Chapter 4: Secrets in Breeding

I've died before. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. And now—physically. I feel a new sense of freedom that I've never felt before. I feel a new sense of belonging—a new sense of purpose. I have escaped my nightmares—I've escaped the pain.

Or so I thought.

Four Years Ago.

I wake up. There is a bright light shining in my face, and a small gear in my head tells me that this is heaven. And because this is heaven, I know Astoria is here. I have made it. In those few seconds, a million possibilities come to my mind. When can I see her? Where will I find her? Is she waiting for me? What will I say?

But as I sit up to take in my surroundings, I find myself somewhere other than heaven. Yes, it is bright and angelic like heaven. Yes, it is calm and peaceful like heaven. Yet, I know it is not. Because I am now looking in the face of the once Lord Voldemort—and there is no heaven where he resides. A piece of my heart tightens, and I hate myself for even feeling this type of pain. Because if I'm feeling this pain, I know I've failed. But the question was now, where was I?

I stray away from the former Dark Lord's face and I recognize a few others as well. Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore, and Severus Snape. All of them sit before me—eyeing me as if I have trespassed into somewhere mortals are forbidden. I say the only thing I can say at this moment.

"Astoria?"

Lord Voldemort speaks first, and his high voice sends chills down my back. "Astoria is not here, boy."

"Then, where am I?" I ask.

"Where would you say we are?" Dumbledore asks me. I take a moment to look around me—to notice the details I missed before. There are chains scattered across the floor. A chair settled in the middle of the room. Nothing else—nothing useful—nothing helpful. It all seems familiar. And then…there was the smell—and I knew exactly where I was. I felt my stomach twist in knots. There were flashes of anger and confusion in my eyes. Had I mistaken heaven for hell?

"You brought me back here?" I ask, my voice cold and bitter. "Why?"

Grindelwald answers. "A reminder."

"A reminder of what?" My tongue burns with venom—I lose it. "That my wife is dead?! That this is my fault? I am reminded of it—EVERY GODDAMN DAY!"

"Calm your tone, Malfoy." Snape barks back. "It is no one's fault but your own to why you are standing here."

But the funny thing was—I knew this already. Everything that had happened so far was my fault. It was no surprise that this was another thing to add to my list. Yet, I couldn't figure out if where I was standing was a good thing—or another nightmare. I look at the faces of the old wizards before me—wizards who had been long gone. Out of everything, I could say I was most interested in the fact that they looked as if they were still in their prime. No signs of stress—it was if I was seeing them many years ago—as a boy at Hogwarts.

"What is this?" I ask, not standing down to the men before me. "I should be dead."

Dumbledore speaks to me next. "That you should. But you have been chosen, Draco—though we did not wish to meet you this early."

This early? I catch Dumbledore's cryptic words. I was always supposed to end up here? Still, I didn't even know where here was. I didn't know why Lord Voldemort, Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore, and Severus Snape were sitting before me as if they were gods. And I definitely didn't know what all of it had to do with me.

"You want to know where we are." Grindelwald says. It isn't a question. He's reading my mind—my thoughts. Would it be weird if I admitted I felt his touch in my mind, yet I didn't fight it? Or did I even have control to begin with?

"We are in the space between hell and heaven. A different dimension. A place where only the fiercest and most powerful wizards can reside. Welcome, Draco Malfoy, to Elysium."

The words sounded ironic. The fiercest and most powerful wizards. It sounded like a mistake. Maybe it could describe Potter or even Weasley. But not me. My whole life I've been a coward. And when I wasn't a coward—I was arrogant. And my arrogance led to…

Most powerful? Yet, in this moment, I felt powerless.

"In your death," Lord Voldemort says. "you have chosen to take your place as Guardian."

I frown. "Guardian? Guardian of what?"

"The Wizarding Community." Grindelwald answers. "Without us, the balance between right and wrong is unbalanced. Someone must be there to protect it. To re-establish the balance."

"Protect it?" I ask, confused. "It's already protected. Potter defeated Voldemort. He's reshaped the whole Ministry and he's head of the Auror department. The same department that put Theodore Nott in Azkaban."

I take my shot at Voldemort, but he only smiles wickedly. "Yes," he says. "This is true. But Potter defeated me after I murdered hundreds of people, mudbloods and wizards alike. Men, women, and children."

"And his department," Gellert Grindelwald barks. "Only caught Theodore Nott after he murdered your wife."

I wanted to argue back, but the two great wizards were right. What were they? The Devil's Avocates or something? But now that I thought about it, what was Potter really doing to protect the Wizarding Community? Even after the war, there were so many people who were still being cursed and murdered in the street. There were former Death Eaters leading uprising cults and clans in Knockturn Alley. Kids were still disappearing—muggles were still at risk. Who were we really protecting? Why were we always too late?

"What Grindelwald and Lord Voldemort are saying," Snape adds on. "is that Potter operates inside of the law. He does things by the book now, unfortunately. If you remember, Mister Malfoy, we didn't become the greatest wizards of our time by following the rules."

