Twenty-Four Hours

Twenty Four Hours (2/?)

Ginny Weasley had been watching Harry high, high in the air throughout the entire game. She knew, of course, that the Malfoys had been up to something. But what? There was always that hitch that the Malfoys- although they were but children- were naturally Dark Witches and Wizards. Sure, Michelle was clever and not quite so unpleasant as Draco seemed to be, but... so what? It didn't mean anything.

She cast her mind back to the day when Michelle had been Sorted. Harry had not been in the Hall at the time; the Head Boy and Girl had been required to attend a one-on-one meeting. Michelle's Sorting had been a very interesting experience, as Ginny recalled the time not too long ago that she, herself, had been Sorted.

***(FLASHBACK- SIX YEARS PRIOR)***

"We are ready for you now," came the harsh voice of Professor McGonagall. Silently, Ginny and her fellow first-years students followed the Headmistress into the Great Hall. The students' chatter died down as the new witches and wizards gazed at the wonderous room.

The Professor held up a long scroll of parchment in one hand and a tattered hat in the other. "Oh my God," Ginny heard a girl whine. "There is absolutely NO way I'm touching that." She chuckled at the girl's shallowness and held her breath as the woman who would soon be- although Ginny didn't know it- her Head of House read off names.

"Artsiny, Georgia!" Professor McGonagall called hoarsely. After the girl was declared a Hufflepuff, she called another name... and another... and another. Finally, she croaked, "Weasley, Ginevra!" Ginny stumbled forward and collapsed onto the stool, completely unprepared for what she would hear.

"Ah," came a voice in her ear. She nearly jumped but then remembered the little hint Ron had passed her about the Sorting a mere six weeks ago. 'Of course,' she thought. 'A talking hat... what else should I expect?'

"You had better be the last Weasley for a while," the voice groaned. "But you are very different from your brothers, are you not?" Ginny tried to controll her thoughts and did not reply. "I see in you what I have not seen in them. Cleverness, for starters." If it were possible, Ginny thought the Hat was eyeing Ron. "But more than that. I see ambition, even if it is only a hint. Yet you have manners, something many Slytherins fail to obtain. Ravenclaw would not suit you either, however. You have true Gryffindor spirit, girl. Although I do see Hufflepuff blood in you," the hat added.

"So where do you think I should put you? Harry Potter was easier to place!" Ginny blushed- being better-or perhaps worse- than Harry Potter at something was quite accredible.

'Gryffindor would be nice,' Ginny muttered mentally. The hat snorted.

"Ah, the familiar Weasley quote! Gryffindor, Gryffindor, Gryffindor... you surely know that you are related to Bellatrix Lestrange and the Malfoys?" Not knowing quite who these people were, Ginny remained silent. "However, I shall do as you ask, but beware that there is a hint of Slytherin in you." He shouted out, "GRYFFINDOR!" and Ginny skipped to the Gryffindor table and sank into a chair next to Percy.

"Where's Ron?" she asked immediately. Percy shrugged- the place in which the esteemed Trio of Gryffindor usually vacated was empty with the exception of Hermione Granger. "And you said Harry Potter was here!" she scolded. Percy tried to insist that Harry Potter did attend Hogwarts, but rumors were going around that he and Ron had flown a car to school and were now expelled. An hour passed, and Ginny walked upstairs quite miserably, somehow knowing that her year would be dreadful.

***(THE PRESENT)***

Ginny sighed. Her own Sorting had been nothing short of a disaster, but she knew that just as much as she had wanted to uphold her family honor, Michelle had felt the same. The Malfoys and the Weasleys were bitter rivals; they always had been and always would be. Even now, at age fifteen, she did not understand how they had become to be such enemies. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It hurt her head just from thinking about it.

She remembered Michelle's Sorting just as well. From her seat far at the end of the Gryffindor table, she had recognized each emotion on the girl's face as something she had felt on her own. She realized that just as the Hat had debated her own placement, it had debated Michelle's as well. Ginny would never have admitted it, but she would've given anything to know what had been said to the young Malfoy at the time of her Sorting.

