8- Now you see me. Now you don't!

The birds were flying away. Harry noticed that as he lied on the grass of the Quidditch field. The practice was over and he would have to get moving for the detention soon. But he wanted to enjoy the feeling of solitude till hell broke loose.

He thought of the quietness of the afternoon like calm before the storm.

Hew didn't want to see Draco. He had spent his weekend sleeping in and then walking around Hogsmead with Lupin talking about nothing and everything. He had also let Snape's lecture sink in and had time to get used to the thoughts it brought up.

But now he felt ready to cry, even. How could things be so fucked up so early in someone's life? He wondered if he would ever enjoy a normal year of his life. He had wanted to go out with girls, but got stuck with a boy as a vampire's mate.

Anyway, all the girls at Hogwarts only annoyed him, as had most of the girls during summer.

But he remembered Ann. She was something to remember. She would have been perfect if she hadn't stood him up after a first date that had gone so fine.

But he was determined not to fall once again in self-pity. So he rose up and started walking towards the castle and eventually for the Potions classroom.

After sitting a half an hour in the stuffy room and listening to Snape's foot tapping on the floor, Harry started to loose his temper.

"And what if he doesn't show up?"

"Draco is never late, and he would never just skip detention without any reason," Snape growled back at Harry. But it still was obvious that even the Potions Master was starting to get annoyed.

The door suddenly opened and a startled fourth-year came in the classroom.

"Well? What is it? Did you find him?" Snape bellowed and the small boy cringed.

"Um, no, Professor. Malfoy is nowhere to be seen. Nobody has seen him the entire day since breakfast."

"Shit!" it was worth hearing Snape curse loudly and then exit the classroom. Harry just smirked and followed suit. Only he decided to return to his dormitory, he had no intentions of visiting the Slytherin common room together with Snape in search for one Draco Malfoy.

The blonde had probably decided to skive off or take a break. Or maybe he had finally drunk himself to death.

Not that Harry minded. They were supposed to serve detention together. No Malfoy, no detention.

He smiled to himself contently and shoved his hands in his pockets. There was a small piece of parchment and Harry took it out. It was the one Hermione had given him a week ago. The research about dragons. The girl had been so secretive about the whole thing, and he had really wanted her to find out something about Draco, but at the end he had never really read it. Harry just stuffed the crumpled piece back in. He didn't want to know. Maybe later...

--

Three men clad in black robes entered the drawing room where Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy sat by the fireplace. They looked pale and anxious. Dropping to their knees in front of their master, one of them said: "We have been successful in capturing the boy. The body is alive and his soul- imprisoned. As you ordered, he hasn't been harmed."

On the disgusting face of Voldemort a smirk appeared: "Very well, you have done well."

He stood up and Lucius followed him.

"My Lord, the Seer of our clan has become worried as he saw the soul…," the man in the middle continued talking, bowing his head even lower.

Lucius eyes flared: "Why? Is something wrong with it?"

Voldemort held up a hand to silence him and smirked at the blond man: "Now, now, Lucius, if I didn't know better, it would seem that you are worried about your son."

His jaw clenched as he answered: "My Lord, I have no son."

Voldemort's smirk widened even further and he turned back to the three men still on their knees on the floor: "What is this Seer saying?"

"My master, he warns you," he said quietly as if awaiting a curse to be flung in his direction. When it didn't happen, he continued. "He says that the soul should stay imprisoned at all times and by no means let free. He says that the boy is mated not only with a person who can bring your downfall, but also he… um, you have to see the soul yourself… Vampires can sense… And the soul radiates an abnormally powerful field of energy… The Seer asks you to be as careful as possible."

"Nonsense!" Voldemort bellowed and his hissing voice made everyone in the room flinch. "These children are no threat to me! And you, vampires, have no right to teach me!"

The doubt that was palpable in the air, the question haunted everyone's thoughts.

Then why do you bother with them? Why put so much effort in destroying them?

But nobody dared to stand up against Voldemort. They had begun to waver in their servitude, but everybody still knew that the monster could do unthinkable things to them if they defected.

--

Harry woke up. His whole body was trembling, from what it felt like after the dream, in melancholy. He knew the dream had been about Draco.

Voldemort has Draco.

The knowledge made his gut wrench. And now he felt once again like a bastard out of a shit pile regarding the blonde. He had thought the Slytherin just had gone drinking last evening. And he hadn't wanted to see him. And nobody had worried about the fact that Malfoy was missing.

He turned on his stomach and tried to suffocate himself in the pillow and not let any tears fall.

"Harry?" a soft whisper reached his ears. And he felt a warm hand touch his shoulder. "Are you alright, mate?"

The boy turned his face to Ron and tried to nod.