It was true, they didn't. Grindelwald was kicked out of Dumstrang for performing dark magic; he was partly responsible for the death of Dumbledore's younger sister and he was the first out of the four to possess the Elder Wand—after stealing it from Gregorovitch.

Everyone knew the story of Lord Voldemort—the releaser of the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, the world's notorious dark wizard—killing people by the hundreds, scaring others into doing his bidding, breaking the boundaries of proper magical ethics by even existing.

Severus Snape, who defied the laws of good and evil by being a double agent for both Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort. He joined Voldemort's army—doing who knows what while in his service. There was no right way to do things with him—he only did what he had to. But that came with a price.

Albus Dumbledore, who was never the righteous old man everyone thought him out to be—in my opinion. He had too many secrets—but every rule he broke was for the greater good of the people. He sacrificed himself for me, despite who I was and what I represented, so that I wouldn't have to bear the burden of murdering someone.

"What the world needs," Dumbledore peers over his moon-shaped spectacles to look at me. "Is someone who can operate outside of the magical law. Someone who can get into the dark places that the Ministry can't get to. Someone who can stop the chaos before it even begins."

He continues to stare, and I understand what he means. And somehow, there is a calling—a throbbing in my chest. A sense of purpose and belonging returning.

"A Guardian."

Now.

It is 3 am. I have to report to the Ministry of Magic in four hours. I have to pretend that I didn't have a conversation with Potter the night before, and that I didn't give him my whole file on Harlem Nott. But I needed him to trust the Vigilante, I needed his focus on the true enemy.

Theodore Nott.

But if that were true, I wouldn't be awake at 3 in the morning. Something is eating at me. A question knawing at my brain and I don't wish to answer it. Or even acknowledge that it exists. But as I stare at his parchment, I can't help but wonder…

What proof do we have that Theodore Nott is behind this?

Yes, it's his family's wand. Yes, his father took it out of Gringotts over a year ago. Yes, Nott has been caught with parchment like the one in front me sending messages to an unknown party. These are all facts.

But none of them tie him to the blame.

I have to be sure.

I barely picture my destination, but I know I'll end up in the right place. The red and blue flames swallow me, and I appear. On the outskirts of Azkaban. It is raining as usual, with the waves roaring over the spikey rocks that fence the prison. I've been here before, on multiple occasions—to stop myself from doing the one thing I'm pushing myself to do now.

Swiftly and softly, I make my way to the nearest underground tunnel. There are 3 underground tunnels into Azkaban. These tunnels were used by the Ministry of Magic to "transport" and deliver prisoners and other items into the prison. Most of the transports were done by dirty Aurors, who were either sneaking their comrades out of prison, or leading them to their deaths. When Cornelius Fudge came into power, he had all of the original Azkaban blueprints destroyed and replaced with new ones—new ones that didn't include the entrances or exits to the secret tunnels. However, my father kept one of the original copies—no surprise there. I found it searching through his library one night. It was the first night I tested out my traveling system.

The tunnel is covered by a large rock, and it takes no effort to move it. I slip inside before the next beam of light flashes.

My heart is pounding as I crawl through the tunnel. I keep repeating the mission in my head. Information only. Nothing else. But along with my heart, the blood in my veins is pumping. I try to keep calm, to show restraint—but ultimately I am worried. I have done all this, and I haven't even laid eyes on him yet.

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes have passed and I'm still traveling. I've come too far to turn around, but I'm not sure If I want to reach the end of this tunnel. But the mission. I have to be sure.

As I finally enter the prison, I find myself in Maximum Security. There are no guards around, but the cameras are intact—something Potter thought of when he became head of the department. In this moment I wish I had Seamus helping me, but he would kill me if he knew I was here. He would literally kill me.

I mumble a small spell, and my whole suit disappears. The perks of having your Vigilante suit made with the same material as invisibility cloaks. My ruse won't last long, especially when Nott gets to talking. I don't have long. Five, ten minutes tops.

I walk straight to his cell. I don't waste time for a greeting. I don't allow him to notice that I'm there. Straight to mission. Before the mission becomes strangling him to death.

"Where did he take it?" I ask.

Nott turns, and I have to restrain myself harder than before. He looks the same, his hair has grown out, but I can still see the selfish, childish glint in his eye. The same glint he had when he murdered Astoria. When he stood in front of the Minster of Magic and everyone in that room, admitting to every crime they accused him of. The mission.

"Oh, it's you." He responds. "They told me you would be coming to visit me soon. That you would be looking for it. The wand."

"Who is they?"

Silence. He wants me to figure it out.

"Is it the person you've been sending outside messages to?"

Nott laughs. "I wish. But I have recently found out that my messages aren't being delivered to the right person."

I take a step forward. I have maybe three minutes. "Because the guards caught you?"

"Because someone has been taking them." Nott responded, seething. He now walks to the edge of his cell, his face touching the rusted bars. If he could see me, he would know that he was staring directly into my eyes. Or maybe he did know.

"Every month, I send out a letter." He continues. "And every month, there is no response. I tried sending to messages to different people. Using different owls. Different parchment. But it all ends the same." His eyes grew bigger. "Gone…"

As he rambles on, something clicks in my head. Different parchment? I reach into my pocket, pulling out the piece of parchment I stole from Nott's vault nights before. Do I dare show him? I must. I need to know.