* * *

"Come on," the boy whined, tugging at his sister's robes. "Why do you spend so much time on your hair when we're bloody invisible?" The girl smiled apologetically and followed her brother under the silvery cloak. He smirked, as if to say "I always get my way." And it was true. Draco Malfoy always got his way. What else was new?

Draco led his sister silently to the dreaded Infirmary. She followed equally soundlessly, her face impassive and her footsteps quiet. "Is this is?" Michelle wondered as she entered the warm, cinnamony-smelling room. Draco did not answer; he only crept towards the only occupied bed in the room. Being well past midnight, Madam Pomfrey was not there. They knew that even without the Invisibility Cloak, the chances of their being caught were slim to none.

The two adolescents gazed at the unconscious boy. Harry Potter, at last defeated in a Quidditch match... and yet so much more. Choking back maniacal laughter, Draco pulled back the Gryffindor's blankets and snorted at Potter's choice of red and gold pajamas- a very un-Malfoy-like thing to do. Michelle bit back a smile as she pulled something out of her pocket.

According to the Plan, maniacal laughter would be acceptable at this point. But both Draco and Michelle knew that they were skating on thin ice, and that if Mr. Filch caught them they would be dead in the water. *Wow- two idioms in one sentence. Good for me!* Therefore, Michelle gently placed the Portkey on Harry's chest and waited.

"Ten seconds," Draco whispered. He carefully took Potter's hands and crossed them over the small thimble lying on his chest. Then he placed his own left forefinger on the thimble, being careful not to touch the other boy's Half-Blood-y hands. Michelle rolled her eyes but touched the Portkey all the same, and within moments they were being pulled magnetically forward in a whirl of color and sound.

The strangest thing about traveling by Portkey is, in fact, not the overall feel of being rushed through the world by what seems to be a hook in one's navel. No, traveling by Portkey is much more complex than that. Just as in traveling by Time-Turner brings back the past to the user, traveling by Portkey brings back feelings. Feelings like being slammed into a wall, suffering the Cruciatus Curse, being forced into a cold, dark room and thrown down steps.

Neither Michelle nor Draco felt anything on their ironically silent journey. They had never particularly loved traveling by Portkey, but it was a way to get around. So because of the agonizing headaches they were subjected to after use of Portkeys, several Death Eaters had created a special charm that would wipe all sound from the Portkey-ing. This was a relief to both Michelle and Draco, as well as many others.

Finally it stopped. Michelle opened her eyes, dazed, and spotted Potter lying on the cold, dungeon ground a few feet away. Feeling rather lazy, she summoned the boy towards her and helped Draco up, as he was lying on the ground also. She turned towards her brother after walking several steps, and sighed. "Welcome home, Draco."

"Welcome home," the boy echoed. Traditionally, this was not actually their home, to be precise, but it was as close as possible. Hogwarts--they lived there ten months a year. When it came time to graduate, Draco calculated, he would have spent seventy months in that horrid castle, or roughly two thousand one hundred days. Far too much time to spend in the presence of a muggle-loving fool, much less the arch-nemesis of the Dark Lord. But they did not go to it willingly- many months, years even, had been spent trying to convince their mother that Durmstrang would've been a better choice.

The two teenagers walked... and walked. Up stone steps, down narrow corridors- they seemed to know exactly where they were going even without speaking. Draco was moving Potter along by some spell, causing the boy to glide along in the air, occasionally bumping into stalagmites and statues. Neither Malfoy seemed to care that the Gryffindor was bruised and injured from the bumps and crashes.

After about fifteen minutes, Draco and his sister reached a long, wide room. There were hundreds of dungeon cells in there- what had formerly been known as Riddle Castle had been infamous for its dungeons. However, after Voldmort gained rightful inheritance over it, he had cast every known Dark spell on it and made it so much more powerful. It did not have a name anymore; "Riddle Castle" seemed no longer fitting for the Darkest of places.

