over and over again in her head. Finally they went to bed, she lay there still thinking about him.
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Draco marched out of the pub and headed down Diagon Alley, not really paying attention to where he was going. He just wandered, his mind focussed on a certain Ms Granger. Damn it, how the hell did she always manage to affect him like this. What the hell had he been playing at before, calling her Hermione? The first time he had done it had been an accident, a reflex, the Hermione he had dreamt about had insisted he call her that and he had forgotten that the real girl would have no idea why he did it. So he had made a mistake, a slip of the tongue, so what? Why the hell hadn't he just played it down? Put on some show of bravado and gotten himself out of it. That's what he had always done in the past so why not now? Maybe he was too tired, he couldn't remember the last time he had slept. 'Maybe I'm just tired of fighting her all the time'.
Where the hell had that come from? He searched his brain for the source of the traitorous thought but it eluded him. Tired of fighting? No, of fighting 'her'. He shook his head. No, not that, I don't think I could take that on top of everything else.
He was so consumed by his thoughts that he had failed to notice that he had wandered into Knockturn Alley. Thus far the hags and other locals hadn't decided to bother him yet, he had been lucky. He still hadn't noticed when he walked slap bang into a wall of human barring his path. He raised his eyes to look the person in the eye when he was grabbed from behind. He felt someone grab him and hold him. He heard the word 'Portus' in his ear and he felt the hook behind his navel and the world vanished. When it came back, he was suddenly free, his captors released him without a word. He drew his wand and spun around to face him but there was no one to be seen. He was alone in a small woody clearing, surrounded by shadows and trees. He took a breath and calmed himself, he pushed his senses out to feel the world around him.
At first he felt nothing, then a presence approached him. He turned to face the approaching person levelling his wand at the darkness before they had appeared he bellowed.
"Lumos" The forest was instantly illuminated, he could see the face of the person who was approaching.
"Hello Draco," his father said, "I think we should talk."
A/N: Short one this time guys but believe me we are nowhere near done yet. This is only the beginning of Draco's troubles.