Evanesco

Evanesco

Chapter 8 - In Which Draco Finds Out Why

Neville stared.

"What?" said Harry. It had taken a very short time to whisper his so called 'plan' to Neville while trying to look as though he was simply inspecting a nearby shrub. This was not just because the plan was not entirely thought out yet, but mainly because at several points during the telling, he'd come to parts that were almost certain to get one or both of them killed, and had glossed past them.

"Um, well... look, Harry, that's not going to work."

"Ok, it's a little risky..."

"Harry. It's insane. Crazy, idiotic, stupid, outrageous, foolish, unwise - take your pick. We can't do it."

"Can't do what?" Malfoy appeared from behind them.

"Stop doing that!" Neville complained.

"What for?" said Malfoy. "It's the only thing to do in this place."

"Bugger off, Malfoy," said Harry.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Malfoy, grinning. "Private conversation, I'm sure."

"Quite."

"I'll let you get back to plotting your hopeless escape in peace," said Malfoy's retreating voice.

Silence.

"See," said Neville eventually, "he thinks it's hopeless, too."

"He can't have heard us," Harry protested. "He'd tell."

"Maybe he's blackmailing us."

"Some cheek that'd be," said Harry, shrugging his arms so that the ropes came into view. "Us all tied up and sentenced to instant death at the end of this damn walk, does he really think he could make it at all worse?"

--

Draco didn't really know what he was doing. It frustrated him not to know where he stood with anyone, although being free to move around as opposed to being tied up like Potter and Longbottom was a definite plus. Also, he could tell something was stirring among the Death Eaters and he knew it was something to do with Voldemort's instructions to Lucius earlier.

"This one is disrespectful towards me. Make sure he is duly punished."

Oh yes, it was something to gnaw feverishly at the back of the mind, all right.

"...be healthy," came the unmistakeable voice of that oaf, Oliver Farwell, from behind the canvas of the tent wall. Some people obviously hadn't gotten used to the idea that you could hear through the more Muggle ones, even if they did assemble themselves. "I mean... him and her... eugh."

"Don't think about it lad," growled Travis' rough tone. "You'll only hurt yourself."

"Or get hurt by someone else," another young Death Eater giggled.

"No one can hurt me now," Farwell announced proudly. Draco imagined him beating his chest in triumph, like a gorilla. It was almost funny. "I've touched the Dark Lord!"

Wormtail's reedy laugh interrupted him. "You touched Potter. Hardly something to be proud of, Farwell. Besides, you grabbed him by the shoulders. I doubt the Master will remember it with any fondness."

"It doesn't matter," sighed Farwell. "I am blessed."

"You're a big sneeze, is all you are."

I used to be like that, Draco thought. Praying for the Dark Lord's return, hoping for the one day that I'd see him, more like a religious icon than a political alliance.

All Draco had seen was the power and the glory. And what did that all come to, in the end? Sitting alone in a bug-infested tent, in the middle of nowhere, filthy, bored and also - though admitting it would be against all his previous and current principles - terrified.

Under any normal circumstances he would have told himself it would get better. Under the Dark Lord's reign he would rise within the ranks of the Death Eaters to be as powerful as his father had been during Voldemort's first rise. But his father had been to Azkaban now. He was crazy, bonkers, off his loop. He was asking Voldemort to curse him, Draco. He was betraying Draco's mother by making out with Bellatrix Lestrange every spare second he got. Quite frankly he was the last person in the world that Draco admired right now.

The mental images were starting to turn his stomach.

Outside, meanwhile, the conversation had turned back to the aforementioned relations between the two leaders.

"It's very odd," said a voice Draco recognised as Hans Leeman, a stick-thin man who'd been in seventh year Slytherin when Draco was in first. "I mean it's like they decided on it beforehand. Like they were continuing a conversation they hadn't finished. How long do you think it's been going on?"

"About sixteen years now, I make it," said Travis.

Draco froze. That... was a joke, right? Whoa, pulling yer leg there mate, har har and so forth.

"What do you mean?" snapped Wormtail, who sixteen years ago hadn't been a Death Eater as much as a Death Nibbler and had never been given much information further than 'where he could stick it', on a good day.

