Hey guys!
Thanks for the another time great reviews. I'm just so sorry for my late update today, but today I got my keys for my new appartement and it was my first day to be able to buy some new furniture. As you might understand the following days will be very very busy for me and I really will try hard to update! But please please forgive me if I don't. I just don't want to update some rubbish which I just quickly wrote, I really want to satisfy you and even me as well ;).
But please keep telling me what you think as it will help me so much with creating the last chapters of this story. I really loved to write my first English fanfic and I want to conclude it well. So please keep supporting me and please please give me your honest opinion! Even those readers who never ever reviewed to this story are highly invited to do so. Please help me with constrictive criticism!
With love, Olivia
"Merlin's beard, Draco!", Alanis cried as Draco kissed the dust right before her. She reached out to grab him, but he pushed her away another time, his face a horrified grimace.
What the hell was happening? Was he being summoned?
She didn't even know that that could be such a torture. And she could have never imagined that Draco was just defeated by his enormous fear of responding to Voldemorts call.
She just sat down beneath him, crossed her legs and looked at him tossing and turning and small sobs being the only sounds that escaped his painfully grimacing lips.
But after some time he swallowed down several times, sitting straight up and burying his heated face in his hands. Alanis wanted to reach out and touch him, but she didn't anymore dare to do it.
"He is angry, Alanis. Something made him so angry. I even felt it.", he said, still not looking at her. Alanis remained mute.
"He's going to kill me!", Draco suddenly cried out and Alanis finally grabbed his arm in support.
Draco furiously faced her and he just looked so scared.
"He won't, Draco! We've done it! The Cabinet works again! We even tried it out, you can report him that it worked!", Alanis pretended, but Draco shook his head.
"But something displeased him, made him so angry that he even send me pictures that showed me how slowly how painfully he's going to kill me. He looks forward to punish me, Alanis, for something I don't even know how I should have committed it!", Draco yelled and his body just began to tremble once more.
Alanis wrapped her arms around him and he held onto her, burying his face in her hair.
What the hell did all of that mean? Why was Voldemort so upset and even showed Draco his foreseeable torture? But what should Draco be tortured for?
"Did he find out about me?", she asked worriedly and Draco's body tensed.
He cuddled himself up to her and sighed deeply.
"He indeed did, Alanis. He saw you in my mind as I was summoned the last time. That was the main reason why I kept off from you."
"What?"
Alanis couldn't breathe as a cold chill ran down her spine and she even pulled Draco closer, as if she was the only one able to shield him from the evils of this world.
"But he's already punished me for that. That could not be the reason.", he grumbled and let his hands run through her long brown hair.
Alanis closed her eyes.
Voldemort should be satisfied with the Cabinet, with Draco's final progress.
He even could say that he was already able to travel to Borgin and-
Alanis moaned.
It had not been Draco who travelled, it had been herself.
Did Voldemorts wrath mean, that Borgin discovered her as she was dragged away from the Cabinet and escaped him narrowly? He must have seen her!
"Draco, when you called me back from Borgin and Burkes, Borgin opened the Cabinet's door. He could have seen me? Could he tell Voldemort that I was travelling with the Cabinet?"
"What? Why didn't you tell me that earlier?", he angrily shouted and he grabbed her hard. "Do you know what that would mean? Do you even know that would mean to us?"
Alanis looked down to the ground. She shouldn't have travelled with the Cabinet. But now it was anyway too late to regret it and make it undone.
"Voldemort would kill me. And he would kill you too, just because you got involved with me.", she whispered under her breath.
Draco just stared her and she knew that he wasn't able to agree with her, just because the truth was so unbearable. Voldemort would kill them and they would not be able to escape.
Suddenly she felt as if something pressed her down to earth, made her unable to move and that even clouded her mind.
Was that fear?
"What should we do?", Alanis asked nervelessly and rubbed her limbs as if she wanted to warm herself up. She indeed required some warmth, because at the moment every life force seemed to be drained out of her, just at the thought of what Draco and her had to face.
Draco grumbled.
"There's no help. We could run for our lives. But they will be faster. We would just meet the same fate as your parents."
Alanis dropped her head and tear her hair to let the pain repress her grief and despair.
Where could they go to? Where would that place be where they were sufficiently far away from the Dark Lord and his henchmen? Whom could they trust?
"We have to entrust someone with our situation.", Alanis murmured and let her chin rest on Draco's shoulder.
"And of whom do you think?"
