Night of the Dead

Night of the Dead

By Messiah

Chapter Three

"Do you know that when I look at you, I see the stars?"

Draco turned his head towards the woman who was staring at him expectantly and snorted. "Where did you pull that out of?"

She shrieked girlishly and punched his shoulder. "God, you're such an arse sometimes." He arched a graceful brow and she laughed. "Ok, all the time. You're like bloody devil, beautiful and evil all at once. Next thing I know you'll have me in chains at your feet, and I'll be happy to be there - addicted to you."

He nodded with satisfaction and stretched, knuckles brushing against the stucco of the flea infested hotels wall. "You remember that," he said while climbing out of the bed and reaching for his pants that were draped along the back of the room's single chair. Swiftly he pulled them up and buckled the belt still threaded through the loops. He was buttoning up the last of the buttons on his dress shirt when he glanced up to see her still watching him. "Yes?"

"Will you come back?"

For a moment he took in the sight of her, her red curls fanned across the pillow, her legs twined in the sheets. A Weasley if there ever was one, and yet entirely muggle. A whore for the renting. He memorized the way her transparent nightgown just barely hinted at what lay underneath; just the way he liked it.

"I don't think so."

"You say that every time! What, do you think you're going to die?"

He closed his eyes tightly at how close to the truth she had come. Yes.

"John?"

For a moment there was only confusion, but then he remembered. "Yes?"

"Are you coming back?"

He sighed and leaned against the wall next to the door, just short of exiting and exhausted beyond the point of return. "Yes."

"Joh-...Draco?"

Draco shifted a little against the stones of the Headmaster's Tower and blew a plume of smoke into the air. Not knowing whether he was irritated or just apathetic, he rolled his skull along the jagged wall until he was facing Harry, seventeen years old and still very much alive. He waited in silence until the boy gathered himself together to say what he had come to say.

To his surprise Harry merely cleared his throat and said, "Those are disgusting."

"What, this?" Draco pulled the cigarette from his lips and tilted his head to examine it minutely - as if he had never seen one before. He then dug into the pocket that lined the inside of his robes, the pocket that housed his wand, and pulled out his pack. He freed the last remaining one and offered it to Harry.

Harry accepted and hesitantly brought it to his mouth. "What spell do I use?" he mumbled around it, knowing without asking that Incendio would be useless and, more likely than not, blow the fag up. Draco leaned forward off of the wall and pressed his own cigarette between his lips before touching it to Harry's. Time seemed to stop as Harry's eyes met his own unblinkingly, wordless communication sent as quick as lightning between them -- like a riddle that no one would ever find an answer to -- and then Harry sucked in, the end of his cigarette flaring with life.

Simultaneously they closed their eyes and just breathed, a moment of blind innocence in a war that would prove to last years.

"What have you done?" Draco blinked rapidly before opening his eyes completely. The voice was as quiet as pillow talk, and just as smooth, and for a moment Draco ignorantly thought that his father wasn't angry. But then the ever present cane hit his ear, the sharpened fangs ripping into the delicate flesh. Draco didn't answer and instead touched at where the pain bloomed, shocked at the blood that stained his skin.

"All for nothing. Nothing. I raised you, I loved you ... I gave you everything you needed and everything you wanted. And it was all for absolutely nothing!" As he watched his father lost his composure, his chill face slipping and melting like one of his mother's dinner party ice sculptures, revealing a hideous visage that he had never seen before.

Uncontrolled, his muscles moved on their own and Draco took a step back, but found the wall at his back. Like he had always been taught, to keep a wall at his back at all times, so that no one could approach him unnoticed - so that he could survey all in his domain. But now that wall wasn't protection, the wall was a cage.

Lucius closed the step between them, his face high above, and hilariously Draco thought to himself that the Gods must have found it amusing to deny him his Malfoy right to height. Instead he had been graced with his mother's delicate bones and stature, and little of his father other than his ashen locks and surname. Lucius's voice was again calm and quiet, and Draco could feel the fear rush into him of a sudden, it was a tone that his father only used on those who would never hear anything afterwards, a final kind parting before the person's soul was ripped from their body. "You left me Draco. You've left your heritage and family for them. And dare I say it? Dare I say that you left all of this for him?"

Draco shuddered and couldn't have answered even he had wanted to. And he knew that if they stood like this for much longer, his father breathing down on him with breath hot enough to scorch, that it wouldn't be sweat running down his legs as his bladder loosened from the panic. But then to his immense relief his father backed away and returned to the chair where he had previously been sitting, before he had called Draco into his study.

"I have a gift for you, my son."

Draco took a shaky step away from the wall, now wondering if all lessons taught to him by his father were traps in disguise. "F-Father?"

