Chapter 4
The moment he had seen his family's eagle owl sitting outside his window, he had known.
The Manor. 11pm
It was a simple line on a scrap of parchment, but Draco knew what it really was.
After two weeks of hiding in the Leaky Cauldron, he had been called upon.
Tonight would be his first night.
He couldn't help but to feel ashamed as he looked at the time for tenth time in as many minutes.
10:30… I'm already late.
With a sigh, he stood from the bed and made his way to his suitcase on the vanity.
Whenever his father stated a time, it was always understood that Draco needed to be there one hour before, so the elder Malfoy could brief him on the proper protocol and etiquette for the situation.
Not tonight, he thought with a sneer as he lifted the lid.
Staring back at him was a sight that struck fear throughout the wizarding world
A plain, white mask.
Closing the lid, he returned to his seat on the bed and looked once more to the clock on the wall.
29 minutes…
He continued to stall, making excuses to himself about why he couldn't leave yet.
When the clock reached 10:55, however, there was no more stalling, no more excuses.
With a deep breath, and a prayer to Merlin, he apparated.
It was cold.
That was the predominant thought running through Draco's head as he crouched in the bushes with Goyle.
The middle of summer and it has to be this bloody cold, he thought bitterly as he shivered again.
"What are we waiting for?"
Draco turned to his friend, who was having a hard time concealing his massive frame in the short row of bushes, and sighed. "Are you really so eager to get on with this, Goyle?" he asked irritably.
The other boy narrowed his eyes. "Eager to get it over and done with," he huffed, obviously insulted.
Shaking his head, the blond turned back to face the entrance of the house they were hiding in front of. "We're waiting for him to arrive."
The estate was out in the countryside, and was by all means very elegant… for a muggle. The grounds stretched for nearly two kilometers in all directions from the main building before meeting anything else. A well manicured lawn, dotted with trees and a spectacular garden, spread out in front of the main house.
All in all, Draco was utterly unimpressed.
Looking down, his sour disposition only worsened when he saw several insects making themselves comfortable on his seven-hundred galleon Siberian Ice-Tongue dragon hide boots.
An endangered species, it was only legal to harvest anything from their bodies once they were already dead – from natural causes, of course. Once they died, however, the freezing cold of the Siberian desert made their skin unworkable and impenetrable within a matter of hours. The only way to acquire anything from a Siberian Ice-Tongue, then, was through illegal means, as his father had, or to come across a merchant who had a streak of blind luck, as Draco had.
The blasted unseasonable chill was the reason he had brought these out with him tonight, and he was thankful that his feet were warm, at the very least. He wasn't exactly thrilled about anything else tonight, after all.
From what his father told him, they were here to kidnap a very important member of the House of Lords, of the muggles' Parliament.
The Slytherin Prince sneered at the thought. Who are muggles to consider themselves lords?
At that moment, a vehicle of some kind pulled into view. Draco racked his brain, trying to remember what it was called.
Draco saw a man climb out of the back, and all thoughts of the machine's name were forgotten.
This was the man they were here for.
Adjusting his posture, Draco steeled himself to make his move.
Just when he was about to stand and start throwing curses around, a small voice came from the door to his left.
"Why are you home so late, Daddy?"
Draco froze.
He couldn't help it.
There, standing not ten feet away, was a little girl. No more than six years old, she was wearing an overly large shirt for pajamas and dragging a stuffed teddy bear almost bigger than her. Draco couldn't help but smile softly as she yawned.
The man in question, Lord Nelson Maines, smiled as he walked up to her and swept her up in his arms, throwing her up in the air in the process. "Well, my little tart," he said, poking her nose and earning a giggle. "I had a very important meeting with the Prime Minister that lasted much longer than it should have."
"Well, you should tell him you need to be home to read me a bedtime story," she replied, stating what she clearly thought was the obvious.
The man laughed, and Draco noticed it was a hearty laugh.
