This Is War, After All

Chapter Three

That day he was supposed to observe the goings-on of the Hogsmeade warehouse, but he had no desire to do so. He had no desire to do anything, really, except perhaps examine the white wand, which was a trophy of his greatest achievement. Lucius had wanted to keep it for himself, probably as his own trophy to what he felt he had accomplished through his son. Because now that Draco thought about it, tracking spells didn't work on Malfoy Manor, so there was no reason for Lucius to destroy it. So why else would his father want the wand?

Draco wouldn't let him have it. Draco had done the deed all on his own; Lucius deserved none of the credit.

Eventually Draco tucked the white wand into a second holster at his waist and Apparated to Hogsmeade. He knew better than to leave the wand lying around where a house elf could find it.

He took a dose of Subtlety Potion then sat down on a bench outside of the Three Broomsticks, settling in to watch the warehouse down the road. It was quite a ways away, but he didn't feel the need to move closer for a better view. He had no interest in taking any risks for this job.

He sat there for hours, lethargically watching without taking any notes. Periodically he took the white wand out and examined it, rolling it around between his fingers as he had wanted to for so long. The wand was not a pure white, being slightly discolored by age and dirt. Some spots were duller and more worn than others, probably where Weasley had gripped it. It wasn't perfectly smooth; near the tip was a tiny bump in the cut of the wood. Draco found all these details and more while he staked out the warehouse.

Night had fallen and all activity at the warehouse had long ceased by the time it occurred to Draco that he should go home. He put away the white wand and traded it for his own, glancing around cursorily before Apparating to the manor.

His father greeted him at the entrance.

"What did you learn?" he asked.

"Not much. Nothing suspicious."
"You're not there to look for something suspicious, Draco, you're supposed to be learning the schedule."

"How do you know, then? Did the Dark Lord talk to you about my mission?"

"I don't like your tone of voice, Draco. Apologize, now."

"I'm sorry. I just--"

"That's enough. I don't want your excuses. I see you must have accomplished very little today. You always were a slow learner." With that he turned and swept down the corridor to his office.

"Damn!" Draco kicked a side table angrily and it fell to the floor, the leg broken. "Damn it." Damn him was what he meant, but dared not to say it. He stormed up the staircase to his room and just barely refrained from slamming the door. Upset that he wasn't even allowed to express his own anger in his own house he grabbed the first thing he could--his wand--and hurled it against the opposite wall with all his strength.

Only, as it flew from his hand, he saw that it wasn't his wand.

"No!" He leapt at the white wand to catch it before it struck the wall, but it collided and cracked in three places, falling to the floor in pieces. Draco tumbled to his knees and bent over the mess, feeling horrified. What was wrong with him, that he destroyed everything to do with this wand?

"No, please," he whispered, and picked up the pieces. There were four ragged fragments, and if it were just a stick he would be able to repair it without difficult. Wand construction, however, tended to require much more than a Reparo charm. If only he could take it to Ollivander...but of course that was insane. He might as well give himself up as the murderer, then.

Maybe there was someone else he could ask. Draco conjured a black velvet pouch and tucked the pieces of white wood carefully into it, sealing it magically and placing it back under his pillow. He had forgotten about the fight with his father, and was busy agonizing over whether the wand could be fixed when someone pounded on his door.

Apparently, his father had not forgotten.

"Open up!" Draco jumped out of his bed and hurried to open the bedroom door. His father was in a mood.

"Yes, Fa--"

"Follow me downstairs, now." In complete silence, save for the sweep of their robes as they passed through the dimly light corridors, Draco trailed Lucius to his office. He nearly froze in his tracks when he saw who was waiting for them. "I have brought him, my Lord," Lucius bowed, and Draco made his usual prostration. The Dark Lord kicked him in response.

"Your father tells me," he began in that unnatural, high voice that Draco suddenly found disgusting, "you learned nothing useful after an entire day of observing the warehouse. Is that so?"

"I--well, I did see what hours they stopped activity--"

"They close at the same time everyone else does; that's hardly news, Draco. My boy, I noticed you seemed rather hesitant when I gave you this assignment the other day. Tell me, is there a reason you are no longer dedicated to our cause?" The Dark Lord was not toying with him; in fact, he was toying with his wand, and Draco tried not to stare at it in his terror.

