Chapter 5

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He found himself in the same place, moving the same way, doing the same thing. Just as before, he made his way slowly through the darkness as it gave way to the recognizable image of sand beneath his feet and sparkling lights above his head. The stars seemed unusually brighter. The desert expanded before him with each step, the cracks in the ground providing a deceptive look of hardened earth against the softness of the sands.

As he walked, from the depths of the sands rose the jagged rock, standing tall and threatening over the bare desert-like terrain. Draco noticed the shape of the rock as it morphed, changing slowly before his eyes. The rising sands seem to become bigger with each passing second, the mountain it formed larger than what he had seen before.

It was a while before Draco noticed the wind whipping around him. The sudden flickering of his pale blond hair over his eyes and the loud billowing of his grey cloak made him suddenly realize that a gust of wind was circling around him. The wind got louder and louder, drumming a monotonous sound in his ear. He turned around slowly, taking in his surroundings when he realized that the lights had become dimmer and he was seeing everything blend into darkness.

Then, a sound stopped him cold. Turning on his heel and nearly tripping on the soft grains of sand, Draco noticed the white peacock for the first time. The creature was regal, keeping its head tall amidst lovely feathers that seemed to glitter in the near darkness. It opened its beak, emitting a sound Draco had heard so many times while roaming the grounds of the Manor. But the peacock cry seemed softer than its initial sound. Draco simply stared at the animal in curiosity, wondering what it was and what it was trying to tell him. For surely, the peacock was trying to tell him something.

The animal cried out again, only to be drowned out completely by the wind whipping around him. The sound was so loud in his ears that it was almost deafening. The peacock continued to cry out, sound after sound being tossed in the winds surrounding him so that no other sound could reach his ears. The feeling was absolutely maddening.

Still wondering what the determined animal was trying to tell him, Draco started moving towards it and away from the jagged surface of the rock that was always the one constant of his dreams. The closer he came to the peacock, the more he noticed about the bird. This animal was royally dressed, with rubies and emeralds hanging off its delicate neck. With each step he took towards it, the less the stones glimmered.

The bird twitched its head towards him, almost appraising him with its green eyes, while its tiny feathers stayed stock still against the very wind that was now causing Draco to trip.

Then the wind changed direction. While before, the wind circled around Draco, it had now lessened considerably, only to start circling the peacock as it continued to stare at him. Its feathers ruffled, slowly at first, and then almost immediately it cried out in a loud piercing cry, almost as if it was in pain. The stones were ripped from its neck, falling onto the sand that hadn't even shifted because of the wind, sinking quickly into its depths.

The wind moved faster then, around the animal as it continued to cry out in pain. The cries got louder and louder, until Draco covered his ears with his hands and closed his eyes, trying to block out the painful sound. But it didn't work, the sound kept getting louder no matter what he did, until the piercing cry no longer sounded like a bird, but a woman.

Draco woke up with a scream tearing through his throat. His skin was warm, he could feel the thin sheen of sweat covering every inch of his flesh and there was a throbbing pain in his head that seemed to spread with every passing second. Lowering his head and hunching over, he screwed his eyes shut and tried to breath. He tried to concentrate on the flow of every inhale and exhale, even though all he wanted to do was pull against the hairs on his head to take away from the building pain that was pulsing through his brain. It was agony. And he knew he couldn't scream. He didn't want to be thrown into a Dementor guarded cell for a week because he angered the guards. The pain was unbearable, but the fear of Dementors kept him quiet, gritting his teeth painfully as he continued to just breathe.

It took a while, but the pain started to subside. Little by little, Draco became aware of his surroundings; of his ragged breathing and the pool of sweat that had travelled from his forehead, down the length of his nose and onto the concrete floor of his cell. He couldn't remember how long he was hunched into a ball, rocking back and forth trying to concentrate on anything but the pain.

Once his head cleared, he looked up and noticed the beginning rays of dawn streaming through the bars of the window. Sadly, he looked down at his butchered arm, knowing that no matter how many times he did that, he would still keep dreaming. This just proved it.