With a lazy wave of his hand the bookcase that contained the second hidden study slid aside and revealed Harry, blood drenching the carpet he had lovingly been laid on, the gap in his upper skull only just showing.

And then the blood was his own, streaming in rivulets from his eyes and down his chest, his clawed fingers now dripping with the crimson glory.

He woke screaming, and like on the night he had spent with Pansy, words melting from his tongue: "Harry, oh Harry!"

He fell back to sleep, unnoticed tears wet on his cheeks.

---------

It was one of those odd days where the clouds threatened to rip open at any moment, yet it was bright enough to cause a person to squint and bemoan the lack of sunglasses. Draco did just that as he stepped from the shadowed hall of his loft's building, Pansy held tight to his side.

Mr. Malfoy,

Neville has asked for you, please come to St. Mungo's as soon as humanly possible.

H.G.

He had considered throwing the paper into the fireplace that the woman had climbed out of just a week ago, but instead had hastily stuffed the small note into his pocket and called out to Pansy, and now together they were heading to the garage and to his car, walking through the stifling heat of the day. A flurry of movements as seat belts were locked and as Draco slid the key into the ignition. Then they were off, barely following the speed limit the few blocks it took to reach Purge and Dowse, Ltd. In all haste they whispered to the guarding mannequin and stepped through the window, Draco conscientiously helping Pansy over the ledge since her balance had been off for months now.

In the refreshingly cool air of the hospital, they approached the front desk. The receptionist was expecting them, and directed them to the Fourth Floor, the long-time home of Frank and Alice Longbottom. Briefly, Lockhart made his appearance and leered at Pansy -- who twittered back -- but Draco merely snarled and pushed the wasted man aside. Gilderoy worked his way into a screaming fit, apparently recognizing that the man who had snubbed him was a Malfoy, if for nothing more than his white hair. And if Draco's family name hadn't already been cursed to hell and back he would've actually feared for his soul for all that Lockhart promised would befall him. But as it was he was practiced in ignoring blathering fools - and far more important things were afoot than appeasing his former professor's narcissism.

With Lockhart's shrill voice somehow becoming even louder to overcome the sounds of the nurses trying to shush him, Draco and Pansy turned to the small waiting area outside of the ward they had been directed to.

"Granger," he nodded to the witch before turning and repeating, "Weasley." They returned the gesture, brittle and stiff.

Pansy hunkered into one of the hard plastic chairs in the alcove and began what was evidently a pleasing conversation with a painting. Other than himself, Pansy, and the two remaining thirds of the Trio, no one else was there to help Neville, and this surprised Draco to no end. He would have expected the whole bloody former Gryffindor house to show, but then he also remembered Neville's timidness. He had never quiet grown out of it, and the other boisterous members of his House had passed him over in their efforts to attain whatever lives they could. Only the Trio had ever seen him as more than a mascot, or a failed Sorting.

Finally, as the clock down the hall softly chimed the hour, the double doors to the ward opened and a very pale Neville stumbled out, clutching at his robes. Ron immediately rushed forward and grabbed onto his shoulders, Hermione following more sedately. Draco hung back, not sure of his reception, even though he had been told to come.

Neville collapsed sobbing into Ron's arms, not able to get a word past the thick tears in his throat. Shocked, Hermione took a step back and pressed a palm to the "o" of her mouth; as if in her previous clinical detachment she hadn't expected her former classmate to break down. Draco watched this all, knowing that once there would have been a time when Hermione would have been right there with Ron, soothing Neville. But time had changed them all, and not necessarily for the better.

A nurse exited through the doors, the heels of his medically white rubber trainers making no noise on the tile, he took in the scene with resigned eyes and then turned to Draco, as the only one who was sober enough to make any decisions. "Sir, we're going to need Mr. Longbottom to sign these papers. Could you get him to do that once he's -" the man shot a glance at Neville who was now on the floor sobbing openly, Ron with his legs and arms wrapped around him, cradling the smaller man like a babe "- better?" Draco nodded and the nurse gratefully slipped the file into Draco's hands. Knowing it wasn't his business to read the papers, he held them to his side and sat in the chair next to Pansy, who was now watching the show with morbid amusement.

Her eyes were violet today, and her long dark hair was unkempt and knotted, a rats-nest stringing in front of her face, rather like he imagined Morgan Le Fey would have looked. Gorgeous in a tragic way. She turned her wicked eyes to him and smirked, "What happened to make Longbottom cry? Did he blow up his potion again? I do so hope Professor Snape docked Gryffindor points. We're rather low on our own aren't we?"

Draco sighed and patted her knee, and didn't bother to hide the faint trace of pity in his voice, although if it were for Pansy or Neville, even he didn't know. "No, love. His parents died."

"Weren't they already dead?"

