Solitude

He groggily opened his eyes when he heard voices, that of a female and the other a male. He recognized them both, but before he could focus on the people in front of him his eyes closed again, shutting his mind away in darkness.

He could still hear them, however. He could hear the worry in the woman's voice and the disdain at her questions in the male's voice.

"I don't know exactly what happened. I told you that," the man snapped. "I just happened to see him inflicting the Cruciatus curse on his own son."

Draco groaned when he realized they were talking about him and Lucius. The bastard had been sending the Cruciatus Curse on him for a good ten minutes before he blacked out. And now, he was in a strange room with a voice he recognized as Snape's and a female's voice that scratched the edge of his brain with its familiar tone.

"Where is Lucius now?"

"My guess is he's still in the forest. I managed to stun him from behind."

"So your cover was not blown?"

"I don't think so. We'll have to wait for Pomfrey to come back from tending to the others."

"Any idea why Lucius would turn on him? He'd always been extremely loyal to his father."

A voice cleared across the room and Draco knew that his old headmaster had entered, "Ms. Granger, Severus, there are many things going on in this war that do not have answers. But I have one for this." His voice grew a little louder, but still held the same gentle tone to it, "Young Master Malfoy has taken the route of his favorite professor."

"Albus?" Snape asked softly, "Draco has..."

"Yes, Draco has been helping our cause from the inside of the Death Eaters. While your information is more than useful, Severus, I feel that Draco's may have been even more so."

"I don't understand. Draco has killed..." Hermione's soft voice said slowly.

Draco opened his eyes in time to see the headmaster shake his head, "No, my dear. The ones Draco has been accused of killing are not dead, but very well hidden. They are waiting for their time to rise again."

She took in a deep breath, "So he's been feeding you information..."

"From Lucius. Lucius is Voldemort's most trusted companion. If anyone knew the full extent of his plans, it was Lucius. Draco came to me two years ago, run down and full of despair. It appears that his life was not what he wanted it to be. He knew that giving information to me could be the end of his life, but I don't think that Draco really felt like living. Ever since, he'd been sending me letters, informing me of what Voldemort had planned. His information was more detailed than I could have hoped." The headmaster sighed, "But Draco had a feeling that for the last week he'd been found out. Which he had. His father knew and had been feeding Draco false information to catch him, which he did."

Draco groaned, "Bastard," he whispered.

Hermione and Snape looked down at him as he closed his eyes in pain. "So Lucius was going to kill him?" she said softly.

Dumbledore nodded, "I believe so. After, of course, he tortured the poor boy. Or possibly torture him to death. Which is why I sent you after him, Severus. Thank you for retrieving him before the damage was irreversible."

Snape stood and looked down at Draco where he lay on one of the beds they'd had set up in the safe house they'd been using. Dumbledore was the secret keeper for the house, for it housed the Order's wounded. Madam Pomfrey bustled into the room and shook her head at the young man on the bed.

"Hermione, dear, you would grab that vial on the table for me, please. I swear, if I never seen another person suffering from the after effects of the Cruciatus curse it will be too soon."

Hermione handed her the vial and watched as she poured a little down Draco's throat, causing the boy to sputter, but his body to relax. She sighed, "There now. He should be feeling a might better in a few days time. So are we to keep him here, Albus?"

The older man nodded, "Yes. I fear it would lead to his death to send him back out now. Miss Granger, I trust I can rely on you to look after him while he's here."

She nodded, "Of course. He won't...try to hurt me, will he?" she asked as she looked down at his now sleeping form.

Dumbledore shook his head, "No. Draco no longer has a great taste for violence."

He was pouring over the parchment that rested on his desk, almost oblivious to the things going on around him. But suddenly, without warning the door burst open, causing him to stand upon seeing the young blond he'd once had such hope for.

"Mr. Malfoy."

He pointed his wand at the older man as he stepped more into the room. He held it steady for a few moments, then threw it across the room where it hit the wall. He sat in one of the chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk and heaved a great sigh. The headmaster took a seat behind his desk and watched him carefully, waiting for something from the younger man.

"What do you want to know?" Draco asked softly.

He eyed him carefully, staring at him over the top of his half-moon glasses, "I'm not sure what you mean, Mr. Malfoy."

He shook his head, "I can't do this anymore." He buried his head in his hands, "They...they wanted me to kill a child. A child!" he shouted as he lifted his head again. "A little person who had done nothing wrong. I mean, I know I'm no saint and I have killed my fair share of...but something about doing that seemed...so cold to me that I didn't even recognize myself."

"I see."

"You think I'm a monster, I'm well aware of that." He sighed, "But even a monster has his limits, right?"

