Hey, guys! I'm updating a little early because...I just want to. We're officially starting Deathly Hallows Part One, and I'm excited. I'm working on Chapter Thirty-two, and it's really exciting to write! Hope you enjoy! And this one's a bit longer than usual to make up for my previously shorter chapter.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and there's no copyright infringement intended.
Chapter Twenty-three
I watched the sunrise out of my window. I didn't sleep the entire night. I might have dozed a few minutes here or there throughout the night, but I never truly slept. I was too stressed. My anxiety was wearing down my mind, and my hand refused to stop shaking.
It was maybe seven in the morning when the door behind me clicked open. I glanced over my shoulder and saw my father stumble in through the doorway. He tripped over something I couldn't see and fell into the door, making it hit the wall with a bang.
"T-the oth-ther Death Eaters a-are arriving," he slurred.
I turned around on my sheets to face him and checked his hands. Sure enough, there was a glass filled to the brim with liquor.
My heart sank. Why was he drinking again? I understood that he was stressed, but why did he have to drink again? What could I do to help him? He would hurt me if I tried.
"Well?" Lucius demanded. "Are you coming or not?"
"Just let me get dressed," I muttered, rising from my bed.
He nodded and gave me an odd look before stumbling away.
I dragged my wand from my nightstand and waved it at the door, making it drift shut.
Despite the fact that all of the Death Eaters were coming, I dressed slowly. I tried to force myself to go faster, but my dread outweighed my fear. Once I left my room, I would be surrounded by murderers and psychopaths who probably all wanted to destroy me for not killing Dumbledore.
Then there was my father. He's a drunk, and anything could set him off. If I ask a question I'm apparently not supposed to, he would choke me, and If I tried to help him by taking away his alcohol, he'll do what he did two nights ago.
Lucius was intimidating when I was a child, but I could always tell that he loved me. Now, I'm not so sure. He tortured me with an Unforgivable Curse. What loving father would do that to his son?
I opened my wardrobe's door to reveal my full-length mirror. I grabbed one of my various black ties to match my black suit. I watched myself in the mirror as I tied the Windsor knot around my neck.
I was almost done. That fact made my heart race. I breathed deeply to try to calm myself, but as usual, the more I tried to calm myself, the more I was reminded about why I needed to be calm, which made my heart race even more.
I straightened my tie and smoothed out the wrinkles in my suit. I combed out the knots in my white-blond hair with a shaking hand, grabbed my wand and looked myself over in the mirror to be sure I was presentable.
I took one last preparatory breath before pocketing my wand, closing the door of my wardrobe and leaving my room. I let the door slowly fall closed, stalling for time.
I didn't know where we were meeting, but if I had a guess, it would be in the dining room. It's where we met every time for as long as I've been a Death Eater.
I took each and every step as slowly as I could, and eventually arrived to the open doors of our dining hall as each Death Eater was taking their seat at the table. I froze outside of the halls, never having seen this many Death Eaters in one place. I had seen many of them by now, but they were always in small groups. Having all of them together was more terrifying than I thought it would be.
"You need to head in, Draco," a woman's voice ordered behind me. I turned my head to find my mother approaching me, her heels clicking softly against the floor. "I know you're scared, but you need to head in," she encouraged softly, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Where've you been?" I questioned quietly. She left me alone with my drunk of a father for months. How could she do that?
A look of guilt flashed across her face. "I couldn't let you see me. I couldn't communicate with you at all. I was ordered."
"And who ordered that?"
"The Dark Lord," she answered. "You may think that he just orders his Death Eaters around, but he knows us. He doesn't know everything about us, but he knows enough. He knows that you're closer with me than your father, and we all watched your father's...decline...I was part of your punishment for not killing Dumbledore."
I nodded but didn't respond otherwise.
"Let's go," Mother whispered with an encouraging smile.
She gently took my hand and led me into the dining room. We made our way through the light chatter of the other Death Eaters and took our seat at the table. My mother gestured for me to take a seat next to my father, who was sitting stiffly with his back pressed hard against the chair. I took nervous note of the drink near his hand as I lowered myself into the chair, my mother taking her seat on the other side of him.
Food was served at random times as we waited out the hours, but eventually every Death Eater had arrived and taken their place at the table except for one.
Two seats remained empty: the head of the table, which was obviously meant for the Dark Lord, and one on the left of the head chair. That one was meant for Snape. He was nowhere to be found. I scanned the face of each Death Eater at the table several times and never spotted him.
I didn't know why I was so anxious to see him. He trained me, tortured me, starved me. But he also saved my life. He let me be a part of Dumbledore's salute after he was killed, but it didn't change the fact that he probably couldn't care less about me. He trained me because he was ordered to. He saved my life because he would have died if he didn't. He was less pressuring than the others because he wasn't around.
"So glad to see you all here," Voldemort's distinctive voice whispered.
We all turned our heads to greet him, but I missed him entirely. All I could see was the woman he had floating beside him. She was on her back and entirely limp. Her arms and legs hung lower than her chest. Her mouth hung open and there were fresh wounds on the side of her head and her chin, blood smearing along her cheek and jaw.