"Oh yeah," said Travis, quite jolly now that everyone was paying attention to him. "Didn't I mention? They were together before. Yonks ago, it was. Back in the good old days when we never had to scramble around in the muck and sleep in Muggle tents." He spat. No one, not even Wormtail, reprimanded him in their eagerness to hear the story.

"We reckoned it started when the brat," and Draco could almost hear the bastard jab a thumb towards his tent, "was on the way. Well, you know how it is. The wife's not nearly as... appetising... when half her weight consists of kid and weird pregnant-craving-food. A man gets urges." There were snickers.

"Did Mrs. Malfoy know?" someone piped up.

"God yes," said Travis. "The wife always knows in these situations. She wasn't happy about it, but what could she do? Rodolphus didn't know though, not till afterwards. But," he lowered his voice considerably and Draco leaned his ear closer to the tent wall, holding his breath. "When brat boy was born and the whole thing stopped, Rodolphus and Bellatrix got married pretty damn quick."

Draco bit his lip. Hard.

"She wasn't, was she?" Farwell squeaked.

"That's what we all thought at the time," said Travis. "We sure didn't see her for a while after that, and Rodolphus, when he was around, was bloody quiet."

"But they don't have a child," mused Pettigrew.

"Nah," said Travis. "Reckon they got rid of it. Killed it, or sent it off somewhere. But I heard..." he spoke now in a dramatic whisper. "I heard it was a squib! Imagine! Spawn of a Malfoy and a Black, two oldest wizarding families, and not a drop of magic in its veins!"

Draco put his hands over his ears. No way. Just... no way. This had been going on since before he was born? Travis was a butcher, a liar and a fraud, but there was a grain of truth to most of the things he said. He groaned and pulled his bedroll over his head. This couldn't possibly get any worse.

-

Harry and Neville had heard nothing of the conversation by the fire. Harry was fuming about something else, now. When Pettigrew had grabbed a spare robe out of his small bag, Harry had seen something, two somethings, sticking out of it.

That was his wand, he'd know it anywhere, and Pettigrew's own wand was in his hand, so he was prepared to bet his entire fortune that the other one was Neville's.

"So?" said Neville when Harry whispered the news excitedly to him. "So, they kept our wands. Great. How do you suggest we get them back?"

"We could work it into the other plan."

"Harry, no way. Look, you couldn't pass for Voldemort in a hailstorm in a solar eclipse with a bag on your head. He has a whole..." he motioned with his tied hands. "You know, thing. Stance. Plus, your eyes go all red when he does it, and the voice..."

Harry made a face. "Red eyes? Seriously?"

"Yes."

"What if it was really dark?"

"We'd be on the move, what'd be the point of that?"

"Not if we had a distraction that got them to stay in one place for a day and a night. Then I scream, shudder, pretend my scar is on fire and then stand up and be Voldemort. Then I get them to untie us, tell them I'm sticking around and then when I've given them all jobs to do, you and I make a run for it."

Neville groaned. "You do realise that if it doesn't work, that's it for us. They won't be fooled a second time if they aren't on the first."

"I just need..." Harry muttered. "Preparation."

He was interrupted in his ingenious scheming, however, by Lucius emerging from the tent with Bellatrix. Again. Harry remembered how Lucius had shouted at her in the Department of Mysteries and hadn't seemed to care about her at all. It was true. Azkaban awoke something... primal in people.

"Draco, come out here."

Malfoy stumbled out of his tent. He looked furious about something. "Yes, Father?" He stressed the word considerably.

"The Master requested that I make an example of you," said Lucius Malfoy, sounding almost sympathetic. "However, Bellatrix has asked that I go easy on you. Say thank you, Draco."

Malfoy took a step back. "Thank you? To her? No thanks!"

"Now, now Draco," said Lucius, frowning. "Manners."

"I'm surprised you remember the meaning of the word," snarled Malfoy. "I can't believe you did this to Mother! I can't believe you're still doing it!"

Harry glanced at Neville. "Are you lost?"

"A little," whispered Neville.