Alanis pressed her lips together. She knew that Draco would not be pleased of her suggestion.
"Dumbledore?"
He jumped onto his feet that eagerly, that Alanis almost bit off her tongue as his shoulder hit her chin and he glared at her as if she'd been mad.
"Dumbledore is the last man on earth I would ever confide in! Can you fancy how it feels to look at that man? Can you imagine how unbearable his sight is for me? I could never face him, call on him and beg him on my knees hat he would overlook that I was about to kill him and help me!", he spat angrily and covered his left arm again, anxious not to touch the still aching skin. "I could never look in his eyes."
"Yes... How would you be able to speak to him?", Alanis said insightfully and stopped pressing her hand against her chin to give him a smile. But then she just stood up and began to pace up and down, as she always did when something worried her deeply and she felt Draco's intense gaze follow her.
"There's just one man left.", she said and turned around, while Draco began to shake his head eagerly.
"No, not Snape! He's-"
"The only one you will be always to trust. He's the right man, Draco. He did not only want to protect you just because of Dumbledore ordering him to. He cares for you deeply.", Alanis said and took some steps to grab his hands in support to her conviction.
Draco closed his eyes.
"He's a traitor."
"I'm a traitor too.", Alanis said and she shivered as she finally said that out loud, "We have no other choice. We can't do this alone anymore."
"We could run."
"Draco Malfoy and Alanis Dumbledore do not run away."
And finally with that she was able to steal a faint smile from him and she put her hand over his heart. It beat so constantly, so strong. She laid her head on his chest and listened carefully.
To hear his heartbeat, to hear him live, calmed her down so much.
He was with her.
She was with him.
That was all that mattered.
"Let us go."
Draco knew that they ran the risk of being caught to walk around together in the castle, but he didn't care anymore. He could care less about that rumours, about everything.
The only thing that was important to him was that small hand in his' and he grabbed it so hard that he thought he would crush Alanis' bones, but she didn't complain.
As they stood right in front of the DADA classroom, Draco felt sick.
How should he speak to Severus Snape? How should he tell him of that great mess he got into?
How should he tell him that he felt sorry?
He adored Severus Snape. He was the only professor in Hogwarts he ever liked and admired.
Draco admired that strength, that severity and integrity, Snapes skills and knowledge, and even, that he'd accepted him as his favourite student. Not in that swotter-sense.
But Draco felt honoured to have him paying attention to him and with the years they got even closer. Their familial relations bound them together and Draco knew there was no other better friend than Severus Snape in the world whom he could trust entirely.
Therefore he just felt ashamed of his behaviour.
In fact, he was not worthy to receive Snape's forgiveness.
"I always hoped you would finally come up to me, but I knew I had hardly a chance against Miss Dumbledore."
Draco looked to the ground as Snape opened the door of the classroom and let him and Alanis enter. They followed Snape heading to his table but he didn't neither sit down nor he offered them to take a seat, just faced them, crossing his arms.
"You must understand my choice, professor.", Draco said audaciously, but remained totally serious, his heart beating faster. He even was able to steal a short smirk from Snape, but his dark eyes rested on Alanis' face.
"What exactly brings you here? I suppose you were quite busy today as you both didn't even mind to attend the DADA lesson.", Snape asked, accentuating his every word, his voice full of disdain for Alanis. She nervously twiddled with the hemline of the sleeves of her robe.
"Alanis was able to fix the Cabinet, Sir, which will create a passageway to let the deatheaters invade Hogwarts.", Draco said.
Snape raised an eyebrow, but looked like that was even too much effort to show how impressed he was, what he naturally did not really want to show.
"You actually did? I did not ever think that being possible, as you both rather seemed to care to allow other things catch your entire attention."
Draco and Alanis blushed and looked to the ground. Draco wasn't even upset about Snape now scolding them for their relation. He was glad that Snape seemed to be the only one that kept the whole situation in perspective. Even if that whole conversation was embarrassing and offending, Snape was really the only man who would be able to help them.
"We tried it out, just to see if it really is able to create passageways for men as well. Alanis was able to get to Borgin and Burkes, but we fear that Borgin saw her."
Snape's expression became hard.
"Is that the reason for him summoning us?", Snape asked slowly and began to walk around his desk and leaned onto it, glancing at Alanis intensively. "The Dark Lord was more than agitated. If he really found out about Miss Dumbledore using the Cabinet, I fear the worst." Then his gaze quickly changed to Draco and he felt as if he stared him down, felt his limbs weaken.