The kind happy people have.
"Should I?" he asked, a trying to restrain his smile and remain stern.
The little girl nodded emphatically, her face serious.
Losing control over his features, the man's bright smile appeared like a rainbow.
It was comforting and awe-inspiring.
Draco couldn't help but wish his father smiled like that.
Before the scene could play out any longer, Draco saw movement in the bushes opposite him.
It was time.
Still, he couldn't move.
Even as Goyle rushed by him and attacked the bodyguards, bringing them down with a few rudimentary spells and his fists.
He watched in detached fascination as the Lady Maines, who had been standing in the door as her husband spoke to their daughter, turned to flee, only to have a green spark of magic slam into her back and send her to the ground.
Draco knew she would not rise.
He felt a strange sort of satisfaction as one of the bodyguards pulled out one of their explosive wands and managed to hit Avery in the side. The wizard stumbled, clutching his stomach.
Before the man could fire again, however, Goyle landed a solid blow to the back of his head, effectively knocking him unconscious.
The blond thought he heard his name, and started looking around in confusion.
Out on the expansive lawn, he saw the man running, with MacNair trying to keep up with him.
The older wizard was no match for the speed of a desperate man, however.
Green, red and blue sped past the racing man, who was clever enough to know the lights meant trouble if they hit him.
Draco, blood suddenly pumping, found himself running after them.
Quickly, he overtook MacNair.
Within seconds, he was close enough to the target that any spell he threw wouldn't likely miss, except by divine intervention.
"Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, coming to a stop as the spell left his wand.
A horrified and sick feeling came over him, and time seemed to slow.
For there, in Lord Maines' arms, was his daughter, looking back at him with absolute terror in her eyes.
Then the spell hit, and the man went down, the girl tumbling from his arms.
Shakily, Draco walked over to where they had fallen.
Move.
Draco sat on his haunches and started to shake the girl.
Move, damn you! Move, please move!
Suddenly, he felt a hand close around his ankle, and he spun around, falling the rest of the way to the ground as he did.
Lord Maines had a hold of him.
"Don't touch… her…" he growled, his face livid and pained.
Tearing his foot out of the other man's grasp Draco scrambled to his feet and backed away.
No, no… He can't be alive… Potter's the only… no… NO!
As he stood there, frozen in fear and disbelief, he watched the man crawl over to his daughter and cover her, trying to shield her.
Draco watched his breath come once, twice…
And then no more.
It struck him then, the sin he had committed.
Oh, Merlin… he thought before doubling over and retching, most of it landing on his robes.
How he ended up on the ground, he couldn't figure out. He looked up and saw MacNair standing over him, breathing hard and holding his hand out.
"First one's always the hardest, Malfoy," he said as Draco took his hand. "You'll get the stomach for it in no time."
The older Death Eater turned and walked away, laughing.
It took every ounce of self-control Draco possessed not to add the arrogant man's name to his death toll.
"Aurors!"
The shout came from near the house, and, as Draco looked around, he saw wizards popping into existence all around him, firing curses as they came.
Without a thought, Draco started throwing them right back.
He had become a marionette.
It felt as if he had surrendered control of his body; that his soul had been removed, and now he was looking down on the raging battle from somewhere high above.
Absentmindedly, he counted the number of Aurors he was facing.
Twenty-five, give or take a few, he thought, an insane laugh bubbling from his throat.
He watched as he spun and dodged the numerous curses that were all now being sent his way.
Twenty…
All the other Death Eaters who had accompanied him were either dead, or had apparated away as soon as the Aurors had appeared.
Eighteen…
Another fell to his flurry of curses, and Draco wasn't even sure if he was saying the words, or if the magic was just flowing from him.
Either way, his enemies were falling, one after the other.
Sixteen…
Not all who fell, died.
Draco was using a variety of curses, and only used the Killing Curse when there was a true opening.
So far, six were dead.
