Chapter four up! Hope you enjoy this.
Draco sat on the chair, unwilling to say anything else more. The interrogator had been very annoying, refusing to accept anything Draco had said, claiming it as 'bullshit'. Seriously, what the hell is this?
"I'll ask just one more time: where did you come from, how were you able to break into the highly protected Muggle bank, and what is your motive?" The interrogator shouted firmly, slamming the table in front of Draco and glaring at him. Draco glared back. He was tied to his chair, so he could not whip a punch at that man's annoying face like he wanted.
"I told you, I ran away from Voldemort's Lair, how many times must I tell you?" Draco shouted back.
"So, you won't spit out the truth." The man grabbed Draco by the collar and punched him. "Then I'll force it out of you!" He gave Draco a few more hard punches that Draco had a feeling that his nose probably broke under the impact.
"DRACO!" Draco could hear Roxanne screaming for him in the other room. "Don't hurt him you bastards!" He laughed slightly at Roxanne's protests. Even though it was heartwarming that Roxanne stood up for him, but doing this might get her a good beating too.
"Stupid bitch..." The interrogator mumbled under his breath. Draco felt his fury pumped into his head as he spat at the man in front of him with hatred without thinking of the consequences.
Which was real bad.
By the time the man was finished with him, he could feel as if his whole face was bleeding non-stop.
"Stop it." An old man walked into the room. He peered at the interrogator, apparently very angry, as he ordered him to go out. The old man, despite being so old his white hair fell all over him, his aura of authority glowed like a sun.
Draco stared at the man as he sat down opposite him. The man took out his own stick and pointed at Draco. Draco flinched on instinct, but he felt no pain. Instead, the blood on his face seemed to be disappear. He touched his face. Indeed, it was as clean and smooth as ever. Even his nose was fixed.
"So, they tell me you said that you escaped from Voldemort's Lair. Is that true?" The old man asked amiably, with a completely different tone from what he used on the interrogator.
"Yes, but they do not believe in it." Draco said unhappily.
"Of course they don't. It's quite hard to believe, I must say." The old man said, as he untied Draco. "My name is Dumbledore, and I'm the headmaster of Hogwarts. What's your name?"
Headmaster of Hogwarts? Draco thought as his heart gave a leap. "Draco. Sir." It's hard not to trust this man, Dumbledore.
"Who are your other two friends?" Dumbledore took out two glass from under the table and started pouring water onto them.
"Sebastian and Roxanne."
"How old are you?"
"I'm not sure exactly, but I should be 15."
"15..." Dumbledore nodded. "Would you mind telling me your adventures of escaping the Voldemort's Lair, when nobody in the world had managed to do it?" Dumbledore passed a glass of water to Draco. Draco took it and gulped it down, not having eaten nor drank anything since he had last left Voldemort's Lair.
"It's not that hard actually." Draco said. "Maybe because I had lived there for as long as I can remember, so I know every nook and cranny of that place. I just dug out an entrance to the sewers, and well, I had a feeling that the sewer would lead to somewhere out of that place, since I don't think the Dark Lord has his own waste removal system. And then today was his birthday, and because nobody had dared to escape for a very long time, he must have thought it was impossible to have anybody trying to escape on his big day, so everyone was very busy and security was low too, and we managed to run away without anybody noticing."
Dumbledore rubbed his chin and mused. "It was that easy?"
"Yeah, actually I'm quite surprised at how well it went today, I was prepared for a fight with some of the Death Eaters actually, but no one noticed."
Dumbledore peered at Draco through his half-moon glasses. He took a sip of his glass of water before asking the question that Draco had always wanted him to ask. "How do you think of going to school in Hogwarts?"
Draco stood up almost immediately, pushing the chair onto the ground harshly. "I do! I...I mean I've always wanted to go to Hogwarts, like it has always been my dream, and my motivation for escaping in the first place..." Draco trailed away, embarrassed.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Really? What an interesting fellow you are, running away from home to go to school?" He stood up. "Alright, tell your friends to get ready, as you three are going to attend Hogwarts starting from next week."
"Yes, sir!" Draco could not contain the amount of joy in his heart. This is too good to be true. He had never expected him to be accepted into Hogwarts so easily. After all, he was a slave of Voldemort's Lair. He beamed in joy as he started to rush towards Sebastian and Roxanne to tell them the good news.
"We have second hand textbooks. The condition might not be good, but you'll have to bear with it for a while." The uptight headmistress said. "But as for wands, it is necessary for you to have your very own wand, so we would have to get you children your own wands from the very best wand maker, Ollivander."
The three friends looked at one another uncomfortably. "Professor McGonagall, we don't have money..." Draco said uneasily.
Professor McGonagall smiled amiably. "It's alright, we will be assigning tiny jobs to you in school for you to do. By completing them you will be able to pay for your school fees and the money for your wand. Take it as if you are in debt to the school." When the three of them exchanged worried looks, she added reassuringly. "Don't worry, we won't make you work that hard, it'll be simple jobs such as cleaning Dumbledore's office and such. Anyway, Hogwarts is a school that aims to allow every single wizards to be able to learn magic despite family backgrounds, so you don't have to worry so much."
"Thanks, Professor." Sebastian said.
They walked down an alley called the Diagonal Alley. It was bustling with people, laughing and happy people enjoying their times talking and joking with one another. Draco just could not take his eyes of the people and the buildings and the stores. This place was filled with energy and joy, and the people of the outside world really looked ten thousand times nicer than the Death Eaters.