"Master, I am dedicated, I still am, I swear to you--"

"Good. Because do you know what happens to my followers who change their minds?" Draco shook his head, not daring to speak. The Dark Lord smiled. "This: Crucio!"

The following day, Draco moved much closer to the warehouse for his investigation, but he did so bitterly. He had hardly been given a chance to begin before they'd criticized him for failing. Thanks to his father, who had apparently turned him in, he'd suffered excruciating, seemingly endless torture. Was that how it would be from now on? Was his father now merely another competitor, like Teddy Nott? Did family ties count for nothing anymore?

Draco scowled beneath his hood as he sipped another dose of Subtlety Potion. He had already been sitting on this damn hard rock for hours, but he certainly wasn't going to go home until he found out something useful. All he'd seen, sitting here, was the old DADA professor, the werewolf Lupin, entering with a small but suspicious-looking packet tucked under his arm; one of the Weasley twins running in and out about three times; and Neville Longbottom, who left for an hour around lunchtime and nonchalantly returned.

But that those three people worked at or had dealings at this warehouse was information the Dark Lord surely already had. Draco needed a lot more than that. So he sat, and he waited. He had nothing else to do, after all.

Dusk approached and the darkness grew steadily around Draco. He couldn't cast a Warming charm because it would interfere with his Subtlety, so he shivered and hugged himself miserably as the air got colder. There was Neville Longbottom, closing up the building and taking much less time to ward it than the Mudblood had taken to protect her store. Stupid duffer had always been a complete waste of space. At least Draco could take advantage of his incapability. As soon as Longbottom Disapparated, Draco marched over to the back entrance and probed the wards with a few well-cast spells he had picked up from the curse-breaker. It took him less than two minutes to deactivate them.

Snorting at the incompetence of it all, Draco whispered an easy "Alohomora" and slipped inside, closing the door quietly. It was darker in here than it had been outside. "Lumos Maxima." In front of him stood a large, squarish room made small by the rows and rows of steel bookcases that filled it. Draco held up his wand and approached the row of shelves directly in front of him.

Filibuster's Fireworks, dungbombs, belch powder, stink pellets, fanged fizbees...all sorts of joke products and gags lined the shelves. As he walked up and down the aisles, seeing hundreds of jokes he had never heard of, Draco noticed that there was not a single Weasley product among them. There were only a few of each item, probably thousands in all, but no Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes. A slow grin of admiration spread across his face as he realized that the Weasley twins must use this warehouse to study their competition, and maybe even steal some ideas.

Not that this helped Draco at all. He needed to find out whether the Order or the Ministry were hoarding medicinal potions or weapons here. He spent the next half hour walking up and down every single aisle, to ensure he missed nothing. It was because of this assiduity that he spotted, in the back corner of the warehouse, an office door. To the right of the door was a thin, embossed plaque that read "Neville Longbottom."

"Here we go," Draco muttered, breaking into the office. If there were anything covert hidden in this building, it would be here, in Longbottom's office, since clearly there was nothing on those shelves.

Draco pushed in and looked around. It was a very neat, rather threadbare office. Small, too. Two meters from him stood a low, metal desk with a rusty chair behind it. On the desk were a couple of file folders stacked neatly in a corner, a candle-holding lamp, and a cup of quills. The lack of personal items--photographs, trinkets, anything--struck Draco as odd, especially since Longbottom seemed to work here from nine to five. He rifled through all of the papers and drawers, even cast revealing charms on most of them, but Longbottom didn't seem to be hiding anything. He kept track of all new developments on the joke market, in both the wizarding and Muggle world, and ordered a few of every new product.

As the realization that his search was futile washed over him, the fear and anger in him grew. So they had sent him out on a dummy mission, was that it? Was he just being kept busy so he wouldn't interfere with the rest of the Death Eaters? Worse yet, maybe something big was going down tonight, and he was being forced to miss it. Furious, Draco's paranoia grew as he frantically searched the office for something to prove him wrong.

