Chapter Fifteen
A/N: No reviewers.
The distinctive laugh of Lucius Malfoy carried across the hall, echoing around the cavernous room and reaching even the heights of the ceiling. He had emerged from the shadows now, his cane tapping loudly against the stone of the ground he walked on. Even his footsteps seemed to be louder than they were, when compared with the silence that surrounded the group of young adults in the midst of the circle.
"Did you actually believe," Malfoy began, each syllable he spoke dripping with menace and poison, a smirk of victory pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Or were you truly naive enough to think, that children stood a chance... against us?"
However, it was not long before they realised they had been drawn into a trap by listening to the man speak, as seven Death Eaters approached them from behind, each one of them grabbing one of the 'children' and holding them in place in a formation that spanned the entire of the stone circle surrounding the archway. As they struggled, Bellatrix Lestrange merely laughed, holding ever tighter to Neville Longbottom as he squirmed for freedom, unsuccessfully.
"Let us go, Malfoy!" Merida cried out, receiving a blow to the gut from her captor, Thorfinn Rowle, for her troubles. She curled up around her stomach as best she could, still being trapped in the man's arms, but glanced up quickly to see the man she had addressed staring right at her. He paused for a moment, and then changed his direction, approaching her instead of Harry.
"Malfoy, leave her alone!" Harry yelled, but the patriarch of the family paid no more heed to the boy than he had done to her. He continued to move in her direction, each tap of his cane against the stone resounding through the silence of the large room. He walked slowly, clearly making an effort to appear intimidating, but Merida did not allow her fear to show. If she let him know that she was afraid, then he had defeated her. 'No.' she thought to herself. 'I'm not going to let him win.'
"And why, in Merlin's precious name, would I do that, my dear?" he asked, the nicety of his tone deformed by the malice that lay, barely hidden, beneath the surface. "I have all of you here, exactly where I want you, with nothing that you can do to stop me summoning the Dark Lord here this very second. I could have you all dead in a heartbeat, and then the victory path of our Lord would be clear, without your precious Potter to stand in his way. I'll be showered with glory, and the Dark Lord shall rule the world. So, tell me, why would I throw all that away?"
Suddenly, a thought struck Merida, an ace that she had not yet thought to play. There was no time to stall, their chances were running out, and so just as the man began to turn away, she spoke, her voice carrying loudly and clearly through the echoing chamber.
"And what about your son?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow. Malfoy paused, before he turned towards her once again. He took two steps forward, now closer to her than he had been the previous time they had spoken. Seeing that he wished her to, the girl elaborated on the question, her rich Scottish accent accentuating every word. "Where does Draco fit into this grand plan of yours?"
For a little while, there was silence, as Lucius considered the answer he would give. It was clear that he was trying to find an answer that would either satisfy or hurt her, and she could not be sure which option would be the truth, if either.
"My son will be heralded in the ranks of the Dark Lord." Malfoy began, choosing his words extremely carefully. It was almost as if he was fearful of her reaction, one of the children who he said had stood no chance against them. The great Lucius Malfoy, scared of a child. "He will have all that he desires and more as a reward for his services."
"What services?" Merida scoffed, unable to keep a laugh from her lips, though the words she spoke were truthful. "He's a kid!"
The fear vanished from Malfoy's face, leaving only the awful smirk that had been there before. He knew something that she did not, that much was clear, and now it was her turn to be frightened of what may come. She had thought, after all, that she had known Draco, but that was before he had gone behind her back and helped to try and bring down Dumbledore's Army. She had forgiven him for this mistake long ago, and he had apologised endlessly before she had done so, but there was still a niggling doubt in her mind as to whether he had kept anything else from her. She hadn't spotted his lies before; why should she have noticed if he did it again?
"Is there something funny, or did the wind just change?" she quipped, using the insult to prove that she had not been broken by the implication Malfoy had made.
"We may have laid a trap for you all, Miss Ross, but that does not mean that we knew you were coming. Did you not wonder who told us?" he asked her, and suddenly, Merida's blood ran cold. He had betrayed her. After all this time, all she had thought they had built together, Draco had betrayed her to his father, a man he had all but confessed to her that he hated.
Malfoy's face blurred through the tears filling her eyes, though she could hardly miss the triumphant smirk that now adorned it, and she could hear a faint cackle in the distance, from where Bellatrix still held Neville. She could see the look of sympathy on Ginny's face, and the mirroring look on Harry's, but it all faded into the distance.
All that remained was the pain of knowing her truest friend, a boy she had thought she loved, had let her down again.
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