Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of these characters. They all belong to the one and only wonderful JK.

Author's Note: There is some dialogue toward the end that is not mine. It comes directly from the book because, in my beliefs, dialogue is fact- it happened- and to write it differently would be to sway from cannon. Whatever is familiar belongs to JK. The rest is mine.

.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.

Caught Between

In the past, Draco Malfoy had never really thought there was anything particularly wrong with mornings. Not that he'd ever been a bright, happy, cheerful morning person… well, for that matter; he'd never been a bright, happy, cheerful person…ever. Morning or not. But, he was perfectly fine with that. In fact, in the past, he had always had a relatively neutral attitude towards mornings. However, in the last year, he found himself dreading mornings increasingly as days went by. There was certainly nothing different about this particular morning to convince him otherwise. Of course, he realized with bitter reflection, that he was being ridiculous, holding a grudge with a non-living, inanimate event such as a period of time in a day.

Humph.

Draco rolled over, yanking the silky green comforter over his head as though blocking out the morning light would, in fact, make it not morning. While he was failing miserably to defy the laws of time, his mind raced with the events of the previous evening.

After he'd left the drawing room, thoroughly miffed and humiliated, he too, had retired to his room. He was fairly convinced that he had lost all respect from his father after the Dark Lord had ripped him apart, literally and metaphorically speaking. And he was angry with himself. He was supposed to be good at Occlumency. After all, he'd only learned from the best.

Aunt Bellatrix. Where to begin? Well he'd never really liked her. In his opinion, she was off her rocker, a real nut job. Her loyalty to the Dark Lord bordered on worship. He wondered if she'd been so nutty before Azkaban. In any case, the prison couldn't possibly have helped her mental state. But nutty or not, there was no denying she was a powerful witch. And it was she who had taught him what he knew about Occlumency.

That had certainly not been a pleasant experience. At first, she had invaded his mind completely. It bothered him that she had violated his privacy on such a deep level and there was no doubt in his mind she had taken great pleasure in doing so. He hadn't really been able to do much about it except think very hard about how much he thought she was a head case. She hadn't been terribly pleased, but it was the best he could do to save a morsel of his dignity.

Fortunately for Draco, he had always been a quick learner, however, and it hadn't been long until he had been able to keep her out of his mind completely and she smacked him on the back, called him good and pushed him out the door. Now, he was quite sure that she was still laughing about last night, knowing he was perfectly capable of performing Occlumency and had snapped under pressure. Draco clenched his fists. Fucking Aunt Bellatrix. Cracked bitch.

Draco had hardly gotten to his room and flopped back onto his massive four-poster bed when there had been a knock on his door and his parents had entered awkwardly. Draco sat up, glared at them and had looked away, sitting in a stony silence.

Long, awkward silences. Somewhere along the lines of this last year, those had become common as well. So common, in fact, that they were beginning to feel less and less awkward to Draco and more and more like a sense of normalcy. The thought of it was ridiculous to him. His whole life, there had always been someone who was constantly blabbering his ear off, either to keep him entertained, or boring him to death. Nonetheless… the presence of someone speaking had always been there. Until now. Ah well, he was finding he rather liked the silences and it was amusing watching others thrash frantically at conversation, trying desperately to fill in the gaping hole with idiocy instead of intelligent exchanges.

This was not one of those moments.

"Draco…" his father began, breaking the long silence.

"I want him out of this house," Draco had interrupted darkly, still not looking at his parents. "Get him out of this house."

Well, there was nothing like being upfront about things. Usually it worked for him.

"Draco, honey," Narcissa said, sitting next to her stony son who made a face at being called 'honey', "I want him out of this house just as much as you do. But he's done us a considerable favor by getting your father out of Azkaban. If it weren't for him, who knows how long he would have had to stay in that horrid place?"

But… he was safer there. Even Dumbledore thought so. Wait. Since when did heapprove of Dumbledore's thoughts? How disturbing.

"I don't care! No one asked me my opinion! No one asked me if I wanted him living in our house, sucking out all sense of normalcy like a bloody dementor! It can't be all that different from Azkaban anyway!"