Then he noticed the door.

There, tucked away behind a large filing cabinet only half a meter from the wall, was an obscure grey door that looked like a closet. Draco knew better--there had to be something important hidden there. He knew it with all the desperation of hope--something must be awaiting him behind that door.

In his excitement Draco didn't even notice the lack of wards. He rushed to the door, squeezed behind the filing cabinet, and uttered a quick unlocking charm. "Lumos!" he cried, already triumphant that he had found something. But as the light reached the walls of the closet, he received one of the worst shocks of his life, and his scream echoed through the entire warehouse and probably reached the street outside.

Her face--everywhere--covering all three walls of the tiny broom closet. Ginevra Weasley, smiling and waving as if she had come back to life. Standing in Hogwarts robes, or on the Quidditch pitch on her broom. Looking grim standing with her family. Smiling weakly. Laughing and talking to Snape--Snape--at a party. Red hair and freckles and bright brown eyes overloaded his senses, and he scrambled backwards and fled, thinking of nothing until he had put three town blocks between him and that building. Then he Apparated home.

Why did she appear everywhere? She was dead, she should stay gone, but here she was, first in the newspaper and now this--this sick altar erected by Longbottom that he wished he could go back to and tear into shreds.

Instead he hurried to his room without greeting his parents. Let them think he'd stayed out all night; he didn't care. But as he disrobed and burrowed mouse-like under his bedcovers, a horrible thought struck him: what if his father had known about the altar? Had he sent him there on purpose? Had the Dark Lord?

There was just no end to their cruelty, to the depths they would sink to in order to make him feel like a child. On that night, in a tiny but deep-seated corner of Draco's heart, his panicked anger evolved into the fertile beginnings of hatred. Ignorant of the change on a conscious level, Draco fell into a fitful sleep, his hand drifting unguided to the pouch under his pillow.

He found himself back in the basement of Granger's store. He knew he didn't want to be here, he wanted to Apparate back to the Manor, but his feet seemed to be moving of their own volition, traversing a familiar path, bringing him towards the Portal in the wall. He was running, and with an odd, vague sense of déjà vu, he leapt through the Portal without hesitation.

The clearing--yes, he remembered this place. His dream-self looked around, wondering if Weasley was still there. It was darker than he thought it ought to be, so he looked through his robes to find his wand, but a body on the ground of the clearing caught his eye.

Wait--a body?

He stumbled towards it and saw Ginevra Weasley, and remembered that he had killed her. She was lying facedown, the red hair on the back of her head fading at the ends into a puddle of blood. He leaned down and turned her body over, and what he saw made him jump back and yell out in horror.

Instead of the smiling, freckled face that haunted him, two red slits of eyes on an expanse of completely pale white stared back at him in a serpentine glare. The Dark Lord's face, staring out at him from where Ginevra Weasley's face ought to be, was so wrong that the screams kept tearing their way out of his throat, in spit of the hoarse dryness they were causing. It was just too horrible, and he couldn't look away--

"Master Draco, Master, please!"

His eyes flew open. Daylight shone cheerfully through the windows, and Tippy hovered above him, her hands on his shoulders and a look of worry in her eyes.

"Get off me," he shoved her away, and jumped out of bed. His legs were shaking--his whole body was--and the image of the Dark Lord on her face refused to go away. "What time is it?"

"It's five to nine--"

"Damn it! Bring me my grey work robes, now!" Tippy disappeared and reappeared in a flash, bringing said robes with her. Draco did his best to dress hurriedly and neaten up, but a last glance in the mirror showed him he still was rather disheveled. No matter; if he tarried even a minute more the Dark Lord would exact punishment. Better to arrive feeling a bit frazzled than to be fried upon arrival.

The Dark Lord's face was the first thing he saw when he Apparated to the castle, and it took all of his control not to flinch away in horror. Instead he dropped to his knee and kissed the Lord's robe hem, greeting him with his face turned down.