Fifteen…
Then he saw Goyle, fighting for his life.
He watched as he plowed through the Aurors surrounding him and made his way to Draco.
The blond picked off three wizards who had their wands raised to hit his friend in the back.
Twelve…
Goyle returned the favor quickly, rushing behind four who were foolish enough to group together. They were unconscious in a flash of fists.
Eight…
The remaining Aurors spread out in a wide circle, trying to contain the two Death Eaters who had decimated more than two-thirds of the Aurors at the scene.
"Give yourselves up!" one of them shouted. Draco thought he recognized him, but it was too dark to be sure. "You can't hope to win."
The Slytherin Prince began laughing again. It was an eerie, sinister laugh, and it gave the Aurors pause. The voice that issued from his throat sounded foreign to him.
"You've lost soooo many already. How do you think you can hope…" he stopped talking abruptly, as if forgetting that he had been talking.
Then, without warning, he was a blur of motion, and lights filled the small clearing, each of the wizards surrounding them falling almost simultaneously.
"… to win?" he finished, standing up straight as another insane giggle issued from his throat.
One.
Draco turned to the last remaining Auror and scowled.
The man's revolving, wild eye was fixed firmly on him.
Mad-Eye.
"Draco Malfoy!" the old man barked, causing the blond to flinch. "Grew up to be just like your old man! Hah! I knew you were nothing more than scum! Just like him!"
Draco returned to his body then, and stared around at the carnage around him.
He wanted to refute the ancient Auror's words. He wanted to say he wasn't a monster like his father.
But he couldn't.
He had killed.
So many were dead by his hand.
"Well, boy, come at me! You'll fail where so many others have!"
Draco looked up, tears running unnoticed down his face.
I have to kill him. He knows who I am. If he lives, he'll tell. I'll go to Azkaban.
I'll never get to see her again.
Looking down, he saw his hands shaking violently.
"Moody?" he asked, his voice quivering noticeably. "If I lose, kill me."
He looked up into the twisted face of the man who had opposed everything his family had ever stood for.
Single-handedly, he had put evil behind bars for more than fifty years.
But evil always rose again.
After staring hard at the boy for several minutes, the old man nodded.
Raising his wand, Draco let a sad smile cross his face. "I'm glad there are people like you in the world to stop people like me, Alastor Moody."
"So am I," was the old man's terse reply.
Then it began.
Two flashes of green met in midair and exploded, but neither combatant took notice, as one had took off running in a defensive dodge, while the other trusted in his defensive magic and instincts to keep him alive as they had for years.
Three flashes of red and two of white flew by Draco, each grazing his robes, but none actually touching him.
He was battling for his life, but he couldn't get in a spell edgewise.
The ancient Auror's reputation was well deserved, and quickly, the Slytherin Prince grew desperate.
Making a split decision, he rushed the Auror.
His seeker reflexes allowed him to see the spells coming at him and slip through the constant barrage.
Suddenly, he was behind the old man.
Without thinking, he spun and shouted.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Once more, time slowed as the man turned, grim resignation on his features.
He took the spell in the chest and fell with a sickening thud.
The blond snake felt his breath slow as he looked down on the legendary Auror.
I killed Alastor Moody.
It was an odd sensation, because he didn't feel sick, as he had before. He didn't feel good about it, by any means.
He just felt that the other man had wanted a death like this. Here, on a battlefield, instead of old and infirmed and stuck in bed.
"Draco?"
Blinking, he looked up at Goyle, who had been standing silently, watching the battle unfold. For some reason, he was too blurry to make out.
"Gregory?" he asked, unsure.
Then, his vision faded as the ground suddenly rushed up to meet him.
Hermione stared at her ceiling.
With a sigh, she turned and looked at the digital watch sitting on her nightstand.
Two twenty-seven… I've been lying here for five hours…
With a strangled scream, she threw the covers off her and stormed, quietly, out of her room.
