Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Yayyy! 150 reviews! Thank you again to everyone who reviewed, favourited and followed! You are all motivating me to continue with this story!

AureliaPheonixAnastasia: Ha! 8th of April 1997 is your birthday? Nice! I choose my boyfriend's birthday (although not the year) as Victory Day (3rd of April). I needed a random date and thought it would be a funny inside joke :P

autumngold: We have just seen Moody's ruthless side...But does that really make him an evil overlord? One of the aims of my story is to have no absolute evil and no absolute good. Even Harry has his moments of self-justification and self-serving morality. The Dark Lord isn't exactly sunshine and daisies either, you'll see :P

That said, enjoy!

Warnings: a wee bit of violence and mentions of torture.

Chapter 14: 20th of July 1997: To be a Malfoy

Over the past few months, I had begun leaking information to the Aurors.

When I went at the library last time, I had gotten a couple of ideas on how to pass information without an owl and without having to send them a Patronus that Tonks would immediately recognise.

The first idea with which I came up was to transfigure something into an owl and send it away with my message. The only problem was that inanimate to animate transfigurations took a lot of power to sustain for a long time, and even more when it was from a long distance, like it would be if I sent the owl away. They were also notably defective and I couldn't risk my message getting in the wrong hands.

I passed through a couple of other theories before I found the right one.

I began with the concept of magical paper planes kids used to exchange notes in class. The Ministry also used them to send messages within their building. It was a pretty simple charm at the basis, but what if I could just...make it stronger? More durable? Widen the range? I had to do a couple of tests, but in the end, I got pretty good results.

When the next raid was planned, I sent my paper plane out and crossed my fingers. I had made it untraceable as best as I could and had disguised my handwriting just in case, but what if they could still track it back to me somehow?

The Rebels came back earlier than planned, and furious. I kept myself out of the way that day and acted as if I was surprised of the outcome. Inside, I was beaming with joy. Not only had my idea for transmitting messages worked, but the Aurors had also believed the information I gave them!

I continued to carefully spy on their meetings. I knew they thought there was a traitor in our ranks, but since I wasn't at the meetings in the first place, I was out of the list of suspects.

By now, the only reason why I stayed was because of the information I could send out. I knew that it wasn't a long-term solution, that I'd be discovered soon enough. It would only take one mistake from my part and they'd discover that I was spying on their meetings. And if they did, they would immediately jump to the right conclusion and stop searching for their traitor.

My plan was to stay until I was considered an adult in the outside world. Then, I wouldn't have to worry about being adopted, fostered or emancipated. Who would want to take care of the Boy-Who-Betrayed-Us-All anyway?

I had begun my preparations. Subtly. Sorting through my stuff inside the house, burning whatever traces I'd left that could give a hint of what I'd planned. Setting up a will. Yes, a will, because I inherited whatever frozen funds Sirius had in his bank vaults at Gringotts and I had to designate an heir for the Potter and the Black vaults. I chose Neville for the Potter vault, not because I particularly liked him, but because I really didn't know many people anyway, and I chose Tonks for the Black vault, because she was part of that family already.

I stacked some non-perishable food in the house, because I knew that my emergency money wouldn't last for long. I wrote down everything I knew about the Rebels and their organisation; the members, the goals, the deals and debts they had: everything I could remember. That way, if I knew I was going to die, I could just send that in one big go to the Ministry. Or I could use them as a trade for my freedom if the Aurors captured me. I just didn't think I'd last that long out there, not with the all-powerful Dark Lord wanting me dead.

What I hadn't counted on, though, was just how cunning Moody would be. I think he tried to narrow down who the traitor could be by providing false information to small groups of people at a time and then by checking if the Aurors would show up at the false lead. When his round of testing ended, he must have concluded that nobody took the risk to transmit information when it wasn't provided to everyone. And my guess is that he began to plan with a small group he particularly trusted because, when the next big raid arrived, I learnt about after it was over.

It was on a rainy summer evening on the 20th of July. I had just completed a running session and was heading back to my house when I heard a great clamour in the center of the village. I went closer to check what happened when I saw a group of Rebels pulling someone in a shed where we used to keep our pigs in the winter, laughing and shouting at the top of their lungs "We got him! We got him! We did it! Haha!" When the person they were pulling along slid on the muddy ground and fell, the laughing started back again and they kicked him in the ribs before pulling him back up. "What's the matter, pretty boy? You can't walk on anything else than marble floors? Ha! Don't worry, we'll put you in a real nice place, you'll see, you'll feel right at home!"

They opened the doors to the shed and threw the prisoner inside. Then they started to put up wards and to temporarily solidify the building.

I hadn't seen much of the prisoner, except for a glimpse of platinum blond hair plastered on his head, but I could already guess who he was from pictures I'd seen of his father and him at official functions. It was Draco Malfoy, the Minister's son.