"Harry, what happened? Do you feel alright? Your eyes are all red!"

"Yeah, everything's fine, Ron," he tried to answer to his friend in a normal voice. "What time is it?"

"It's breakfast. You'd better get up," Ron's worries had disappeared and he stood, moving towards the shower. Reluctantly, Harry followed him, lost in his thoughts.

--

Tell Dumbledore? Or tell Ron and Hermione? Or maybe Lupin?

"-Snape?" a voice came from behind Harry and he was pulled out of his thoughts. He became aware of the whispers and gasps in the Great Hall as the Potions Master entered.

He was slightly limp and looked almost like he had been dragged over pavement all the way from Edinburgh to Glasgow. His lip was split and was bleeding, just like his arm that was clutching painfully the chest.

He was approaching the teacher's table and McGonagall ran forward, helping him walk and silently talking while leading him to the room behind the Great Hall.

"What do you think happened to him?" Ron asked Hermione and Harry as he still gazed at the injured professor.

"Voldemort is what happened to him. Isn't that obvious?" Harry hissed, getting up from his seat and rushing to his teachers.

As Harry approached McGonagall and Snape, they were both arguing about him going to see Madame Pomfrey, but Snape was refusing saying he was fine. The boy smirked to himself, Slytherin and Gryffindor. But then he was forced to frown when he heard the Potions Master say he didn't trust the nurse.

He cleared his throat and both of the professors looked at him. Snape fell silent, just gazing at the boy with his black eyes. McGonagall started talking: "Potter. What could possibly be so important that you could not wait?"

"Um, actually I wanted to talk with Professor Snape. It really is important," he looked pleadingly at the Potions Master whose eyes widened in surprise.

"It's alright Minerva, I will take this," he said to the woman and withdrew from her touch. "I am not dying, this is nothing serious."

The woman reluctantly let go of him, and just stared as they disappeared in the room behind the teacher's table.

As the door was closed Snape looked at Harry, awaiting an explanation.

"What happened? Did you go looking for Malfoy? Was it Voldemort?"

"This doesn't concern you… But if you must know, I didn't go to the Dark Lord looking for Malfoy. Only a Gryffindor would do something as stupid as that… I went to the Forbidden Forest. They don't like me there, apparently… Said I steal too much from the creatures. It's not my fault I need their blood for Potions… But I did find something out… Vampires have taken the boy," talking was really difficult for him; he was inhaling long, shaky breaths as he spoke.

"I know," Harry replied silently and Snape's eyes shot up in surprise. "I saw a dream. One of those Voldemort dreams… They have kidnapped Malfoy and done something to his soul… But I didn't find out what is their plan, what they are going to do now."

Snape sat quietly as Harry tried to retell the dream word to word. In the end he drew conclusions as much as he could.

"This is a plan of such secrecy that none of the Death Eaters are allowed to know about. Only the Dark Lord and Lucius are involved, from what I know. And they have a vampire clan as their accomplices. That means they are involving vampire magic in this. Clever bastards, they are on to something…," Snape then stopped mumbling to himself and looked up at Harry with a fierce expression on his face. "Now, Potter, if you try to do something courageous and stupid like you always do, not even thinking twice about it, I will personally come after you and kill you with my bare hands. It is not acceptable that you put not only your life in danger, but also a fellow student's. I will inform the Headmaster about this all, as soon as I can find him…"

"But aren't you gonna do something about this?" Harry cried out as Snape got up to exit the room. "I mean, Malfoy is captured and we have no idea what they are going to do with him. And, and…"

"And what, Potter?!" Snape yelled as loud as it was possible in his injured state. "That is exactly why we are not going to do anything. Because we don't know what the Dark Lord wants Draco for! It could be anything, he could be only waiting for you to show up and do something about the boy. It is not for sure that Draco is going to die. Hell, they could be planning in using him in their battles and it's not as bad. He will be at least alive then and they will take care of him so he is able to fight. If Draco is really as strong as those vampires think he is, nothing will happen to him. Now, let it be, Potter!"

He limped away.

--

Harry was fuming by the time he reached Gryffindor table.

"Harry, what happened? What did you talk about with Snape?" Hermione and Ron started pouring down the question rain on him.

"He's a stupid bastard; I don't even know why I went to talk with him," Harry gathered his books and went for the exit. His both friends ran after him.

"What did you talk about, Harry! Will you stop for a minute?" But Harry had no intentions of stopping; he just went for the Grand Entrance. "Harry! Stop, the Charms classroom is upstairs!"

Then he whirled around and yelled: "I'm skiving off!"

Ron and Hermione looked at each other and then followed him.

