Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Harry Potter, except those that clearly aren't from J.K. Rowling's stories. And since I expect anyone reading this by now to be a complete HP aficionado, I'm sure you'll know which ones they are.
Chapter 8 — The Meeting
They flew for about an hour. The night was moonless, which meant Draco did not have to worry about being spotted even though the wind occasionally caused his cloak to flare up around him. Unfortunately, the lack of light also made it very difficult to follow the three Slytherins.
At last they touched down at the edge of a small clearing. At least thirty other hooded figures were already there, waiting.
"About time," one of them hissed as the students approached the group. "My Lord has been getting impatient."
"Sorry, father," Crabbe said.
They waited for a few more minutes, until a dark figure stepped forth from the shadows. At once the Death Eaters bowed respectfully, a gesture that the creature did not seem to notice, but would have been quick to punish if anyone failed to carry it out.
Draco began to imitate the Death Eaters out of habit, and then realized that hidden as he was, he did not have to. For the first time in his life, Draco stood in Voldemort's presence and met his gaze eye to eye.
"Lucius," the evil voice hissed. Draco's eyes widened in surprise as his father stepped forward. He was in his Death Eater's robes, but his hood was thrown back and his long blond hair gleamed in the starlight. That wasn't what surprised Draco. His mother was there, too. Not being a Death Eater, she was not cloaked in black garb. Instead, she wore a silvery evening dress that made her look like a young girl and not a woman of forty.
Although Voldemort had called his father's name, it was his mother whom he now addressed. "You made Severus promise to carry out your boy's mission, if he failed. Did you not?"
"Yes, my Lord," Narcissa Malfoy murmured, head bowed.
"Even though you knew it was my plan to have him fail?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"So tell me, Narcissa, why did you try to circumvent me?" His voice was silken and deadly. Draco could not see where this was going.
The woman was silent.
Voldemort answered for her. "To spare your son."
"Yes," she whispered.
"A regular Lily Potter," Voldemort laughed. His high cackle rose ominously above the treetops. "You fool. Crucio!"
His mother writhed on the ground, pain coursing through her. Draco bit his lip to keep from shouting a counter-curse, and tasted something tangy — it was blood.
Finally, the torturing stopped. Narcissa Malfoy slowly climbed to her feet.
"No one disobeys me and gets away with it," Voldemort hissed. "Your son failed me, and once I no longer have need of him, he, too, will meet his fate. If you had left him alone, he might have been spared. After all, am I not a merciful lord? I have been known to forgive failures, once they are suitably punished. But on no account will I brook defiance. Not now, nor ever. All heed what happens to those who contravene the Dark Lord's command!" The serpent-man raised his wand, and then lowered it again with a chuckle. "Do it," he ordered the blond man before him.
Without hesitation, Lucius Malfoy turned and cast a spell at his wife. There was a brilliant green flash of light, and Narcissa Malfoy slumped to the ground, dead.
"No!" Draco roared.
Heads swiveled toward him and thirty different spells blasted toward him simultaneously, but Draco didn't notice, didn't see the way they bounced off his cloak. He was blinded by wrath; he screamed hexes that illuminated the night with his emotive power.
"Get him!"
"Where is he?"
"It's Potter in his Cloak!" Crabbe shouted.
"Kill him!" Voldemort screamed.
It was chaos, and even amidst his rage, Draco knew that he could never reach the one person he longed to kill. With a final scream of fury, he took to the sky.
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Hermione tossed restlessly on her bed, wide awake.
"I just want to go to sleep," she whimpered. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not get the image of the blond-haired boy out of her mind. And it was not a terrified "she's about to hex me into the next dimension" type of image, either.
Finally, she gave up.
She knew that detention would be the least penalty she'd receive if she were caught sneaking down to the kitchens, but some of the daring that being friends with Harry and Ron required came to the forefront now. With a small smile that she, the "perfect" Hermione Granger was about to willingly break the rules, she left.