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oOoOo

20th of July, earlier that day, Malfoy Manor

Draco wasn't in a good mood. He was in a horrendous mood, in fact. It was raining outside and that meant that his long-planned game of Quidditch with some of his allies (Malfoys don't have friends) was cancelled. Oh, he would have played if it was just a light drizzle, but it was a real downpour out there! And there's no way he'd go and catch a cold just days before the mid-summer Ministry ball. He had to always project an immutable and collected image after all; it wouldn't do to show up with a runny nose.

So Draco had sent his acquaintances away and found himself, once again, all alone in his luxurious Manor, as always. He held back a sigh and headed to his bedroom to work on his summer assignments. He was starting his last year at Hogwarts; he was at the very top of his classes (if you forgot about that damned Mudblood who didn't want to learn her place), the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team and the most likely candidate for Head Boy. Things were going quite well for him, over all.

If Draco had one complaint about his lifestyle (which he hadn't, because Malfoys always had perfect lives), it was that he was bored often. But it was okay to be bored; really, it was a common thing among rich people. The plebs couldn't afford the luxury of boredom. They had to work to earn their living...

Draco's reflections on the workings of social classes brutally came to a stop when he suddenly heard the ground trembling under his feet and a window shatter in an adjacent room.

Is the Manor attacked? But it has some of the strongest wards and protections in the country!

He thought of the layout of the Manor for a second before running to the nearest Floo-connected fireplace. There was no way he'd go investigate the cause of the explosion by himself. He wasn't a bloody Gryffindor, for Salazar's sake!

He pivoted on his feet, heading back to the main parlour. Draco took out his wand, Disillusioned himself and silenced his feet. He moved swiftly, sweeping his field of vision continuously in search of potential invisible enemies.

Everything became suddenly silent. The hallway was only lit sparsely, as it was charmed to do if the wards collapsed.

When Draco arrived close to the door of the parlour, he whispered Homenum revelio to check if the attackers had reached that room. He barely had time to register the red colour resulting from his charm, meaning that there were indeed people in there, before something hit the back of his head and he saw stars. He crumbled, his forehead bashing in the door in front of him in his fall. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was a grinning face and a blue eye whizzing around madly.

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20th of July, a shed in the Rebels' camp

At first, Draco had been furious. How dare those vulgar rebels come and capture him! Of course, he understood the tactical move. He was a Slytherin and the son of the Minister of Magic, after all.

Then, he had been worried. The young man looked around him at the shed and could immediately see that his captors really needed the money of the ransom they were probably going to ask for him. But somehow, he doubted that money was all they would ask for. They would probably try to bargain for...a Ministry pardon for all of those who wanted out? No, they probably wouldn't have roughed him up if they wanted his father to grant them a favour. Or they wouldn't have if they were intelligent, which wasn't clearly established as of yet. But anyway, anyone with a modicum of sense knew that you didn't hurt your hostages before you made your demands. You only tortured them after the demands were refused, or if the rich person didn't pay the ransom quickly enough. Draco released a breath he didn't know he was holding. At least he was safe for a while, until the negotiations with his father started.

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21st of July, a shed in the Rebels' camp

No, they definitely weren't intelligent captors. Moody (aka Undesirable Number One) and another beefy guy just exited his 'cell' after hours of torture. Apparently, they thought it would be hilarious to ask him a very vague question about the Dark Lord and torture him when they didn't like what they heard. It really wasn't an effective method when the willing prisoner didn't even understand the question to which he had to answer. Or, at least, it was a good tactic if all you wanted to do was break your captive, but not so much if you actually wanted information, like they seemed to.

The big question they asked him was: "Tell us about the Dark Lord's life."

Where to begin? Draco had seen the Dark Lord often enough throughout the years, but he had never really sat down with the man to ask him questions about his life choices or his previous careers. Of course he hadn't. Nobody knew much about the Dark Lord's life, not even those who had followed him for most of theirs. Draco had told all of that to the Rebels, but they somehow didn't seem to appreciate the truth of it. And Moody might look old and a bit senile, but he could pack a mean Crucio when he wanted to.

When they got fed up with their stupid questions, they left, locking him in a makeshift cell in the most disgusting corner of the shed. The whole place stank of animal dung and there were no furniture anywhere, not even a chamberpot for him. He shuddered at the thought of spending the next few days (or more!) and it jarred the injuries in his body, making him moan in pain. He looked around again. Even if the shed in itself looked a bit fragile, the wards around the cell were pretty strong, from what he could see of them: An Anti-Animagus ward here, Anti-Portkey there, Anti-Apparition this way, Anti-Physical Exit that way. He couldn't escape in any way he could think of, and nobody could break him out that easily either. Well, there goes that hope, he thought, sighing in his head. He laid his head on a stone and hoped to sleep away the tremors in his body.

Voilà! I hope you liked this chapter! That one and the next are stepping stones for the rest of the story.

Next chapter will have some DM/HP interaction. For Draco's personality, I tried to find a balance between making him intelligent and spoilt. Tell me how you like him!

Thank you in advance for reviewing! It's so appreciated! You guys are awesome, as always! :D