The Winterscapes

The Winterscapes - Chapter Fifteen

Draco's mother and father both froze in the middle of dessert, than began keening in pain. They crumpled over in their chairs, twitching and clutching their left arms. His mother fell to the floor with a sickening thud. "Miffy! Dotty! Someone get in here!" Draco yelled for the house-elves. He got on the floor beside his mother and held her head in his lap and off the cold marble floor, and he held his father up with his other arm to keep him propped in his chair. They were moaning now, and Draco could see through his mother's spread fingers that her Dark Mark was livid black. The stench of burnt flesh was in the air. "Hurry!" he shouted.

"Lord Voldemort ..." Narcissa said.

The house-elves came and tried to shoo Draco away, but he followed them as they levitated his parents to their bedroom. Somewhere along the way, they seemed to calm. They stopped moaning and shaking, at any rate. Draco heard his father mumble to his mother, "They must have done it ... they found him..."

The house-elves tucked them in bed and brought cold face cloths to mop their foreheads with, but for the most part they ignored Draco. "What's wrong? Are they going to be OK?" he demanded of Dotty.

"It's dark magic, Master Draco. Their marks is burning them."

"Are they going to be OK?"

"Yes. They is tired but they is going to be OK. They needs some chocolate."

"Well what are you waiting for? Go get some from the kitchen!"

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were fully alert the next morning. Draco hadn't received any kind of answers from them or the house-elves the night before about why their marks were burning, and he was thoroughly worried and bewildered when he went to see them that morning. The only reason he knew of that the Dark Mark behaved that way was when Lord Voldemort summoned a Death Eater and the Death Eater stayed away for too long. But surely his parents wouldn't ignore a summons. "What happened?" he asked. "Was he summoning you...?"

"He's gone. Lord Voldemort is gone," Narcissa said as though she didn't really believe it. She stared off into space.

Draco blinked slowly. "But how could he be? And how do you know?"

Lucius showed his arm to his son. "When he is in corporeal form, his Death Eaters can always feel him. But last night we felt intense pain, worse than the Cruciatus, and now ... nothing."

"I still don't understand how he could be gone."

His father went on. "Potter, who else? Lord Voldemort did not tell many of his followers. I suspect he did not want them to think he was weak, but he knew that Harry Potter was feeling him out ... poisoning him through that damn scar."

"He was trying to stay hidden from Dumbledore. I can only think that he was found." Narcissa looked pained. "I expect we'll be receiving owls from the others soon. Someone must know for sure what has happened."

<><><><><>

The rest of the holiday was the most miserable one Draco could remember, with tense Death Eaters, or ex-Death Eaters as they might now be called, coming in and out of the manor and none of them except his mother bothering to tell him what was going on. And even she was distracted. Before he left to return to school he went to her sitting room to tell her goodbye.

"Draco, I know you are committed to the cause. I know you are not as aloof and unaffected as you would like people to believe," she said.

"Every cause needs a leader, mother. There's nothing to be committed to." I had accepted it. I was ready to join him.

"He isn't gone."

"What?"

"My mark hasn't faded completely. I think he must be out there, somewhere. He must be brought back."

"I have to leave for school now," Draco said insistently.

"I know you do. Study hard, do well on your N.E.W.T.s, and for heaven's sake beat Potter in Quidditch. Your father will be turning some of the family's responsibilities over to you once you leave Hogwarts, and more if you do well before you leave."

"Yes, mother. I know. Goodbye." He kissed her on the cheek.

"Goodbye."

<><><><><>

"Welcome to the last match of the year, Gryffindor versus Slytherin!" Draco heard Megan Jones's voice echo as he walked out of the Slytherin changing room onto the Quidditch pitch. The students and teachers erupted into applause as she continued, "As those of you who are keeping score should know, Gryffindor and Slytherin are currently tied at first place in the standings. Whoever wins this match wins the cup!" More applause.

He mounted his broom. There was no way Harry Potter and his merry band of Gryffindors were winning this match. No fucking way. Madam Hooch blew her whistle and all the players kicked off. He flew straight up and rocketed around the pitch as fast as his broom could go, trying to take out the aggression he felt toward Harry Potter on the unsuspecting air particles. Most of Slytherin House was out for Potter's blood, after word had made it around that he was once again responsible for the downfall of Salazar Slytherin's heir.

Draco watched, amused, as Crabbe and Goyle batted a bludger back and forth between them until they were close enough to Gryffindor Chaser Colin Creevy to send it square into the center of his back. Colin gasped in surprised pain and reeled forward, then recovered. Three quarters of the students in the stands booed. Madam Hooch blew her whistle for a foul. Creevy missed the goal post entirely when he took his foul shot, then he grimaced and signaled to Harry that he wanted a time out.

The Gryffindors returned from the time out with only two chasers. That's one down. Guess he couldn't handle the pain. Creevy went with Madam Pomfrey to the Hospital Wing. The Slytherin chasers were now having an easy time keeping the Quaffle away from the two Gryffindor chasers.

"That makes it forty to zero in favor of Slytherin," Megan said. Then her attention was caught elsewhere on the pitch. "And Harry Potter just barely dodges a bludger! Ooh, Goyle looks mad. Goyle is chasing Potter. Watch out Harry!"

"FOUL!" Madam Hooch shouted as Goyle deliberately collided with Harry's broom. Harry didn't fall off, but he spiraled fast over the boundary of the Quidditch pitch and spun around and around. One of the Gryffindor chasers, Ginny Weasley, took his foul shot for him and made it in.

"The score is now fifty to ten, in favor of Slytherin."

Harry didn't appear to be seriously hurt. All right, time to get serious. Draco started high in the air, and circled down slowly, scanning every inch of the pitch for a glimmer of gold. Over the Slytherin goal posts there was a flash--no, too far away for him to reach it before Potter. He sighed in frustration as it disappeared.

"That makes it fifty to twenty, in favor of Slytherin!" Damn, they're catching up. They win over my dead body. Then he saw it. A little higher up, and in the center of the pitch. Potter was way behind him, dodging bludgers persistently sent his way by Crabbe. This is it.

"Malfoy appears to have caught sight of the Snitch! He's turned his broom straight up and is moving fast! Potter follows."

Draco urged his broom to go faster--held out his hand--reached... Yes!

<><><><><>

She waited for him outside the classroom after she had finished the first round of N.E.W.T.s. He walked right passed her.

"Draco!" She followed him and grabbed his elbow. "Draco, what are you going to do now?"

"It's none of your business."

She looked at him with pleading eyes. "Why are you acting like this? I miss you."

He sneered. "I'm not 'acting' like anything. Do I have to spell it out? I. Just. Want. You. To. Leave. Me. Alone."

She shook her head. She almost looked wounded as she hurried down the hall. Good.