Lucius Malfoy drew his wand. "You disappoint me," he muttered.

His son took another step back. "Don't you dare touch me!"

Lucius' sneer was suddenly akin to the one he'd worn before Azkaban. "Crucio!"

-

Draco's bones were on fire. Every fibre of his being was stretching, ripping apart. White-hot knives pierced him all over, again and again and again...

It stopped. He opened his eyes and whimpered. He was on the floor, his father standing feet away from him, Lestrange standing just behind his shoulder.

"Why?" he coughed. "Why would you do this?"

Lucius' arm snaked around Bellatrix's waist as he raised his wand once more.

"N-no," Draco stammered. "This isn't you. Azkaban did this to-"

Pain came again, as though he was being flogged with bladed whips and having salt rubbed into the wounds. He screamed, fire racing up his limbs.

He knew it wasn't really Azkaban. His father had always been like this. Cold, uncaring, terrifying. A combination of the island prison, Bellatrix and Voldemort had caused him to direct his malice upon his son. Before the pain completely overcame his senses, one clear thought came to his mind.

I've got to get out of here.

Then blackness washed over him, and the pain was gone.

-

Neville opened his eyes when the screaming stopped. "Oh, that's horrible," he gulped. "How could anyone do that to their own son?"

Harry didn't answer. There was silence for a while before he whispered; "I think he's passed out."

"We move in an hour," Lucius announced, replacing his wand in the folds of his robes. He didn't look down at his son. "We grow near to our destination."

"Oh good," muttered Harry. "Now would be a really good time for some help, Dumbledore."

-

Ron stuffed the last new book into his trunk just as Hermione entered the room. "All ready?" she asked.

"All set," he said. "Hopefully no one will come up with anything else they needed between now and next week."

"If they do, I'd be surprised if they mentioned it," said Hermione. "I know I wouldn't after what Moody said about Diagon Alley."

"Moody's paranoid," said Ron, unnecessarily. "We didn't get attacked today, did we?"

"No, but that's why we went today," said Hermione. "If we'd have gone next week, well..."

"If they're expecting something to happen they should stop everyone from going then," muttered Ron.

"That would make people panic," Hermione pointed out, stung a little by his tone, as though it were her fault they'd had to go to Diagon Alley a week early. "Dumbledore's warning everyone he can..."

"I know," said Ron, shutting the lid of his trunk and sinking onto it. "I know, I'm sorry. It's just..."

"Yeah," said Hermione. "I'm sorry Harry missed the trip too."

"It's like people have forgotten about him!" Ron burst out. "I know you haven't!" he said quickly, on seeing the look on Hermione's face. "And I know no one else has either. But..."

"You feel helpless?"

Ron nodded, miserably. Despite the strange quietness in Diagon Alley, he'd still managed to enjoy himself for a few blissful hours. But as soon as he'd got back and seen Hedwig, sleeping in Pigwidgeon's cage, he'd hated himself for it.

"Me too," said Hermione, making him look up in surprise. "I just wish we were allowed in the library!"

Ron could not see what this had to do with anything at all.

"I want to research that smoky stuff everyone's talking about," she explained quickly. "The red stuff at Harry's house and the blue stuff at Neville's gran's place. It could be a vital clue! I know Professor Lupin and the order are looking into it as much as they can, and I know Moody's been filtering out all the books that could be useful from the library, but I just know I could be more help."

Ron knew this too, but didn't know why. He wasn't nearly as good at research as Hermione was.

"Just wait till we get back to Hogwarts," he reassured her. "The library won't know what's hit it."

She smiled a little. "Thanks, Ron," she said. "I just hope Harry comes back before then."

Me too, thought Ron. Me too.

-

The journey had been one of the worst yet. Malfoy had woken up just when they'd started to leave. No one had said anything to him, so he'd hung back near Harry and Neville, limping, not meeting anyone's eyes. Harry couldn't help but feel sorry for Malfoy. He certainly deserved being turned into a ferret once in a while... possibly even a broken arm, but no one deserved the Cruciatus curse, especially from their own father.

