Second chapter up! :D I love Severus Snape!
"Remember, a daily dosage of the pill, not less than twelve hours in between..."
"...one hour after eating, drink one full liter of water right after that." Draco said, bored. Every single time he went to retrieve the medicine, the doctor just had to repeat his boring instructions over and over again, even though Draco had already heard it about ten million times.
The doctor raised his eyebrows. He was a good man, the doctor. He had dark greasy hair, for which Draco had a feeling it was because the doctor did not wash his hair very often. His face was often sullen and sour, which made quite a lot of people not very fond of him (Roxanne was even scared of him), but Draco had interacted with him enough to know how nice he was on the inside. No one knows his real name, but he was especially hired by the Dark Lord to provide ammunitions and healthcare to the people in the castle. He charged everybody else, except for Draco, in which Draco had no idea why. He tried getting some money to pay off his medicine, but the doctor wouldn't accept it. So, Draco owed a lot to the doctor. If not for him, he would have died.
"You might think that it's boring listening to the instructions again, but it's essential. You have no idea the amount of side-effect it will have if you don't follow the instructions. And if your illness worsen..."
"Blah blah blah." Draco brushed off his remark as he grabbed his new packet of pills. "Bye, Doc. I've still got jobs to do."
"Don't run off like that without listening to all of my instructions. Remember, don't overwork yourself, and don't starve yourself too!" The doctor said.
Draco snorted. "Ptttf, as if they will allow that. Bye."
Draco always had this weird illness. He had no idea what it was, he just had them as long as he could remember. It's probably the same as Joseph's asthma, where you just get it from a very young age. He just knew that not eating these pills will result in horrendous effects. He remembered having a period of time when his eyes went blind because he had neglected those pills, and he could never forget how angry the doctor went when he was sent to him.
"Slave-boy! Clean this mess!" Someone called. Sigh, time for work...
As Draco cleaned up the floor, something struck him. He had no idea what his illness was, and what the pills contain. So it'll be a disaster if he ran away from this castle, away from the doctor, and his pills ran out. Seeing how the doctor treats him as if he had got terminal cancer and will die without eating the pills according to instructions, this post a serious problem.
Draco frowned. He wondered if the doctor would suspect him if he went back and asked for the ingredients of his pills. The doctor, no matter how nice he was, he was still hired by the Dark Lord, he was still one of his men.
Argh, damn this. Draco scratched his head furiously. He has to think of a way, he can't give up now, not after all these years of planning, dreaming and wishing.
"Hey, Draco, are you done with your work? Can you help me?" Dobbie, a house elf came up to him. Draco beamed. "Sure I can!" Dobbie was the nicest elf in the whole castle. Being a low-ranked slave-boy, he had been ordered around by almost every single person, from the Dark Lord, to the Masters, to the servants, some higher-ranking slaves, and even the elves had the privilege to order him around. Only Dobbie remained friendly to him. He even took care of Draco when he was young, and taught Draco some useful magic.
"You know, you can always use the cleaning spell I taught you last time to clean this mess up." Dobbie said.
"I don't want to create unnecessary attention just because a slave like me know how to do magic." Draco said.
"I did the spell on my own room though. It's clean as heaven now. Can you teach me even more of such spells?" Dobbie smiled. "Glad to be of help! Now, I need you to help me with these flowers, I'm too short..."
"The usual gatekeepers will be guarding the gates during the day, there's no change about that." Roxanne said. "But it's no problem, they get drunk really easily."
"And throughout the whole day the Dark Lord will be in his dining room, having a special feast with all his most precious and important Death Eaters before going for the main dinner. Apparently we slaves get to rest and play too during this time." Sebastian said. "Do you think this would be a trick? Their security measures are so low it's unbelievable!"
Draco frowned. "I don't think so. I mean, no one dared to escape for almost seven years now, and the Dark Lord's powers are really great now, do you see new Death Eaters walking around the place? It's natural to let your guard down during these golden period."
Sebastian still looked rather doubtful. "We're going to work ourselves really hard so that we can pretend to be sick, right?"
"Yeah, and I've asked doctor, he said everybody would be so busy we'll be left alone anyway." Draco said.