Dumbledore eyed him for a few moments, "Mr. Malfoy, you understand what you're doing, don't you?"

He folded his arms over his chest, "No offense, but I don't really care anymore."

"I see."

"So I'll ask again. What is it you want to know?"

"Does anyone know you're here?"

"No."

"Are you certain?"

"Fairly. They were busy celebrating their great victory over the muggles we came upon." He shook his head, a look of disgust crossing his face.

"You understand that if you do what you are offering, you will be putting your life in grave danger."

"I know that. But like I've already said. I don't care anymore. I've just committed an ungodly act...so I don't see where my life is of much use to anyone anymore."

The headmaster took the opportunity to look the boy over. While he looked quite well, his eyes had a hollowness to them that made him feel sorry for the once vibrant student. He looked tired and weary, not at all like the young man he'd once known.

"Why is it that you wish to give information to me?"

He sighed, "I figured that if anyone could stop things from happening, like what happened today, it was you or Potter. And while I'm not overly fond of you, Potter would have hexed my head off the second he saw me."

He nodded, "So what is it that you can tell me that would be of use?"

"What do you want to know?"

*~*

Hermione walked down the stairs, finding Ron and Harry pouring over a map that Lupin had supplied for them. She smiled at the appearance of her friends, having not seen them in some time. "Harry! Ron!"

They both whirled around, both smiling, as she ran towards them. Harry, who was now a great deal taller than her embraced her first, "Hermione! You look fantastic."

She pulled away from him, "Thanks. So do you." She hugged Ron next, "It's so good to see you both."

Ron nodded, "You too." They all stood there smiling for a moment, and then Ron tilted his head at her, "Malfoy still out of it?"

She nodded, "I'm surprised you heard already."

Harry nodded, "Yeah. We caught mumblings from Snape about secrets, Dumbledore, Malfoy, and Death Eater traitors. We asked and Remus told us."

"Yeah. Apparently he's been feeding information to Dumbledore and was found out. Lucius tried to kill him."

Ron folded his arms over his chest, "It couldn't have happened to a better person," he said with a sneer.

She rolled her eyes and turned back to Harry, "What are you doing here?"

"Order business."

Since their graduation from Hogwarts, Harry, Hermione, and Ron had joined in with the Order, trying to help with the cause. Harry had been training as an Auror as had Ron. Harry finally confided in Ron and Hermione that he would be the one that would have to kill Voldemort, a fact that still sent chills to his core when he thought about it. Hermione had been training with Madam Pomfrey to become a healer. While Madam Pomfrey usually stayed at Hogwarts and allowed Hermione to tend to the victims in the safe house, she occasionally made visits upon Dumbledore's request.

"Anything I can help with?"

Ron shook his head, "Not really. Just going off some information that Dumbledore had given to us."

She nodded, "I see. Well, I had better get back upstairs. Madam Pomfrey pushed me out of the room while she examined Malfoy."

Harry smiled, "Probably wants to protect your delicate eyes."

"From what?"

"Malfoy."

She rolled her eyes, "He's a patient. Besides, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Remember, I did nurse you back to health after that blast-ended skewrt got a hold of you last year."

Harry blushed, "Yeah...don't you have work to do?"

She smiled, "You two be careful," she turned and left the room, making her way back up the stairs. Truth-be-told, she was glad Madam Pomfrey had sent her out of the room. She did not, under any circumstances, want to see the black mark on Malfoy's arm. It would just remind her of the dear friends she'd lost in this war. It would only bring back some of the hurt and possibly distract her from taking care of the prat.

She entered the room to find Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey talking in hushed tones across the room. She gave them both a nod as she walked over to the bed where Tonks was sleeping. She had taken a nasty fall down the stairs the day before, causing a slight concussion and a few bruises, but other than that she was fine. She looked over at Malfoy where he seemed to be resting peacefully, every now and again twitching in the after effects of the Cruciatus Curse.

Professor Snape re-entered the room in a black swirl of robes, "If that is all, Albus, I'll be going back to Hogwarts."

The older man shook his head, "Wait a moment, please, Severus, Poppy and I will go with you." He looked at Hermione, "Take good care of him, Hermione," the older wizard gave her a nod, then followed the Potions master out the door.

Madam Pomfrey looked at her with a smile, "You know what to do, dear. Every two hours, give him another teaspoon of the potion."

Hermione nodded. She took a seat in the chair behind the desk in the room. It was where she spent most of her time. In the year she'd been allowed to work without the aid of Madam Pomfrey she'd seen more and more of her friends come into the ward. Harry and Ron had both been in there more than she could count on one hand. Neville and Tonks were in more for their own accidents than injuries acquired during battles. Other members of the Order had been in for mild things, but nothing too serious for her to handle.