Yes, there was definitely something different about the Dark Lord. He might even be more of a crack case than Aunt Bellatrix. But a hell of a lot scarier. And that was saying something, considering Aunt Bellatrix was pretty scary. Maybe the reason he looked so weird was because… maybe he was not human at all, but actually… part snake… Draco had always wondered what the Dark Lord did with that snake when no one was watching…

He smirked.

"Quiet! And what are you smirking about! There is nothing funny about this at all!" Lucius hissed, "Lower your voice and do not talk about him in such ways, Draco. That insolence is exactly what will get you in trouble around him! You need to realize that now or you will be sorry!"

Draco stared at him with wide eyes. Had his father just called him insolent? That was sobering.

"You made your decision to become a Death Eater, Draco, and now you need to follow through with your loyalties."

"Well, what was I supposed to do? I had to get revenge on Potter didn't I? He put you in Azkaban! No one told me --"

"And it was a very childish thing to do, Draco. You are far from understanding the ways of the Dark Lord, though you'll find out soon enough, I'm afraid. He used you, Draco, to get to me. And now you've made your commitment and you need to stick with it. In this world, it's kill or be killed, Draco. That's the way it has to be! You cannot back out now. In the end, it will all be for the better, for the greater good of the wizarding community. Eventually, purebloods will rule and all will be as it should."

Yes, yes and the sun will shine with eternal mornings and we'll all hold hands and skip and sing like happy little school children with no care in the world. Joy.

"Well, no one told me it was going to be like this! No one told me he was going to rip my insides into shreds!" Draco's voice was shriller than he'd intended.

"You were lucky, Draco, he was being kind on you tonight…"

"But it wasn't the first time, Lucius…" Narcissa said softly. "If you'd seen it on… on… that night… I thought… I thought he would end up like the Longbottoms…" she stifled a cry. She looked worriedly at Draco then at her husband. More unspoken words, Draco was sure. Wordless communication. How his parents managed to talk about him behind his back while he was sitting right there, Draco would never know.

Narcissa had then stood up from the bed and faced both husband and son, holding her head high and her shoulders back authoritatively. "Well. I know one thing. I will not have my family ripped apart by him. You will obey his orders and you will respect him, even if you don't like it! Both of you! We are treading deep waters here and we must stay afloat! We must protect each other!"

Draco stared at his mother. The only other time he had seen her like this was when she had tried to convince him against becoming a death eater. She was actually a bit scary…

There was a knocking on his bedroom door and Draco was brought back to the present that was happy, glorious morning. Yay. He groaned, whipped the covers off himself, and rolled out of bed. He padded to his door groggily and opened it.

"What?"

Narcissa took one glance at her bleary-eyed son and pushed her way into the room hastily. "Draco! Are you just getting up? Hurry! You know he expects us all to be timely!" She pushed him into his private bathroom to wash up and then ran to his large walk-in closet where she picked out a set of robes for him to wear. "Remember, he's holding that special meeting tonight too."

Goody. Looking forward to it, he thought as he splashed water on his face. He dried his face on a towel and pulled off his pajama top, reaching for the robes that hung on the end of his mother's arm.

"Oh, Draco, you're so thin…"

Draco ignored this comment and tugged the robes over his head hastily. She came up behind him, fussing until his robes were straight and neat. While she did that he reached for a comb and tried to fix his bed head. Narcissa grabbed the comb out of his hand and began wrenching it through his hair.

"Ouch! Mother, I can comb my own hair, thank you very much!" He snatched the comb out of her hand. "Honestly, Mother, it's only breakfast."

Narcissa sighed and peered at the gaunt and shadowed reflection of her son in the mirror. He looked as unwell as Lucius did and she frowned in concern. "We cannot give him reasons to be belittle us, Draco. I think you would find it in your best interest not to have him look down on you because he thinks you're lazy. Now, move faster, Draco, come on." She said, flicking her wand at his hair and smoothing a stubborn cowlick at the back of his head. "Ready?"

No.

"Come on. You look handsome today," she said, lying through her teeth.

