Born Under A Bad Sign

When Draco's alarm clock went off the next morning, it took a few moments for him to register what was being said.

"...rioting in Edinburgh's wizarding quarter. The Dark Mark was seen briefly over Diagon Alley this morning, we should have more information on that within the hour. We go now to David Wilson, live in Dublin, where Minister O'Riley is calling a press conference..."

Draco turned off WWN and showered quickly and had a small breakfast before turning the WWN back on. He said 'Imago' and the picture snapped into view. A blond woman was talking to people down the street from the Ministry of Magic, which had been cordoned off. A haggard-looking man of about forty was saying

"Well, there were a few kids wandering around, and they looked kind of shifty, if you know what I mean..." the picture flashed back to WWN anchor Ryan Palmer, in front of an aerial shot of Diagon Alley, under the words 'WWN Breaking News: The Return of the Dark Lord?"

Palmer looked rather tired, but immediately sat up straight when he realized the camera was on him.

"We will continue following this story without interruption. Now, a quick recap of the day's events since Rita Skeeter published her article yesterday...The Dark Mark was seen over Diagon Alley between 3 and 3: 30 this morning, but was quickly extinguished by Ministry officials. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is reportedly questioning two suspects. Department of Security head Ernest Chapman has declared a state of heightened emergency. Minister Fudge is on his way back from Turkey, and has been in touch with the Ministers from Scotland and Ireland. Security has been heightened at the borders. Riots have broken out in Edinburgh over the death of a pureblooded wizard...just a moment...we have just learned that Minister Fudge has apparated into London, and is calling a press conference inside the Ministry, we will go there now..."

The screen flashed back to the blond woman, who was now in the press room at the Ministry. The view panned to Minister Fudge, wearing official-looking black robes. He pointed his wand to himself, said 'Sonorus' and stepped up to the podium.

"Witches and Wizards of Britain," he began "No doubt by now you have heard the rumors of the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It is, I am afraid, my duty to inform you all that these rumors are more than that: they are fact. The Dark Lord is indeed among us again. But, the Ministry has not been idle. Albus Dumbledore told me of the Dark Lord's return two weeks ago, on the very day it happened, and the Ministry's agents have since confirmed this. Rest assured we will do whatever we can to prepare for the massive threat now posed to us, and to safeguard the public. Rest assured that if You-Know-Who takes any action, we will be prepared for it to the fullest degree. I'll take questions now."

The press jumped all over Fudge. "How was the return of You-Know-Who confirmed?"

"We have our sources, which, obviously cannot be revealed at this time."

"Albus Dumbledore claims you originally disbelieved his claims. Is this true?"

"Absolutely not. I have been in close contact with Dumbledore for the past two weeks."

"Is Harry Potter involved in any way?" Draco wrinkled his nose distastefully.

"Harry Potter is in a secure location." Replied Fudge.

"Why wasn't the public immediately informed?" asked a wizard with a stubby nose.

"To limit over-reaction. I suppose it hasn't worked, has it?" said Fudge.

An aide stepped forward.

"Minister Fudge has a meeting with the European Magical Congress to attend. I'm afraid he won't be able to answer any more questions."

The Breaking News continued without interruption. A local college student was arrested for casting the Dark Mark in Diagon Alley on charges of perpetuating hatred. He claimed he'd done it on a dare, but refused to say where he'd learned the incantation. Six muggle-borns were killed in the riots across the country. Three more died in Edinburgh. The border with Ireland was closed for eight hours due to a bomb threat. Draco grew irritated with the repetition of the news, and changed the station to a talk show.

"Liam Avery, reformed Death Eater, will join us to talk about the threat posed by the Dark Lord, after these messages."

Draco chuckled. "Reformed, yeah, that'll be the day," he muttered to himself. Avery looked smooth and successful, and was talking about 'living as one' with muggles and muggle-borns. Then, he rose slowly from his, seat, turned to the camera, and said clearly, "Everything I've just said is what the weak Ministry fools would have you do. The muggles are not our equals. Through inter-marriage we have allowed them to infiltrate our society. They must be excised before it is too late." The cameraman turned to run, but Avery drew his wand and cried 'Imperio!' The cameraman turned back to him.

"If you feel, as I do, that we have hid from the muggles for too long, that we have cowered behind our impotent Ministry long enough, then join us. We will change the world!" Avery vanished instantly, and the picture went fuzzy. Draco smirked.

For two more days, breaking news and feel-good specials abounded. The Weird Sisters performed a memorial concert for the victims of the riots. Liam Avery seemed to have vanished entirely after his live recruitment speech on WWN. Draco had stopped watching WWN, and got irritable at the slightest mention of 'preparing for attack', 'countermeasures' or 'innocent victims'. He took to pacing about the mansion angrily, wondering when Rita Skeeter would find out something useful.

