Key of the Darkness

Key of the Darkness - Chapter One - A Deadly Revenge

It was raining out, the cold, sharp drops of liquid pounding down, each like a star falling out of the sky. Each droplet was like a life, it continued on and on, and then when it hit the ground, it was no more. And it would soon dry up, as if it never were. The storm was occurring over what seemed to be a large mansion, almost like a castle. Surrounded by gardens and fences, shrubbery and neatly cut bushes, it was covered in magical hexes to keep out anyone unwanted, and to make it hidden to any Muggle's eye. The yard itself was larger than a football field. And one could see, sprawled out in that yard, a boy.

He was unconscious, and lay flat on his back in the rain. For what seemed to be hours, the drops hit his face lightly, until finally, his eyes flickered open, and glazed, stormy blue-grey eyes stared up into the equally stormy grey sky. White-blonde hair was plastered to his forehead, the back of it stained with red, and when he took a breath, his throat stung and a shock of pain went through his chest. His body was numb, and he could hardly move.

What the hell happened...?

Why had he been unconscious? He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recall what caused him to be lying there, in the open yard of Malfoy Manor and not inside being waited on left and right by their servants, along with his mother and father.

A slight pause, and the young boy quickly sat straight up, despite the pain.

Mother... she...

Draco Malfoy then stood up slowly, shirt clinging to his back. He reached back as far as his arm could and brushed it lightly with his fingertips, cringing a bit, then to the few spots on the back of his head where it stung, and when he bought his hand into eye view, he saw that his fingers were wet with blood. But why was he bleeding, why was he even outside in the pouring rain lying on the ground?

I was in the lounge with mother, and then...

Though his legs felt weak, he forced himself to run as fast as he could back to the manor, images of what happened flashing in his mind.

* * * * *

There was a sound of glass smashing somewhere in the manor. But there were so many rooms that you'd have to guess which one the noise came from. Draco was sitting in the lounge reading, as his mother busied herself in that room, cleaning.

"Mother, you know, you can get house elves to do all of this for you," Draco insisted. Narcissa stopped herself from gathering up the books left around the room to put them in the right place, in one of the many, many book shelves that lined the room, and looked to Draco, smiling a bit.

"I like doing work around the house. I don't quite feel like a housewife if I get waited on left and right all the time."

She turned and continued going about the room, collecting the stray books. She always worked around the house, maybe even more than the elves themselves. Draco shrugged, and that was when he heard the noise. He slowly stood from his chair, as his mother blinked, staring out into the hall, and they both walked into the hall together to see what it was. On the way, they ran into Lucius, who was obviously trying to find out what made the noise too.

"Probably one of those clumsy house-elves again, knocking over something," he mumbled, and Draco cast him a sideways glare. He despised his father more than any human being on the planet, though he never showed it. Nobody else knew of his loathing but himself, and most likely Lucius himself. Draco never hid the looks he gave the man when he called him into his room at night, when he was scolded and smacked for disturbing his work. That happened all the time, come to think of it, ever since he was a child it was the same way. Not being the top of his class, learning to be 'proper' with the belt whips and the cuts and bruises on his arms. It never stopped, and Draco doubted it ever would. The only person Draco gave any shit about was his mother, Narcissa, what she saw in his father, he'd never know, but his mother cared for him, and talked to him about things, though he dare not mention his father.

She could tell Draco disliked him, but whenever she asked him why he did, Draco shrugged and always said that he didn't like any of the bullshit having to do with being a proper Malfoy when all the family really did was underground dirty work and business like that. That, and the fact that the man was a total ass-hole.

They stopped, walking down the corridor, and heard a rustling come from one of the rooms. Narcissa opened the door slowly. Standing there was a tall, cloaked figure, their face hidden by the hood draped over their head. And when the figure saw the three of them standing there, he stepped forward... "You," he growled. "You did it..."

* * * * *

Draco couldn't remember anything else, his mind too frantic with worry for his mother. Lucius could have been tortured, tied up, raped and killed for all he cared, not that it mattered. He ran down the corridors and into the room where the hooded person had been, but the room was empty. There was only a shattered window, where Draco had fallen through, and some of the items in the room were thrown about in a mess. But nobody was in there.

"Where the hell are they?" Draco asked himself, hurrying down the corridors of the mansion, checking every room he came across, and trying to listen for any noise, any sign of his mother, or even his father at this point.

How long was I lying out there in the rain, anyway?

There was a sound of feet coming down the hallway toward Draco, and he stopped, tensing and staring hard into the darkness. Out of the shadows came one of their small house-elves. "Rapsy?" Draco asked. "Where are mother and father?"