Voldemort waved his wand and forced the woman glide over the table to the other end of the room, Wormtail following close behind her. The woman faced towards us, and Wormtail leaned against one of the pillars near her.
I thought I recognized the woman from school, but I couldn't be sure. If she was from Hogwarts, she must be one of the professors, whose class I never took.
"Feel free to talk amongst yourselves," the Dark Lord invited, placing his bone-shaped wand on the table as he lowered himself into the head chair.
The other Death Eaters resumed their quiet chatter, but my family and I remained silent for the next hour or so.
Footsteps suddenly echoed distantly and drew closer with each second. I glanced towards the staircase that led directly to the foyer, and a moment later, Snape appeared in on the top step. He froze and stared at the woman floating at the end of the room.
"Severus," Voldemort breathed, getting Snape to look at him. "I was beginning to worry you had lost your way. Come. We've saved you a seat." He gestured to the empty seat at his left.
Snape glided slowly across the floor and took his seat.
"You bring news, I trust," Voldemort instantly asked.
"It will happen Saturday next, at nightfall," Snape gradually answered.
"I heard differently, my lord," a Death Eater named Yaxley disagreed. "Dawlish, the Auror, has let slip that the Potter boy will not be moved until the thirtieth of this month. The day before he turns seventeen."
"This is a false trail," Snape forcefully denied. "The Auror Office no longer plays any part in the protection of Harry Potter. Those closest to him believe that we have infiltrated the Ministry."
"Well, they got that right, didn't they?" a man joked, getting all of the Death Eaters-except for my family-to laugh lightly.
"What say you, Paius?" the Dark Lord asked softly.
I glanced at the other end of the table and saw that the long-haired man was entirely silent, a forced smile on his lips. He looked up to Voldemort and took a breath before speaking, as if clearing nerves. "One hears many thing, my lord. Whether the truth is among them is not clear."
"Ha!" Voldemort laughed. "Spoken like a true politician. I think you will prove most useful Paius."
The long-haired man forced another fake smile onto his face, but it quickly disappeared.
"Where will he be taken, the boy," the Dark Lord questioned, turning back to Snape.
"To a safe house," the former professor answered. "Most likely the home of someone in the Order. I'm told it's been given every manner of protection possible. Once there, it will be impractical to attack him."
A woman near me cleared her throat and I looked around my father to find Bellatrix leaning forward in her chair. "My lord. I'd like to volunteer myself for this task. I want to kill the boy."
A shout from Ollivander came from below. He screamed all the time. At first he was silent unless a Death Eater was down in the cellar with him. Later, he screamed whenever possible, calling for help. Now, his screams were rarely heard at all.
"Wormtail!" Voldemort yelled. "Have I not spoken to you about keeping our guest quiet!"
"Yes, my lord. Right away, my lord," the nervous man muttered, racing off towards the cellar.
"As inspiring as I find your bloodlust, Bellatrix," the Dark Lord resumed, looking back to my aunt, "I must be the one to kill Harry Potter."
Bellatrix instantly shrank back into her chair, lowering her head as if ashamed. Or afraid. Her crazed mane of black hair concealed her face.
"But I face an unfortunate complication," Voldemort continued, taking his wand from the table and rising from his seat. "That my wand and Potter's share the same core." He moved around the back of his chair to the side of the table my family and I sat. "They are, in some ways, twins. We can wound but not fatally harm one another." He slowly lowered his wand back to the table. "If I am to kill him, I must do it with another's wand."
The Dark Lord slowly began to pace behind the chairs on our side of the table. I tensed when he got close, though I forced it not to show.
"Come. Surely one of you would like the honor," Voldemort uttered, my heart racing as I saw his pale hand grasp the my chair out of the corner of my eye.
At last he moved on from us and glided passed the other nervous Death Eaters.
When still no one answered, Voldemort walked back to me and my family, pausing between me and my distant and sick-looking father. "What about you, Lucius?" he hissed.
My father's eyes finally focused, and he glanced up at Voldemort who grasped the back of his chair. "My lord?"
"'My lord?'" Voldemort mocked. "I require your wand." He stretched out his long-fingered hand in request, his palm open towards my father.
My father tensed and his mouth twitched like he wanted to say something, but he quickly lost his fire. He lifted his walking stick and grasped the silver snake head at the end of it. Both of his hands trembled as he drew his wand. He held it out to the Dark Lord who quickly took it from him.
Voldemort held it for a moment, studying it. "Do I detect elm?"
"Yes, my lord," Father quietly answered. He looked so terrified and ill that I felt terrible for him. He didn't look like the drunk who hit me with a glass the other night. He looked like a broken man that couldn't take any more.
Voldemort took the wood of the wand in his other hand and snapped off the decorative silver handle, making both me and my father jump. "And the core?" he questioned.
"Dragon," my father muttered weakly before clearing his throat and continuing in a stronger voice. "Dragon heartstring, my lord."
"Dragon heartstring," Voldemort repeated.
