A Thousand Words

Annie

Story Summary:
Five years after the second war, the Ministry of Magic proposes an interdepartmental challenge in an attempt to restore trust between workers. Unknowingly, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are assigned as partners. As the two begin to write to each other under the nicknames Starlight and Shadow, their careers outside of their letters become entwined as well. Obsessions grow out of control, friendships are shattered, and all the while, the threat of a second era of darkness looms above the wizarding world. What happens when Starlight and Shadow begin meeting in secret? And will the two ever discover who the mystery on the other side of the page is?

Chapter 22 - You Alone

Posted:
12/05/2006
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Chapter 22: You Alone

When Draco arrived on the seventh and highest floor of the Ministry the next morning, he was in unusually high spirits. Normally, the thought of going anywhere near the Unforgivable Curses sent a foreboding chill down his spine, but he was instead thinking about his meeting with Hermione the next day and the letter he had received from Starlight. She had set the time of their next meeting to the upcoming Sunday at 7pm.

'Morning, Malfoy,' said a female voice as Draco pushed through the heavy oak doors and walked into what appeared to be a small, cramped room closed off by blank walls.

Draco had really entered a vast chamber with an extraordinarily high ceiling - the Training Hall, an area restricted to the instruction of physical Ministry-related skills. Today, tall, bronze walls criss-crossed the floor, dividing the Training Hall into smaller classroom-sized rooms, each of which enclosed a different step of the training course. The room Draco had entered allowed visitors to choose the course of their preference: to his left was a wooden door marked 'Hit Wizards', while the door on his right was marked 'Aurors'.

'How do you do, Ackerman?' said Draco, nodding at the chubby, mousy-haired witch who had greeted him. She was leaning against the far wall of the small space and chewing a wad of gum. She looked utterly bored.

'Good, good,' Marilla Ackerman replied as she twirled her wand between her fingers, causing it to emit bright orange sparks. 'I'm doing the announcing today.'

Draco nodded, and then passed through the door on his left. He went through several individual training rooms before he reached a larger one which extended all the way across the width of the Training Hall. Since the use of Unforgivable Curses was one of the abilities required of both Hit Wizards and Aurors, Draco and Hermione's individual rooms had been combined to form one.

Hermione was already waiting on her side when Draco entered. She looked up at the sound of the door closing behind him.

'Good morning,' she said, smiling weakly.

'You okay?' Draco asked apathetically. He pulled out his wand and began polishing it with a fistful of his robes.

'No,' she replied shortly.

Draco looked up. 'What do you mean, "No"?' he asked irritably. 'If you're sick, you'd better go -'

'It's not that,' she cut in quickly. 'I just don't like doing the idea of this part of the course. I mean...telling them to purposely cast Unforgivable Curses...over and over again...'

'They'll be thanking us when they meet a Death Eater in a dark alley and only survive through the use of one of the curses,' said Draco plainly. He had figured Hermione wouldn't like this part of the training course; she'd always been too soft for her own good.

'Maybe it's easy for you to just fire these off, but it isn't for me,' Hermione retorted. 'Even the thought of putting those poor beetles through the Cruciatus curse is unbearable.'

She looked sadly at the large glass jar set across the room from her. It contained a number of fat black beetles. They were flying about so frantically that they kept ricocheting off the walls of the jar. It was as if they knew what was about to happen, and were trying to find some way of escape.

Draco's insides squirmed uneasily. He rubbed one of his scars unconsciously. Of course, having been a servant of the Dark Lord's, he had quite a bit of experience with Unforgivable Curses...but the Cruciatus curse...

Out loud, though, he let out a snort of laughter. 'Don't know why - much less how - you became an Auror, then, Granger.'

'Yes, well, I prefer to only think of the more positive aspects of an Auror's position,' Hermione snapped. 'Saving people, for one. Besides,' she added, as if on second thought, 'I'm surprised you'd stand for all of this; if I remember correctly, you're rather inclined towards beetles, aren't you, Malfoy?'

'Right,' Draco sneered. He doubted Hermione would ever let the Skeeter incident go. He examined his wand for any more fingerprints, found none, and stored it back in his pocket. 'So when do they come in?'

Hermione checked her wristwatch. Before she could answer Draco's question, however, Ackerman's magically magnified voice rang out in the training chamber. 'Please take your places and proceed to the first room at the sound of the bell.'

Five seconds later, the bell rang loudly.

'An hour or so,' Hermione said. She began pacing back and forth.