.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.

Hermione stood at the stove, stirring a pot of soup absentmindedly. Her parents typically came home shortly after five and she wanted to get dinner started before they got there. Her aim was to be the best daughter she could be in the little time she had left with them, though she tried not to think about how the next few dinners they would have together may very well be the last. She shook her head. No. She had to think positively. She, Harry and Ron had the power to end this war and set things right. She needed to believe they could do it. It was absolutely necessary.

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway snapped Hermione out of her thoughts. It would be interesting to hear how things at her parents' practice would be working out, now that they were going to be leaving for Australia. She gave the pot one last stir, checked the heat settings and went to the entry to greet her parents at the door. She could hear them giggling as they approached.

The door flung open with a loud bang and Hermione barely jumped out of the way in time. Her parents flew past her in a blur and for a moment, Hermione thought something was horribly wrong and someone was hurt.

She quickly realized this was not the case.

Frozen in place and mouth agape, Hermione stared with a look of horror as her mother pushed her father lustfully against the wall kissing him hard on the mouth. In their fit of passion neither had noticed Hermione's presence in the room and she thought it better that she keep it that way. She watched, appalled, as her parents snogged unabashedly in front of her. She could feel the heat rising rapidly in her face and she quickly averted her eyes, darting frantically out of the room as though a hundred Death Eaters were chasing her.

Eep! Public display of affection! Public display of affection! Ahh! Merlin! Save it for later! I did not need to see that! Have some decency for heaven's sake!

Hermione rubbed her face with her hands as if trying to erase the mental images that were racing through her mind. Her head felt like it was spinning and she raced to the bathroom to splash water on her face. Well! She thought indignantly, this new… spunk in her parents' personalities was certainly not what she'd had in mind when she had altered their memories. She shuddered again. Deep breath, Granger, deep breath. They're just… happy that's all. She groaned. Merlin. She hoped they hadn't been so "happy" at the office today. She could feel her cheeks burning at the thought. Merlin. What had she done? One thing was certain—she needed to work on those memory charms… Quickly, she scurried out of the bathroom and returned to the kitchen, grateful to turn her attention back to the soup.

Hermione tried not to give her parents a disgusted look as they stumbled into the kitchen, still laughing and clinging to each other, looking thoroughly snogged. They were acting positively drunk, though Hermione was quite certain that they were not. She did, however, realize that with their current behavior it might actually be a relief to send them off.

"Hello, Hermione dear!" Mrs. Granger said, laughing and wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "You won't believe the kind of day we've had at the office today!"

I can just about imagine…

Hermione busied herself with setting the table and preparing a salad while her mother and father recounted the day's events. She tried very hard to ignore the googley-eyed expressions they were exchanging. Apparently they had made the announcement that they would be leaving the practice. And of course, this had spread a decent amount of panic amongst the coworkers.

"You're not going to just shut the place down, are you?" Hermione asked, trying to keep the panic out of her own voice.

Mr. Granger laughed, "Of course not! It would be a shame to see a successful business go down the drain like that! We're handing it over to Dr. Morton. He thought we'd gone completely bonkers when we told him."

I'm not surprised.

Dr. Morton. Hermione smiled. As much as she wasn't especially involved with the business goings-on at her family's practice, she remembered Dr. Morton from far before she had gotten her Hogwarts letter. Back when she had thought she would be the one eventually taking over the family business. Dr. Morton was an older man, probably about ten years older than her parents were, she figured. Her parents had hired him on when they had very first started their business. She'd always liked him when she'd gone in to have her braces work done. He was kind and had a pleasant sense of humor. In fact, he reminded Hermione a bit of Dumbledore. She smiled fondly at the thought.

"Of course, everyone seemed quite surprised that we were just up and leaving—Here, let me help with that—," Mr. Granger said, uncorking the bottle of wine that Hermione was struggling with and began pouring it into goblets. "-- but we explained that we just needed some excitement in our lives," Mr. Granger continued.