It was around noon, four days after the first article by Rita Skeeter set the country on edge, when Draco walked out of Malfoy Mansion to get the paper and found a most welcome headline in the Daily Prophet:

The article went on to describe the general incompetence of the Ministry, and called on Minister Fudge to do something tangible about the crisis. Of course, Draco had little interest in what the article actually said. He pulled out his wand and whispered 'Morsmordre' at the paper. The Dark Mark blossomed onto the page, and the ink puddled, then flowed into a note, written in dark green ink:

Draco turned and sprinted back towards the manor, found the nearest fireplace, shouted `Incendio´ and took a pinch of Floo powder from the jar on the mantle. He quickly threw it in and then stepped into the green flames. "9260 West 5^th Avenue, Manchester!"

When Draco stepped out of the fireplace on the other end, it was to the sight of wands pointed at his heart.

"Identify yourself, NOW, or you will die!" shouted the nearest black-robed, masked figure. Draco froze for a moment, before coming to himself. With a bow taught by years of etiquette lessons, Draco swept off his pointed hat.

"Draco Malfoy, son of the late Lucius Malfoy, at your service, my good sir."

The Death Eater took a step back, but kept his wand pointed at Draco's chest. "If you are indeed who you say you are, young Mr. Malfoy, we have been waiting for you. I knew your father well, and was saddened to hear of his passing. I hear you have taken on the burden of running the estate?"

"Yes, Mr...?" Draco inquired.

"Morris," came the reply. "Quentin Morris. If you will come with me, young Draco...?" The young man followed, noticing that Morris had finally pointed the wand away from his heart. Well, that´s about as reassuring as this situation gets, Draco thought wryly to himself.

He followed Morris down a staircase and through a door that glowed with an ethereal light. Finally they arrived in a large room shaped like a hexagon. Morris turned and whispered something to another Death Eater, who withdrew a vial filled with a vivid turquoise liquid. "If you´ll just drink this, Mr. Malfoy, I´ll explain our current situation."

"What is it?"

"It is a combination of a truth potion and a particularly painful variant of the nightshade poison. If you are who you say you are, you will be fine. If you lie, it will kill you. If you do not drink it, we will kill you. Is that clear, Draco?"

"Crystal clear, Mr. Morris," he replied, and drank. He felt a curious twinge of icy cold in his veins, but it vanished swiftly.

"Very well, Mr. Malfoy, now that the formalities are over, we may progress. I will leave it to the Dark Lord to tell you how your father died; after all, it was he who was the first on the scene. I can tell you, however, that Lucius died as a hero for the cause. His presence will be sorely missed."

"Mr. Morris--"

"Just Quentin, please, Draco. I was good friends with your father, and I would like to continue that friendship with his son."

"Very well, Quentin," Draco replied. "I wonder if you could do me a favor. You know I can´t be the legal owner of any property for another two years, and it gets in the way of my running the estate that I´m not technically the real owner... Do you have any contacts who could see about getting me the legal documents to transfer ownership from my mother?"

"I´ll see what I can do, Draco. Now, if you don´t mind my asking, how exactly did you find us?"

"Well, it seems this whole national panic episode may have been slightly my fault. I, of course, knew that our lord had returned, but with my father's death, I had no means of making contact with the Death Eaters. I freed Rita Skeeter from a jar where a mudblood was holding her prisoner in her animagus form, and as a favor to me, she wrote the articles. There was a hidden message in today's Daily Prophet.

Draco duplicated the incantation he´d used earlier on Morris´s copy of the paper. He seemed impressed.

"The Dark Mark incantation. I suppose most prospective Death Eaters would be clever enough to figure that one out."

"Another thing Rita mentions here," said Draco, "is that the Ministry is on to you. They may be bumblers, but they'll be looking for any bright spot these days, and that would probably include capturing us, especially now that we're in the paper."

"Draco, I think you're right. Everybody! We're moving again!" shouted Morris. "Draco, do you have your Apparition license?"

"Well, technically it´s not mine, but..."

"Okay, boys," said Morris, "let´s go!"

A chaotic swirl of colors enveloped Draco, and he lost all sense of balance and direction. Then something hard hit him in the shins.