Draco watched Hermione for a few minutes, amused by her nervousness and feeling rather nervous himself. Each step of the training course lasted exactly ten minutes, and in those ten minutes, each one of the training Aurors and Hit Wizards had to perform a series of tasks generated by the witch or wizard in charge. After each task, the trainee would either receive one point or zero points, depending on whether or not they had completed it successfully.

Draco glanced at his jar of beetles. Unlike Hermione's, his were unusually subdued. He sighed, wondering what it would be like to suffer through first the Imperius curse and then the Cruciatus curse before being finished off with the killing curse.

The next hour passed quickly, with Draco and Hermione discussing the Malkin case some more. She told him she had retrieved the list and skimmed over it briefly the night before. As she had not dealt with any of the recent werewolf cases, however, she hadn't been able to narrow it down. Draco was surprised to find himself relaxing in her company and even bringing down his sarcasm, which he usually hid behind, a little bit.

At last, Ackerman announced, 'Please proceed to the next room at the sound of the bell.'

The bell rang, and the doors to Hermione and Draco's room sprang open. Two groups of witches and wizards sporting purple training robes stumbled in, looking thoroughly dishevelled.

Draco ushered the twenty or so people on his side of the room into an untidy line. Many of them sported bleeding cuts and scrapes, but Draco paid no attention to this - it was all part of the training process.

'Right,' he said briskly once the last individual had entered. 'Have fun back there, everyone?'

There was a chorus of grumbles and a few muttered 'not even close's, but for the most part, everyone was too busy trying to catch their breath to answer.

'For this challenge,' Draco continued, 'you're to perform the Imperius, Cruciatus, and killing curses, in that order, on those beetles' - he pointed his wand at the jar of beetles - 'over there.

'A solid knowledge of the Unforgivable Curses is crucial when out on a chase. Many of your targets will not hesitate to use one on you, and you must be prepared to do the same - but only for self-defence. If the Ministry finds that any of you have used this on another witch or wizard unprovoked, the consequences will be severe.

'Now, on the count of three, I will levitate one beetle towards each of you, and you are to perform the specified Unforgivable Curse. You will have one chance and one chance only. Are there any questions?'

The group stared mutely back at Draco.

'Marvellous,' he drawled. 'For the Imperius curse, I want you to make your beetle do three somersaults in the air. This particular spell is very handy when dealing with subjects that refuse to be brought in. Wands out.'

Everyone drew their wands. Some looked very apprehensive about Draco's instructions. One young, sandy-haired wizard's hand was even shaking as he held his wand out.

'One' - Draco made a twirling motion in the air with his wand, and the lid of the jar lifted off - 'two' - he jerked his wand quickly; nineteen beetles began drifting towards the lined-up trainees - 'three.'

The beetles came to a halt in mid-air. At once, nineteen different voices shouted, 'Imperio!'

Draco watched nonchalantly as roughly half of the beetles went somersaulting through the air. The other half simply continued to float lazily in place. Many of the Hit Wizards-in-training were evidently straining to make these beetles obey them. Draco clucked his tongue in disappointment.

'Time's up,' he said sharply. He waved his wand, causing the beetles to disappear.

At that moment, he heard a number of 'Imperio!'s come from Hermione's side of the room, and he looked over. There were three or four more people in her group, and as a whole, they were doing decidedly better than his trainees.

'Okay,' said Draco, trying to ignore this irritating detail. 'Now, for the...the Cruciatus curse.' His throat had suddenly become very dry. He cleared it loudly and said, 'While out on a chase or a mission, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement does not support the use of this particular Unforgivable Curse. However, we feel that all incoming Hit Wizards and Aurors should be capable of performing it should the need arise. Wands out.'

Draco repeated the same countdown process as he had done earlier. The moment 'three' left his lips, his trainees all screamed, 'Crucio!'

Draco's blood ran cold. The word sounded so chillingly familiar...of course these were amateur Hit Wizards just out of school, nothing like the Dark Lord had been, but nonetheless...he shuddered, trying to focus on the task at hand. The group appeared to have done much better this time around. This made Draco almost as uneasy as the sight of the beetles writhing about in pain.

'Good job,' he squeaked, trying not to let his distress show. 'Last one. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Avada Kedavra. I'll give all of you a moment to collect yourself.'

Draco took advantage of the moment to cast a surreptitious glance over his shoulder at Hermione. He wondered how she was faring. He couldn't help but feel a little relieved to see the pinched, nauseated expression on her face as she observed her trainees casting the Cruciatus curse on their beetles. At least he wasn't the only one.

Just before Hermione Vanished the row of limp beetles, she looked up. Her gaze met Draco's. She smiled wearily at him. He turned away before she could see that he was equally shaken.