But she hated seeing people she knew, cared about, brought in for the after affects of the Cruciatus Curse. Kingsley had been brought in two months before after a fight with Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the Death Eaters to escape from Azkaban and was the one who had killed Sirius. Luckily Harry and Ron managed to get into the room where Bellatrix had been torturing him and managed to capture her. Hermione heard from Ron that it had taken everything in him to convince Harry not to kill her.

She heard a slight moan from Tonks and smiled as the woman sat up in her bed. Her hair was a deep sapphire color, matched only by the color of her eyes as it fell down her head, framing her face in ringlet curls. Hermione smiled to herself as she thought of the child star Shirley Temple with her signature ringlets, although hers were never blue.

Tonks looked around the room and found Malfoy lying beside her. She snapped her head over to Hermione, "We're taking in Death Eaters?"

She shook her head, "He's a spy."

"For which side?"

Hermione smiled, "He's been giving Dumbledore information. Lucius tried to kill him."

She raised an eyebrow, "He tried to kill his own son?"

"You act surprised."

Tonks shook her head, trying to clear out the fuzziness, "How long has he been a spy?"

"Two years I believe is what Dumbledore said."

"I'm in shock," she said as she threw the blanket to the side and stretched.

"No more than I am." She turned back to her book. She had read every magic book on medicine and healing she could find. She found the subject extremely fascinating and couldn't find enough to read. She'd owled her mother, asking for a copy of the muggle book doctors used known as the Physician Desk Reference. She liked to compare how muggles would go about healing things in opposition to how wizards and witches did so.

"Everyone leave?" Tonks asked as she stood.

"I think Harry and Ron might still be here, but I wouldn't count on it."

She nodded, "So when am I allowed to get out of here?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Not feeling dizzy any longer?"

"No."

"Any pain?"

She shook her head, "No. You're pretty good at this healing stuff."

Hermione smiled, "Thanks. I guess you can go, if you must."

Tonks smiled, "I know it has to be boring here with no one to talk to." She looked at the bed beside hers at the sleeping Malfoy. "How long will he be out?"

"Well, at least until tomorrow."

The older girl nodded, "I'll come by to see you, make sure he didn't hex you or anything."

Hermione's eyes widened, "Don't joke about that."

"Who's joking?"

She let out a slight breath, "Well, now that you've given me something to worry about..."

Tonks smiled, "Okay. I'll go." She rose from the bed and gathered her clothes that were neatly folded in the chair beside her bed. Hermione watched her for a moment as she disappeared into the room to her left. She cast a worried look over at Malfoy, a sudden uneasiness filling her. He wouldn't hurt her...would he?

She shook her head and looked back down at the book that rested in her lap. She leaned back in her chair, engrossed in the descriptions of different medications. It wasn't until Tonks re-emerged from the bathroom, now with spiked crimson hair and violet eyes that Hermione looked up from her book.

Hermione shook her head, "I wish I could do that."

Tonks shrugged, "Saves me from ever having a bad hair day. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye," she waved after her friend and returned to her book. She was alone. She didn't usually stay in the empty house, only when there was someone who needed tending to. She had her own flat, a very nice one if she did say so herself. When she did stay at the house, she had her own room down the hall, but she rarely slept in there. It was too big and too empty, reminding her that she was alone.

She didn't like being alone. She was unaccustomed to it. She liked the thought of having someone around to talk to if she felt like it and she missed having someone there to just enjoy the silence with her. She looked at Malfoy as he slept then at her watch. She hadn't realized how much time had passed since she'd walked back up the stairs, but it was nearly time to give him another dose of the potion that Snape had perfected in brewing.

She set her book on the table and placed her hands in her lap. Hermione sighed, what Tonks had said did scare her slightly. She wasn't completely convinced that Malfoy was as trustworthy as Dumbledore had said. The man had let Professor Snape torment his students for years without ever saying a word to him. She took a deep breath as she stood, holding the slight trepidation she felt back with all her might.

She grabbed a teaspoon and the vial that contained the potion and approached his bed. She took a seat on the side of the bed and poured the potion carefully. She set the vial on the bedside table. She took a deep breath and lifted his head, placing the spoon to his open mouth and poured its contents down his throat. She placed his head back on the pillow and moved to stand when his hand grabbed her around the wrist.

"What was that?" he asked groggily.

"Something to ease your pain. Go back to sleep."

He opened his eyes and looked at her, his vision blurry as he tried to make out the figure looking down at him. "Granger?" he asked softly.

"Go back to sleep, Malfoy."

