Chapter 2

Setting: Malfoy Manor, before the Battle of Hogwarts, spring, 1999.

Draco came back to Malfoy Manor for spring break. It had been months since his last visit. He didn't just want to go home, but he wanted to get away from Hogwarts as soon as possible. He had been banned anyway because word got out that he helped in the killing of Dumbledore.

Draco sighed as he sat on his bed in his spacious room in the farthest corner of the manor. He favored this corner of the manor because it was away from the Death Eaters who were rampaging about in the living room and kitchen on the other side of the manor. He liked to stay out of all that commotion.

Sunlight poured through the large windows of his room, casting a golden glow on the large Isfahan rug covering the floor near his bed. He stared at the floor before rolling his white dress shirt sleeve up to reveal the dreaded Dark Mark tattoo on his right arm. He clenched his fist together, until his knuckles turned white, and gritted his teeth. This horrible thing will be on him for life, branding him as a follower of evil. A monster. A person more hated than he already was.

It started moving.

"No…" Draco muttered with a tight jaw as he clenched his fists tighter. "No…"

He had no choice. He pulled out his wand and touched the tattoo with the tip. Disobeying an order from the Dark Lord meant one of the three unforgivable curses. He has seen them done in person before. And recently. He pulled down his sleeve, buttoned the wrist buttons, and pulled on his black suit jacket. Exiting his room, and closing the curtains with his wand, he walked down a hallway, some stairs, two more hallways, and another large flight of stone stairs until he entered his massive living room. He noticed that all the furniture was pushed off to the side, and the curtains were closed. The only source of light was a few torches lit on the walls. Draco frowned. His living room resembled the Slytherin dungeons at Hogwarts.

Draco looked around the room and realized that the Dark Lord was nowhere to be seen. Why was he even called?

"Draco," his father Lucious said, arm extended to him, and standing next to Nerissa, Draco's mother, "come."

He walked over to his father, and when he stood next to him and his black robes, several streams of black smoke filled the room, and when it dissipated, there stood the rest of the Death Eaters, grinning evilly. Draco held his breath as the Death Eaters stood in a circle in the middle of the gloomy room. Draco stood in the circle and stared at a green billow of smoke that appeared in the middle. What appeared was the lizard-like Dark Lord himself.

"My friends," he said in his cool, slithering voice, chilling Draco's blood, "welcome. We have a small matter to take care of today. Where is our special guest?" He looked around the circle, and shouted moderately, "Wormtail!"

A few Death Eaters moved out of the way as the stout man Peter Petigrew dragged a wailing young woman who had frazzled brown hair falling over her head. Peter dropped her in front of the robed Dark Lord, her face hidden due to all her hair falling over her face as she held her head down to the stone floor. She looked up at the Dark Lord, and some of her hair fell away, and Draco could see her full face from where he stood. His stomach turned and he felt sick when he realized that this young woman was his classmate in Slytherin House, Helena Bartley, a fifth year. The Dark Lord knelt down to her level.

"Now, Miss Bartley, do you know why you're here?"

She remained silent as she hugged her torso, and she shook.

"Your father caused us quite a bit of grief yesterday," the Dark Lord said. "Killing one of our Death Eaters."

That startled Draco. Someone killing one of the Death Eaters? He looked around and found that indeed, one was missing. He just didn't know who. He looked back at Helena, who held her head down again.

"Shall we teach your father a lesson?" he asked, his voice slithering out, and his face getting into hers. He stood up and pointed his wand at her.

Helena huffed through her nose and stood to her feet and pointed her own wand to the Dark Lord. She screamed a spell that sent a wave of red at the Dark Lord, but he deflected it. What happened next was a muddle to Draco, due to the sudden green, white, blue, and red lights flashing from wands, Death Eaters screaming and howling spells and curses, and people flying across the floor. Someone flew out one of the windows, sending glass shards in every direction.

Draco plastered himself against the side stone of the fire place, hyperventilating in shock and fear. He had to get out of there. He ran out of the room, down the main hallway, through a door, and down a couple flights of stairs until he reached a dark stone hallway lit by torches. He hyperventilated as he found himself staring at another wooden door, his heart pounding out of control.

Shouts were heard upstairs, and his breath hitched. Desperate, he flung the heavy wooden door open and shut it behind him. He leaned against it, heaving in and out and running a hand through his hair. His heart continued to pound furiously.

"Draco Malfoy?"

He jumped and his eyes dilated as he stared down the stairs he was at the top of. He saw a faint figure in the darkness. Alarmed, he pulled his wand out at the small form, thinking it to be a ghost.

"Who's there?" he croaked, "Who are you?"

"Luna Lovegood," said the airy voice.

Draco lowered his wand and felt a sigh of relief sink into his stomach. Luna Lovegood. He had forgotten that she was taken.

Draco stared down the stairs and saw that Luna had stepped up a few steps. His nose twitched when some light from a small barred window her her face. Her blonde hair was tied back and disheveled, and her clothes were a ragged, dirty mess. And she smelled musty.

"Here!" Draco heard from the other side of the door, realizing it as Greyback's animal voice. He sucked in a tight breath.

"You look very scared," Luna commented.

"Shut it!" Draco hissed as Greyback growled, "I smell him!"

Draco ran down the stairs, passed Luna, and looked around at the dark, dirt-floored room around him, desperately trying to find a place to hide.

"Are you trying to hide from the other Death Eaters?" Luna asked in her light voice as she stood at the foot of the stairs. "Maybe you should cast an invisibility charm."

"I said shut it!" he ordered, and hid behind the staircase.

He heard the dungeon door open. His heart nearly stopped. Not really thinking, he grabbed onto something and apparated out of the dungeon and landed on hard, grassy ground, face down in it. He immediately sat up, spitting out the vile stuff, and noticed that his hand had a hold of something covered in dirty red fabric. His eyes traveled up the thing and found that it was Luna Lovegood's arm. He let it go like it was a diseased animal, but Luna didn't seem to notice. She was looking up at something and smiling. Draco followed her gaze and found a tall, stone shack-looking structure, but looked as if it was torn through by some strong force, leaving it in shambles.

"What…?" he let out in bewilderment, then noticed all the debris everywhere around the yard.

"My house," Luna said, and stood up.

Draco shot up and stared at her, almost disgusted. "Your house?"

"Yes," she said, and a cool wind blew. "It was destroyed by Death Eaters after I was captured, and my father was sent to Azkaban."

She says that so lightly, he thought. No wonder she's considered 'Loony' Lovegood.

Draco ran a hand through his white-blonde hair and turned around. He was taken aback at the endless sea of yellow grass, a few trees dotting the distance, along with a small forest off to the southwest. How in the blazes did he apparate here? He looked at the disheveled girl walking around the yard. Oh. Luna was obviously thinking of this place. After being cooped up in the dungeons for a few months, of course she would want to go to her home. Honestly, Draco didn't know where he wanted to go when he apparated—he just wanted to bet the bloody heck out of there—so the spell used Luna's thoughts to find a place.

Luna continued walking among the myriad of debris in the yard. She stopped at a torn bush near the steps leading up to the wood and stone shambles. She picked up a little white and orange round thing and brought it up to her nose. Maybe a plum? Draco expected her to eat it, but she just set it down lightly on a piece of wood like it was made of glass.

"Of all the people…" he muttered. "A wooden block would've been better."

He slumped down in the grass, criss-crossed, and looked off into the distance at the on-going fields. His heart began to pound at the thought of the Death Eaters, or even the Dark Lord himself, coming to snatch him away and punish him for escaping.

Any moment now…