There was a moment of tense silence before the Dark Lord carelessly tossed Father's silver snake head onto the wooden table. My father jumped as it clattered, staring at what used to be attached to his wand.
Voldemort waved my father's wand towards the injured woman floating at the end of the table, bringing her forward. "For those of you who don't know, we are joined to night by Miss Charity Burbage, who-until recently-taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Her specialty was Muggle Studies," the Dark Lord continued, getting the Death Eaters to chuckle quietly as he began to move back to his seat. "It is Miss Burbage's belief that Muggles are not so different from us. She would, given her way, have us mate with them."
The Death Eaters laughed openly at the information, and a few mockingly gagged in disgust.
I didn't understand what was so funny or disgusting about getting married to a Muggle. It was a little odd, but it wasn't terrible. They can still have a child of magic, so what was the problem? Well, there was the social class issue, but there wasn't anything else that I could think of.
"To her, the mixture of magical and Muggle blood is not an abomination but something to be encouraged," Voldemort explained, as he lowered himself back into his chair.
"Severus," Burbage muttered, surprising me. She looked too weak to talk. "Severus, please," she begged as Snape stared back at her blankly. "We're friends."
Voldemort glanced at Snape before raising my father's wand and mercilessly shouting, "Avada Kedavra!"
The flash of green light made me jump, and the thud of Professor Burbage's body made my heart clench. I gulped as I stared at her unmoving body. Her eyes remained open, and there was still a fear and pain-induced tear sliding down her cheek.
I saw Dumbledore's body after Snape killed him, but he was far away from me, and his eyes were closed. I had never been this close to the body of someone who had died. It was horrifying. She looked like a limp rag doll, but at the same time, she looked too life-like to be any such thing. Her eyes were the worst part. They were so dark, like black holes. There was no light in them. They almost didn't look human.
"Nagini," Voldemort cooed. "Dinner."
The Death Eaters retracted their hands and placed them in their laps as the thick, hissing snake slithered across the table. I tensed as it passed, but it didn't even glance at me as it focused on Charity's body sprawled on the table a few feet from me.
The snake coiled for a moment, its forked tongue repeatedly slipping out of its mouth. Nagini suddenly launched its powerful body at the former professor, its fangs jutting out of its gaping mouth.
The snake latched itself onto Charity's head and slowly consumed her, it's fang's opening hundred's of non-bleeding wounds on her skin. Its muscles flexed with each swallow, and the more the creature swallowed, the less remained of the professor.
My stomach churned like hasn't had since last summer. I wanted to look away from the disgusting scene, but I couldn't. Someone here had to watch her go. Someone who actually cared that she was going at all.
It only took the large snake a few minutes to consume Charity Burbage. Her body formed a large lump in the center of the snake. The creature rested its head on the table as if the effort of eating its...dinner...had exhausted it.
"We will ambush him the night he is moved," Voldemort breathed, getting me to tear my attention away from the snake.
"They will move him at night from his house on 4 Privet Drive in Little Winging," Snape provided.
The Dark Lord nodded. "We will reconvene here a few hours before he his moved. Draco? Do you still have the Trace on you?"
I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. "No, sir," I answered, forcing my voice to steady. "It broke yesterday."
"Good," Voldemort whispered. "We can have everyone's help. Well, everyone except for Lucius," he laughed, getting the rest of the Death Eaters to chuckle in agreement. "We will dismiss for the evening."
The Death Eaters rose from the table and slowly made their way to the doors of the dining hall. I rose with my parents and followed them out of the doors. We stood by the front door and said goodbye to each Death Eater. I numbly offered my hand to each of them as my parents did. They shook my hand briefly before leaving.
When Snape walked up to me he grasped my hand and lingered for a while, giving me a look I couldn't decipher. After a moment, the new Headmaster shook his head before leaving with the rest of the Death Eaters.
When finally the last of them had left, Mother closed the door after them and turned to me. "Why don't you head up to bed, Draco. It's late."
I nodded and gladly retreated to the relative safety of my room. I locked the door behind me and fell into bed, not caring that I was still in a suit.
Miss Burbage's death had not stopped replaying in my mind since it happened, and in addition to that, I was being forced to attack Harry and his friends. I would undoubtedly be watched. I would have to throw a few Killing Curses at least. I could miss on purpose and say that they dodged it, but I could still get caught. It depended on how he was moved. They could be too easy to miss or too easy to hit.
My mind drifted in and out of sleep, and I dreamt of Professor Burbage and the impending ambush. They were terrifying images of death and war that I didn't know my mind contained:
I murdered Potter, Weasley and Granger, Nagini consuming each of their bodies for dinner.
I didn't kill anyone, but I witnessed the massacre of Potter and every single one of his friends. Then the Death Eaters turned to me and brutally killed me because I refused to take part in it.
My father tortured me with a Cruciatus Curse until I ended up exactly like Longbottom's parents.
I woke up shaking and covered in cold sweat after each nightmare, and eventually, I gave up on sleep all together.
See you next soon for the big ambush!