The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Draco soared through the air, absolutely loving the feel of his new broomstick. After much pressure on his part, his parents had finally relented and gotten Draco the newest Firebolt model for his 16^th birthday. And it was wonderful! Even more so since Potter was no longer going to have that annoying advantage in their matches, he thought as he pulled out of a dive three feet off the ground.

"Draco! Dinner!" called his mother from inside the Manor. He sighed, not wanting to land just yet. But he couldn't be late for dinner.

He removed his boots and gloves at the door, carefully hung his winter cloak over the coat hook, and laid the broomstick in his bedroom before going to dinner, careful not to damage it. It was important to never damage the things his parents gave him.

"I trust it performed satisfactorily?" asked his father once he entered the dining room.

"Yes, Father. It was flawless. I'm very pleased." He kept his excitement down without having to think about it; it doesn't do for a Malfoy to seem too excited about things.

"Very good. Then I trust we will hear no more requests for a new broomstick after a newer model comes out?"

Draco inwardly cringed. There was a very thin line between being too timid (not befitting a Malfoy) and too demanding (not showing enough respect for his elders), and apparently he had strayed too far in the too-demanding direction again. At least it was his birthday, which meant his father would most likely let it slide this time. Carefully choosing his words, he said, "No, Father. Assuming nothing happens to it, this broomstick should be satisfactory until I graduate."

"I trust nothing will happen to it." His father gave him a penetrating look.

Not unless Potter sabotages it... thought Draco, but he couldn't say that. As of last summer, his father no longer tolerated any mention whatsoever of Potter. "I don't believe so, Father. Certainly not if I can help it."

"Good," his father said, as his mother joined them from supervising the elves in the kitchen.

"Enjoy, Draco, I had your favorites made. Happy birthday."

"Thank you," came the requisite reply, before he started eating. They had a quite amicable meal, although there was very little talking. Draco spent most of the meal thinking about the new Firebolt and imagining the look on Potter's face when he saw it.

On the whole, he was having a very happy birthday, when his father suddenly gripped his forearm in pain and stood from the table.

"No, Lucius, not now," said his mother, as Draco looked down at his plate, no longer hungry. Death Eater meetings could take hours, and Draco would be expected to stay up until it was over, in case his father required his presence for something. After those meetings, his father was always in a rather foul mood, so it didn't do to be asleep when he came home.

His father scowled. "Yes, Narcissa, now. Obviously." Without another word, and without a glance in Draco's direction, he apparated out of the Manor.

Draco resumed eating. He didn't much feel like it, but he was bad form to not eat the food on his plate, when it was made especially for him. He would seem ungrateful. His mother sighed and also resumed eating, as Draco thought about what he should do to stay awake until his father got back. What he would like to do was fly again. But if his father came back from a Death Eater meeting angry, and saw Draco enjoying himself...

Maybe he should do his homework. Yes, that was definitely the best option.

"I'm going to get my homework finished now. The dinner was very good," he said as he finished.

She smiled distractedly at her plate. "I'm glad you liked it," came the requisite reply. "Happy Birthday." He nodded and went upstairs to his room.

Two hours later, Draco blearily drew his hand over his eyes. He hated Charms. Oh, how he hated Charms. It was easily his worst subject, unless one counted Care of Magical Creatures - which hardly counted, since it was taught by that half-giant oaf. For some reason, when Draco tried to do a charm, nine times out of ten, nothing would happen. Nothing. It wasn't even like the spells went wrong - nothing happened. It wasn't a lack of magical talent, of course. Hexes were ridiculously easy for him, and he was very, very good at Transfiguration, and he was a Malfoy, after all. He was really a quite powerful wizard - it was just Charms he had troubles with. And the annoying part was, this wasn't something like Herbology, where he could make the claim that it was useless and not something he needed to learn. This was Charms. One of the essentials of basic wizardry. Any wizard who couldn't perform a basic Summoning charm was considered no better than a Squib.

He put his head into his hands. Concentrate on the object you want to come to you, flick sharply, and say "Accio." All of which he'd been doing for the past hour, with no success. What was he doing wrong?

He stood and stretched for a moment, and was just about to sit and start again when he felt a buzzing sensation in his head. Everything suddenly went black except for a tiny spot of light in the center, and he quickly sat and put his head down, breathing deeply, to keep from passing out.