As if that will make everyone more understanding…

Hermione supposed this whole thing could almost be pulled off as mid-life crises though it was a stretch. A big stretch. Taking off for Australia and leaving everything one worked so hard for was a pretty drastic thing to do in response to a mid-life crisis. Times two. Hermione was convinced that she had made her parents look like a couple of nut jobs to their coworkers and friends. It made her stomach churn a little.

"There is, of course, paper work that needs to be done. That should hopefully be done by the end of the week. If not, I'm sure we can be reached by telephone if we're needed," Mr. Granger continued.

Hermione swallowed. She hoped things could be all straightened out before they left. It was key, because, in reality, her parents would not be able to be reached by phone. They would not remember that they were dentists or that they had ever been dentists in the past. They would not even know who they were, or even remember that they had a daughter at all. A pained expression crossed her face.

"Are you all right, dear?" Mrs. Granger asked while she helped Hermione butter slices of bread. "You looked sad for a moment."

She was sad. "No, it's alright, Mum," Hermione said, giving her mother a smile. "It's just all so sudden. But it's ok. You deserve to do something for yourselves."

"Don't worry, dear, you can come visit us on your holidays! Won't that be a nice change? And you can bring your friends with you too, I'm sure they would enjoy that."

Hermione smiled grimly.Yes. I'm sure they would. I'm sure they would enjoy it far more than the task they have to take on instead. The task we have to take on instead.

They carried the dinner to the table and sat down. Dinner was pleasant enough and was filled with happy chatter about Australia and the different things her parents would see and do while they were there. They even talked about doing some charitable dentistry work for some of the lesser incomed citizens. Her parents held hands over the table and gazed at each other lovingly. Well, at least they'd calmed down a bit.

If there was one thing Hermione could be sure of, the whole experience was doing wonders for their marriage.

.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.

Breakfast had been, to say the least, uncomfortable. Draco spent the majority of his energy practicing Occlumency while he ate. He found it rather exhausting, but he was sure that the rest of his family was doing the same. Except, perhaps, for Aunt Bellatrix, whose mind was almost certainly wide open, pouring out her adoring thoughts to the Dark Lord. Draco imagined that if he were the Dark Lord, Aunt Bellatrix's behavior would quite annoy him.

The day passed in unbearable slowness, but to Draco's great relief, the Dark Lord spent most of the day in his private room. With the snake. Draco did not like that snake. Sometimes, he thought it had an almost human mind, as though it understood what was going on in a way that most snakes, or any creature for that matter, did not. Sometimes, he caught it looking at him, and it was almost as though it could read his mind, was staring into his soul. Though it could not speak, Draco got the intense feeling that it had a personality that was very similar to the Dark Lord's. Cold. Aloof. Mean. Soulless. And those were understatements.

The Malfoy family was the first to enter the drawing room that evening. Draco would have preferred not to be there at all, but he knew that he didn't exactly have a choice in the matter. The room itself was hardly recognizable as the room they had been in only the night before. There was now a long mahogany table running the length of the room and it was surrounded by dozens of matching high-backed wooden chairs. The normally warm comforting lighting had been dimmed, so that the only light came from the fireplace, creating a cold, eerie atmosphere. The biggest difference, however, wasn't the room itself, but the unconscious being that hovered over the table, spinning slowly like some broomstick display in the shop window of Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley. Simply put, Draco was revolted.

The Dark Lord sat at the head of the long table, in front of the fire, which cast strange shadows over his face, grinning maliciously at the frozen Malfoy family as they stood in the doorway, huddled together tightly.

"Come in, come in, my dear Malfoys. It's terribly rude to stand there and gawk."

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco could see Aunt Bellatrix gazing upon her Lord with a sickening amount of reverence playing across her face. Draco, on the other hand, avoided looking directly at the Dark Lord. Simply put, the man was frightfully intimidating. And he hardly wanted his thoughts read as had been done the night before. He decided wisely, that he had a strong distaste for the Cruciatus curse.

