Hunting For The Sun

CHAPTER FITEEN

You´re Looking Old

I´ll take this opportunity to give you a little break from me. A commercial break, if you will.

Now, who do I know enough about during that time to tell you of? Hmmm... Let´s see...

Well, duh.

It´s Draco´s turn, kids!

~*~

He stepped off the spell and looked around him. It wasn´t a nice place that he had picked, and bad memories in their thousands rose up to greet him like the smell of damp rot, and come to think of it, that was there too. He stepped over the caved-in doorframe and into the Manor.

Chips of plaster shaken from the walls by whatever had destroyed the place crunched under his boots and the air was thick with dust. Four broken rays slit the room down the middle, slanting from the shattered windows and making the dust golden in the daylight. He walked deeper into the entrance hall, sticking his hands in the pocket of his coat and tipping back on his heels to look up the ceiling. The grand staircase was still there, and so was the extensive marble fireplace on the West wall. It was plastered with dust and empty but for the ashes of the last fire that had burned there, ten years before.

Draco crossed the room, his feet, lightly as he placed them down, pounding and echoing on the floorboards. He reached out a pale hand to lay it on the polished wood of the banister to the stairs. He lifted it away and a patch was left in the powdery evidence of age. Draco turned his hand over and blew on it, displacing only a little of the grime they had picked up. He brushed his hand on his trousers, ignoring the grey smears, and started up the steps.

The upstairs corridor was less dusty, but only a little. Draco squinted and tipped his head back again. The window at the end of the hall cast long patches of gold on the soiled carpets. He stepped into one of the honeyed squares and let the warmth wash over him. The Manor had always been cold. Even in summer it was cold. They had never noticed, but now he shivered and thought unintentionally of my warm embrace.

What? That´s how he thought of it! Hardly my fault. I´m just phrasing his thoughts.

Cold hadn´t bothered him before but London was warm, and thus was his new life. The EKD3 building, despite its notable lack of windows in some places, was also a warm place. It brought up warm thoughts more than anything else. He shivered again.

Draco walked down the hall and to the right. There was that green section; it had once had multitudes of paintings, but they had all been taken when the Light stormed the Manor. Sold, probably. Draco shuddered to think of all the foul commoners fingering the paintings of his relatives, worth thousands of Galleons, and sticking their bogies in the corners. Wiping their noses on his tapestries, tapestries that had been in his family for thousands of years. He had been left with nothing, except his own wit. What little he had left was only due to his father.

`Go, Draco!´ he shouted. `You have to get out of the house!´

`Why?´ Draco cried. `Why?´

`They´re storming right now, and they won´t leave anyone alive.´ He was cool, calm in some way. He shouted, sure, but he was collected, packing golden Galleons into a suitcase and ramming his Gringotts key into his shirt on a long string, then he hesitated.

`If I live, I´ll come to find you,´ he told Draco, fishing the key out. `Look after this. If I don´t make it then it´s all yours. Be careful with it.´

`I will,´ the boy promised. He took the long chain and put it around his neck. It looked a lot bigger on him, and the size difference stunned him. He was seventeen; he should be as tall if not taller than his father was. But Lucius was a towering man, and Draco held little hope of beating that. He nodded again. `What about mother?´

`Your mother will die,´ Lucius said distantly. `She´s not got what it takes to make it.´

`Have I?´ Draco asked. It had been worrying him all the time.

`You are my son,´ Lucius answered simply, packing clothes into his case and shrinking all his bags to fit them into a single knapsack. `And I am your father.´

He turned formally, and bowed to Draco.

`Make me proud, my boy,´ he said.

Draco bowed in return. `I will, Father.´

`Don´t break, no matter what they offer you, and stay loyal to the Dark Lord eternally.´

`I will.´

`Then you are a man, and I will not call you otherwise.´ Lucius placed a leather-gloved hand on Draco´s shoulder. `You are a man, my son, and a man destined for great things. You will not fail.´

Draco laid a hand upon Lucius´ and sniffed. He was biting on the tears that fought to flow.

`Where do I go, Father?´

`Not where I do,´ Lucius said, all business again. `Stay far away from me.´

`Where are you going?´ Draco asked, shrinking his bags.

`I go to Hogwarts,´ Lucius answered. `Do not follow me there. If I don´t see you again, know that I died fighting for our cause. I died fighting for the end of the Muggles and their Mudblood spawn.´

It was odd to hear his father speak as though he was already dead.

`If I die,´ Draco said, swallowing, `then you have to know that I will always respect you, and I wish I could be half the man you are.´

Lucius smiled, a genuine smile, rare on him. `You are,´ he nodded. `Now, we´ve done our Gryffindor routine to death. You have the key to all our money and you´re young and full of life. Make the most of it. Get yourself a girlfriend and continue our line.´

He ruffled Draco´s hair, then made to Apparate, but the Light burst into the room exactly then. Draco leapt back out of the way, but Lucius didn´t change course in time. They grabbed him from behind and snapped his wand. Draco screamed, but they dragged Lucius away before he could stop them.