Breathing heavily, Draco grabbed the bars and the wall, trying to lift his tired, malnourished body off the floor. After a bit of stumbling, he leaned against the wall tiredly, his eyes beginning to droop with the sheer effort of that one motion.

Draco swallowed, his dry throat hurting him with that small movement. His mouth was parched, his lips chapped and he was badly in need of water. But he knew he wouldn't get his daily goblet of water, at least not for a few hours.

As the sun streamed in slowly, Draco felt his body weaken. His eyes kept closing of their own accord. The effort to keep his eyelids from drooping was taking a lot out of him. Before long, his lids covered his eyes, and his legs gave way, causing him to slide roughly to the ground. With his legs bent awkwardly and one arm under his body, Draco's head hit the mattress heavily. All he knew at that moment was darkness.

Hermione groaned as she turned to the side to squint sleepily at the Muggle clock on her bedside table. Who would want to wake her up at five thirty on a Saturday morning? Out of sheer curiosity, she stumbled out of bed, wrapped a robe around her body, grabbed her wand and walked languidly to her apartment door. Whoever it was, it was definitely a friend, if the slight prickling of her skin was anything to go by. She couldn't help but be grateful to those wards that could wake her up gently. She preferred them to the ones that had a nasty habit of forcing a person awake with a jolt.

Looking through the peephole, Hermione frowned at the person standing outside her apartment before she opened the door fully to let him in. "Harry?" she questioned, confused. He looked dressed and ready for work, not at all reflecting the time or the day.

"It happened again," he said with a grim expression.

She immediately felt herself wake up. "Where?"

"Washington. The American Ministry of Magic requested assistance. I'm on my way there. Thought you might want to come."

"Yes. Yes, of course." She gestured him inside and closed the door. "Just give me a few minutes," she mumbled as she distractedly made her way to her bedroom to change into her work robes quickly. Another disaster! And so soon. Looking back at the patterns, they hadn't materialized more than a week apart. But to have two in the same week was practically unheard of.

By the time Hermione had washed, put a quick charm on her hair to keep it respectably neat, and grabbed her purse, she found Harry pacing the length of her modest apartment in agitation. "Ready?" She nodded quickly before following him out.

"What happened?" she asked softly as they started walking towards the Apparition point.

"Tornado. I heard the situation is terrible. People are trapped under rubble; most of the building structures look ready to collapse. Kingsley sent me to round up everyone who I could think of to move at a moment's notice. We need as many wands as we can possibly get." Almost as an afterthought he added, "Did I wake you?"

Hermione found that question hardly the point to be discussed. But Harry had always been thoughtful, even during the time of a crisis. "No, not really," she lied. "You know I generally get up early."

Harry nodded before quickening his pace. "We better hurry. The last thing we need is more casualties because we weren't there to stop buildings from collapsing."

"How bad is it?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

Harry chose not to answer, instead taking her hand in his and Apparating the moment they were outside the wards she had placed around the vicinity of her apartment building.

The moment they arrived, she knew the reason he didn't say anything was because he didn't know how to say what he wanted to. The devastation that surrounded them was horrible; and before she could take it all in, Harry pulled her towards a group of wizards, wands out and ready, and together, they went to work.

"Get up, you filthy maggot. Up!"

The pain in his side seemed to double as a rough kick was aimed right at Draco's gut. With an undignified and muffled 'Oof', he blinked open his eyes only to be welcomed to the world of the conscious by the faces of two men he absolutely despised. How wonderful! He always did want to be woken up by two pissing bastards. It was practically heaven, really.

"Lazy, are we?" the short, bearded, ugly one questioned as he hauled Draco to his feet.

"More like stubborn," the tall, un-bearded, uglier one sneered as he grabbed onto Draco's other arm.

In protest, all Draco could do was scoff at their extremely unwitty banter, which in hindsight wasn't a good idea since he got kicked in his gut once again for his 'insolence'. If Draco had made a list of things that insulted his guards, he would have easily found that he had committed most of those acts just to get under their skin. And he always succeeded in that endeavour, no matter what he was called, and no matter what punishment he got. He just found that it was worth it. He always did know what he could do to irritate the guards, but in such a manner that he didn't go too far to be locked up in a Dementor-guarded cell as a punishment. That he was careful of.