"You will sit over there," the Dark Lord said, magically pulling four chairs out from the middle area of the table, directly beneath the revolving figure. Surprisingly, it was Narcissa who stepped forward first, dragging her husband and son by the arm. She stared ahead stonily, but with her head held high. They reached the chairs, and Narcissa sat, with Bellatrix on one side and Lucius on the other. Draco sat next to his father. They had hardly settled themselves when the chairs were pushed forward with unnecessary force. Draco felt his breath catch in his throat as his ribs collided with the edge of the table.

Ow? Did the Dark Lord honestly need to demonstrate his power every chance he got? Draco grimaced and adjusted his chair manually to a more comfortable position.

A deafening silence filled the room and Draco found he could not help himself looking up at the revolving body above his head. He hadn't noticed at first but now, taking a second look, he recognized her. She was the Muggle studies professor at Hogwarts. What was her name? Professor Bumgang? Durbage? Burbage? Yes, Burbage. That was it. Her long hair hung inches from the top of his head and he could feel the bile rising in this throat. There was something incredibly disturbing about seeing a professor being dangled in such a humiliating manner. It nauseated him. Not that he'd been looking forward to taking Muggle Studies or anything.

He heard shuffling and shifted his gaze to see Death Eaters entering the room. The Dark Lord directed them to their seats in the same manner he had directed the Malfoys and Bellatrix, but Draco couldn't help but notice that they were not pushed in quite as violently as his family had been. His eyes drifted back up to Professor Burbage. Why did he have her here, like this? Wasn't this treatment going a little bit overboard?

He recalled the days at the Quidditch Cup when he had thought it funny to see the muggles tossed up into the air, in much a similar manner as Professor Burbage was. Draco realized that it really wasn't as funny as he'd thought it had been. He looked away.

More Death Eaters were filing in now and Draco recognized one particularly wolfish looking man as Fenrir Greyback. He did not like Fenrir Greyback, especially after the event at Hogwarts not long ago. His blood thirstyness was sick. As if out of spite, the Dark Lord directed Greyback the open seat next to Draco. He edged closer to his father as the werewolf sat.

"Hello, Drakey!" Fenrir said in his low raspy voice, putting his hairy face close to Draco's. "How have you been lately? A bit surprised you're still arouuuund." He grinned with his yellowed, pointy teeth and Draco cringed. As usual, he smelled of blood, sweat and dirt. The werewolf was completely savage. Given permission, he was quite sure that Greyback would attack anyone in the room, Death Eaters… or not… Draco glanced up again at Professor Burbage and his stomach knotted. He did not have a good feeling about this.

All the seats were filled now but two. The one to the Dark Lord's right and one next to Dolohov remained empty. Everyone remained silent, waiting. Finally, Snape and Yaxley walked in. The Dark Lord scolded them for nearly being late and directed each to their chairs. Professor Snape sat at Voldemort's right hand side. This was the first time Draco had seen Snape since… that night… he couldn't even look at the man.

"So?" the Dark Lord asked Snape.

"My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his current place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall," Snape said in his silky voice. Draco stiffened. So this is what it was all about. Harry Potter. Of course.

"Saturday…at nightfall," the Dark Lord repeated slowly. He was gazing at Snape very intensely, and Draco recognized what he was doing. Legilimency. Draco knew from experience, however, that Snape was, actually quite good at Occlumency. And Legilimency, for that matter. When the Dark Lord smiled, Draco found he was impressed by Snape's abilities. Or was he? Maybe Snape really had no thoughts to hide. Maybe, deep down, he was like Bellatrix…

Draco could feel the anxiety building within him as Yaxley and Snape argued about the date in which Potter would be moved. There was talk about overthrowing the Ministry of Magic through means of killing the Minister of Magic. They couldn't just go around killing people like that… could they? The Minister of Magic? That was kind of a big deal. What the hell was wrong with these people? They were all demented and deranged. Every last one of them.

And what was with the Dark Lord's obsession with killing Potter? There was nothing special about Potter as far as Draco could see. He was just an attention seeking, hero wannabe prat who had to always stick his nose in where it didn't belong…

"I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best-laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be," the Dark Lord was saying, staring up at the revolving figure reflectively.

'I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.'

Why?

