Hey, everybody! Time for a new chapter! I'm updating a day early because I'm gonna be super busy tomorrow, and I didn't want to leave you guys hanging. Hope you enjoy! If you can...
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Thirty-two
Recovery from whatever happened to me took weeks. I spent most of it sleeping, but even when I was awake, I felt like I was dreaming. Everything felt...distant, like it was happening to someone else.
The only one who helped me recover was Mother. She would bring me meals and water and even helped me stand after a while; and when I was finally strong enough to leave my room, Mother would take me around the house to make sure I wouldn't fall.
I couldn't remember all that happened in the cellar, but it must have been terrible for it to affect me for this long. Training was hard, but not even that left me like this.
"Draco?" Mother's voice whispered, a hand gently shaking me awake.
I turned over and found Mother leaning over me with a soft smile. "Hey," I mumbled, straining to keep myself from falling asleep again.
"You're going to want to get dressed."
"Why?" I wondered, barely taking in her words.
"We have a meeting in a few hours," she explained. "You want enough time to eat breakfast, don't you?"
"Okay," I breathed, forcing myself up and rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"Good." She mussed my hair before standing back up and walking out of the room, closing the door behind her.
I stretched out my arms with a yawn and tossed the covers off. I got out of bed and opened the curtains. The sun was just starting to break the horizon. A quick glance at the grandfather clock in my room confirmed that it was seven in the morning.
Why would we be having a meeting this early?
It didn't matter. Mother told me to get dressed and be ready.
I walked over to my closet, and my hand turned the doorknob to open it. My arm raised up and took hold of a set of clothes. I automatically went through the normal routines of getting ready, thinking of nothing at all. After I finished, I walked out of my room, left the door open and wandered to the dining room.
"Draco," Lucius greeted, sending a flare of heated anger through me. "Glad you're feeling better." His words were still slurred, and a drink still rested on the table next to him.
I wanted to yell at him to get away from me-to go lock himself in that cellar-but one look from Mother instantly deflated my anger. I said nothing to Lucius and took a seat across from Mother.
The House Elves delivered breakfast and Mother and Lucius ate it without question. I followed Mother's lead and did the same, not tasting a single bite.
Before I knew it, breakfast was over, and the plates were cleared away.
"Draco," Mother called, getting me to look up, "come with us." Mother and Lucius stood, and I automatically stood with them and followed them out.
They led me through the halls and to the parlour above that cellar. The parlour where Hermione was tortured. Lucius closed the door behind us, and Mother took my hand and guided me to a nearby wall. I wanted to ask what was going on, but Mother put a finger to her lips, silencing the question in my throat.
Lucius appeared at our side as the indicating sound of someone Apparating emitted from the center of the room. I looked towards the sound and discovered the Dark Lord himself standing in the middle of the hardwood floor with his snake hissing at his side.
My heart pounded, picking up speed as my breathing did. It got faster and faster as my whole body started aching with a pain that the logical part of me said wasn't real.
Another hand took hold of my trembling one, and I looked up to find Mother. She glanced at me with a calming smile before looking back up at the Dark Lord. My nerves vanished instantly, allowing me to focus.
I glanced back towards the Dark Lord and studied what I could see of his expression. He looked infuriated. Though, there was something in his slitted eyes that wasn't anger, but it seemed equally strong.
The Dark Lord's snake hissed and lunged at me-the equivalent of taking a threatening step forward. I lowered my head and cast my eyes to the ground, and the dangerous pet backed away again, coiling itself into a thick loop.
Out of the corner or my eye, the Dark Lord paced the length of the floor, his robes flapping behind him. He froze after a moment, and more sounds of Apparating echoed through the room.
I looked up again to find that the parlour had filled with goblins in proper business dress, held captive by twice as many Death Eaters. The Death Eaters each threw their captured goblin to the floor and backed away, passing by us as they disappeared into another room.
"Hi, Draco," Bellatrix whispered as she passed me by. "How ya feelin'?"
An enraged scream came from the center of the room, making me jump and look towards it. The Dark Lord was waving his new wand in large, sharp arcs, wielding it like a sword. Each goblin fell to the floor again just as they got back up. Deep gashes carved away at the goblins' skin, blood pouring freely out of each cut. The goblins shrieked in pain and fear, and the Dark Lord shouted in anger.
Something hit my foot, and I looked down, finding that blood had splashed onto my shoes like a wave of water. But I didn't feel anything. The yells of both the goblins and the Dark Lord sounded so far away. There was a calm in my mind that shouldn't be there. I knew I should feel something. Fear at the Dark Lord's shouts and power of his wand, disgust at the blood, anger that he was slaughtering all of these goblins for no reason. But there was nothing.
After who knows how long, the screams of the goblins silenced and so did the Dark Lord's, replaced by the hissing of his snake.
I glanced up and instantly wished I hadn't. All of the goblins laid dead, their clothes soaked in their own blood. Their pocket squares and ties were shredded and drenched in crimson. The floor was died a dark and fresh red, staining the Dark Lord's pale and bare feet as he walked through the bodies and whispering to his snake in Parseltongue.