The small elf stared up to Draco with its wide eyes. "Young master, sir, Master Lucius sent Rapsy to find young master. Master Lucius wishes to see young master, sir. Follow Rapsy sir."

The small house-elf scurried down the corridors, tripping over its feet in a sort of hurry, Draco following as quickly as he could with his aching muscles. Twisting and turning around the halls, Rapsy finally stopped in front of a room. Draco paused, and reached out to the doorknob, turning it with a click. And when he opened the door he saw a silhouette of two people. They were standing over the crumpled figure of another. Outside, the clouds parted a bit, and the dimmest flicker of light came into to the room, enough for Draco to see who was who.

One was his father, and the other, his uncle, Malum Malfoy. Malum had arrived a couple of days before to stay the week with them. He had business work with his father. Draco sort of knew what this business was, as Lucius had a lot of visitors lately, and with the Dark Lord, Voldemort risen again, and Lucius still being one of his humble followers, it wasn't hard to piece together all the people who had come were Death Eaters.

He even looked like Lucius, a tall, stern looking man with white hair, which was shorter than Lucius' and tan eyes, though at times they seemed to burn an orange red color. Attitude wise, Malum acted just like Lucius, with all of the ways of a Malfoy, being proper yet strong. Draco hated him as much as he hated his own father they acted like each other so much.

Lucius turned slowly to Draco, a look of pain on his face, Draco never saw his father like this, and somewhere in his mind he told himself his father was faking it, he never seemed to care about anything else, much less worry about them.

"Draco," he said, and Draco took a step forward, blue-grey orbs glancing down to the third and last figure, that was lying motionless on the floor. It was his mother. Lucius followed the boy's gaze, and continued.

"She's dead, Draco. He killed her."

"W-who... was that? Who did this?"

"You were there, Draco," Lucius spoke. "You were there when he took off his cloak, don't you remember?" Draco shook his head, though an image of that person flashed into his mind, he couldn't tell who it was..

"Who?" Draco asked, gaze rising to meet his fathers.

Lucius took a breath in, and stared into Draco's eyes hard with his own.

"Harry Potter."

Draco's expression went blank with disbelief, his mouth gaped slightly, and once again, slowly, he looked down to his mother. Everything stopped for a moment, and all was silent, until suddenly, he reached up, grabbing his head, the images of what happened suddenly flooding into his mind, as if the name unlocked the forgotten memories.

* * * * *

"You did it, you killed them!" yelled the voice, and Narcissa took a step back.

"Who are you, and what the hell are you doing here?" barked Lucius, and all he got in return was a slight chuckle.

"It's your fault my family is dead! If you hadn't told Wormtail to tell Sirius that Voldemort would probably be after him, he would have never gotten the idea to change to him for a secret-keeper!! They would still be alive!!" arms rose up, and the hood slowly came off, Draco's eyes widened, as he saw the rounded glasses, the untidy hair, and the lighting-bolt scar on his forehead. Harry Potter stood in front of them, wand outreached, pointing at the three of them.

"Potter?" Lucius and Draco had called out. And he nodded.

"It was all your fault Lucius... I knew Sirius changed to Wormtail for secret-keeper out of fear Voldemort would be after him. But I never knew Wormtail had talked to Sirius about it, telling him to watch out because he would be the obvious one to go after, trying to persuade him to switch to save my parents. But I NEVER knew it was you who gave him that idea in the first place. IT'S YOUR FAULT!"

Lucius said nothing. "Now I'm going to pay you back for what you did," Harry had began to speak an incantation, but it was Narcissa who had leaped at him, and Harry had fallen backwards. Draco had followed suit as Harry violently kicked, throwing Narcissa off of him, but as he did that he only got Draco on top of him next, one arm reaching for his wand. With a grunt, Harry had raised a bawled fist and bought it across Draco's face, and he too rolled over to the side. Harry had stood, staring down to him. "Did you know about this as well?" he had asked.

"Shut it up Potter, and get out of my house before I give you more scars than you already have." Draco had snapped back, one hand placed on the side of his face, the other reaching for the windowsill.

"Then you're going to pay for it too, your family is nothing but cowardice trash."

His hand grasped had onto the side of the window and he tried to stand, to regain balance, but all he remembered after that was Harry yelling something, a flash of yellow, and somebody jumping in front of him. He was blown back, hitting the large window, and felt the small shards of glass dig into his back, and then falling, hearing a scream. His mother's scream.

* * * * *

Draco's knees gave out, and he fell both from shock and pain, staring down at his mother. He wanted to reach out, to feel her pulse, to assure himself that she wasn't dead, that she was just hurt. But as his arm reached out to her, the rest of his body gave out, and he collapsed onto the floor, unconscious.