"Just in time, Draco. I was beginning to get my hopes up that you would arrive late." Draco wisely did not reply, but moved back to take his place in the circle of Death Eaters that had formed around their master. "Since you're here so very punctually, why don't you go ahead and give us all a report of your investigations at the Hogsmeade warehouse, Draco. Surely you managed to find something out, this time?"

"Yes, Master," Draco replied, ignoring the snickers and not looking out from beneath his black hood. "I waited until the man who runs the place--Neville Longbottom--left for the night, and then broke into the warehouse. It's only a storage place for pranks and gags. The Weasleys of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes have Longbottom buy up every joke in the wizard and Muggle markets, and they store them there for perusal. There is a back office, too, but everything they do is above-ground."

"How typical," the Dark Lord sneered. "Very well, well-done, Draco. I'll give you another assignment for tonight."

"Oh." The reluctant sound had slipped from his mouth before he had even thought to protest, and the Dark Lord's head snapped towards him in eager alertness.

"Is there a problem, Draco?" he demanded, stalking over. "Do you object, again, to receiving another mission?"

"NO, no, Master, not at all. I only wanted to return to the warehouse tonight to make sure that there's absolutely nothing there."

"Are you telling me you're not positive now?"

"I found nothing untoward, Master," Draco spoke carefully, burying the lie in the back of his mind. "But I didn't go through all of the papers in Longbottom's desk. The building is so easy to get into that it would be a shame to miss anything that might be accidentally in his files. I know Longbottom, Master, and it wouldn't be unusual for the scatterbrained idiot to have left some things he shouldn't have in the office."

"Very well. Stop by there this evening again." Draco held in a sigh of relief, ignoring the implication that if the Dark Lord had dismissed the other mission he was going to send Draco on so easily, it must have been as pointless as the trip to the warehouse.

"Thank you, Master." He was allowed to remain quiet for the rest of the meeting, as the Dark Lord rambled on about the greater mission and called out a few more members he wished to humiliate. Draco allowed his mind to wander and thought about the real reason he wanted to return to the warehouse.

In the few minutes he had spent dressing that morning, he had tried to replace the monstrous dream-image that was fixed in his head with the true face of Ginevra Weasley, and had failed. He couldn't remember what she looked like, could no longer conjure her visage. He was determined to go back to Longbottom's perverted altar and remind himself of her appearance. He had to.

Draco Apparated home without a word to his father, grabbed a bottle of Subtlety Potion from their supply closet, and Apparated directly to Hogsmeade. Screw his father, who hadn't bothered to wake him that morning. He probably had been anticipating Draco's late arrival, just like the Dark Lord.

As soon as Longbottom finished casting his pathetic wards and Disapparated, Draco strode forward and broke into the building. Slamming the door behind him he raced through the first aisle of tall, joke-filled shelves without bothering to light his wand. At the end of the row he took a sharp left and arrived in front of the office door. There, he paused, because if he didn't he was going to lose control in his desperation and just break down the door.

"Relax," he muttered to himself, and opened the door. "Lumos." Everything looked just like it had the night before, and Draco walked over to the closet door and opened it.

He hadn't realized how tense his body still was until he entered the little altar room and felt the tension ooze away. Yes, there was her face, freckles and big brown eyes and all, her skin the color of life, not death, and her hair just hair. That was what she looked like.

Draco placed his wand on the floor after a mumbled "Lumos Maxima" illuminated the closet fully, and stepped closer to the pictures. In one of them she stood by herself, the top half of her bathing suit showing, and she gazed at the camera with a small, unenthusiastic smile. Her chin was tucked down just slightly and her brown eyes looked very large. Behind her was a sandy beach and deep blue sea he couldn't begin to place.

He wanted that picture.

With another step forward Draco reached out to grab it off the wall, but a most unwelcome sound interrupted him from behind.

"Fred, is that you?"

"Crap," Draco hissed, and grabbed the mask from his pocket to pull over his face.

"What are you doing in there, Fred?" Longbottom's voice came from the office, sounding angry. When he got to the closet door and saw Draco, his eyes widened. "Crap!" He jumped back but Draco was after him, wand ready.

