Disclaimer: Same as before, really.
A/N: Thanks go to the lovely Moonlight-6056 and Fireflychild999. You two are apparently the only ones who like this particular story, so you shall receive all the prizes I shall be handing out when it's complete. smiles So thank you both!
This chapter isn't all that interesting, in my opinion, but it gives you some insight into two of our main characters, so it's a necessary evil. There shall be much more action in the next one, so hopefully no one shall get bored.
Coming King
Chapter Three
Draco Malfoy was not pleased. No, to restate that gross inadequacy, he was incensed enough to kill. Even though he had sworn on pain of death to uphold whatever orders were issued to him, there was never any sort of agreement about him being happy about any of them in the least. How many subordinates of an evil overlord are truly happy anyways? So long as he did as he was told like a good little Death Eater and was always the model minion while in his lord's presence, he could bitch and moan to the most far reaching extent of his abilities. So long as it was silently and to himself, that is. This was one of those situations.
For the first time, Draco was almost considering throwing in the towel and becoming a free agent. To whom, he didn't know, but he was very nearly fed up with just about everything. No more of this scraping and bowing nonsense for him. It was almost getting to be just the slightest bit melodramatic. Yes, he wanted to be treated like an adult for once, but there were times when all he really wanted was to throw a tantrum and pitch a fit until his father promised to fix everything to his liking. That's how his entire childhood had worked, old habits die hard.
But there was no father to protect him now. No, father was in Azkaban with all the other nasties of the world. And it wasn't fair. The bastard, getting himself locked away. It was a stupid oversight of his and now his son was having to pay the price. Not because Draco actually truly cared for his father, that was far too much to ask from the son of pureblood. No, he was so terribly upset because he would have done basically anything to get out of this crap assignment that the Dark Lord had so graciously bestowed upon him.
While everyone else got to have a rollicking good time torturing and killing Muggles simply for the sport of it, Draco was forced to go on some silly secret mission. They would all get to wear masks and black cloaks while he had to wear beat up traveling clothes in an effort to blend in. Malfoy's, as a rule of their entire lives, did not blend in! They got to make the front page of every wizarding newspaper around the world while he had to go tramping through the muck to find a man who may not even exist. Malfoy's do not tramp and even if they did, it most certainly wouldn't be through any sort of muck! They got to have all the fun and he had to do all the stupid undercover work. It just wasn't fair. He never even got to fight! This was almost worse than the stupid research teams he'd first been assigned to. And even then he hadn't been on the lead team. That would have been so much more befitting to his standard of life; they at least got to research interesting things.
When Draco had first signed up for this job, he'd expected something a bit more glamorous then covert operations. Was that really so much to ask for? I mean, really, the son of the second in command to the darkest wizard of all time and all he got to do was go on a wild goose chase all over England. How dumb is that. Why He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would even need a crazy psycho was beyond Draco anyways. He had plenty already, why waste time by going searching for a new one? There were dozens of them waiting in line to be found, they'd sought him out, even. He'd even thought that with his father gone, maybe the dark lord would choose him to be his successor, but no. Not a chance.
On the outside, Draco was striving to be the very model of evil and make his mother proud, but it was just so difficult. Who ever would have guessed that evil was such hard work? Back in his school days it just came naturally to him, there was no one who could escape his wrath. Not even Potter himself! He was looked up to and feared, everyone knew his name. Younger students would only whisper his name they were so terrified. They told each other horror stories of the Slytherin prince, the one who would come for them if they weren't in bed by curfew. But now, now was a different story entirely. No one in the Death Eater ranks was scared of a nineteen year old blonde. They just weren't.
No matter how many Muggles Draco killed or how many times he glared menacingly at them, they just wouldn't respect him. So on the inside, he was an outraged three year old, beating his tiny fists on the floor when things wouldn't go exactly how he planned. It even seemed like the dark lord himself was simply tolerating him, tossing him an idiotic mission every now and then simply to make him happy. He tried to be the best lapdog he could, but it was just too much work.
An owl tapping at Draco's window made him look up from his self pity gathering most apathetically. Oh super, one of those secret communiqués that you read about in cheesy novels was waiting to be admitted inside. The boy let out a long suffering sigh and pulled the window open, scowling all the more fiercely at the rain that blew in along with the insignificant looking bird. No one was even allowed to use the more ostentatious and showy delivery owls that most of the dark lord's followers had. Apparently they were too easy to trace. So not even the mail could come in style anymore. He personally thought that if only the followers of the dark lord were sending messages via boring birds then the Ministry might have caught on to something by now, incompetent fools that they were. Muttering to himself, Draco ripped open the letter, dully noting that it was from Severus and should be destroyed after it was read, utmost importance, and the rest of the usual blah blah blah.
Draco scoffed to himself at the contents of the letter, shooing the owl back out of the house. If it had stayed in any longer, the whole place would have started to stink of wet bird and that was just too much to contend with along with such annoying news. Apparently Harry Potter was also on the lookout for the mystery man, or so their secret Order of the Phoenix spy would leave him to believe. Honestly, everyone knew who it was, why couldn't they just be open about it? Everyone knew he was stuck on research duty, why not let everyone know Severus was a spy? It was practically the same thing anyways.
So maybe when Potter got there they could all go out for tea together before they killed everyone in a twenty mile radius in an attempt to rid the world of the other. Try narrowing your search to the area of Tayside, England, the letter read in not so many words. That was the direction Potter was heading. Oh right. Just follow Potter wherever he goes. Surely he wouldn't get suspicious that way. It wasn't like he was trained to know when he was being tailed or to be able to tell if another wizard was within the area And perhaps he was just going to visit a sick aunt or something in Tayside. Not everyone is automatically looking for a murderer whenever they go out of town for a few days.
