Author's Note: This one is a shortie. Enjoy! ;)
Chapter 6
In Between Places
Draco awoke to a hand stroking his head, smoothing his damp hair back off of his face. His mouth was extremely dry and his throat felt rough. As his vision cleared he looked up at his mother and her pale face was looking back down at him.
"Mother," breathed Draco hoarsely.
"Oh, baby," Narcissa whispered back. She bent down and kissed his forehead, continuing to compulsively smooth back his hair. "You're awake."
Draco struggled to sit up, his head still clouded with sleep. He realized that he was in a bed in the middle of what seemed to be a bleak, one-room cabin. Wind howled viciously outside the bare walls, and the one window across from him rattled in its frame.
"Where are we?" he mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and letting his platinum hair fall back into his face.
Narcissa looked around the cabin from her perch on the end of the bed that Draco was lying in. He now noticed that there was a tatty, dilapidated armchair in the far corner of the room near the door, and one small, wooden table near the bed. A candle sat on the table, burning and flickering feebly.
"This was one of your father's stashing places for all of our Dark possessions….He used it back when the Ministry was performing all of those raids. There's a storeroom underneath." She pointed to a dusty trapdoor that was laid in the floor. Draco wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't pointed it out. She sighed. "We never use it anymore, though."
Draco yawned widely and shivered; the draft, it seemed, was making its way through the walls.
"How long was I out for?" he asked his mother.
"Only since last night," she replied. "And you slept through the entire day."
Draco looked up at his mother, and all of a sudden the previous night's events crept back into his memory. A sickening feeling washed over him, and for a moment he felt as though he might vomit again. He had failed to kill Dumbledore. And now…now the Dark Lord was going to kill him and his mother. He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead and the air seemed to leave his lungs.
"Mother," he gasped. "Does…does the Dark Lord know where we are?"
Narcissa contemplated him for a moment and the wind howled even harder against the shabby cabin walls.
"I don't believe so," she responded finally. "Not as of now, anyway."
Draco stared at his mother, that nauseating feeling threatening to overcome him again. They were going to die. And it was completely and entirely his fault.
"I'm….I'm sorry I failed us, mother," he whispered, looking down at the frayed bed sheets. He swallowed roughly. "If we…if he…if anything happens to us…it'll be all my fault."
Narcissa placed a thin hand on her son's pale face. Draco saw tears well up in the corners of her eyes.
"Of course it wouldn't be, Draco," she said to him softly. "The Dark Lord knew that he was entrusting you with an extremely dangerous task…it was his revenge on our family for what happened at the Department of Mysteries. Even though none of it was Lucius's fault, the Dark Lord just needed someone to blame…" She scowled and looked down at the floor. "But…I still don't know where we're going to go to be safe. Sooner or later he will find out we're here, and this place isn't suitable for living anyway….Oh, what are we going to do?" she added quietly, more to herself than to her son.
Draco looked down at his hands, thinking hard. Suddenly, words floated to his mind. Come over to the right side, Draco….We can hide you better than you could possibly over to the right side, Draco….You are not a killer…Draco's mind raced, his heart rate escalading. What if they did go over to the other side? Now that the Dark Lord was out to kill them, they couldn't very well be on the dark side anymore…could they? What was the point in refusing help that had been so willingly offered? He looked back up at his mother, who was staring across the room mournfully.
"Mother…" said Draco suddenly. Narcissa was broken out of her reverie and turned to face him. "When I had Dumbledore at the end of my wand, I….He offered to help us. He said that the…the Order of the Phoenix could hide us better than anyone else…and well…what other options have we got?"
Narcissa stared at him. "The Order of the…but Draco, the Dark Lord—"
"The Dark Lord is out to kill us, mother. You can't honestly still want to follow him? What else are we going to do?" Draco knew he was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince his mother. She stared at him through blank eyes, and he could almost see the gears of her mind working furiously.
"I…I don't know," said Narcissa finally.
"We can ask Snape," said Draco, thinking. "Now that Dumbledore's dead, the Order of the Phoenix will be have no Secret-Keeper. So he'll be able to tell us where to go….He'd want to help."
Narcissa continue to gaze at him. "Yes…yes…we'd have to…it's our only…and the Dark Lord…we wouldn't have to really…" She trailed off for a moment. "But don't think on it now, Draco. In the morning…it's very late. You should go back to sleep."
But Draco's mind was whirling with thoughts, and even though he lay in that threadbare bed feeling so very heavy, he could not get to sleep again.
Author's Note: I hope you liked it…don't worry; I will do Draco's chapters better justice later in the story. He's growing on me :) Read and review: the good, the bad, and the ugly.