Yet Draco and his friends knew all about it. He, Michelle, and some other children of loyal Death Eaters, had their own rooms in the castle. Nearly every Death Eater did too. But never hostages. Before subjected to an attack against Nagini, Michelle remembered, Arthur Weasley had been held in a dungeon. He had been interrogated, of course, but as he was not Secret-Keeper for the Order, they had found out very little.

Harry Potter, on the other hand, would know. He would know and would tell them gladly after being tortured. And oh, would he be tortured. In every way. He would be crying before it was an eighth of the way done. And Draco planned to watch every minute of it, smirking from the corner, occasionally wasting his breath on an Unforgivable or two.

"Father," Michelle whispered, breaking the silence, "show yourself." She reached up to grasp her necklace and within moments, a dark-robed, masked Death Eater appeared. "The task has been completed," she told him.

"Finite Incantatum," Lucius hissed, and Potter collapsed onto the ground. "But... where to put him?" He looked around, gesturing to all the shabby and disgusting dungeon cells. He had spent time in one of them himself; he had at one point erred towards the Dark Lord and had paid for it dearly.

There were one thousand cells. Everyone knew that. And each one was rather different from the others. Some were guarded by dementors, some had chains, some were made of adamintine (*that's Cassie Claire's*), and some were entirely different. Michelle and Draco eyed them carefully, looking for the one that would make Potter the most miserable.

"That one," they said in unison, pointing. Lucius followed their gazes to a tiny, dementor-guarded cell across the room. It was made of adamintine and had tight-fitting chains. "Potter has a thing about dementors," Michelle informed her father.

"Yes, very well," Lucius gave in. He snapped his fingers and a house-elf appeared. "Crenso!" he addressed the elf.

"It's Creensa," the elf corrected him shyly.

"Take my children up to their rooms, instantly," Lucius commanded, not even looking at his slave. Crenso- or Creensa- obeyed quickly, dashing up the stone steps without bothering to wait for the children. Lucius pursed his lips and returned to the task at hand- imprisoning Potter.

Lifting the boy up, he failed to notice how unnaturally light the boy was. Or how the vivid green of his eyes seemed to be glaring at him, although Potter was in fact unconscious. Lucius opened the cell door and began fastening the chains on Potter's wrists, ankles, and waist. He had long since wanted to chain 'The Boy Who Lived' to a wall, and now was his chance.

Azkaban had been terrible, although Lucius would not admit that. He had broken out within a month, but it had been awful. Reliving his childhood ten times a day...

No. He would not think about it. He had escaped, it was over. But the grudge remained. It would be there forever. Not only against Potter, but towards the others on his side. Weasley. Granger. Lovegood. Longbottom. Weasley. They would all die painfully, as of course would Dumbledore.

A smile crept onto Lucius's face as he thought about Dumbledore. Dumbledore, who had made his school years so miserable. Dumbledore, who had lectured him in that horrid castle of his five years prior. Dumbledore. Secret-Keeper for the Order. Albus Percival Wulfrig Brian Dumbledore.

He finished chaining the boy and stood up, brushing invisible dust off his cloak. Pulling his mask back over his face, he locked the cell and walked out of the room.

* * *

Morning came, and Michelle had woken up several hours before. Brushing her sleek, shiny hair, she was lost in thought. Thinking about everything. All those things Slytherins don't think about. Those intense thoughts you'd find in a Ravenclaw's mind. *No, don't get me wrong. Michelle is a true-green Slytherin. She just happens to be pretty damn intense. And it's frustrating. Well of course she's intense, she's based on me, what do you expect?*

A knock on her door told her it was Time. "Michelle?" she heard her brother call eagerly. For weeks now Draco had been quiet and studious, but that was because of the Planning of the Plan. Now the Plan had been put into action and carried out, Draco would certainly be more cheerful.