After several minutes, the dizziness faded and he sat up. Shit, he thought. Damn it, damn it, damn it... He hadn't had one of those dizzy spells since he was nine. A fact for which he was exceedingly grateful - he could just imagine Potter's reaction, not to mention the reactions of the other Slytherins, if news got out that he occasionally had fainting spells. It was constant hard work, as it was, convincing the other Slytherins that he wasn't the weakling he probably appeared to be.

Damn it... Maybe it was a fluke. Please, let it be a fluke...

He debated whether he should tell his parents. Every ounce of pride he possessed insisted he should keep it private, but if it wasn't a fluke (please, let it be a fluke), and his parents ever found out any other way...

But then, there was the question of just how to tell them. He needed to do it in a way that wouldn't cause his mother to worry, or his father to think he was being weak. Perhaps it would be best to keep it to himself, after all.

"Draco!" he heard his father call from downstairs. There was a tension in his voice that Draco instantly identified as Not Good. He sighed and got up to go downstairs.

He'd barely gotten two steps when the dizziness hit him again, much harder than it had before. He barely had a chance to notice the blackness and the buzzing, before he lost consciousness.

When he woke up, the first thing he noticed was his father, who was holding Draco's wrist with a grim expression on his face. The second thing he noticed was that he was back in his bed. The third thing he noticed was that his head hurt - he must have hit it on his desk when he fell. The fourth thing he noticed was that things looked a little odd. He couldn't quite identify the oddness, at first, then he realized that the colors of both his room and his father were very slightly off. He blinked to try to fix them, but they remained odd. Probably just the lighting; the sun must have gone down while he was unconscious.

Yes, the sun had definitely gone down. Which wasn't too surprising; when he was younger, his parents had learned from experience that Ennervate spells tended to just result in his passing out again once he tried to stand, so it was best to just let him wake up on his own.

"Father," he said, to let his father know he was awake. His voice was rather weak, to his disgust. He tried to sit up.

"Stay down," his father ordered curtly. Draco immediately lay back down. His father looked down at him angrily. "Why didn't you tell us you were having fainting spells again, Draco?" he asked quietly, his lips barely moving.

With complete honesty, Draco replied, "Tonight was the first time."

His father moved so he was towering over Draco. "Is that the truth?"

Draco forced himself to meet his father's eyes. "Yes, Father. Tonight was the first time."

His father stared at him a moment longer, then nodded, apparently satisfied. Draco quietly sighed in relief. His father indicated for him to sit up, and took a potion from the dresser and handed it to Draco, who took a gulp, grimaced, and coughed. He'd forgotten just how horrible that potion tasted. At his father's look, though, he downed the rest of it.

After Draco finished, his father took the goblet from him and replaced it on the dresser. "How much of a warning did you have?" he asked in the same low voice. He was still angry - Draco could tell - but he couldn't think what he could have done wrong.

"None, Father." Then, deciding that complete honesty would be best with his father's current mood, he continued, "I'd felt a little dizzy a couple minutes before, but that passed, or so I thought. When you called, I got up, and was on my way out of the room, and then... nothing."

"I see," said his father quietly, his mouth a thin line. "Very well. Stay here; do not get out of bed. I'm going to call Hatchins; I'll be back." Hatchins was the family's private mediwizard.

"Father, I don't need to see a mediwizard; I'm perfectly--"

"Draco," growled his father, glaring at him again. Draco's mouth shut at once. His father nodded in grim approval of this, and left the room.

Draco groaned as he lay back against the pillows. He hated Hatchins. He hated Hatchins with a passion. Most of Draco's memories from the years up until he was nine consisted of being poked and prodded by the slimy wizard who smelled of goat cheese, before being forced to take a variety of foul-tasting potions that made him sick for weeks on end. He hated Hatchins.

Downstairs, he could hear the muffled voices of Hatchins and his father talking through the fire. Hatchins would shortly be apparating here, and Draco would be forced to endure a complete examination and looks of false sympathy from that man. He looked over at the clock on his wall (the one that told the time), and saw that it was after midnight.

Well, he noted with grim satisfaction, at least it isn't my birthday anymore. I probably wouldn't be able to tolerate it on my birthday.

Sure enough, there was Hatchins, at the door with Draco's father standing behind him. Draco scowled.