"Stupefy!" Longbottom's tall and slightly pudgy robe-clad frame collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Why didn't I just kill him? Draco wondered, but it didn't matter. Now that he was unconscious, Draco could simply Obliviate him. He readied his wand, aimed directly at Longbottom's head, but couldn't bring himself to do it--because just behind him were all those brown eyes watching. And besides, he was sort of glad Longbottom had seen him, though he couldn't say why. He was just going to have to leave Longbottom where he lay.

Before he Disapparated, however, he turned back to the wall of photos and grabbed the beach picture. With that safely stowed in his pocket, he left.

The following evening he had hell to pay.

At least I got a decent night's sleep, he thought as he stood among the Death Eaters, waiting in their habitual circle for their master to arrive. The image of Ginevra Weasley's pensive face flashed before his eyes and Draco smiled, knowing her picture and her wand were safe under his pillow. So what if this morning there had been a front-page Daily Prophet article about the attack on Longbottom and the warehouse? At least, when all this was over, he would be able to go home and look at the photograph of those great brown eyes.

"We have a failure in our midst." The high, evil voice cut through Draco's thoughts easily, and scattered any comforting hope he had found. "Someone who might just be a complete failure of a human being. Shall we punish him?" The Death Eaters hissed their approval as the Dark Lord smiled and coldly eyed them all. They all knew that Draco was the "failure," so they egged him on without fear. "Draco, my boy, come forward."

He tried not to gulp too loudly as he walked to the Dark Lord and kissed the hem of his robes. There was a tinge of excitement that rippled through the air, powered by the Death Eaters' lust for cruelty. For all he was a pureblood, and their comrade, they could not wait to see him suffer.

"Enough!" the Dark Lord yelled, as Draco had repeatedly kissed his robes. He couldn't help crying out in pain as the Dark Lord's polished boot came into contact with his face, knocking him on his back. "Draco Malfoy, I accuse you of being stupid, inept and worthless. Do you have anything to say in defense of yourself?" Draco knew how this worked--if he really tried to defend himself, his punishment would only be greater.

So he said only, "I apologize for my mistake, Master, and swear to serve you better in the future."

He was shaking with fear, remembering the Cruciatus torture he had endured a few nights back. From the derisive snickers of his fellow Death Eaters, he could tell that they saw his fear and enjoyed it. Please, let that be enough, he prayed silently to gods he had always ignored, knowing it was probably useless. The Dark Lord circled him, and Draco could only watch the boots click heel-toe on the stone as he walked. Draco could not bear to look up at his face, knowing what lack of mercy he would find there.

"My boy, are you so certain you will have a future in which to improve?" he finally taunted, stopping behind Draco. "I am not sure you deserve one. My loyal fighters," he raised his voice now, "what say you? Do I let him live?" Draco's head shot up in panic, looking around at those who were supposed to be fighting on his side. Would they really want him dead? Would the Dark Lord really kill him for such a minor error?

"No!" "Kill him!" The Death Eaters cried, throwing their hands in the air, laughing, chanting, as if his very life weren't in the balance, as if it were all some jolly game. He wasn't going to die. As the Dark Lord raised his wand, Draco prepared to run.

"Master, wait!" Everything froze at the sound of his father's voice cutting through the cheers, and was shocked to see Lucius throw himself at the Dark Lord's feet. "My Lord, I entreat you, spare his life!" The chants and laughter turned into jeers and groans of disgust.

"Silence!" the Dark Lord hissed, and all obeyed immediately. "Rise, Lucius, and tell me why I should spare your son." His father rose only to one knee, his head still bowed, the very picture of graceful obsequiousness.

"Master, it is true Draco is not the brightest of your recruits, and I know he failed you by letting a witness escape to report him. But he is an eager boy. He cares as much about your cause as you do, Master, and he is still young enough to be molded. I beg of you, give him another chance. Loyalty and devotion are things that cannot be taught--and Draco has them in spades, when it comes to you. His flaws are haste and clumsiness--these can be corrected. Please, my most benevolent Master, allow him to try." Lucius lowered his head further, and the entire circle grew as silent as a graveyard. No one moved.