"Here we are, the Ollivanders, makers of fine wands since 382 BC."
They entered the old and shabby shop, and an old man with barely enough teeth to fill his mouth greeted them with an eerie smile. "Welcome, Professor, rare to see you walking around Diagonal Alley." His voice was husky and weak.
"We have special students this year, so special arrangements have to be made." Professor McGonagall explained. Ollivander stared at the three of them curiously.
"Hmm, special students, how old are they?"
"They should be around fifteen."
Ollivander looked at the three of them, but he seemed to have decided to fix his stare at Draco more intensely, which made Draco really uncomfortable. He gazed at Draco as if he was some interesting object, and then slowly turned around to his shelves piled with boxes if wands. "Alright, come on in and try some wands."
Ollivander took out a few boxes of wands. "Who's first?" He asked, taking out a measuring tape. Sebastian stood forward, looking excited.
"Hold out your wand hand." He ordered. Sebastian held out his right hand obediently. The measuring tape started measuring Sebastian's arm length, shoulder length and height. Ollivander carefully picked a wand. "Try this, mahogany and phoenix feather, eight inches, bendy."
Sebastian took the wand and waved it around, looking bewildered. Ollivander grab the wand away. "No, no, this is not good, try this other one."
Draco looked away from Sebastian and stared around at the shop. The shop was rather cramped, and it was as dark as the storeroom back in the Voldemort's Lair, with the same creepy feeling. Boxes were stacked high up, all the way to the ceiling. Do all the boxes contain wands like the one Sebastian was trying? He thought as he carefully edged closer to the boxes, staring hard at each of them. Wands...so that's what the Death Eaters have been using all these times. Do they enhance your magical abilities or something?
There was a grumbling sound. Draco frowned as he saw that a box from the top of a stack was shaking uncontrollably, making such a huge ruckus. Could that be a defective wand in the box?
"Erm, Mr. Ollivander..." Draco started, walking towards the old man, wanting to inform him of the unnatural wand. Before he could do anything, the box suddenly sped towards him, knocking off a few other stacks of boxes, and hitting him to the floor. He almost hit Roxanne, who was the one trying the wands.
"What the- " Draco gasped as the wand broke out of the box, shaking and vibrating like it was suffering from spasms.
"What did you do, Draco?" Professor McGonagall berated.
"I...I didn't do anything...really..." Draco stammered, as the wand continued jumping up and down hysterically. It leapt up to Draco's hand, and it immediately stopped moving after Draco held on to it.
Draco blinked. Could it be...that the wand flew all the way out just to be held by him?
"Oh, I see you've got yourself a wand." Ollivander said, "Go on, try it, wave it a bit."
Draco waved a bit, feeling stupid. Before he had the chance to even open his mouth to ask whether if he need to utter any spells, a strong spark shot out of the wand, attacking the wall opposite him, causing the surrounding boxes to catch fire.
Draco gasped. Everybody just stared at the damage he had done, mouth agape.
"I...I see I've gotten yourself a really powerful wand." Ollivander said, taking the wand away from Draco, while putting out the fire. "Elder, thestral tail hair, eleven and a half inches, nice and supple, perfect for any kind of spells. And it seems to have chosen you almost immediately. Thestral hair is my very first experiment, some wandlore states that it is a really powerful magical core for the wand, but so far, no one have been able to use it properly. No one, but the Dark Lord, of course. He was the only wizard whose dark magic is so powerful that he could use a yew and thestral hair wand. I am about to throw this wand away since it does not choose anybody at all." He stared at Draco, giving him the wand. "But it has chosen you, my friend. Curious, eh?"
Draco gulped, taking his wand. A wand with an extremely powerful magical core had chosen him, that was supposed to be a good thing, right? But the stunned and horrified look on Ollivander and McGonagall seemed to state otherwise.
"Alright, miss, your wand, mahogany and unicorn hair, nice and supple. That'd be three wands, and twenty one galleons."
They left the shop. Professor McGonagall brought them back to Hogwarts and introduced them to the important parts of the school. But Draco seemed to have noticed a slight change in her expression as she was talking to him. An expression with... Caution? Wariness? Draco sighed and looked at his wand. The wand felt so good on his hands, seemed perfectly carved out just for him, and it stuck to him nicely like a magnet. Is there something wrong with this wand?
"Excuse me, are you three the slaves who had escaped from Voldemort's Lair?" A stout woman with unusual taste of clothes said.
Draco stared at the woman dubiously. What could this peculiar woman want from them?
"I am Rita Skeeter, a reporter from the Daily Prophet. Can I ask for an interview with these three brave young souls?" She asked coyly, but Draco was deeply disgusted by the sweetness in her voice.
"I'm sorry, our students need their privacy." Professor McGonagall stood in front of them authoritatively. "I think an interview is out of the question."
"How about some pictures? Or some words of thoughts or something?"
Draco watched as Professor McGonagall pushed Rita Skeeter away, thinking how cool she looked. Hogwarts seemed great. The Professors in Hogwarts seemed nice, and they were very dedicated to their work and their students, it was all very heartwarming. Draco smiled. He was really going to like it here.
End of chapter. Hope you enjoyed. :p anyway I'm sorry if Draco seemed really out of character. He's supposed to be... A little... Well, his cunning side will show soon! ;)