But he was still there. He remembered his promises to his father and cast the spell before they could reach him. Cries of dismay followed him all the way into the oblivion of travel-time.

Draco shook his head, and found himself standing in the study. The window still poured light across the long room and Lucius´ last case was still open on the desk. Draco stepped right in, squinting to filter the view before him. His foot rolled on something and he stepped back to see the two halves of his father´s wand lying on the ground still. Draco crouched in the dust and picked them up. There was a dent in the carpet from where they had been for ten years.

He didn´t feel worthy of holding them. He had broken everything he had promised to his father. He had said he would never break, but he had and only on offer of a girl.

This bit offended me, but this isn´t my bit.

She wasn´t even beautiful. She was pretty, yes, but not beautiful.

How generous of him to say so.

Just a sewer rat, and he had fallen for her to the extent that he had given up all that his father had done for him. He had betrayed the Dark Lord and broken. He had a chance to change that, and he hoped he would.

I certainly don´t. Draco´s looking guilty now. Well that hardly changes anything, does it?

But I digress.

He stepped to the window, squinting in the flash of light as the sun broke the summer clouds. This wasn´t a good place for him and it was with a flinch that he saw a patch of dried blood exactly where his father had been. A flashback of them beating his father into submission with clubs hit him with the force of a physical blow. Draco rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.

He had to get back, but could he trust me? He bit his lip, flicking his tongue along the fold of skin forced back into his mouth. I had controlled him, and he felt that he could no longer trust me. But he remembered the times he had spent sitting on his desk with his eyes closed and his legs crossed concentrating on me and forcing me to kill my friends.

But his had, in his eyes, been a reasonable rage. His father had never hurt anyone really, and it was unforgivable of that Muggle loving, albeit beautiful, swotty rebel with her `haw haw haw´ laugh and her hair flicking. A picture of me floated up in his mind and he felt a little guilty, but there were issues to be addressed here. A sudden desire filled him and he knew for certain that he had to follow his heart, inexperienced as he was in such matters. I hadn´t been a case of the heart, but of the mind and body. He loved me from a spell, but our link was only the beginning. I don´t care if it wasn´t real at first - we love each other now and nothing can change that. Like Apate said - you can love someone in your head and never let him or her know, but it won´t change a thing. You can hide from yourself and never speak to them again because you don´t think your love is worthy because it was never Puppy Love, but you´ll still love them. You´ll always think of them the same way - even if it´s already long gone. `My crush in primary school´ is never called by his name for me. That´s all they ever were, but it´s a big thing.

He knew that, although he had neglected his duties as a son and never sought his father seriously before, he had to do it now. Now was the time, and the blood boiling in his veins told him so. They had access to all the Light files at the Ministry, but he had moved them so that it wouldn´t tempt anyone to steal from him. They were somewhere he had told no one else, and he was now glad of that beyond all else. He put a hand down the front of his mud-stiffened shirt and grasped the four strings that hung there. He pulled them out into the light to pick it out, even though he could tell which was which by sheer touch. They were constants in his life, like my presence in his mind. The knowledge of what I was doing... but in blocking me out he could no longer feel me, and there was a great absence in my usual spot. He grasped his dragon charm on its worn black velvet, ignoring the pain as it dug into his palm. The others were: his Gringotts key, dangling from the worn white string; a locket, which I had never sensed before but now knew contained a picture of me, and the key to the house where the files were hidden. He lifted it up and rubbed it clean on the corner of his shirt. He held it out before him, preparing the image to Apparate to it, when an idea struck him. I had intuition. He had known that through me, but never used it. He was unsure how far it went, as was I. I still don´t know all of it, but there´s much more to get out of it.

He stepped and crouched by the blood, shaking off the clammy blanket of repulsion that lay over him as he got that close. He reached out trembling fingertips, tempted to close his eyes before touching it. Draco couldn´t move his hand any faster than it was going, but eventually his fingers brushed the stain and a jolt of magic like electricity ran up his arm, jarring its painful way into his brain. I know how it feels, and I was used to it. Clearly that hadn´t passed over to him before the official connection was broken.

It was a welter of information. Pictures of all kinds flooded through him, but soon he learned to sift them for the ones he wanted. The one notion that hit him instantly was that the owner of this blood was not dead. He suppressed his glee in place of concentration, and filtered through again.

Lucius Malfoy had escaped. He was alive and looking for Draco. He knew about Draco becoming Minister and his death, but did not know that he was still really alive. That news hadn´t reached him, or he had chosen not to believe it. Draco drew in the web, and one location fired his mind. He closed his eyes tightly and clutched the dragon charm. The spell seeped through him like painfully slow water draining into his clothing. Then he flickered and vanished.

I, of course, was frantic with worry and totally unable to think. I think that was the rough point at which someone threw a dagger with the intent of lodging it firmly between my shoulder blades.

Draco fell to his knees in a busy town - more of a city actually - and clambered up to look around. A man with blonde hair streaked with grey, quite long and tied at the nape of his neck, stood a little way ahead of him. It was painfully familiar. Draco choked slightly, and mentally wrapped a leash around his hand. He would have to hold onto himself and not got to pieces like I did. Excuse me.