Bellatrix certainly looked pleased, but, as always, looked more in Neville's direction that she did anyone else's. Neville had told Harry about the psychologically damaging incident when Bellatrix had told him she wanted to be his new mother. Harry had a feeling that Neville being here had more to do with him being fed to Nagini.

After traipsing for miles through thick forest, they stopped at last as the sun finally came up. Harry yawned as he and Neville were pushed into sitting positions. The Death Eaters crawled into their tents, murmuring only slightly amongst themselves. One of the younger Death Eaters was put on watch, and mumbling irritably he sat up against a rock opposite and pulled out his wand to build a tiny fire.

"Guess that means 'feel free to go to sleep'," whispered Harry to Neville, stretching out his legs and taking off his glasses, holding them loosely between his tied hands.

"Thank goodness," yawned Neville. "If we get out of this, I'm never walking anywhere ever again."

Harry chuckled despite himself. "Well, enjoy it while you can," he yawned. "I've got the feeling we're getting close."

"Yes, sir," sighed Neville, happily. Harry closed his eyes. He hadn't slept well for weeks, obviously, but at least he hadn't been visited by the usual nightmares, or even the unusual ones where he woke up with his scar threatening to split his head in two. He didn't seem to be able to stay asleep long enough for one to crop up. Either that or he was just too exhausted from walking for his subconscious to threaten him. Like now, as he leant back against the trees and he felt his body succumb to fatigue.

Until he woke with a start as a hand snaked around his shoulders and clamped over his mouth.

"Don't panic, Potter," whispered a horribly familiar voice from behind him. The hand was removed and Harry felt a sharp blade against his wrists. He kept very still.

"I've run out of panic," he whispered back. "What are you doing, Malfoy?"

"Shut up," was the only answering whisper. There was friction and a tug as the ropes fell away. Feeling Harry hadn't realised was missing started to return to his fingers. He winced at the pain, but did not move as Malfoy moved over to Neville. He glanced over at the guard that was meant to be watching them. He seemed to have fallen asleep, but there was a slightly blue haze to the air around him which made Harry think otherwise.

"Hey - what -?" Neville mumbled as he jerked back into consciousness.

"S'all right, Nev," Harry whispered quickly. "Don't move." When Neville's ropes were cut, Malfoy grabbed Harry's sleeve and dragged him back into the cover of the trees. Neville scrambled to his feet and followed.

"What are you playing at?" Harry growled at Malfoy, suspicion taking over his impulse to celebrate his freedom.

"Getting you out before the blue stuff touches you," Malfoy sneered. "You want to get knocked out, fine by me."

"Why get us out at all?"

"I don't have to explain to you, Potter. Just get the hell out and try to get killed. I'd do it myself only I'm not permitted to perform the killing curse yet and father would know if I used this," he waved the knife he'd used to cut them free.

"But you're permitted to let us go?" Neville asked.

Malfoy glared at him. "Just go. The blue stuff should keep most of them out for a few hours. If they catch you afterwards and you tell on me then I'll knife you in the night no matter what. Got it?"

Harry still suspected a trick.

"Harry?" It took a moment for Harry to realise that Neville was already walking deeper into the forest. "Come on!"

Harry turned to look at Malfoy. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the blonde boy, who was taller than him but seemed momentarily cowed by his treachery. "You're not doing yourself any favours, Malfoy," he growled. "Next time I see you, I'll do so much worse than break your arm."

"I'm terrified, Potter," Malfoy sneered. "Go."

Harry followed Neville into the forest, glancing behind him at intervals to check that Malfoy wasn't going to recapture them and make out he'd done the Death Eaters a favour.

Now that Draco thought about it, that wouldn't be such a bad idea. But no. That wouldn't solve the problem. They'd still be wandering around in Muggle towns, walking, of all things, towards wherever they were going, his father and Bellatrix constantly all over each other, the men spinning stupid stories about some... he could hardly think the words... bastard child of theirs, sleeping on the ground, and his father... his father had performed the Cruciatus curse on him. Things could never get any worse.

Draco Malfoy turned to go back to the camp and let himself get knocked out by the blue stuff, to avoid suspicion, when something silver and fist-shaped hit him on the back of the head, and he fell to the ground.