Apparition, besides feeling as if you´d been hit by the entire lineup of a rugby team when you arrived at your destination, also left you disoriented. You know the spots you see when you rub your eyes with your knuckles? Imagine that for five minutes. For a beginner like Draco, it took about ten minutes to recover from apparition lag. After a bit of rest, he felt better--looking around, he recognized his surroundings, the carved table he'd knocked his knees on, and the bartender talking to Morris, a Mr. O´Toole. They were in Knockturn Alley´s best pub, the Banshee´s Tears.

"Ah, young Master Draco," said the bartender. "I was saddened to hear about your father. He's given me a lot of help here when the Ministry comes meddling around. So, what´ll you have?" Draco ordered a Mai Tai, enduring Mr. O'Toole's mocking him about being cliché. Morris ordered a Heineken, and they found a booth.

"Now, Draco, shall, we continue our conversation? You´ve told me about what you´ve been doing lately, but you know nothing of our situation, so I'll fill you in a little. Azkaban has fallen. The Dementors have joined us, hundreds strong. We've got about seventy Death Eaters. We have been joined by giants, vampires, werewolves, banshees and other Dark creatures. Our army numbers nearly five hundred, but we cannot move until our Lord is ready. He is still recovering his strength."

"How come the Ministry isn´t investigating my father´s death, and the fall of Azkaban?"

"Well, Draco, it seems you may have played a part in that. The current Ministry, and especially Fudge, are desperate to hold onto power, and they feel theirs slipping. They know word of Azkaban´s fall could spread even more panic, maybe even lead to a government collapse, and given all the mess lately, they´ve covered it up. Of course, they can´t physically investigate, because Azkaban´s unplottable, and when we left, we destroyed the beacon behind us. Without the beacon, they can´t Apparate there, and it would take years to find it by air. However, we left our own beacon there, so a Death Eater can still fly there if they want to."

"What about my father?" Draco asked. "Surely they´ve made a connection?"

"No. The Malfoy family is known for its frequent and very generous donations to the Ministry and its corporations. These donations are all that´s keeping the government in the black. If Lucius is declared legally dead, the donations stop. So the Ministry is playing along with your story, that he´s on an extended sabbatical in the U.S., and his wife is running the family businesses in his absence."

"Brilliant!" Draco exclaimed. "I had no idea the Ministry was so impotent!"

"Oh," said Morris, sounding amused, "you don´t know the half of it! Fudge has a close relationship with the Muggle parliament, and they with him. The Ministry has its spies in the Muggle government, and they have spies in ours. That's what makes our conquest so complicated. We know that the Muggle government hates wizards. They don´t understand us, they don't trust us, and they see us as a threat They would wipe us out in an instant if they could. But they can´t. However, should the Muggles get word that the Ministry is under attack, they´ll come in, guns blazing, while we´re both weak. We have people working on either killing the muggle agents or feeding them false stories. The basic plan is to attack the Ministry Of Magic in Diagon Square sometime this month. We'll strike at the muggles around Hallowe'en. In two days, Lord Voldemort is calling a conference. I´ll bet he knows about your little message in the paper! We´ll have a lot of young members there. I trust you´ll come?"

"But of course!" Draco replied. "But won't Voldemort be angry I've revealed his return, if he knows about it?"

"Oh, I doubt that." Said Morris, "He'll probably actually appreciate it! Heightened security is a small price to pay for mass public panic. You're just lucky you thought of it first"

"So, Mor- I mean, Quentin," asked Draco, "What's life like as a Death Eater?"

"Well, all the Slytherin women love you, of course, so that's a plus," replied Morris, "But then there's all the running from the law, and the constant secret meetings and such, and it's a lot of work, to be sure. And you're basically rejected by most of the population. Of course, we're all stylin' in our flashy black cloaks!" He laughed. "I personally think the good points far outweigh the bad. Voldemort's really not as evil as the Ministry makes him out to be. He's just a politician with different views then the Ministry, that's all."

"Hey, hey, all right, go easy. I'm convinced already. What is this, a campaign speech?" chuckled Draco.

"Alright, calm down. It couldn't have been all that funny. Here, take this charm, It'll show you where to apparate tomorrow. Go have some fun, buy something, do things around here. And be sure to get some good sleep!"

Leaving the Banshee's Tears, Draco decided to go buy new dress robes. After all, he had the run of the family finances. The assistant in the designer's recognized him and sold him a sharp, cutting-edge Italian style at a discount. He considered going to a nearby nightclub, where he knew some people at the door, but decided he needed rest if he was seeing Voldemort tomorrow. After a nice meal at Morgana's Gourmet Restaurant, Draco booked a suite at Diagon Alley´s most prestigious hotel, the Avalon´s Twilight. Pocketing the charm Morris had given him, he set the WWN Station to 73.13, 'All Wizarding Music All The Time' and nodded off.