"Hey," she replied softly, unlocking her door and swinging it open. Draco walked in, gazing at the ironically gorgeous room.

"Wow," Draco sighed. "We haven't been here in so long. Not since..."

"Not since Mum died," Michelle put in. And it was true. On their last visit to the Castle, Narcissa Malfoy had been alive and in very good health. Not a week later, however, had she died. Now that Michelle thought about it, Narcissa had died on the very same day Lucius was arrested. The very day he had tried to steal the Prophecy. So she and the Prophecy shared the same Deathday.

Yet she had never been much of a mother to them. Sure, she had sent house-elves to take care of the kids all the time, but so what? She had never stopped Lucius from murdering all those people. She had never stopped the Dark Lord from haunting Draco's dream. She had never kissed Michelle good-night or sent them owls at school (that didn't consist of lots of sweets and a two-sentence letter). She had never tucked them in. But most of all, she had never told Lucius off for teaching Draco to resist the Unforgiveables.

Draco looked up, jerked out of his thoughts. "Draco?" Michelle demanded for the ninth time. She gestured towards her desk, where parchment, ink, and a quill sat. "For the fifteen millionth time, TELL ME WHAT TO WRITE!"

"Write..." Draco began, disoriented. "Write what?"

"Oh, you imbicle!" Michelle exclaimed, slamming her fist on the table. "Don't tell me you haven't been listening to what I've been goddammed saying for the past twenty minutes. Oh, Draco, you moron." Michelle then took pleasure in informing her brother all about the fifteen types of idiot he was. Draco fingered Michelle's wand, trying to think of a suitable hex.

"You ass, Draco, give me that," Michelle commanded, snatching her wand out of her brother's grip. "Now listen this time, because I won't repeat it. Potter is here. The Dark Lord needs him, but he must be broken. Broken emotionally; as if someone stuck a knife in his chest and twisted it around until he died. Holding him here- even with the Dementors- won't do that. We have to break him the way Lord Slytherin defeated Gryffindor thousands of years ago. Got that?" *Once again, I took reference from Cassie Claire. Well she rocks!*

Draco leaned against the wall with his arms folded casually, as if his sister had told him about a quiet dinner party rather than a theory for the world's undoing. "So how--?" he began, rather confused.

"Weasel and Mudblood, who else? We'll use them against him of course, and we'll make him watch. If that isn't enough to break him, nothing is. And as we all know, everyone has a breaking point."

"Michelle, you don't mean--?" Draco's voice lit up with delight and excitement.

"Yes. I know your breaking point, Draco. You know mine. We know Father's. And soon, upon your initiation, you will know the Dark Lord's."

"Doubtful," Draco scoffed, stroking his sister's hair. "As if he would trust me with that information. He trusts Father, yes, but me?" Draco did not want to believe that he could be like his father. He hated Lucius- and yet looked up to him and respected him in every way. "Michelle, Father bites his lip before telling me the time. You honestly believe that I'll sit at His right-hand?"

"Yes, Draco. It's quite obvious. And if His reign ends someday, I have no doubt that you will become another one." Draco gasped, and Michelle realized what she had just said.

"Another Dark Lord?" Draco asked, blinking. "Come on, Rule number 389 in the Evil Overlord's Basic Guide is that you have to be very ugly. And honestly, I don't fulfill that category. Do I?" he asked quickly, running his fingers through his untanglable hair.

"No, silly," Michelle assured her brother. "But what I meant was--you're clever and cunning enough to follow in His footsteps. You were the fastest-decided Slytherin since Him himself, and perhaps even Lord Slytherin when it comes to that. You crush Potter with every word you say, little by little, and are sly enough to bewitch a dragon. You're as un-Gryffindor-like as humanly possible, seeing as you ran away from the Dark Lord in your first year, screaming like a girl. Not," she added, "like there's anything wrong with the way girls scream."

Draco laughed and leaned over the piece of parchment, writing quickly in his perfect handwriting.