"Yes," was the only answer he could offer.

---------

"They're gone, and I never met them," Neville whimpered into his sandwich, a torn apart mess on the plate and not a bite eaten.

Clumsily Ron wrapped his arm around Neville's shoulder and pulled him in for a hug, "It's going to be ok, right Hermione?"

"W-what? Oh, yes, absolutely Neville!" she enthused before turning back to the papers that Draco had slid over to her after she retrieved permission from Neville.

They sat at a square table at a small cafe within walking distance of St. Mungo's, each to their own side, with only Pansy sitting double with Draco. She ignored everything and everyone to tear heartily into her meal, making several pauses when nausea threatened to overwhelm.

Draco watched the passing pedestrians as he chain smoked, seeing what no one else in the diner might see in the half light of the sunset. The shifty glance of a man as he slid a wedding band back onto his finger, an old woman clutching her purse tightly to her side. Just small movements, small facial expressions could tell him a person's life-story; such small things could reveal all their secrets.

Even now at this moment, when he turned his gaze upon his former classmates he could see what they meant to hide. The way that Hermione sat in her chair, leaning ever so slightly away from Ron as if he were contagious, and in turn the way that Ron leaned towards her, all but screaming 'Look at me, touch me, love me!'

"Malfoy ... Draco!"

Draco startled and turned to Neville who was now watching him with wide eyes, "Er, yes?"

"I said your name five times - where were you?"

Draco closed his eyes briefly, suddenly overwhelmed, "I was here Longbottom. I just got ... distracted."

Neville nodded, excepting Draco's poor excuse. "Thank you for coming. I honestly didn't think you would." The boy was ever so earnest, nodding fit to knock his head off. Draco sat stiffly, his body beating between the thought of either helping Neville's head along, or blushing. He decided on a compromise and merely gave a tiny strained smile. "Never a problem, Longbottom. It's the least you deserve, although why you called on me, I haven't a clue."

Neville frowned and wiped his nose with his napkin. "We're friends, Draco. It's what friends do."

Draco was startled by this revelation. He hadn't known that any of his cohorts from the war considering him to be more than an acquaintance. He was rude, blunt, and sarcastic, not exactly the friendliest of beasts. "Are we? Friends that is? I never knew." Neville's frown deepened and Draco hastily amended what he had said: "Not that I mind of course, even if you are a Gryffindor." Neville's frown turned into a quicksilver grin, while Hermione and Ron huffed self-righteously. Draco glared at them, willing them to say something. This was between him and Neville, and they had no part in it.

Hermione opened her mouth, no doubt to shovel her theories on House-unity (ones that she herself had never practiced) down his throat when her mobile began to ring. He only knew what it was due to the fact that he lived in muggle London and everyone and their bloody dog owned one. He had even considering getting one for himself as it would save a lot of time. Sometimes an owl just wasn't the logical answer when you needed someone, or something, immediately. But then again they were a bloody nuisance, always ringing at the most inopportune moment, as shown by the bushy haired witch currently yammering away.

Politely, the four of them remained silent so that Hermione could hear what was being said, or in Pansy's case she merely snuck a suspicious glance at the odd little machine attached to Hermione's ear and cringed every time a voice could be heard floating from it. Draco sighed inwardly, knowing what would come next. Pansy seemed to go through cycles most of the time, shy to introverted to mischievous to fearful, with an assortment of others thrown in for good measure. No doubt within minutes she would be bouncing out of her seat and begging to go to Honeydukes.

And indeed she sat a little straighter in her chair and looked Draco in the eye. "Draco!" She said loudly, only to be interrupted by Hermione who reached across the table and slammed her palm against the other girls mouth, not in a slap, but in a silencing motion. Eyes wide with shock, Pansy fell back into her seat and cradled her face, tears streaming out. Draco was also surprised at Hermione's roughness and he turned to berate her, only to be glared into submission. "What the hell?" he whispered to Ron, who only shrugged.

The phone conversation ended, and Hermione hastily stood, looking down at them. "Did any of you drive?"

Ron shook his head, as did Neville, and replied, "No, I Apparated as soon as I found out."

Hermione sighed and sat back down to drum her fingers impatiently against the table top. "There's been magic in a pub across town where none should be." Hermione had moved on after the War and had been employed by the Improper Use of Magic office, which with the new laws was even more straight-laced than ever. They were the ones who controlled the former Death Eaters, allowing them to keep their wands for a price, and therefore they were the ones who controlled Draco. As if he didn't already have enough to resent the woman for.

Finally he forwent his instincts and spoke: "I drove."

Hermione snorted and folded her legs, one across the other. "Right."

"I did, and I'm willing to drive you wherever you need to go. Bloody hell, I'll drive all of you -- there's more than enough room."