"Parchment like this?" I ask.

Nott nods quickly. "Yesss. Just. Like. That."

I press further. "And the person who has been taking them, they know how to decode them?"

"Of course. Otherwise they wouldn't have come to see me."

His words are cryptic, but I catch on right away. The last visit he had were from a few Ministry investigators. Kingsley's personal department.

"Oi!" I hear a guard shout from the stairs. I've run out of time. "Who's down there?!"

"What made them come see you?" I ask quickly, backing slowly towards the underground tunnel.

Nott begins to laugh, still staring into my eyes as if he knows exactly who I am. "I told them I had something he wanted."

Did I forget to mention how much I hated how vague Theodore Nott was? He gave me information, but not as much information as I wanted. But I didn't have enough time to ask him anymore questions. The guards were already making their way down the stairs.

I slipped in the tunnel as soon as they started the cruciatus curse on him. A part of me wanted to be the one to cast the curse, but another part of me—the guardian part of me—felt like he didn't deserve it.

8:15 A.M.

"I want to kill you right now, but I can't. And that's making me upset."

Seamus looked like he wanted to strangle me in front of the whole department. I told him about my early morning adventure, only because I could barely stay awake at my desk. I thought confronting Nott last night would ease my anxiety, but it only sparked it once more. I slept in the dungeons last night, replaying our conversation over and over in our head. But there was only one thing I could get from it.

Somebody in Kingsley's department was stealing the messages Nott was sending out of Azkaban. And not only were they stealing them. They knew how to decode them as well.

"I had to go." I told Seamus. "I had to make sure it was him."

"And now we know it's a mole in the Ministry. It's the second wizarding war all over again."

I nodded. "Somebody also tipped him off. Said that I would be coming for him about the Wand of Nott."

"Well, the second part isn't surprising. It's all in the paper that the Vigilante broke into the Nott's vault at Gringotts. What is surprising is that someone is close enough to Nott to tip him off."

I took a sip of my coffee. "Or it could've been the same person who is stealing his messages."

Seamus shrugged. "And you're sure Kingsley's department was the last to visit Nott?"

"It's the last visit on file." I don't sound convinced.

Seamus gives me that look—that look when I'm trying to feed myself my own dung. This was now another thing we needed to prove, which led to another reason to visit Azkaban.

"Look what you've started." Seamus said, thinking the same.

"Malfoy! Finnegan!" Harry calls from his office. "In here. Now!"

I grab my coffee and head towards Potter's office. As soon as I enter, I lose my breath. I wasn't expecting Hermione to be inside as well. She is sitting on top of Potter's desk, looking as beautiful as ever. Seamus nudges me, bringing me back to reality. Or in other words, bringing my attention to the green folder on Potter's desk. Harlem Nott's file. The one the Vigilante gave him days ago.

Potter shuts his door, casting a silencing charm before addressing the three of us. Hermione doesn't seem concerned. I wouldn't be surprised if she had already read Nott's file before Potter brought me and Seamus in.

"It turns out…" Potter says slowly, though I can tell he regrets it. "That the Vigilante isn't responsible for the Wand of Nott's disappearance."

"It was his father." Hermione spoke next, confirming my suspicions. "Harlem Nott had the wand removed over a year ago. He disappeared sometime after."

"So whoever is targeting the wand makers…" said Seamus. "…must have tried looking for him first."

"And failed." I say next. "Otherwise they wouldn't be stealing blueprints."

All this made me think about what Nott said this morning. I told them I had something he wanted. Could it have been the Wand of Nott? If Kingsley's department was behind this, that means someone in the Ministry was trying to recreate its power. But for what?

"There's another thing." Potter says. "During the second wizarding war, Lord Voldemort hired Harlem Nott for a special project. A breeding project."

I now understood Granger's involvement. But I was unaware of this "breeding project." It wasn't in the file I gave to Potter, only information about the wand. Hermione must have read my expression of ignorance. She pulled out another green folder out of her bag.

"I did a bit of research." She started. She dug through the file, pulling out several pieces of parchment. Each with a different drawing. Creatures. Creatures that looked similar to the genetically randomized creatures appearing across the world.

"Voldemort had Nott draw up the blueprints for these creatures. My assumption is if he would've succeeded long ago, the creatures would have been created to function at his will."

I frown. "So these creatures belong to Nott? As what? His pets?"

"Maybe." She responds. "Something to keep his foot in the world while he's hiding. It isn't the worst idea. It would explain why they haven't cause an incident yet."

"Should we inform the Minister?" Seamus asks.

"No." Potter answers immediately. "We don't have enough proof to go to Kingsley, yet."

A part of me wants to sigh in relief. I didn't want Kingsley involved, Minister of Magic or not. Somebody, or even him, in his department was after the Wand of Nott. And that somebody was already receiving information from Theodore Nott—what good would it be to give him more information?

"But you three…" Potter continues. "Have enough information to go find him."

"Find him?" Seamus raises a brow. "As in find Harlem Nott?"

Well, that's cheery. I think to myself.

"Cheery." Seamus says.