Weasel and Mudblood, he wrote,

We have him. But he is not safe- oh, no, not at all. You have twenty-four hours before we kill him. (Of course, they would not kill him because the Plan stated against it, but the Gryffindor slime didn't know that.) After that time, if you have not arrived, we will not spare him for a moment. Your time begins now- Midnight on September the Fifth. You know that if he dies, his life will be grieved so- but the Dark Lord will conquer all. To find him, take this Riddle: "What is Dark and Light, for I see only gray."

Draco Malfoy

He looked up, feeling rather pleased with himself. Michelle examined the carefully written letter and nodded, satisfied. She considered herself a far better writer than her brother, but the Plan meant for her to pretend to be friends with the slime-asses. Then she would get very close to them by spilling out a false and very overdramatic life story. They would, being Gryffindors, buy the story. Michelle would then go into the whole "I-know-where-Harry-is-hurry-before-Draco-sees" act, and without revealing Michelle's cover, Lucius would conveniently pop up and begin the torturing. And Potter would break. Slowly, perhaps, but he would break.

"Michelle?" Draco asked quietly, sealing the letter in a parchment envelope. "What you said- about me being the fastest-chosen Slytherin- how come it took you so long to be Sorted?" He straightened up from his leaning against the wall and looked attentively at his sister.

Michelle did not answer. Her mind focused on the all-too-clear memory of her Sorting. Something she would never forget, although she so wanted to. And something she relived every day before exiting her dormitory. She could never know that Ginny Weasley, someone she detested, did the same with her memory.

"Malfoy, Michelle!" Michelle heard a disapproving note in the Headmistress's voice and scoffed. Carefully and delicately, she sat down on the stool and pulled the hat over her ears, praying for Slytherin.

"Slytherin? Well, why am I not surprised, Miss Malfoy?" Michelle's face remained impassive; she had known about the Hat's special talent since she was seven. "Your brother was certainly eager enough to be placed in Slytherin, I assure you." Michelle scowled as her eyes fell upon her shocked brother. Shocked, because she had been sitting under the hat for several moments already. "He was easy to place. Corrupt with thoughts of Power and the Dark Lord, of course. You, however..." the Hat mused. "You have true potential. Surely you will not dedicate all of that to the one your father and brother so honor?"

"Yes," Michelle thought, indignant. "I'm not a goody-goody Hufflepuff, you retarded hat." She fumed about the Hat's prejudice against Slytherin; what was wrong with the greatly honored House?

"Ah, Michelle, but Ravenclaw and even Gryffindor are options as well. You are not as like Draco as you think you are; he is cunning and power-hungry. You, on the other hand, are just as brilliant with a sprinkle of goodness. You are brave when you need to be and know how to make the right decisions. If I place you into Slytherin, all that talent will go to waste. I think you belong in RAVE--"

"Shut UP!" Michelle thought angrily, stifling the Hat. She saw her brother sigh in relief as the Hat's mouth- if you could call it that- closed abrubtly. "Slytherin or I'm sent home, buddy. And if I'm sent home, Father will have you destroyed. You wouldn't like that would you?" She knew perfectly well that Lucius would not waste his time on a stupid Hat but was in the mood for threats.

"Very well, very well," the Hat sighed. "SLYTHERIN!" Draco clapped loudly and patted the space next to him at the table, and Michelle raced over to it eagerly.

"What was that all about?" Draco demanded in her ear.

"I'll tell you later," Michelle hissed back, leaning back in her chair. Even if it had taken several minutes, she had reached the first bullet on her "Achieve at Hogwarts" list- be Sorted into Slytherin. And now her day was perfect.

Wiping a streak of sweat from her face, Michelle glanced at Draco. It was always difficult to lie to those silver-gray eyes, but after years and years of practice, Michelle had little trouble with it. "The bloody Hat was telling me all the great stuff Slytherins do," she finally replied. "About how the Dark Lord was almost Sorted into Ravenclaw, but look where Slytherin got him. And about how Lord Slytherin knew every single one of the people who would be Slytherins later on, even if he never told anyone." Of course, this was a lie, but Draco did not know that.