-:-+-:-+-:-+-:-
Brushing away the last of the cookie crumbs, Hermione left the kitchen and headed back to her dormitory. She had only gone down a couple of halls, however, when a strange noise met her ears. Hermione scowled. It had better not be those third years again, she mentally threatened, assuming her "I'm a Prefect" stance. For crying out loud, it's three o'clock in the morning! She rounded the corner.
Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn't Draco Malfoy standing huddled against a wall, clutching a broomstick and crying.
"Malfoy?" she asked in wonder.
He whirled on her, shooting a hex so fast she wouldn't have been able to counter it if she hadn't already been holding out her wand.
When he saw who it was, he straightened, the tears gleaming angrily in his eyes. He was about to say something when the sound of footsteps and hushed voices echoed their way down the corridor.
Hermione turned her head to look, and in that moment Malfoy leapt at her, forcing her wand hand to her side and clasping his other hand firmly across her mouth. Hermione fought against him as he dragged her through the slightly open door of a nearby classroom.
"Silence Granger!" he demanded softly. Hermione struggled for a moment more, and then realized that his attention was not on her, but rather he was holding her almost protectively, with his ear cocked towards the open door. There had been real fear in his voice, she realized with a shock.
The shadows passed by in a whirl of cloaks; through the half-shut door, she could just make out the bulky forms of Crabbe and Goyle, and several other students.
At last the footsteps faded away; only then did Hermione realize how close Malfoy was holding her. She squirmed against the boy and Malfoy, abruptly aware that he still held her, let her go.
Hermione chaffed at her wrist; Malfoy's hands had been freezing. She recalled the last time he had grabbed her — they had been warm and soft.
Her eyes widened as Malfoy, heedless of her presence, slumped down beside a desk and drew his knees up to his chest. Something was seriously wrong.
"Malfoy?" she asked, taking a step forward. "Are you okay?"
Draco felt a tentative hand touch his shoulder. He couldn't help it; after all that had happened tonight, that small kindness was simply too much. He felt the tears stream out of him.
"They killed my Mum," he choked out, not caring that this was Granger, simply needing to tell someone, to share his pain. Horror bloomed across Granger's face.
"Crabbe…and Goyle?" she asked.
"No, not them. Voldemort. He ordered my dad to kill her. And he did. He did!" Draco all but shouted.
He was trembling. He turned his head away from the girl so she couldn't his tears.
A fierce debate raged inside Hermione. This was Malfoy. She hated him. He deserved no mercy from her. But his dad just killed his mum! she argued. Basic human decency won out and she sank down beside Malfoy, cautiously wrapping her arms around him in a hug. She half expected him to hex her, to announce that this was some big trick and to gloat that she had fallen for it. Instead, he sat there in her arms and slowly, fearfully, put his arms around her, too.
-:-+-:-+-:-+-:-
The revelation that Voldemort wanted him dead did not surprise Draco; he had suspected as much for some time. At first, he had been honored that Voldemort had chosen him to be the one to kill Dumbledore. Gradually, it had dawned on him that if the Order did not kill him for murdering their beloved leader, Voldemort would surely kill him for failing. Either way, he was a dead man.
One night the conundrum simply became to be too much, and he thought Moaning Myrtle's bathroom would be a quiet place to cry. How was he to know that Potter had a penchant for girls' bathrooms? In the end, the hex Potter used on him nearly killed him, and as Draco hovered somewhere between life and death, a part of him had been glad that the decision had been taken away from him. That was before he awoke in the hospital wing to the cruel realization that he was still alive.
Now it was Granger who had discovered him crying, and Draco half-expected her to hex him, too. Instead, she was sitting here beside him, holding him while the tears coursed down his cheeks. No one had ever held him in their arms like that. He breathed in the thick scent of her hair, taking comfort in her presence. It hardly took any effort at all to quash the part of him that screamed "Mudblood!" He no longer cared what anyone might think. His adherence to the doctrines his father had taught died the instant his mother did.
"Thank you," he whispered. She nodded slightly but made no move to get up, choosing to sit with him as he gave his grief to the night.
Chapter 8 Summary:
Lucius Malfoy kills Draco's mom, and Hermione discovers Draco crying and comforts him.