She hadn't been able to sleep for three days.
Not since Harry had shown up at her doorstep.
Randomly, while her parents had been at work, he had rung her doorbell.
"Harry!" she yelped in surprise. She hadn't expected him to ever speak to her again.
"Hermione," he nodded, his voice tight. "This won't take long."
The chestnut-haired witch felt her heart breaking all over again at those words.
"O-okay…" she said quietly.
There was a long pause before Harry started speaking again, and Hermione could see that he was trying to keep his composure. He was trying not to explode.
"I spoke with Ginny, and we told Ron what happened between you and Malfoy. I was… upset…" he paused as an ironic chuckle left his lips. "You know me better than that, I guess."
Hermione smiled softly, because she knew that 'upset' was the understatement of the millennium.
"We just don't understand, Hermione," he huffed, finally losing his cool and throwing his hands in the air. "Why? How could you? You think everything through. You always make the most logical decision. You… You aren't… Why?"
Tears were running down her cheeks freely, and she didn't bother wiping them away.
"I'm sorry Harry, but I don't understand it either," she sobbed. "It happened. I had a lapse in judgment… I didn't want to be the normal level-headed girl I always am. I wanted to do something rash and thoughtless, something I didn't have to think about."
His emerald eyes grew hard. "So you did Malfoy."
"Harry!" she shouted, appalled at his word choice more than his accusatory tone.
Seeming to realize what he had said, the dark-haired boy blushed and shook his head. "Sorry, I'm a rodder, I know. I didn't mean for it to come out like that," he apologized.
There was another uncomfortable silence before he sighed and took out his wand.
"I just want you to know that I don't want to throw away our friendship, but I can't look at you right now without thinking about… it."
Hermione watched as he wiped away the tears that were threatening to fall down his face. "If you're ever in trouble…" he paused and took a deep breath, trying to calm his breathing. "If you ever need us, we'll be there. But, we need to time, right now. Okay?"
"Thank you, Harry," she whispered, not trusting her voice to speak any louder.
A sad smile flitted across his face before he nodded. With a 'crack,' he was gone.
Hermione sighed and shook her head to rid herself of the memory. Reaching the kitchen, she opened the fridge to see if there was anything she could have for a midnight snack.
Pulling out some pudding, she sighed and walked over to the couch, turning on the news as she did.
"…scene at Lord Maines Yorkshire estate earlier. The maid, hearing a commotion called the authorities. All we have been told at the moment is there are no survivors.
Hermione's spoon stopped halfway to her mouth as she stared at the screen.
There, hovering over the home of Lord Maines, was the Dark Mark.
"In a statement by Secret Intelligence Service Senior Director Charles Lockwood, the attack is related to the rash of terrorist attacks that have been sweeping England for the past year. Claiming responsibility for these attacks is a group of individuals known as 'Death Eaters.' Their leader is only known by the name 'Voldemort.'
"All victims of these attacks have been killed by an apparently untraceable means, as few have had any visible wounds and none suffered any fatal injuries. In the words of one coroner, all the victims seemed like they were 'scared to death, literally.'"
Hermione tuned out the rest of the news report.
I wonder where he is… she thought sadly, hoping against hope that he hadn't been involved.
Draco opened his eyes to stare at nothing.
That's what it seemed like to him, at least.
Ignoring his pounding headache and aching body, he sat up in bed and looked around.
White ceiling, white walls, white sheets.
Nothing but white.
Where in the –
Before he could finish his thought, the door opened and a man in a white robe walked in, looking down at a clipboard.
When he looked up, he seemed startled to see Draco awake, much less sitting up in bed.
"How are you feeling?" he asked in a thick Scottish accent, walking over to check some of the machines that Draco now realized he was hooked up to.
Instead of answering, Draco shot back with a question of his own. "Where am I?"
Looking up from some strange thing that had lines and kept beeping, the man smiled. "You're in Gogarburn Hospital in Edinburgh. Why? Where should you be?" he asked, a small quirk to his lips that made Draco want to punch him.