"This better be good, Harry, I am not skiving off with no good reason," Hermione said between breaths as they tried to climb down the rocky half-hill in the direction of the lake.

Harry looked at his friend and sneered: "Oh, there is a real reason, Herm, Malfoy has been kidnapped."

"What? When?" Ron said against the turbulent wind.

Hermione had stopped and was just looking at them quizzically: "Why?"

Harry ignored their questions, just continued ranting on: "And Snape wants me to do nothing about it. I mean, he even looked ready to forget about it all and just take it as Malfoy went on vacation!"

They had reached the lake and his friends looked baffled: "Yeah, well, but nobody knows what happened to him, he could have as well run off and joined the Death Eater Circus. And maybe he's experiencing some lack of attention and is just waiting for someone to come and find him? Or maybe he just wanted to take a break…"

"A break?! In the middle of September?! Ron, I saw a dream! With Voldemort and Lucius gloating about how they had captured Malfoy!" Harry almost lost his patience. He couldn't understand- was he really the only one who was worried about Draco?!

Ron and Hermione had fallen silent. They looked at each other and then at Harry.

"Harry," the small girl stood next to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "You can't really be sure that it was a real dream, and if it wasn't supposed to only look like Malfoy was in danger… You just can't go dashing off, you don't know where to, after all. And you can never know the truth with Malfoy; it's just like with Snape. You shouldn't put your life in danger because of one dream. Maybe Malfoy will come back in a few days or…"

"Yeah, Harry, and don't even understand why you worry so much about the ferret. He has gotten you into trouble ever since the first year," Ron said.

"Come, let's get to class, Harry," Hermione and Ron dragged him back to the castle.

--

At dinner Dumbledore finally showed up. He stood up and the Hall fell silent.

"I know some of you have been wondering for the last two days the current location of Draco Malfoy. I wanted to calm you down and assure that his family has been notified and the probable explanation is that Mister Malfoy for some personal reasons has decided to run away. It is not so unusual for adolescent people to think that the whole world is against them and his mother has informed me that during summer Draco did experience some emotional problems. He has had trouble coping with his responsibilities and has had delusions that he is in danger. The legal authorities have been involved and many people around England and Scotland are right now trying to track down this boy. Anyhow he is bound to be caught as his magic is being traced and although he hasn't used his wand up until now, there is no worry. I want to once again state the truth that we all are familiar with- Hogwarts is the safest place for you to be and while you are here, nothing can happen to you all. Therefore there is no credible ground for any of the beliefs that your fellow student could have been kidnapped or any such nonsense."

Dumbledore sat down and the Hall erupted in chatter. Harry only snorted.

"I can't believe Dumbledore would trust Malfoy's parents. He wasn't even in the Wizarding world during this summer. Malfoy ran away from home," Harry leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, Dumbledore knows what he's doing. Maybe he just doesn't want to worry anyone," Hermione looked around the Hall. Nobody seemed to be talking about Malfoy anymore.

They fell silent and didn't continue the topic.

--

Even Lupin didn't think that there was anything to worry about.

"But, Harry, I wouldn't want you to run off to search for Malfoy. I know you had gained some understanding among yourselves, but even if Dumbledore doesn't seem to be in the opinion that something bad has happened. You should just rely on the authorities to solve this situation. The week won't be over until Malfoy will be back in school."

The day was grim. It was one of those days in Scotland when sun had appeared when you woke up, but when you looked out of the window after a quick shower, the thick clouds were once again covering the whole sky in an opaque gloom. It had started to drizzle when Harry had reached Hogsmead.

Now he was staring through the window of the sitting room to the wet cobblestone sidewalk outside, lost in thought.

"I have no real reason to run off, like everyone believes I will. I don't have anywhere to run off, nor do I know where Malfoy could be found. I just wish people would take this matter a bit more seriously. After all, I did see the Voldemort dream. I do trust Snape and Dumbledore to do what they think is the right decision. But it still feels that we could try to help more persistently," the boy finally turned back to Lupin and took his wand out. "Can we just continue training?"

Harry lost himself in the uncountable hexes and curses that he had to learn. After a few hours they both had decided to go into the Forbidden Forest to practice some strategies in a real attack. He tried to put into use all the hexes and dodge the ones that Lupin sent him, but in the end he had a pain in both his bones and muscles that wasn't the pleasant feeling he had after a Quidditch practice.

The boy bid farewell and dragged his feet to the Gryffindor Tower and fell in dreamless sleep.

--

The next day went past again with no news about Draco and everyone even appeared to have forgotten about the missing Slytherin. Harry himself had put this knowledge in the deepest corner of his mind, not wanting to admit that Draco's disappearance meant something personal to him.