It wasn't like Potter was invincible or anything. Draco was pretty sure that the "Boy Who Lived" could die just as easily by any other hand. And he was also pretty sure, if he'd wanted to, he could have easily offed Potter with a slip of the hand in Potions class, but he was quickly realizing that this whole killing-whoever-I-don't-like attitude was quite unnecessary, even for him.

There was a wail from below and Draco stiffened. The wand-maker, Ollivander, whom Draco had gotten his own wand from, had been slowly withering away in his father's 'Dark Arts' dungeon under the drawing room. For reasons unknown to Draco, the Dark Lord felt the need to keep the man around even now, little less than a year since he had first been brought in as a prisoner. The Dark Lord ordered Pettigrew downstairs to do Merlin-knew-what to keep the prisoner quiet. The small, rat-like man scuttled off. This house, had indeed, turned into a sick place since the Dark Lord had risen. Draco's gaze shifted upward again.

"As I was saying," Voldemort went on, looking around. "I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one of you before I go to kill Potter."

He needed to borrow awand? What the hell? He might as well ask us to cut off our arms! Draco knew very little about wandlore, but he had thought the Dark Lord was supposed to be the greatest, most powerful wizard of all time, yet his wand wasn't good enough for him?

"No volunteers?" said Voldemort softly. "Let's see…Lucius, I see no reason for you to have a wand anymore."

What?! He can't just go around taking wands! Especially Father's! What was he trying to prove anyway? Draco swiveled his head around too look at his father. Lucius stared at the Dark Lord in astonishment. Apparently, his father was feeling the same shock Draco was.

"My Lord?" he asked, raspily.

"Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand."

"I…"

His father looked helplessly at the Dark Lord, and then glanced at Narcissa nervously. Draco saw her hand gripping his wrist under the table and Lucius slowly pulled his wand out of his robes. He handed the wand to Draco who gripped it hesitantly, then passed it to Fenrir to be passed down to the Dark Lord.

"What is it?" The Dark Lord demanded.

"Elm, my Lord," Lucius whispered.

"And the core?"

"Dragon—dragon heartstring."

"Good," The Dark Lord said, pulling out his own wand and compared it to Lucius's. Draco noticed his father twitch just slightly as though he though the Dark Lord would be trading wands instead of just taking his. Apparently, the Dark Lord noticed this slight gesture as well. The Dark Lord widened his eyes. There was a moment of silence, then in an instant he was maliciously mocking, verbally ripping Lucius apart. Then he turned his rage on the rest of the family.

Why aren't you happy with my presence in this house? Are you proud your niece married a werewolf, Bellatrix, Narcissa? Happy your sister married a mudblood? The Dark Lord was literally stripping them down, and putting them on display, pulling out all the skeletons in the closet, to be mocked mercilessly by everyone. Draco had never felt so exposed in his entire life.

Hadn't it been humiliating enough the night before, now he had to go and do it again in front of all these Death Eaters? Mocking them for merely being related to someone who had married a werewolf? Draco, for one, hardly knew his cousin Tonks. He'd met her, once when he was very young. He only remembered that she was funny, but Father and Mother regarded her with disgust, so he did the same. So she had married Remus Lupin, huh.

For as long as he'd known Fenrir Greyback, who had dropped by the house on many occasions throughout his lifetime, Draco hated werewolves. Perhaps it was because he'd assumed all werewolves were as bloodthirsty and savage as Greyback. But the prejudice had transferred over, once he'd found out Professor Lupin was a werewolf as well. It certainly wasn'this fault his cousin had married such a monstrosity. He hadn't even known about it. How dare the Dark Lord mock him and ask him to "baby-sit the cubs"! He felt utterly mortified.

In any case, the Dark Lord's insults towards werewolves were not sitting well with Fenrir and Draco could almost feel the cold, prickling aura that the werewolf was emitting. The air was very nearly prickling with static and it gave Draco the creeps. No. He really did not like Fenrir. Draco half expected the wolf to jump up on the table, ready to tear into anyone else who dare insult his breed. But the Death Eaters continued to roar with laughter, pleased to see the Malfoys knocked down from their pedestal more so then they were mocking Greyback.