"For you both."
Draco took a deep breath.
"Well, then let's suppose the worst. What should I say for my defence?"
"This time you'll have me in support.", Snape straightened himself up again. "But we have to present your final plan of the assassination to the Dark Lord to keep his attention to another life than yours, indeed."
Draco swallowed down heavily and saw that Alanis was trembling beneath him, but he just didn't dare to comfort her directly in front of Snape.
"The day when Dumbledore will be off for a mission with Potter, as Alanis told me, I will let them in."
"Tomorrow? Have you already planned everything through?"
"That is the reason why we are here for. Alanis wanted to speak to Dumbledore as well."
Snape curled his lips up in a smug and triumphant smirk and Draco hung his head to show how much he regretted to not have listened to him, not have taken him serious and speaking ill towards him.
But suddenly Snape's expression got more severe and blank than ever and as he raised his voice, Draco felt a chill ran through his veins as he reckoned how much disdain Snape's voice was filled with.
"Don't let Dumbledore ever force you to do something you just do because of your love to someone, but not because you are thoroughly convinced by it."
Draco and Alanis looked at each other and didn't even blush. They blushed when they touched each other but, now as Snape mentioned that their affection could be love, they didn't even try to deny it. Because it was true.
But anyway, what was Snape playing at?
At that Alanis managed to raise her voice the first time since they entered the classroom. She was excited and Draco could hear the fear inside her voice.
"Sir, as you know I heard Professor Dumbledore and you discussing about you overextending yourself on Draco's mission to kill him and-!"
"Don't minimize your abhorrent impertinence of eavesdropping, Dumbledore!", Snape spat forcefully. Alanis flinched back, but didn't hesitate to look back at him with as much agitation and vigour.
"But Sir, what Alanis wanted to say is, that we don't only have to fool Voldemort and the deatheaters, we have to fool Potter and all the others as well."
Snape curled up his lips again.
"That's not the whole truth, dear Draco. We even have to fool Dumbledore himself."
"What does that mean?"
"I suppose that Dumbledore doesn't already know of your success. He also doesn't know how you've exactly planned to absent him from all the others to be able to kill him. And to make everything seem true, we have to keep that as a secret, even to Dumbledore."
"But how to lie to Dumbledore?", Alanis asked with a very odd feeling down in her stomach.
"Not lying, foolish girl! Just not expressing the whole plan to him would be enough. He may be wise, but he doesn't know everything and even Dumbledore could be betrayed!"
Alanis didn't think it ever being possible Snape talking of Dumbledore that way. But perhaps he knew exactly what he was talking of. How many times then, had Severus Snape already betrayed Albus Dumbledore?
"Professor you just mean we should get his attention to lure him to some far-flung place?", Draco asked and Snape nodded stiffly.
"We will have to make sure that the deatheaters witness everything. But after - " Draco was even surprised that even Snape wasn't able to call the word murder, "-everything is over, we would have to flee from the castle immediately."
"The Astronomy tower."
Draco looked at her in amazement. Alanis said that out so suddenly, that he knew she hadn't even thought it through, but to his surprise, Snape nodded.
"Thank you, Miss Dumbledore. Your suggestion is worth to consider.", Snape said and gave her a faint smirk, which she answered with an own. Draco chuckled. Even now she didn't lose her mood to fight back Snape insulting her.
"But professor, what will you both do after everything is over? Where will you go to? The Ministry will be on your heels for sure.", Alanis regarded and Snape took a deep annoyed breath.
But as he saw that Draco looked at him as well questioning, he answered them.
"I suppose that Voldemort will soon take over the Ministry while I'll be the one on the run. Draco, you'll probably be able to return to Malfoy Manor and welcome your beloved father back, as soon as Voldemort released him and all the other poor ones from Azkaban."
Snape's voice sounded so sneering.
Draco suddenly had a very odd feeling. Would he be happy to see his father again, return to his home, where Voldemort lodged himself? He would rather like to be on the run with Snape.
He threw a short glance at Alanis.
He didn't even think first of being together with her. Why that?
Perhaps because now they would be torn apart anyway because of their loyalties for different sides. Alanis would still join bloody Potter and the Order and he would join his family and the Dark Lord.
Perhaps, after everything was over they would finally manage to get together again.
"Well, professor, what are we then going to do now?", Draco asked and swallowed down heavily.
Snape had a most pleased expression on his face as he walked around the table and smirked at them both.
"Now, finally this is the time to devise and implement our own plan."
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