1996
His grandfather's chest rose and fell barely noticeably. Only with great effort could Draco make out the faint movements. He did not dare to blink. His grandfather heaved a deep sigh and his eyeballs twitched behind his closed lids. Relentlessly he turned from one side to the other, single strands of hair falling into his face and sticking to his sweaty forehead.
He's too hot...already soaking wet. Draco quietly rose from his chair to pull the duvet down a little. With his fingertips he tugged at the blanket, then with a harried groan he opened his eyes and looked at him abruptly.
"Draco..."
"Get some rest," he interrupted him.
"No, you're not supposed to be here," his grandfather began to clamour weakly. That his mother, Narcissa, had stayed away from the bed despite these haggard protests had been inconceivable to him; on the other hand, it was not her father. Lucius, however, was sitting in Azkaban. He could not be her. "Go, you'll catch it..."
Draco shook his head. "Don't worry about me-"
"I'm not...I just don't want to be tortured any more..."
That was his grandfather, as he lived and breathed. Gruff, cynical and condescending. Even his scarred face had told those around him that he was not one for joking. He had always been considered a fighter, having survived dragon pox in his younger years. Everyone had already thought he was as good as dead, but then he had surprisingly recovered.
It was a special irony of fate that now, decades later, dragon pox should still take him.
Abraxas' gaze was glassy. He was unable to make it stick to an object. Draco noticed him looking past him left and right and it made him doubt whether he was really doing the right thing. If his mother knew that he had sneaked into the room...
"Narcissa does it right...go!"
Draco shook his head.
"Stupid boy! Do you want her to lose her son too?"
That was a good one. Draco winced painfully. Not because he was suddenly afraid of catching dragon pox, mother had already cried so much in the last few days that he was numb to it. It was a lot at the moment, too much for her. She was missing his father. Lucius would miss out on the opportunity to say goodbye to his father. Although Draco wasn't sure if the two had maintained a close relationship, he wanted to be there for his grandfather and replace his father. The words, thought only lightly, hurt immensely. No one could replace his father.
Mother cried her eyes out. Her skin was already cracked from all the tears that had been running down for days. The house was also otherwise so strangely empty...and lifeless...and of all things Abraxas had caught smallpox!
It stung Draco's heart. That had not been a coincidence. If they had not been weakened by Lucius' loss, Abraxas could have cured himself in an instant.
"I'm not going!"
"Then stay...but at a distance..."
Concern was written all over his emaciated grandfather's face, but there was also a small lift of the corners of his mouth full of affection. Draco knew he had made the right decision.
With a pop, a house elf suddenly appeared and beeped: "The dark lord pays you a visit, my lord." An announcement and a warning at the same time.
Abraxas could not have become any paler, but his face grimaced at these words. His cheeks were covered with red and pus-filled blisters, his facial expressions barely recognisable. Draco's blood froze in his veins too. An encounter with the Dark Lord was synonymous with orders and work, and that in turn with the danger of failure. They were not in a position to champion the Purebloods' cause at the moment, but he could not say that openly. The dark lord did not tolerate backtalk.
His grandfather reached for his hand and trembled so much that he couldn't really hold it. He had been careful not to touch Draco because of the risk of infection. His eyes were wide open so that all the veins were visible. The eyeballs, which should have been white, shimmered yellowish.
"Go, he mustn't see you!"
"He wants to talk to me..." Abraxas had never been a Death Eater. The former dragon pox disease had made him an outsider, seen and respected, but he preferred to keep to himself, not letting anyone get close to him.
"The dark lord is already in the house. He is approaching this room." House elves only delivered bad messages, but this was a catastrophe. With a pop, she took to her heels.
"Quick!", Abraxas gasped without breath and tugged at Draco's hand. It was a wonder what strength was still in those bony fingers. "You must hide."
"There's no need for that...", Draco murmured, but the vehemence with which his grandfather urged him made him doubtful. He wasn't just asking, no, he was pleading with him. And Abraxas Malfoy was not a man to make a request, let alone beg.
"Hide under the bed!"
His heart was pounding and he might have made a mistake, but he could not refuse his grandfather's wish. Even when he was still at full strength, he would never have denied him anything. Draco's knees went weak. He was in his own childhood home on foreign soil. His father was in Azkaban, his mother avoided him and his grandfather was in a strange delirium. Who could he rely on? With trembling arms, he pulled himself under the bed, as his grandfather had ordered him to do.
Only a moment later, the door swung open and the Dark Lord stepped inside, his cloak flowing.
"Abraxas."
Draco had never heard his grandfather's name spoken with such reverence. Then the chair he had just been sitting in moved a little and a charged silence followed. It was only when his throat burned that Draco realised he had been holding his breath. Under no circumstances could he be discovered. He pressed his hands to his mouth to avoid accidentally making a sound.
"You...I didn't expect to see you again. After all…you have everything you want."