And why would he want to follow that scruffy headed creature anywhere? Why would he want to follow Potter's lead when he was perfectly capable of making his own conjectures, thank you very much. He crumpled the piece of parchment into a ball and tossed it into the fire, watching as the red wax seal melted and imprinted itself on the fiery logs. This sucked.
Draco sighed. His anger had been replaced by a serious case of pouting. It just wasn't fair.
---
Hidden green eyes flicked warily over the sign in front of him. The Counting House, it read in messy letters, almost unreadable for the amount of dirt obscuring it. The piece of metal was hanging suspended by a solitary chain, the other having snapped years ago if the rust coating it was anything to go by. No one cared enough about it to have the links repaired, so the building had fallen into disrepair, a rather dilapidated and unwelcoming feel clinging to it. The windows were filthy, so covered in grime that Harry couldn't have seen through to the inside even if he had been granted with perfect sight.
The walkway leading up to the swinging entrance was cracked, plants growing up between the stones in their attempt to take back what had once been theirs. It looked as though they were stained with a good many unmentionable things and a wrong step could send you tumbling onto the unkept, perhaps flower beds. The overall effect of the entire vicinity was one of unease. The boy who grew up too fast had been many places far more outwardly intimidating than this, one doesn't track down Death Eaters in the nicest of areas, but none of those places had ever had this sort of effect on him. He'd been trying to gather the courage to actually go inside all night, but to no avail. He didn't know what would be waiting for him inside.
Actually, he did know. And that's what was making his so terribly afraid. He was waiting for himself inside the bar. Somewhere inside there was a darker version of himself, a man who he could easily become with the slightest push. That was also waiting for him. The push that would send him over the edge, the push that would make him into someone the likes of which the world had never seen before. And Harry was afraid. Yet he was also intrigued. And if the pounding in his chest was anything to go by, he was almost excited, if that were possible. But the worst part of it all was that he didn't understand. Harry had made it a point through all of his young life to know what was going on around him, to know that he was at least marginally in control of the situation. Even when he was being manipulated and pushed around like a pawn, at least he knew how it was going to end.
This scenario, he had no idea how it was going to play its course. There was no telling what would happen to him once he stepped inside. There were too many variables, too many possible outcomes. Did he even want what was being offered to him within the dank confines of the Counting House? Nothing like this had ever been extended to him before, but he had also never gone looking for such a thing either. There were so many questions that he needed to ask, questions that were ripping larger holes in him that couldn't be filled by things like the Order or his so called friends. He needed the help of a stranger, someone who wouldn't judge him as the hero who had finally gone astray.
It had only been a matter of time. No one could stay pure forever. Not when they were forced to take in the horrors of war every day since they were only a child. No one could grow up in such an atmosphere and expect to escape unscathed. An orphan, cast into a dark and troubled world all alone could never hope to make for himself a decent life, not when they were the one that everyone else was counting on to give them the very same thing. They merely saw him as the scapegoat, the one heroically taking the fall so the rest of the world could live happily ever after. One life is worth far less than thousands, everyone knew that. But Harry knew that it was time to fend for himself, to not think about all the people he would never know and finally look out for number one. It was just him.
Reality had left him more than a year ago, but it was only just now that it was starting to actually show. Thank god no one could actually see him as how he was, the world would be in a state of panic. They wouldn't be able to comprehend why their hero was slowly closing in on himself, going outside less and less, choosing instead to stay inside with his darkness. It was soothing there. There were no bright lights and inquisitive eyes. No questions that he couldn't answer, no mothers crying over lost sons and daughters, thanking him with their words but blaming him with their minds. He could see it in all of their eyes. Whenever a life was lost, his was praised, they all claimed they were glad he was still living and strong, but in truth they merely wanted their loved one back. Harry had no loved ones. And he hadn't been given that title by anyone.
So what was the point? He had no reason to live through this war for there was no one that really wanted him to. If he died in the course of it, they would have banquets in his honor, monuments would be erected in honor of the boy who died, there would be holidays named after him. But would anyone actually care? Not bloody likely. He was the only one looking out for Harry Potter, what would it matter if the world lost him to the war or lost him to the darkness within himself? Either way they could find a new hope for themselves, someone else to take his place.
No. Harry shook his head to clear his thoughts, praying to whatever god was listening that he wouldn't have these sorts of ideas. That he could do his job and go home, get the rest he so dearly needed and deserved. A cold rain had begun to fall and he pulled his cloak around him tighter. Maybe tonight wasn't the best time to be looking for the man. He probably wasn't even out in weather like this, no sane person would be. Harry bit back a bitter laugh at the irony of his thought.
The man he was looking for was the farthest from sane that anyone had ever seen, so maybe he would be out in the cold and the damp. The boy sighed, at least now he knew that the man was a Muggle, that was a step in the right direction. There wasn't even the faintest tingle of magic in the air, there couldn't be a wizard around for a hundred miles. The deadness of the night almost worried him, it wasn't natural. He had to get home. There wasn't anything else that could be done in conditions like these and no one would begrudge him some time by the fire before he apparated back to finish his assignment. There was no shame in what he wanted to do, anyone else would have, had they been in his position.
Harry turned on his heel to go back to his apparation spot, but stopped abruptly, his eyes widening as his heart all but stopped beating in his chest. It was him.