'Moment up,' he said bluntly. 'Wands out. And you with the long brown hair - yes you - stop crying. If you think this is tough, wait until you have to face a real wizard bearing a wand.'

The skinny, pallid girl Draco had pointed out glared back at him.

'Don't give me that nonsense,' Draco snapped. 'If you want to be any cop out there, suck it up and draw your wand.'

Draco didn't wait for an answer from the girl; he didn't expect one. He knew that if she had any sense, she wouldn't talk back.

'Now, on the count of three...'

Draco repeated the levitation process a third time over. This time, all the voices were in unison when they bellowed, 'Avada Kedavra!'

The explosion of bright green light was so blinding that Draco had to shield his eyes for a moment. Still, he felt a thrill of exhilaration course through him as he felt the killing curses fly past him. This was why he had joined the Death Eaters, he realised. To feel that sense of power and control...to know that with those two words, he could take away another life...but Draco cleared these thoughts away with a shake of his head; it always made him sick to the stomach to think of them.

When Draco was able to see clearly again, he noted that, just as he had expected, less than a quarter of the beetles had fallen to the floor dead.

He raised an eyebrow coldly. 'Dismal.'

With a sweep of his wand, he cleared the beetles away. He then sauntered across the room to the other side, where a long scroll of parchment was tacked to the wall. He tapped it with his wand and watched as the names of the trainees along with the marks out of three they had received appeared in purple ink.

'On your way out,' he said as he walked back to where the nervous Hit Wizards-in-training were standing, 'you may glance at the list to see how you did.'

As if on cue, Ackerman's voice suddenly rang out within the chamber again. 'Please proceed to the next room at the sound of the bell.'

Several members of the group appeared to be so eager to exit that, upon hearing the signal to leave, they rushed out of the door on the other side without even sparing a fleeting glimpse at their marks. Draco suspected that those were the recruits who had failed all three times.

'Finally,' he muttered under his breath, sliding down the wall so that he was sitting with his back to it. He rested his arms on his knees and looked over at Hermione's side.

The last of her trainees were just exiting. When they were all gone, she shut the door behind them and walked over to where Draco was sitting.

'How did yours do?' she asked, sitting down cross-legged in front of him.

'Only a fourth of them managed to do Avada Kedavra,' Draco replied, rolling his eyes. 'They're even more pathetic than you, Granger.'

Hermione grimaced. 'I wish they hadn't made the Unforgivable Curses a requirement. My session was dreadful too. I felt awful...a lot of them were crying; one or two couldn't even bring themselves to utter the incantations. I don't blame them either,' she added hastily.

'They'll thank us later,' Draco reminded her.

'I still don't think it's worth it.'

Draco shrugged. He had nothing to say in response to this.

'So,' Hermione sighed, uncrossing her legs and stretching them out next to Draco, 'since you're so big and bad when it comes to the topic of Unforgivable Curses, care to tell me what in particular terrifies you about the Cruciatus curse?'

'What do you mean?' said Draco harshly. He inwardly cursed Hermione for having such astute eyes. How could she have caught his fear from the other side of the ruddy room?

'You're not as good at disguising yourself as you may think you are,' she said simply. 'Answer my question.'

For a split second, Draco saw himself writhing around wildly on a cold stone floor, screaming as excruciating pain ripped through him...he recalled such intolerable agony that he began clawing at himself, desperate to get out of his own body...

'My scars,' he said coldly. The two words felt awkward on his lips; he had never confessed this particular part of his past to anyone, and he wondered vaguely why he was doing it now. 'It's how I got my scars.'

Hermione looked taken aback. Apparently, she too had never expected that she'd be the one hearing about Draco's best-kept secret first. 'How?' she asked in a hushed voice.

'Have you ever been subjected to it, Granger?'

She hesitated, and then shook her head no.

'Let's just say that the pain is so unbearable that you'll do anything to escape yourself,' said Draco bitterly. 'Even if it means destroying any part of your body within reach.'

Hermione looked horrified by this statement. For a moment, she simply stared at Draco in disbelief. Then, she whispered slowly, 'And because they're cursed scars...'

'...they're permanent, yes,' Draco finished.

He was furious with himself. He hadn't planned on ever revealing this to another human being, and now here he was, sharing every detail with Hermione Granger. Why did he trust her? Now she'd probably run off and tell her stupid friends so Weasley could have another reason to taunt him...

'Malfoy,' said Hermione softly, scooting a little closer to him with concern in her eyes, 'I meant what I said the other day. They really aren't that bad.'

And this time around, Draco believed her.