A muggle hospital in Scotland. Terrific.
"I should be in London," he muttered irritably, ripping off the things attached to him.
"Hey!" he shouted, making to hold Draco and stop him. "Don't –"
Before he could, though, Draco had him by the throat, his face an inch away.
"Don't. Tell. Me. What. To. Do," he hissed, throwing the doctor onto the bed. With a growl, he snatched his robe and boots from the bag he saw on a countertop and stormed out, a sea of confused looks on the faces of the nurses and doctors he passed in the hallway.
No one tried to stop him, however. Feeling his robe pocket, he found his wand and pulled it out. As he went to stick it in his back pocket, he realized he wasn't wearing any pants. Looking down at himself, he saw that he was only wearing a thin paper gown.
With another growl, he pulled his boots on, wrapped his robe around him, and continued on his way out of the hospital.
Goyle must have dumped me off here, thinking no one would recognize me, he thought, his anger lifting slightly as he thought of the trouble his friend must have gone through to get him some medical attention without raising any suspicions n the wizarding world.
Reaching the fresh, cool air outside, Draco paused to get his bearings. It was still dark outside, so he hoped it was still the same day.
After a few minutes of standing there looking lost, he remembered he had never been to Edinburgh and slumped his shoulders with a sigh.
Shaking his head, he took off down the street.
After walking for several minutes, he passed a store front that had several boxes with moving pictures on them.
Televisions, he remembered.
"And we bring you live to the scene at Lord Maines Yorkshire estate. Authorities are not letting anyone onto the property, and all we have been told at the moment is that there are no survivors."
The words struck Draco like a hammer.
No survivors…
He stumbled back, the shock making his limbs tremble.
Making his way to the alley beside the building, he threw up for the second time that night.
Tears began making their way down his cheeks as he leaned against the wall and slid to the ground.
He couldn't forget the terrified look on the little girl's face.
How she was clinging so tightly to her father.
The way her face looked when she died.
He sat there for hours, trying to force the images out of his head.
No matter how he tried, though, his memories wouldn't relinquish their hold on his mind.
The alley was dark and dirty, and refuse littered it.
It was a place he would never be in the light of day.
But it wasn't daytime.
The sun wouldn't rise for another four hours.
So he sat there, tears running down his aristocratic cheeks, vomit staining the hem of his black robe.
He stared at the sky, his vision blurred, and let out an inhuman wail.
Hermione sighed as she dried her hair.
It had been truly another sleepless night, and she had found that a shower was the only way she had been able to cope with the tiredness brought on by them.
If I were a weaker person, I suppose I would be considering suicide right now, she mused.
There was a sharp rapping at her window, causing her to jump.
She turned and saw a Daily Prophet owl sitting there, waiting to be let in.
After giving the bird a treat and a knut, she took the paper and sat on her bed.
She opened it and felt her heart stop.
Legendary Auror Slain!
Alastor Moody One of 11 Aurors Killed in Defense of Muggle Duke
In a successful attack on Muggle lord Duke Nelson Maines and family, eleven Aurors were killed, including the legendary Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody. Deployed to the scene at when sever magical disturbances were detected, the team of Aurors arrived too late.
According to several surviving Aurors, two Death Eaters managed to defeat the entire squad of twenty-five.
That leads this reporter to question the…
Hermione stopped reading when the article went into the normal opinionated piece most Prophet articles degenerated into.
Hesitating for only a moment, she threw on her clothes, yelled down to her mother that she was leaving, and apparated with a 'pop.'
She was going to Number 12, Grimmauld Place.
Author's Notes
Sorry, this took longer than it should have.
I was in the process of uploading the next chapter when this popped into my head. And the dangerous thing about ideas popping into my head is that they will not go away until they are assauged.
As always, thank you for reading
-Damien J. Frost