"Oh," Draco finally muttered. "Goddammed Hat never told me that."

Michelle smirked at him half-heartedly, but even an unenthusiastic smirk from Michelle Malfoy was enough to irritate someone greatly. "Oh, shove it," Draco whined. "I've had a hard day, don't make it worse."

"Worse? I was trying to improve it," Michelle told him, grinning wickedly. They played around for a few minutes before a knock came on Michelle's door.

"Master Draco," squeaked a voice. "Master Draco, your Father is wanting you to have this." The house-elf called Blobbo held out a long, thin package with silvery writing on the black box. Cruciatus, it read.

Draco, although overjoyed, kept his face clear of all emotion. "Tell Father I said 'thank-you,'" he snapped, slamming the door. "Who's the broom-maker for this, anyway?" he wondered a moment later.

"Viktor," Michelle replied. "His initiation was last month, remember? Lucky you; that broom can shoot curses out of the tail end if you tell it to." Draco smiled. If that wasn't a sure-fire way to beat Potter- if he was still alive, that is- in Quidditch, nothing was.

"Not as good as the Shimmer Star," Draco told her jokingly, although he didn't believe that at all. 'Cruciatus' was far better than the Shimmer Star and the Firebolt put together, in Draco's opinion.

"Let's go taunt the prisoner," Michelle suggested, handing Draco his wand and slipping her own into her pocket. Draco agreed, accepting his wand, and walked to the dungeon with his sister.

* * *

"Woken up, have you?" Draco demanded of the no longer unconscious boy.

"W-where am I?" Harry asked, trying not to sound as scared as he felt. He failed miserably. "Why am I here? How did I get here? W-w-what are you going to do with me?"

"First question- sorry, that's classified. Second question- you're here as a hostage, for now. Third- classified. And as for our plans, Potter, since when are we to include you on them?" Draco laughed softly as the dementors guarding the boy's cell floated away.

Draco then held out the piece of parchment addressed to the other members of the Trio, and Harry's eyes widened as he read. "D-don't! No! Tell them not to come! You're only going to hurt them, I know it! Send them back!" Harry shouted, terrified.

"Nobody tells me what to do, Potter, especially not you. And I think I'll enjoy having you and your faithful sidekicks as slaves, thank you very much." Harry choked back tears as Draco hit him with the Cruciatus Curse, and he writhed with pain as the Curse continued for nearly two minutes.

Finally Draco stopped. "That'll teach you to talk back to a Death Eater," Michelle warned him, fingering her wand. "There's lots of bad stuff in this world, Potter, and you're about to be introduced to some of it."

"Thanks, mini-Malfoy, but I think I might know a lot more than you do about suffering. You're just a pampered, cheating, spoiled Slytherin bitch." Michelle winced, but she kept her eyes on Harry, her face inscrutible.

"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder," Michelle told him calmly. At his confused yet unwilling expression, she laughed. "It means," she explained slowly, "that it takes one to know one." Of course, this was not exactly what it meant, but she was feeling exhausted and didn't feel like showing off her top Ravenclaw quality. "And something else? Don't call me Mini-Malfoy."

Michelle stepped closer to him and bent down. She took her wand and whispered an incantatum. "Taslonkfigas jenoarra kelanino aknovorra." Her wand transfigured, slowly, into a long, sharp-bladed knife. "Now hold still Potter," she warned the boy. She plunged the knife into Harry's cheek, and obviously, Potter made the mistake of turning away. This caused the cut to widen and and splatter blood everywhere.

"I warned you," Michelle giggled. "I did warn you." Harry shot her a look of hatred, but he knew that it was his fault. He shouldn't have turned away; any moron knew that.

But after the siblings left, and Harry was sure things couldn't get any worse, they did.