The walk to the room where he met with his visitors was just as painstakingly slow as any other time. He was shackled like normal, and a quick cleaning charm was placed on him to give the facade that he wasn't mistreated in the least, before he was shoved roughly into the small room with the one table and two chairs.

Sneering, he prepared himself for another battle of wits against Granger; instead, his sneer fell when he realized that it was his mother who was sitting primly in the other chair and not his nemesis. Draco couldn't believe the feeling of disappointment that washed over him.

The moment she saw him, Narcissa got to her feet and practically ran towards him, stopping only to lightly place her hands on him. He knew the cleaning charm was sloppy work and that it couldn't hide the true filth underneath, and his mother - ever the pure-blood mistress - would never embrace him quite so passionately when there was company. And apparently, an Auror guarding him against escape amounted to 'company'.

"How are you, Draco? Are you alright?" she asked, her eyes looking at him with utmost concern.

More than how he was doing, he couldn't help but want answers to her confusing presence. She still had more than a month before she could visit him. Her presence was something he longed for, but not like this. He couldn't help but wonder if she was there to convey bad news? Had there been a death in his family? What about his father? Was he finally given the Kiss? Or, had he decided to take the coward's way out and rid himself of his life?

"Mother," Draco said carefully. "Why are you here?"

She staggered back almost like she had been slapped. "I came to see my only son and make sure he was alright. Do you not want me here?"

"No. I..." He quickly glanced at the Auror, suddenly conscious of the fact that his mother seemed close to giving him a good telling off. No matter how old you are, in the pure-blood world, a son was always expected to be submissive to his mother. He had no intention of letting the Aurors see him as such. "What I mean is, has something happened?"

Narcissa shook her head. "Nothing new. Except that I have been granted daily visitation rights to see you," she said, smiling brightly as she placed a warm hand on his cheek. "My son."

Draco felt his gaze narrow instinctively. "Granger spoke to you then?"

His mother immediately dropped her hand from his face and held herself upright, her back stiff in a way that betrayed how uncomfortable she felt with their current topic of conversation. "Why should that..." she swallowed audibly, almost as if the next words that were to come out of her mouth tasted like acid, "Muggle-born," she sneered, "be speaking to me?"

If the topic had been any less serious, he would have smirked at his mother's inability to properly hide her prejudice. "Didn't you hear, mother? Potter assigned her to my case?"

He received the reaction he wanted. Narcissa's face was immediately devoid of colour as she looked at him incredulously. "What?" she snapped. "Andromeda assuredme that Potter would take over your case himself."

Draco scoffed. "Granger is the brilliant one, mother. If I had to pick the best for my case, Granger would be the one. Not bloody Potter. The Scar-head wouldn't have been able to do half the things he did without her help."

His mother seemed to be in her own world, her attention far from him. "But this is unacceptable," she mumbled more to herself. "I must speak to Andromeda immediately."

Any other time, Draco would have gladly set his mother to cause trouble. But not now. Not when his future was in the balance, and he felt that he was in fact getting through to Granger. "No. Don't."

His mother stared at him as if he had gone mental. Maybe he had. "What? Why not?"

"Because Granger got you the daily visitation rights, Mother. And she can easily take it away." The one thing his family could understand more than anything else was blackmail and extortion. And as expected, Narcissa's expression fell to one of a woman who was contemplating her next move carefully.

"I'll see what I can do without letting that... Muggle-born get her way. You have my word on that."

Draco nodded before he took his usual seat while his mother sat opposite him. He couldn't really stop his mother from doing what she felt must be done. But what he could do was convince her slowly but surely that this was what she wanted. He grew up in a pure-blood household after all. And the first lesson you always learn is manipulation.

He couldn't help but think, as he listened to his mother drone on about another society scandal that didn't care about, that Potter and Granger must be desperate. Why else would they have given him what he wanted?

TBC

A/N - Feel free to tell me what you think. Reader's opinions really help with plot-lines. Really. :)