* * * * *

It was late afternoon, and the Burrow was still ringing with activity. Fred and George Weasley were outside in the barn working on a collapsible chair. They had tested it out before on their younger brother, Ron as he sat down for breakfast. Mrs. Weasley scolded them, but they only laughed and collected the pieces before heading outside.

Ginny Weasley was in her room doing a bit of extra studying; she was about to start her fifth year at school. She was a bit jumpy today, because earlier in the morning, Harry and she had been sent to the basement to collect a few of Mrs. Weasley's old pots for breakfast. And as Harry and she opened the cabinet door, they both screamed, when about six rats jumped out of the cabinet, as well as a group of moths flew out.

Ginny flipped through a few pages of Transfiguration For Fifth Years. She would have asked Ron for help with studying, but he was busy himself for his sixth year with studying. She remembered him talking to her the other day, telling her he had to do a lot of reading to refresh his mind before school started, so she didn't want to be any trouble.

Ron stared around the room at the empty trunk that held Harry's things along with the vacant owl cage; it had been emptied out the day before when Harry arrived there. Ron and the twins had once again 'borrowed' Mr. Weasley's flying Ford Anglia (Mr. Weasley, with help from the Ministry of Magic had gotten the car out of the Forbidden Forest) and picked up Harry from the Dursley's house. After that, Mr. Weasley cast a spell on the car that allowed only him to drive it so there would be no more theft from his sons.

Ron noticed that Harry looked strange as they drove back to the Burrow that day; he seemed to be thinking of something.

"Is something on your mind, Harry?" Ron had asked, and Harry, who had been staring blankly out the window seemed to be startled, and broke out of his concentration on the sky.

"No," Harry had answered, shaking his head a bit. "I'm fine."

Ron only wondered where Harry was now, after they arrived at the Burrow the day before, Harry seemed to keep thinking about something, though the look on his face made Ron not want to ask him what was wrong. He kept to himself the night before, and this morning Ron was in the living room by himself, searching for a book of his.

"Ron," Harry had started, walking toward the front door. "I- I need to go back to the Dursley's."

"Why? Did something happen?"

"No.. I just - I just left something there, is all. I need to go back and get it."

"But, Harry, can't it wait? It's going to start raining soon, looks like it's going to pour out."

"Don't worry, Ron, I'll be back in a bit," Harry had said, grabbing at a cloak hanging on the coat rack, and throwing it over himself. "It's just.. important that I do this soon." And without another word, he left.

It had been raining for a while now, and even though he and Harry were always in worse situations than something like rain, Ron was still kind of worried. He had been up in his room studying the whole time since Harry left, and he was a feeling bit hungry, so stood and made his way downstairs.

"Mum, is dinner almost done?" Mrs. Weasley was at the stove, and turned to Ron.

"Sorry dear, it should be done in about another hour and a half." Ron shrugged a bit, and went about the kitchen, making himself a sandwich.

"Call me when it's done? Thanks." With that statement Ron made his way back into his room.

And when he walked into his room, he was quite startled. Harry was there, rain dripping from his cloak, and he was pushing closed his dresser.

"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, as he looked at Harry's drenched cloak curiously. "About time you got home, I thought for a second you might have slipped and fell somewhere. Dinner's going to be done in a while."

"I'm not really hungry, Ron. I'm rather tired, going to sleep a bit earlier today."

"Alright then. Did you get what you were looking for, Harry?"

Harry gave a nod, and Ron walked over and sat on his bed.

"Don't mind me, just doing a bit more studying before school starts," Ron stated, grabbing at the opened book that was face down, lying on his bed.

"Not a problem, but you're starting to act like Hermione now, with all this studying."

"Hardly, I actually left the house and had fun this summer." They both gave a slight laugh at that, as Harry gathered some clothes and walked out of the room, and hardly even five minutes later he returned, dry and clad in his pajamas. Harry laid down in the pull out bed and pulled the covers over him, turning over with a smile. A satisfied sort of smile.

"G'night, Ron," he mumbled, placing his glasses on the small table beside him, and closing his eyes, drifting into sleep.

"G'night." Ron answered. As he opened his book, he wondered at Harry's new mood. Since returning from the Dursley's, he seemed a happier and fulfilled. Ron couldn't help but grin a bit, picturing what their faces must have looked like when Harry showed up at their door. They had looked simply shocked when Ron appeared there just the day before and asked if Harry could come with him and his brothers. They seemed quite happy to get rid of Harry, although Ron knew they probably had a tinge of anger as well. They never liked Harry to be happy, even if they were getting rid of him for an entire year. After that thought, Ron chuckled a bit, and then went back to his books.