"Goodness, this is really too good to be true." Sebastian said.
Draco considered this for a while. "Alright, you might be correct. Let's come up with a Plan B just in case it doesn't work." Draco laid the paper over on the floor. "We should have a plan for in case the exit we figured out doesn't work, and another plan to save us from getting caught, and another plan to save us from dying if we ever get caught."
Sebastian and Roxanne gulped.
"If you say so..." They mumbled, obviously dreading the thought of being caught.
The three of them discussed their plan and worked out their back-up plans through the night. On the day of Voldemort's birthday, they will pretend to be sick. They would have to pretend to be really sick one day before, as real as possible. When everyone is busy, they will sneak out to the fifth level toilet that is hidden from everyone else, which has been malfunctioning because the sewer had been broken apart by Draco a long time ago. Disgusting as it may be, they will go into the sewer and follow the sewage to wherever it was disposed, which was definitely out of Voldemort's Lair. They will do all these discreetly, and after they reached out of Voldemort's lair, they would disguise themselves. Dobbie had taught Draco how to do a simple disillusionment spell, and they would run away as far as possible from here. What happens outside will be decided later.
Whoever and whatever that goes in and out of Voldemort's Lair would be checked stringently, even during a huge festival like this, but Draco really doubted that they would check on the sewers.
"So, with the plan finalized, all we need to do now is to gather as much resources as we can so that our trip would be successful. But make sure you don't make any obvious signs about planning to leave." Draco instructed.
"Yes sir." Sebastian answered.
Draco rolled his eyes. "I will get all the ammunitions and medicine from doctor, in case we will be injured, or infected by bacteria in the sewer." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You know, if we really did succeed in running away..." His voice was trembling with excitement.
"I would buy all the ice-cream I could ever buy!" Roxanne exclaimed.
"I would ride in those roller coasters they describe in the books!" Sebastian exclaimed.
Yes, if they really did run away, whatever that existed only in those books that they read will really exist. They do not need to work anymore, they would have freedom, and all those people from outside, they must be ten thousand times better than these Death Eaters! And best of all... Draco could barely contain his excitement... He could get into Hogwarts.
Hogwarts... A school for wizard, how he really wants to attend it!
The doctor blinked in surprise when he saw who the visitor was. "Draco? I thought I just gave you the medicine yesterday?"
"Erm, well, could I have more?" Draco asked. He had been thinking all throughout the night the best way to ask the doctor without arousing suspicion. Since he was always bullied when he was young by other slaves (now he was big enough to defend himself), using that once again would probably not surprise the doctor too much. "A couple of slave-boys had been laughing at me for coming here too often. I think it's better if I get more packets of such pills so that I can stop coming here for quite some time."
The doctor frowned. "No, this is no good. I need you to come here to check on your conditions consistently."
Disappointment and dread filled Draco. After he ran away, he could not ever come back for any more check ups, would his conditions get worse? "What sort of illness did I get anyway?" He could not believe he did not bother to ask of this question earlier.
The doctor shook his head. "I can't tell you. You won't understand anyway. It's just some disease that you will die if you do not take the medicine longer than one day."
Goodness. Draco gulped. He really needed the doctor to give him as much pills as he could get... "I promise to come back regularly for check-ups, but I really want the extra pills. Pretty please?" Draco tried to do the pleading eyes he did for so many girls who had fallen for it, but it did not seem to work on males, as the doctor was just glaring at him.
"Fine." He said, after a long time. "But don't lose it. It takes very long to make them."
"Thank you!" Draco smiled, grabbing the three more packets of pills. He would very much want for more, but anymore might just arouse suspicion again. "And Roxanne is injured, can I have some antiseptic medicine too?"
"Ask her to come find me."
"She's scared of you, remember?"
"Right." The doctor grumbled as he grabbed a few of his medicines. "Take all these to her, then. One of them should work."
"Thank you!" Draco beamed. The doctor had always been generous in giving his medicines to Draco, and Draco only. He had seen the doctor charging especially high for a minute amount of medicine for somebody else. In a way Draco was proud that he was special.
"Bye, Doc!" Yes, he was all prepared to escape right now.
Hope you enjoyed this second chapter.
Stay tuned for more xD