He took a deep breath and walked up to the man. He tapped his shoulder and his father snapped around.

`Yes?´ he asked. Draco´s defences nearly fell away at the sight of that face, but he clung onto them like dandelion puff seeds in the wind. There was a great possibility that he wouldn´t be believed.

`Are you Lucius Malfoy?´ Draco asked, letting it all out on a trembling exhale.

The man´s eyes narrowed. `What is it to you?´

`I´m looking for Lucius Malfoy, it´s about his son Draco,´ Draco said bravely, not wanting to jump in like I had.

The man looked around quickly. `You´d better come with me,´ he said. He walked into a pub and led Draco through and out into the yard at the back.

`What do you know about Draco?´ he asked, shutting the door and leaning against it.

`He isn´t dead,´ Draco began carefully.

`But that girl cursed him, then slit his throat, they said!´ Lucius protested.

`Well, it´s complicated, but I swear he´s alive,´ Draco said seriously.

`Who are you? What do you know?´ Lucius hissed, folding his arms, but his eyes betrayed a great pain. His face was still handsome, but lined with worry and age. He must have been about sixty-five.

`Well, I boast detailed knowledge of Draco´s death,´ he said.

`Do you?´ Lucius asked sarcastically. `Who might you be?´

`Well, the girl who slit my throat calls me darling, and my official title´s Minister for Magic, but I mostly go by Draco Malfoy. It´s less ostentatious, don´t you think?´ he said smugly.

`You´re back?´ Lucius said dubiously. `How can you prove this?´

`What does your son have that no other would know about, pick anything,´ Draco said, spreading his hands. This would be easy. Lucius wasn´t some stuck up Rebel with no sense of decency.

`He has a scar on the inside of his elbow, so he never wears short sleeves unless he has a coat with it,´ Lucius said, after some consideration.

Draco knew it. It was so much a part of him that even when he wore long sleeves he always folded his arm against his chest to hide the ugly, disfiguring mark. He unbuttoned his left cuff and pulled the sleeve up, twisting his arm to work it out of the black fabric. Lucius inspected the scar.

`Yes, that´s it.´ He still didn´t look too convinced. `How many checks do I get?´

`Until you catch me out,´ Draco smiled.

`I gave my son a locket with his mother in it and one side free,´ Lucius said, holding out his hand. Draco reached into his shirt and pulled out the antique silver heart. Lucius took it gently and inspected it closely. He flipped it open. Inside were Narcissa and I. Lucius looked up curiously.

`Hello, my son,´ he said warmly, enfolded his taller son in his arms. Draco held his breath to get over the tear-stage.

`Father,´ he coughed.

`How have you been?´ Lucius asked, a relieved smile on his face. He looked so... old. He had always been so young and full of life, but he had been broken.

`Dead, how about you?´ Draco laughed. `No, I´ve been fine.´

`Me too, after a fashion,´ Lucius grimaced. `Who´s the girl?´ he asked, pointing to my photo. A Muggle one, because there had been no real cameras when we took it.

`That´s Rae,´ he said. `She´s my girlfriend.´

`Pretty,´ Lucius commented. `Red hair, she a Weasley?´

`Far from it,´ Draco laughed. `She has no family,´ he lied. `We killed them back in the War.´

`She´s a rebel?´ Lucius said quickly.

`Father, what do you want me to say?´ Draco asked genuinely.

`I want you to say the truth.´

`She was a rebel then, and she is now. So am I. She was one of us for a while about a year ago, but she´s been passing us information for ten years before that.´

`An admirable occupation,´ Lucius commented.

`We live in the Rebel City,´ Draco said, missing out the location.

`Do you?´

`Please don´t be ashamed of me Father,´ Draco pleaded. `I only did what I had to.´

`I respect that.´

`We were seriously fierce Muggle-massacre machines after she raised me from the dead.´

`Oh good.´

`She was the one who killed me,´ he added.

`Interesting basis for a relationship.´

`Quite,´ Draco grinned.

`Why?´

`Oh? I had been controlling her and sapping her mind of information for ten years. I lost control of her for half a minute, and she killed me.´

`Resourceful.´

`She´s great.´

`I´m not on a side anymore, Draco,´ Lucius told him.

`You aren´t?´ Draco was surprised.

`No. The Light left me for dead, but the Dark never followed after me. Neither has played me well. Violins don´t have a choice, I do, and I don´t like being fiddled.´

Draco laughed. `Will you join us?´

`What can you do for me?´

`We´ll do whatever you want, Father.´

`I´d like to meet your friends,´ Lucius suggested. `I need a rest.´

`It would be interesting to have you there. However, most of them are a little against you for your views against the Light. You´re famous, you know.´

`How nice.´

`Yeah. Maybe we should disguise you?´

`I´m up for that.´

`What if we just tell them you aren´t who you are? They all think you´re dead anyway.´

`That would be simpler,´ Lucius agreed.

`Who are you, then?´

He thought a minute. `Cadell. A veteran.´

`Fair enough,´ Draco nodded. `Let´s go.´

`Let´s go home.´