Hermione considered him for a moment before nodding. "Fine."

Hermione threw a handful of money to the table, more than enough to pay their bill, and quickly left, the rest following. She then waited impatiently in front of the café's door until Draco took the lead, walking back to St. Mungo's and down a few blocks to the car park where he had left his vehicle. Neville giggled at the site of the junked tiny two-door car, but stifled it when Draco waved his hand and the glamourie disappeared.

Draco scowled and plucked a faerie off of the windshield. "Fucking bug." It cheerfully made a rude gesture and bit his thumb before flying off, leaving behind a white stain across the windshield.

He frowned at the trail on the glass, and then looked at the group standing loosely around the car. "Pansy gets the front seat," he announced before unlocking the doors. Hermione made a move to protest before her eyes settled on Pansy's bulging stomach. Pansy watched with a wide grin, already knowing that Draco wouldn't budge on this issue. Hermione shrugged and they were on their way.

---------

"Follow my lead," Hermione commanded, taking off at a fast walk, the clip-clip-clipping of her shoes absorbed into the white-noise of sounds that the city emitted. Not far behind her travelled the other four, none of them quite sure what exactly was done on one of these occurrences. Normally, if it were a young wizard, a letter would be sent to warn them of their court date and that was it, but apparently this was much more serious than that.

On the drive Hermione had explained that someone had used Petrificus Totalus on no less than two hundred people at once, and in a purely muggle neighbourhood no less. Such an act should be impossible: the strength to cast the spell was enough to cause a witch or wizard to go into shock. But it had happened and it was Hermione's job to find out why and if possible who.

In a tight group they approached one building among many. Draco looked up and up as they approached, still slightly scared by what the muggles called architecture. The only building that he knew of in the wizarding world that was as tall as this was Gringotts. And there he wasn't frightened because it's twisting walls and pockmarked exterior gave you a sense of how old it was. It was more a monument than a building, something the mind could give into because it just was, there would be no demolishing of the structure, nor would it ever be anything but the wizarding bank. But these buildings were faceless. Black and silver with panel upon panel of glass, staring blankly out into their streets with no emotion. He shuddered.

They entered through the door and Draco was immediately struck by the silence. Not to confuse that with it being actually quiet as the sound system was still spitting its mixture of rock and deep techno beats. But there was no human noise. No voices, no shuffle of foot against the cement floor. Everyone was frozen in whatever posture they had been in before the spell was cast. There a man reaching out for a drink still held by a bar tender, and there a woman bending down to tie her shoe. They all still breathed, which made it all that much harder to account for.

Hermione stepped forward and looked into the eyes of one of the women and muttered, "We're going to have to perform an Obliviate. They've stood here like this for too long; as it is now their minds won't make up a story for what happened."

She stepped around the woman and began to poke around, looking for what, Draco knew not.

Curious himself, Draco moved to one of the side walls and began walking towards the area where the dancers were. They were like wax-statue parodies, arms raised to the air as if worshiping long dead gods. He lightly brushed his fingertips down a man's suede jacket. He noticed that over to his side one of the women had fallen onto her partner, who was now supporting her with his own shoulders, and Draco winced at the pain the both of them would feel when able to move again. He had never thought before of exactly how wrong the spell was, but now he was seeing first hand. He had always thought that magic was grey, and this here was his proof.

Still studying the man and woman, he tripped over someone on the floor, curled through the legs and feet of the other dancers. Ducking down he saw the man was dressed like the others, like a muggle, but he was moving feebly against the ground, a harsh rasping sound coming from his throat. Draco stood and walked around a few of the frozen people so he could get to the man's head. Squatting to the ground he used his hands to shift the man a few inches into open space so that he could roll him to his back.

No. It can't ... no.

His first thought was to pinch himself. The man on the ground (who was even now struggling to breath, blood clotting in a thin stream from his nose down his cheekbone) so closely resembled the boy that he had kissed, and thereby resembled Potter -- who was dead. But the man was dying and Draco had to do something, even if it went against all of his instincts. He reached out and put his hand to the man's throat, trying to think of what spell he could use to clear it, or at least find out why he had stopped breathing. The man's eyes fluttered open and then locked on his own, vibrant green to grey and Draco found that now it was he that couldn't breath. The boy's jaw fell open and he tried to say something, but there was nothing. Draco gently patted the man's chest and attempted a grin, not knowing what else to do. "You - you'll be fine. I'm going to help you."

Again the boy tried to speak, and again nothing came. His chest didn't rise or fall and even the gurgling sound stopped. Draco reached for the man's arm thinking to carry him to Hermione who would surely know what to do, but when lifting the man's hand into the air he caught the silver lines so softly etched into the skin and then it was him gasping for air.

I must not tell lies.