"Hello Draco," came the man's slimy voice. Draco struggled to be civil. Over the years, Draco had developed a theory about Hatchins - that the man couldn't get any decent work, so he'd earned his living by convincing the Malfoys that their son was far more ill than he really was. And he was able to convince them of this, by making their son ill.

Aloud, he drawled, "Hello, Mr. Hatchins."

"And how are we feeling this evening?"

We WERE feeling just fine, thank you. And how are you? Draco kept a bland smile on his face.

"Your father tells me you've had a most-unfortunate recurrence."

Draco said nothing. No point making things any easier for the bottom-dweller.

"So I've come to see if there's anything I can do," Hatchins continued with - Draco was pleased to note - some discomfort.

There were many, many things Draco wanted to say to Hatchins just then - that last sentence was just begging for a retort - but his father was still standing outside the door, so he said nothing. Instead, he dug the nails of his left hand into his palm under the sheets, taking a kind of grim satisfaction in the pain. He kept the bland smile on his face.

"Shall we proceed, then?" Hatchins asked, now thoroughly discomfited.

"Yes, by all means. I would like to be permitted to leave my bed again before the next semester at Hogwarts starts."

His father's mouth tightened into a line, but he said nothing. Instead, without a word, he turned and left, closing the bedroom door behind him. Draco inwardly cringed - he was probably going to pay for that remark later - but it was almost worth it to see how uncomfortable Hatchins was.

What followed was two hours of infuriating poking and prodding - for a problem that, Draco was certain, Madame Pomfrey would have taken two minutes to examine, with better results. He obeyed all of Hatchins' requests without a word, and stubbornly kept the angry smile on his face. He noted with satisfaction that Hatchins was becoming as eager to end the examination as Draco was.

"Mm-hmm," said Hatchins, finally. "Very good," he muttered vaguely, looking slightly confused, then went to his bag and withdrew no less than six - six - potions. "All right, Draco. I'd like you to drink all of this - " here he indicated a glowing purple potion " - immediately. In addition, tonight I'd like you to take one tablespoon of this, plus one tomorrow morning. Take two tablespoons of this one, and two more tomorrow night. Drink this one entirely tomorrow morning, not immediately. This one, take four teaspoons tonight, and that's all. And this one, take two drops every night starting tonight, for the next month," he rattled off, indicating in succession: a bright orange runny potion, a dull thick purple potion, a black frothy concoction, a green smooth potion, and a tiny vial of clear liquid that looked remarkably like Veritaserum.

"What are they?" asked Draco, wondering why he bothered.

As if he didn't hear, Hatchins wrote several notes on a parchment. "I'll give your father the instructions as well, in case you have troubles remembering them. You're going to be just fine, Draco," he added with a fake-reassuring smile, before disappearing out the door.

Draco sat up in his bed, every muscle aching from the prodding he endured in his examination, and glared at the door, seething. Sometimes, he thought it would be worth it to learn to perform the Killing Curse, just so he could use it on filth like that. The. Bastard. Never. Told. Him. ANYTHING! It was always exactly the same - Draco was expected to calmly endure hours of having his privacy violated, and then take an assortment of mystery potions that for all Draco knew could be poisons, and to do it without question, while Hatchins and his parents talked about him behind his back.

He grumbled at the empty room for a moment, then turned to the table. Contrary to Hatchins' expectations, he remembered all the instructions perfectly - he'd had plenty of practice. He just didn't want to follow the instructions. But they had methods of discovering whether he'd taken his potions, so he supposed he'd better do so. As quickly as possible, he downed the bright purple potion, which tasted rather like wet socks. Then he grabbed the tablespoon and teaspoon from the nightstand where Hawkins had left it, and took one tablespoon of the orange, two of the thick purple, four teaspoons of the green, and dropped two drops from the clear into his mouth.

His mouth now felt like it was on fire, and he was feeling rather drowsy. I'd better not be sick tomorrow. If I am, that quack is definitely going to pay... he thought as he drifted off to sleep.

It felt like two minutes later when he awoke again, sweating and shaking. But apparently at least a couple of hours had passed, because the Manor was now completely dark and silent. He stumbled out of bed, and ran as quickly as he could to the bathroom, getting to the toilet just in time to be violently ill into it, mentally cursing Hatchins.