"Oh please, Fenrir, do stop bristling. You know you're regarded highly by the Dark Lord," the Death Eater sitting on the other side of the werewolf chuckled. Fenrir snorted in reply.

The Dark Lord held up a hand and ceased the laughter, calming the snake, which had been hissing angrily at the laughter.

Oh no! You've irritated my snake! How dare you all! Didn't you know? Nagini is more loyal and more human than the Malfoy's over there, whom I mock mercilessly. No matter that I've made them feel like dirt, just as long as you don't anger my snake! Stupid bloody snake! Draco thought maliciously. He holds more worth in that stupid thing than any single one of his followers—more than any other person

"Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time. You must prune yours, must you not, to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest."

"Yes, my Lord," Aunt Bellatrix whispered, so desperate for the Dark Lord's approval, "At the first chance!"

Wait. What? Would she really go so far to kill her own sister's family if the Dark Lord told her? Would she go so far to kill her own sister? What the hell! You can't just… DO that! Wow, she was more cracked than he'd realized.

"You shall have it," The Dark Lord said, giving Aunt Bellatrix the approval she so longed for. "And in your family, so in the world… we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain…"

With that, the Dark Lord raised his father's wand and pointed it at the revolving figure, bringing her out of her unconscious state. She groaned and struggled, pleading weakly at Snape. Draco stared horrified at the scene before him and looked down at his trembling hands in his lap.Holy shit. This is so wrong.

"And you, Draco?" the Dark Lord was asking him. Did he know who she was? He glanced up quickly, shaking his head jerkily.

"But you would not have taken her classes," the Dark Lord continued, "For those of you who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Charity Burbage who, until recently, taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Hearing it out loud was more than Draco could take. He gripped desperately at the arms of his chair trying to steady his cold, sweaty, shaking hands. He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her! He knew it. He could not look at her. He could not look at anyone. He was actually having a hard time breathing and his heart was pounding.

She begged Snape again. Begging for her life. Draco was suddenly imagining himself in her position. Spinning helplessly, knowing he was about to die… Oh God… I think I'm going to be sick…

The Dark Lord silenced Professor Burbage. She spun helplessly now, with absolutely no way to defend herself, not even with her tongue. The Dark Lord now spoke about her with anger and contempt. About her beliefs and how wrong they were. How disgusting it was that she stuck up for mudbloods. How she'd rather purebloods didn't exist at all. She was probably in full support of Tonks marrying a werewolf. No one laughed at that this time though.

She was crying now. And her tears were falling on the table in front of Draco. He risked peering up at her one last time, the blood drained completely from his face.

At that moment, the Dark Lord spoke those two cold words that Draco dreaded.

"Avada Kedavra."

And she fell, crashing to the table, a crumpled and lifeless heap right in front of Draco. Wide eyed, he gasped and shoved his chair back so violently he fell out of it. From the floor he heard the Dark Lord say "Dinner Nagini." Draco was only vaguely aware of the sound of the huge snake slithering onto the long table before everything went black.

.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.

Author's Note:

Woot! This is the longest chapter I have ever written. (Celebrates) Twelve pages and nearly 6,000 words.

Thanks to ClaireF who helped point me in some useful directions when I was first thinking about writing this story.

A general note: Did you guys like the reference to Grindelwald when Lucius says: "For the greater good of the wizarding world?" I always thought the Dark Lord probably idolized Grindelwald a bit, seeing as they have the same ideologies. I thought he probably preached using the same words.

For the next chapter, I am debating what points of view I should write from. I want to write Hermione's point of view with the Seven Potter's parts. I have a couple of good ideas that I want to emphasize and they have to be written from her point of view.

I am also thinking about writing something from Ron's point of view. And maybe even something from Narcissa's point of view. What do you all think?

And a big big thanks goes out to Chaotic Veins, my beta, who made some very helpful changes in this chapter!

Please review! Reviews are the greatest payment fic writers can receive and they help inspire quicker updates!