Draco almost drew in a sharp breath despite all his good intentions.
The dark lord was silent.
"What do you want? I know…what game you're playing with me! That's all it is to you…a game, isn't it?"
The tension between the two felt Draco's throat close.
"My view is unchanged. You won't break me."
Silence.
"Do you at least now understand…what I said then?"
How could his grandfather speak to him so disrespectfully? And he to remain silent in response? The Dark Lord was not squeamish when it came to punishing his followers, and Abraxas was not even that! True, he had never minced his words, but to contradict the dark lord so brazenly was a suicide attempt.
Draco heard the rustling of robes. The dark lord had leaned forward so that his lips must be very close to Abraxas' ear. He whispered, "Why is Draco playing hide and seek with me?"
He immediately wanted to jump up and apologise. He braced himself for having a Crucio sicced on him, then he could still consider himself lucky. He had overheard his father confessing to his mother that the dark lord had even killed a Death Eater after the disaster at the ministry. Draco scrambled forward, but his grandfather's voice made him pause, "Leave him alone! You already have Lucius!"
Draco would have preferred to crawl into a mouse hole.
"As you know, Azkaban has Lucius, not me," the dark lord said loftily, completely unaffected by the reproach.
"And you know how to talk your way out of responsibility."
"Think carefully about how you speak to me!"
"I'm a dying man, I don't have to think anymore."
The dark lord snorted. "I hope you see the irony in your words." Then his unyielding gaze turned to Draco. "Come."
Without hesitation, he went after him. Likewise, he was not allowed to turn back to his grandfather. Draco kept his head down, although it pained him like a crucio, but anything else would have been seen as a sign of disobedience.
Fortunately, it was he who turned around once more so that Draco could catch one last glimpse. His grandfather lay slumped in bed, robbed of what little strength he had left.
"You brought this all on yourself," Voldemort said.
The door slammed shut like a book that had been read to the end.
At the end of the corridor, the dark lord stopped and eyed Draco critically. The blood-red eyes literally pierced him. Draco was not facing him for the very first time. Since the dark lord had returned, he had often been his father's guest. However, he could count the number of times Draco had been addressed personally on one hand. A shiver ran down his spine.
"Say..." he hissed in his serpentine voice andand Draco's teeth began to clash uncontrollably. "Do you want to save him?"
Draco nodded vigorously. There was no second thought. Until now, he had not believed that there was still a cure, but if the Lord saw a possibility...
"Then you have to be of service to me."
Words that would go down in history.
oOo
"When school starts again, go to the Room of Wishes"
"Imagine you want to hide something"
"Find the vanishing cabinet in the chaos"
"Fix it"
"Make no mistake"
"So what do I have to do?" Playfully bored, Draco leaned against the counter and flicked a lint off with his finger. The place hadn't been cleaned in years.
"Boy, why don't you just bring it to me at the garage?" grumbled Mr Borgin. "It'll probably be quicker. I'm no expert, but I know a bit about these things."
"Impossible."
"Why not, may I ask?"
"You may not."
Mr Borgin raised an eyebrow. "Years ago we once had an employee who was disturbingly knowledgeable. A grandmaster of artefacts, you might say."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
"Then why are you telling me?" growled Draco.
Annoyed, Mr Borgin folded his account books shut. "You will pay me for the time I have to spend on explanations, lad."
"Then make something of it."
"Harmonia Nectere Passus is the spell and this movement." He drew an extremely intricate pattern in the air. Draco traced it three times until he had it properly memorised. "And then you must make an extreme effort. Visualise what it looks like, how it works."
"That's it?"
"Isn't it enough?"
oOo
"Harmonia Nectere Passus!"
Again and again, the emphasis was a little different.
"Harmonia Nectere Passus!"
The result remained the same.
"Harmonia Nectere Passus!"
Something was wrong with his imagination. No matter how many times he said the spell and how detached he imagined the journey between the two vanishing cabinets, the cabinet remained demolished.
His grandfather, meanwhile, lay at home and suffered. He was able to save him and failed at a spell that was not even particularly difficult to pronounce.
He would have liked to take the cupboard to Borgin and pay the fee, but the dark lord had strictly forbidden it. And he got it all.
Well, Borgin had warned him. You had to push yourself to the limit for the spell to work. Draco wiped the sweat from his brow and started again.
"Harmonia Nectere Passus!"
"Harmonia Nectere Passus!"
Suddenly it cracked and the broken side was carpentered again. Not a scratch or scrape was still visible in the oak wood.
It worked! Draco jumped for joy. Now he just had to test it once more. Could he test it with himself? The cabinet's job was to transport him to his twin. If it didn't work, then he'd be in the cupboard, standing on his haunches, but that was all. Draco didn't waste another thought on it. His grandfather was dying, after all, and by completing this assignment he could save him. Every minute was precious.
"Repair the vanishing cabinet"
"Make no mistake"