Several minutes later, he felt almost completely better, and decided it was safe to get up again. Clapping to turn on the candles, he squinted in the light and looked around. The bathroom was decorated in deep greens and reds, and the mirror, sink, toilet, and tub were all black marble. It was really quite a beautiful room - Draco had always been quite fond of the colors in his rooms - but right now it seemed strange. The colors were still off - somehow both more vivid and less defined than they usually were. The objects themselves also seemed unusual, almost translucent. He rubbed his eyes, but it didn't help. Then he looked in the mirror.

His face was whiter even than usual, and his hair was everywhere. He scowled and started to finger-brush it back into place, when he noticed that he could see through his robe. It was a very thick winter robe, and it was new - he shouldn't be able to see through it. He lifted the sleeve of his cloak, and looked at the mirror through it.

Frowning, he decided he needed to speak to his mother about the shoddy work on his clothing. Then he turned on the water, and his mouth dropped open. There, on the other side of the thick black marble sink, was the faint outline of his feet.

He took his hand and waved it underneath the sink, and noted with confusion that he could see that, too, through the sink. He frowned and looked around, confusion growing as he noted that everything in the room seemed to suddenly be not-quite-there.

What the hell?

A painfully loud ringing suddenly sounded in his ears, and he cringed and covered them, but it didn't help in the slightest. Then, as suddenly as the ringing started, it stopped. He uncovered his ears...

...and heard... singing? Yes, that sounded like a man singing. It was coming from downstairs.

He grabbed his wand, and quietly opened the door and tiptoed out so he wouldn't wake his parents. Once he opened the bedroom door, he realized the singing was actually quite loud; he was surprised it hadn't at least woken his mother, who was a very light sleeper.

"Moon River, wider than a mile..." it was close by, definitely here in the East Hall... it seemed to be coming from the sitting room.

"I'm crossing you in style, someday..." what a weird song. Is it Muggle? He quietly opened the door to the sitting room, keeping to the dark. One advantage of living here was that you didn't need light to get around.

At first, he didn't see anybody, although the sound was definitely coming from in here. Then he saw a faint glowing outline - a ghost.

But one he'd never seen before. The Malfoy Manor had precisely two resident ghosts who were allowed (Damien, a small boy, and Victoria, an elderly woman), and this short, fat, balding man who was loudly singing the strange song, was quite obviously neither of them.

Draco had been taught that if he ever caught a ghost trespassing, he was to tell the ghost to leave, and if the ghost refused, he was to go to his father so his father could arrange an exorcism. So this is precisely what he did. Marching up to the ghost, he whispered as loudly as he dared without waking his parents, "Excuse me."

The ghost paid him no heed, but continued with the song.

"Excuse me," Draco repeated, waving his hand in front of the ghost's eyes.

The ghost blinked and looked at Draco in surprise, then looked around, as if thinking Draco must be talking to somebody else.

"Yes, I'm talking to you," Draco hissed impatiently. "You're not permitted here. Please leave before you're exorcised."

The ghost blinked at him in shock. "You can see me!" he exclaimed in a rather loud voice. Draco cast a panicked look in the direction of his parents' bedroom.

The ghost watched this, confused, then laughed. "Draco, they can't hear me. Nobody could ever hear me."

Draco looked at him, stunned. "How do you know my name?" he whispered.

The ghost looked like this should be the most obvious thing in the world. "I've been here for - what year is this?"

"2003. January."

"Oh. Wow. Well, that means I've been in this house for 32 years. Of course I know your name," he added dryly.

"Then why have we never seen you before?" Draco asked impatiently, wondering why this ghost would fabricate such a story. "You're not exactly unnoticeable..."

The ghost blinked at him in dawning understanding of something. "I don't think I'm on your plane. Most ghosts aren't, you know."

"Yes, I know," Draco hissed. Everybody knew that. He returned to the original subject. "But that must have changed, so you're going to have to find another place."

"Why?"

"Because you are not welcome here."

The ghost looked at him, shocked for a moment, then smiled at him angrily. "Then your grandfather shouldn't have killed me in the dungeons, should he? I'm beginning to think that it's time your family made some sort of restitution, and since you can see me, perhaps you could help."

Draco stared at him, not believing the ghost's nerve. "I beg your pardon? If you want help dealing with this plane, go find a Medium like any respectable ghost." He turned his back on the surprised-looking ghost, and was about to leave, but stopped dead when he heard the ghost's incredulous, cold voice behind him.

"But my dear boy, that's precisely what you are."

---End Chapter---