At the moment, Draco didn't care that his father was worried for his sake. Nor did it matter to him that Lucius had insulted his intelligence or exaggerated the depth of his loyalty. His entire being was focused on the Dark Lord; even as he continued to stare at his shoes, Draco waited with bated breath. Would he live?

"Lucius," the Lord finally began, "you have served me well. True, you have failed me at times, and you denied me after the first war. But your heart is as black as mine, and I hold you to be one of my finest followers. So for your sake--not for your worthless son's--I will spare his life." Draco nearly collapsed with relief, and the Dark Lord turned towards him. "But he shall be punished. Crucio!"

The torture was interminable.

Draco wished a thousand times he had been killed. Snot and tears dripped down his face, he clawed and scratched at his body in an attempt to escape the pain that was tearing him apart at the seams.

When it finally ended, he could only lay motionless on the stone ground, unaware of the coolness of the stone, his limbs temporarily paralyzed, his heart wholly grateful that the pain had ended. The Dark Lord was speaking, but his voice sounded very distant, and Draco could only focus on getting feeling back into his arms and legs. When he could move his arm again, he wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe and sat up. He never wanted to know, didn't even want to think about, what he had cried out in his pain.

"You have been warned, Draco. You are now on probation. If you make just one more error, you're finished. And not even your father's pleas will be able to save you then. Now get out of my sight--the rest of us have real business to attend to." Weak, in pain, and thoroughly humiliated, Draco managed to shakily withdraw his wand and Disapparate.

He ended up in the middle of Diagon Alley, and was immensely relieved that no one was around. What a stupid, cocked-up thing to do; arrive in Diagon Alley in his Death Eater robes. But he wasn't really strong enough to control where he Apparated. Stumbling to his feet, he tore off his robes and crumpled them into a ball, tucked under his arm. Better to walk around shirtless, in the cold, than to be seen dressed like that. He saw a bench against a wall a few meters away and managed to reach it, collapsing on the bench and using his Death Eater robe as a pillow.

Draco lay there for nearly an hour, not asleep, but exhausted all the way down to his bones. A few people hurried by him during that time, but no one stopped to either help or bother him. When he finally opened his eyes, the streets were completely deserted, and all the lights were out.

Save one. A little ways down the street, there was one streetlamp on, and Draco rose to his feet and staggered towards it. The light dispersed the shadows at his feet, then his legs, his waist, until his whole body was bathed in light and he stood directly underneath the lamp. His vision still a bit fuzzy, his mind still weakened from the torture, he swiveled his heavy head around to see where he was. The display window of the Mudblood's shop greeted him.

With a low moan Draco fell against the glass, his hand lifting to caress it. There were only bare dressmakers' dummies inside; the shop had been closed down after the murder. The Portal, too, was surely gone--Draco was very glad about that. The clearing in the woods would hopefully return to obscurity, wherever it was. He gazed in for a long time, pinpointing the exact spot where he had Apparated, the path Ginevra Weasley had taken to reach the basement, the door they had passed through to enter the back room. He sighed regretfully, wishing he had the energy to break in, yet oddly grateful that he did not.

What he really needed was some sleep. Draco reached for his wand before realizing that he had no robe on, and that his wand was in the Death Eater robe. He hurried as best he could back to the bench--luckily no one was around--and put the robe back on. He vaguely wondered if it were entirely safe to put that robe on in the middle of the alley, but his mind was too worn out to truly evaluate the issue. He simply grabbed his wand and Disapparated, and with the luck of fools, escaped unseen.

Draco dragged his feet inside the manor. His father--the man who had saved his life--was walking across the corridor, book in hand, when Draco entered. Lucius paused as Draco shut the door and looked up at his son. The grey eyes so much like Draco's swept over his bare chest, his mussed hair, his grayed, drawn face, his shaking body, and with a slight sneer and without a word, Lucius walked on, his black robes trailing proudly behind him as he entered his office and shut the door.

Feeling entirely rejected and abandoned, Draco called out for a house-elf as he fell to the floor. If his father wouldn't help him, at least Tippy would.

As consciousness gradually ebbed away from him, Draco realized he hadn't gotten to see Ginevra's face that night. It was just another disappointment added to his load.