He groaned and released her arm, "Okay," he said as his eyes closed again. She just stared at him for several minutes before she found the strength in her body to move. He had scared her out of her wits. She took up the spoon then the vial and moved as quickly away from the bed as she could. She noticed her hands visibly shaking as she placed them both on her desk and cursed herself for being afraid of someone who was lying in a bed and whose wand lay halfway across the room.

She looked back at him and remembered why he was scared. She could see the black mark on his left arm and shivered at the sight of it. He stood for everything she hated, against everything she believed in. He hated her...kind. He hated her in particular when they were at Hogwarts. He resented the fact that she bested him in academics and resented Harry for besting him at everything else.

She wished she could have Dumbledore's optimism that he had changed for the better. She couldn't actually find anything inside her that actually believed that. She knew what he was. She'd seen the devastation first hand. She hated what he was and probably what he always would be. Just because he had been giving information to Dumbledore didn't make him good in her book. It didn't even make him decent. She had sincere reservations about Malfoy and she planned to let the Headmaster know it.

*~*

He was having the most peculiar dreams. He'd never had dreams before after he'd been attacked with the Cruciatus and it was odd that he was having them now. And it wasn't so much dreams as visions of the past. His past. He watched as his father told him tales of the Dark Lord's power; he watched as he first met Harry Potter and gave some idle little sorry that he didn't mean about his parents dying; he watched as he joined the Quiddich team; he watched as that blasted hippograffe attacked him; he watched as Hermione Granger slapped him; he watched as Harry Potter's name was announced from the Goblet of Fire; his joining of the Inquisitional Squad; his naming of Head Boy; his graduation from Hogwarts; his initiation into the Death Eaters; his marriage to Pansy; his first kill; and the moment he decided to throw everything against the wind and become a traitor.

He was a traitor to everything he'd ever known. A traitor to his beliefs, his life, and his father. The latter almost killed him. He could see Lucius looking at him with a completely cold expression in his eyes as he'd told his only son, his heir that he would die and it would be by his hands. He'd never really known fear before, but the look in in his father's eyes had instilled it in him. He'd been telling the truth when he'd informed Dumbledore that he didn't care if he died. He had nothing really worth living for. His marriage was a sham; an empty, emotionless contract that Pansy had never been faithful to, but then neither had he. She'd informed him early on that she didn't want children; it didn't sit well with him or his father, both wanting her to produce his heir.

At this point, lying in a bed in some house in the middle of...wherever, he was glad he didn't have a child. He would have been terrified of what Lucius would do to the son of his own traitorous one. But his father would never understand his motivation for betraying him and their cause. He would never understand that taking a life held no appeal to him. He hated it. He hated the thought of ending someone's life. He and Dumbledore had worked something out, a trick for his wand. He would cast the Killing Curse and it would only stun his opponent, leaving them to look as if they were dead only for them to come out of the coma like state days later.

He wasn't sure exactly what it was that had given him away to his father. He did know when it had happened. He knew by the look in Lucius's eyes that he had sealed his fate and would soon die at the hands of the man who helped give him life.

Every once and a while he would get short little flashes of his life. The first time he rode a broom, his first sexual experience, the news his father was to be sent to Azkaban, and killing the small child that had turned his entire world upside down. That one event led him to where he was. He'd never felt badly about killing anything before. He'd never had a second thought. But that little girl, who couldn't have been more than three, sat in the middle of her family, who had all been killed already, wonder and fear in her bright eyes as he'd killed her. He hated himself more for that act than any other he'd ever committed. Usually, he would have joined in with the celebrating, the partying that was to be done after such a victory, but he saw no victory. He saw destruction. Destruction, turmoil, and death. Death of an innocent child and it chilled him to his core. He hated what he had done, what he had become. He hated himself.

He did the only thing he could think of. He signed his life away. Signed it to Albus Dumbledore. He'd never really liked the old coot. He thought him to be senile and unfit to be headmaster of Hogwarts, but he figured most of that was his father's blustering that had become engraved onto his brain. He had marched into that school, an air of importance around him. Luckily for him the staircase was visible to him, for some unknown reason. He had walked up the stairs, a few times stopping to look within himself to see if he was actually ready to do this, to see if signing his own death warrant should Lucius or any other Death Eater find out, was what he actually wanted to do. He could picture the little girl staring up at him, nothing behind her eyes as she lay dead on the floor, and knew without any doubt that it was what he not only wanted to do but also should do. He took several deep breaths before he had pushed open those doors.

And when he had told Dumbledore all he could, after he had uncovered his soul for the other wizard to see, he felt surprisingly unburdened. He felt like maybe everything would work out the way it was supposed to. He didn't know why he'd felt like that. It was the one thing about his encounter with Dumbledore that day that had never made sense. Why did he feel like everything would work out? Why did he feel like he was at peace when he'd just put the final nail in his coffin?