But when Pansy Parkinson started screaming all around the classroom during Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, he was torn from his trance: "Why do I have to work alone if Draco is not here?! Can't you just pair me up with someone? Nobody knows if he will ever be back! I already worked alone on Monday's lesson!"

The teacher looked like she wanted to just run out of the room and get as far away as possible. The Slytherin girl just decided to join some other pair, but not until she had screamed for a few more minutes on the top of her lungs.

It was then, when Harry decided to confront the Headmaster that same day in their wandless magic lessons.

The lesson ended and Professor Wolf looked blessed that the horror hour with Pansy Parkinson and her tantrums was finally over. Harry, Ron and Hermione silently went to lunch.

"Don't you find it weird that even the Slytherins don't think it's funny how Malfoy's gone?" Ron said as he piled food on his plate.

Hermione looked at Harry for a second warily and then at her other friend: "Ron!"

But the red-head didn't hear it: "I mean, nobody cares that Malfoy is gone. Most probably there are many people in this school that have been abused by him and don't even want that he returns. He was nothing more than a damned poofter anyway."

Harry woke up from his inspection of his spoon: "What? Why do you say that?"

Ron just rolled his eyes: "Everybody knows that, Harry! You just have to take a look at how he dresses and gestures with his hands." With that the boy started to mimic the blonde. "He was just a bloody ponce and as queer as they get."

"Well, I wouldn't know, Ron," Harry, suddenly angry, spat out. "I don't spend my time gazing at Malfoy."

With this the Gryffindor table fell silent and the eating process froze in midair as their housemates waited for the row to continue.

Ron had paled; it even seemed that his hair stood up. Now he looked like a Christmas decoration.

"What's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem, Ron; it looks like you're the one missing your boyfriend!"

Several Gryffindors just snickered to themselves, but mainly the whole Gryffindor house burst into roaring laughter. Other people in the Great Hall at the moment just looked at the sudden excitement.

Ron had started to shake with anger, but Harry didn't even want to continue. He stood up to leave, but Hermione grabbed his hand: "Harry…"

He couldn't make out her tone: "Hermione, don't. I'm tired."

Since he didn't want to be pampered by the girl, nor did he want to apologize to Ron, Harry just left the Great Hall. He hadn't even realized how he had become, how many of Draco's character traits he had taken over. Or was he becoming just more Slytherin… Only now he had wanted to tell Ron off a bit because of his talking about the Slytherin in that way, but he had managed to humiliate the red-head in front of the whole house. It wouldn't be too surprising if by the end of the day the whole school was talking about Ron and Draco being lovers.

Harry smiled to himself imagining how the Slytherin would act finding that out.

In a few minutes he was already in Dumbledore's office. The man was right now feeding the phoenix while talking to it. But Fawkes didn't seem happy about the baby-talk and was screeching all the time. Finally Harry decided to save the poor bird: "Um, Professor, can we get on with the lesson?"

"As you wish," Dumbledore out down the bag of biscuits, but was startled by an owl rapping at the window. He opened the window and it turned out that it wasn't an owl, but a black crow. The older man took a letter from the messenger and then closed the window. "You know, a black crow is bad luck… Oh, it's from Narcissa Malfoy! Draco is safe and sound."

"What's said there?" Harry stood up and took the letter.

In few simple sentences the woman had thanked Dumbledore for accepting her son at Hogwarts, but now that the boy had ran away, they had mutually decided it would be for the best to send him to Durmstrang as it had been planned in the beginning. Harry didn't believe a word of it.

"And you're not going to check if it's true? You know, send an owl to the school and inquire if Malfoy is really there?"

"Why should I, Harry? I believe Draco's mother. You know, Harry, you should be more trustful. People are generally good. And no one would ever lie about their son's health. It is obscene."

"What? But it's the Malfoy family we're talking about! They are generally bad. They're not even people."

"Harry, you shouldn't talk like that. Malfoy's are a well respected family, they have a dubious past, but I believe that they have done their best to improve."

"Are you high?!" Harry even went so far as shrieking.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am, Harry. I'm high on love!" Dumbledore just gazed back at him, with a maniacal twinkle in his red rimmed eyes because of not sleeping and while saying the last word, he raised his hands upwards. "Harry, can't you see- love is everywhere! I love Poppy, you love Draco. We all love and are loved by someone in this world! Isn't it wonderful?"

Harry thought his eyes will roll out of the sockets: "I don't love Malfoy!"

"Don't lie to yourself, Harry. It is the most wonderful thing on this earth. LOVE!" in a singsong voice Dumbledore answered, not even flinching at Harry's yelling.

The boy just turned around, utterly horrified and ran out of the office, bumping into Madame Pomfrey.