The Dark Lord looked over Lucius and Mother and gave me the sharpest of glances. If his glare could cut my throat it would have. His snake hissed, reached its head up and touched his fingertips, and they both Disapparated.
"Let's go, Draco," Mother demanded, taking my hand and pulling me away.
She dragged me through the halls and up the stairs. I glanced behind us, at Lucius still staring at the bodies, and found that our shoes had left a trail of bloodied prints along our path.
Next thing I knew, we were in my room, and Mother's eyes were wide with fear. "Are you okay?" she demanded.
I nodded. She sighed and drew me into her arms, holding me tightly.
"Are you okay?" I wondered, though my voice sounded weak and quiet even to my own ears.
Mother nodded into my shoulder before drawing back. "I want you to stay in your room until I come and get you, okay?"
"Okay."
She turned around and paused in the doorway, looking back at me over her shoulder. She looked down and closed the door quietly.
I remained where I was for several minutes, too numb to move. I only took a seat on my bed when my legs started to ache from standing for too long.
My eyes drifted to the radio that has been sitting on my desk for several months. Dean's and Seamus's voices had helped me sleep ever since I found their station. Maybe they'd do something similar now: help me feel something towards the goblins that were just slaughtered. The numbness inside was beginning to worry me.
I reached over to the radio and flicked it on. I scrolled through every station until I found them. They were talking about Snape and Potter and all the usual things they talked about. It was mundane but better than silence.
But it didn't help anything either. I was still numb. I tried to force myself to feel something, but nothing ever came until after the sun went down.
Seamus took a break "to catch a few winks" as he put it, and Dean was left to continue the broadcast, but even he left eventually, leaving nothing but static to come through the speakers. I thought they had left the air entirely until someone I didn't recognize came on chanting, "We have a new weather report: Lightning has struck. I repeat: Lightning has struck."
"Lightning"? Potter. As far as I knew, this broadcast happened at the school because they would get caught otherwise. The school was protected in ways that almost everywhere else wasn't. What was Harry doing back at Hogwarts?
A knock sounded at my door. It was soft, but it made me jump nonetheless. "Draco?" Mother called, cracking the door open and peering through. "You need to come downstairs. The others-" She froze, her eyes finding the radio on my nightstand. "What are you listening to?"
"Lightning has struck," the boy repeated again and again.
I turned the radio off as fast as I could, though it didn't exactly matter. She already heard. "Nothing," I lied, a vain hope that she would drop the matter lightening my heart for a moment before disappearing.
Mother narrowed her eyes at the radio before sighing. "The other Death Eaters are gathering. We're moving."
"Moving where?"
"To the school." Mother left without another word.
They were going to the school? Theoretically, that's where Potter was. They were going to attack him, and even Harry Potter couldn't fend off a thousand Death Eaters on his own. He'd have Weasley and Hermione-and me if I could-but that wouldn't be enough.
I got up from my bed and followed my mother through the halls and to the dining room where all of the Death Eaters were gathered. There was barely a foot of space between any of the black-clad bodies as they milled about, discussing the plan to attack the school.
Mother grabbed my hand and dragged me through the crowd anyways, calming me as she went.
Why was she calming me so much lately? Mother was always there for me, especially after the turn Lucius had taken, but before I could still feel something when she looked at me. Now, I was forced to shut down.
Mother lead me to Lucius and stopped there, turning to me. "The Dark Lord sent me a message." She held up her wand. "If the initial attack does not draw Potter out, he's going to send in a team to hunt him down and force him out. He wants you to be a part of that team."
She took my hand and placed her wand in it, closing my fingers around it. I could only stare at her wand. The Dark Lord wanted me to hunt Potter down? I couldn't do that. Just the thought of forcing Harry into his hands made my stomach hurt.
"Draco, please," Mother asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I looked up at her, and my nervousness about the idea vanished instantly.
The Dark Mark on my wrist burned, the skin around the Mark twisting of its own accord. I hissed and grabbed my wrist with my fingertips, still keeping a hold of the wand.
Several celebratory shouts came up from the crowd of Death Eaters. "Here we go!" someone yelled, earning a cheer from everyone else.
The entire room filled with a thick black mist that pressed on every part of me, forcing the air from my lungs. The blackness cleared a moment later, allowing me to see a clearing of sharp-looking grass surrounded by trees except for the rocky hill up ahead. The Death Eaters surged forward towards the hill, taking me with them. At the crest of the highest rock, we could see the Hogwarts Castle standing before us, a mile away.
This was it. The war had reach its apex. There was a giddy excitement passing between the Death Eaters, though it eluded me.
I was scared. The icy numbness that had held me since I left that cellar had cracked. I wasn't as frightened as I should be, but it was better than feeling nothing. And the fissure in the numbness widened when the Dark Lord appeared in a swooping black mist, accompanied by Snape.
You-Know-Who held up his new wand and gave off a war cry, earning an excited cheer from the other Death Eaters.
This was it.
I'm evil, I know. Big cliffhanger. The Battle of Hogwarts is finally here! Chapter 33 is ten pages long in my Google Drive, so I hope it'll make up for the shorter chapter this time! See you soon!