Hello, peoples! This week has been hectic for me, so I almost broke my weekly update promise! Luckily I didn't!
This chapter is pretty short, but there are plenty of longer ones to come.
Copyright: I own nothing.
Chapter Three
Half of the summer already had gone by when Father told me that he was going to teach me the Killing Curse. I had learned about it from Mad Eye Moody when he taught Defense Against the Dark Arts, but I had never cast it.
I knew the words of the spell, but I was already so weak from the training. I could barely look at myself in the mirror anymore. There was a pallor to my skin unlike there had never been before. There were darkened spots under my eyes, and I had lost over ten pounds. I was so exhausted that I could hardly stand.
I swayed on my feet as my father placed a small rat on a table in our sheltered courtyard.
"Do you remember the words?" Father wondered as he moved back to me.
"Yeah," I mumbled lazily, looking back up at him.
My father wasn't like he used to be, either. He looked worse than me. His cheekbones stood out more than they ever had before, and he was as white as a sheet. His long hair was unkempt and scruff was beginning to form on his jaw.
"Good. Cast it," Father ordered, gesturing to the rat on the table.
I glanced back at the small rodent, tightening my limp hold on my black wand. I raised the instrument and took aim at the squeaking creature. My stomach churned with disgust and fear, but I had no idea what the disgust was aimed towards. Certainly not the rat, but what else could be so repulsive?
"Cast it!" Father hissed from my side, a panicked urgency in his voice.
I jolted at his harsh voice, but steadied my aim and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"
I barely registered the green light that flared from the end of my wand. An unfamiliar pain speared me in the chest making me cry out. My wand fell from my grasp, and I collapsed to the ground, instantly losing any remaining strength. My lungs froze, a Dementor-like coldness stealing my breath. I tried to draw in air, but the more I tried, the more my throbbing lungs burned.
"Draco!" Father called, his voice nothing but a distant echo.
Everything faded away to blackness, and the feeling of being carried and moved was nothing but the distant brush of a feather.
"Draco," Mother later voiced, bringing some colour into my darkened mind.
I forced my eyes open to find her face. Her blurry outline eventually focused, and I opened my mouth try to speak, only to be stopped by a terrible burning in my throat.
A hard cup was quickly pressed to my lips as a hand slipped behind my neck, raising my head. Cool water streamed into my mouth, soothing my dry throat.
The cup was taken away all too soon, and my head was lowered back down onto a pillow.
"What's going on?" I muttered.
"You've been unconscious, Draco," Mother answered. "We moved you to your room. I preferred to take you to a hospital, but they know what the effects of casting Dark spells are. They would recognize it, and we would all be arrested and thrown into Azkaban."
"How long was I out?" I croaked.
"About half a month," she answered.
"Half a month?" I exclaimed, trying to raise myself up and scan her face to see if she was lying. How could I have been unconscious for that long?
"Don't try to sit up," Mother harshly whispered, placing her hands on my shoulders and forcing me back down onto the bed. It didn't take much to get me to give into her force, and I readily fell back down onto the mattress of my bed with an exhausted groan.
"It's almost time for school, now," my mother informed, rising back to her full height. "You should be recovered in enough time to go."
"Should?" I questioned.
"Well, nothing is certain. Casting a Killing Curse for the first time never ends well," she answered.
"Then why did I have to cast it?" I asked.
Mother took a moment to answer, but once she did, it made me even more sick to my stomach. "I'll tell you later. For now, you need to focus on getting better. You're almost ready," she said softly, patting the inside of my left wrist.
The grandfather clock in my room chimed, making my mother glance up at it. "Oh!" she exclaimed, standing back up, "I have to go."
"Go where?" I called as loud as my hoarse voice would go as she moved towards the door.
She turned back to me and put her hands on either side of the door frame. "Just somewhere with your Aunt Bellatrix," she dodged. "You get better, okay?"
I slowly nodded, earning a smile from her, and she turned and left.
Once Mother was gone, I lifted my left arm from the bed and eyed the inside of my wrist. I discovered a slightly darkened mark forming onto my skin like a bruise. It had an odd shape to it, vaguely like a snake coming out of a skull.
Something interesting that I figured out is that Draco is technically Harry's god-cousin or something like that. Think about it. Sirius Black states in the Order of the Phoenix that Bellatrix Lestrange is his cousin, and in the Half-Blood Prince, Bellatrix constantly calls Narcissa Malfoy "Sister."...I freaked out when I figured this out.
Till next week!