Not Just an Empty Emotion

Chapter One-The Dam

He had never been allowed in there. The room was sealed with jinxes, curses and other magic he knew he could not break, and had Imperturbable charms on the door. The brief glimpses he caught of the inside when it was opened to allow someone to exit did not tell him much; the room was long, and dark, with many empty shelves lining the walls. He had often wondered what the purpose of this room was, but knew better than to ask. Sometimes he would wait for hours outside the door, when his father and his 'guests' were inside, hiding either on the stairs or in the shadows. He would never hear anything. Although once or twice, on the rare occasion someone opened the heavy studded door, he thought he had heard a high, cold voice in its depths. No sooner would this voice reach his ears than it was gone, as quickly as Voldemort could kill a Muggle.

"Draco!" a sharp, cold voice snapped him out of his trance. "I have told you to stay away from here at all times. What do you think you're doing?"

"I was looking for Mother." He watched his father slip out of the door, followed by Nott. Draco didn't look at Nott; those features always seemed to make him feel ill. Instead he looked defiantly into the disbelieving eyes of his father. "To-to take me to Diagon Alley."

"Liar," breathed Lucius, "I am a skilled Legilimens, Draco, did you really think I would fall for that? You mother left for Diagon Alley fifteen minutes ago! You were trying to listen! It seems you will never learn. Leave at once, go to your chambers. Nott, go to my drawing room I will meet you there," he added, without looking at the other Death Eater. Eyeing Draco's progress up the staircase he quickly retreated back into the room behind him, moving as gracefully, and with the same ugly manner, as a spider. The door snapped shut behind the hem of his long black robes.

Draco slowed down as he reached the corridor of his private chambers. Releasing the breath he had been holding he closed his eyes gently. He would pay for his attempted eavesdropping later, he knew. He was thankful, however, that his father did not know his real reason for eavesdropping; if he did his punishment would be far worse.

Draco wanted, more than anything, to escape the hell he'd been living in for the last 3 weeks. He had seen his father come back from Azkaban with a new fire, a new hatred in his eyes. After the Dementors had abandoned the Gaol, his father and the eleven other death eaters that had been imprisoned with him had swam to land and fled. His father had come back to the Manor because he had a base for meeting other Death Eaters, and some of the most powerful and dark protective curses on the building. Not even Dumbledore would be able to reach his father here. He doubted if Voldemort himself would be able to do it.

Since his return from Hogwarts, he had known a brief happiness with his mother. He had felt as he had never felt before. Always he had thought of Narcissa Malfoy as the cold-heated bitch to his father's cold-hearted bastard. But with his father locked up in Azkaban, she seemed to have come out of a shell, which had enclosed her and trapped her, unbroken until now. Neither had shown any more emotion than they usually did, but the stiff politeness was gone. And for the first time, both mother and son had found themselves enjoying life at the Manor.

But then his father had returned, and with him, immediately, so did the stiff conversation and formal language between mother and son. That was three weeks ago. And since then he had felt trapped inside his own mind. Before he had felt that not speaking was good. He had enjoyed it. To some extent he still did. He liked to keep his feelings and thoughts private. They were his thoughts after all. His, and no one else's. Somehow though, opening up to his mother was the release he needed. He realised he needed to let out his feelings sometimes. Already he felt he was going mad. His mind felt like a ferocious, raging river, pushing at the dam restraining the water. It could not be long until that dam burst. With despair he realised that the dam would have to hold on for the rest of his life. He could not talk about it to Crabbe and Goyle, they had had the same rubbish pounded into them from their own fathers as he had, and Draco doubted weather they would ever get the outlet their minds needed. In fact he doubted they would even recognise it for what it was. There was no one else he could confide in. He wouldn't trust any of his Slytherin 'friends', he hated everyone outside of his own house and the feeling was returned. He didn't believe in love. That was the only thing his father had ever taught him which seemed to make any sense at all any more. Love was just an empty word, a made-up emotion. An excuse to keep the human race going. There was no outlet in love.

Since his return, Lucius had seemed even more determined to drum his 'lessons' into his son. Draco felt sick after each one. Before he had been taught to hate Muggles, and Mudbloods. And he had. He had hated them with every fibre of his being. He still despised them. But what Lucius was teaching him to do was sickening. To deal with Muggles and Mudbloods, Draco thought, just kill them. Who wanted to see them naked? Who wanted to see them perform acts under the Imperius curse that no person in their right mind would choose to do? Lucius was telling Draco stories of what it had been like 'last time'. By that, he knew, Lucius meant when Voldemort was last powerful. He told him of how he had sent Muggles to slaughter their own pets, sometimes their own family, and friends, and them drive them to believing that they were filth. That they should die. He told of how the Muggles killed themselves in horrific ways under the Imperius curse. Under Lucius's Imperius curse. And now he wanted Draco to do the same. The 'lessons' would always end in the same way; in Draco learning the unforgivable curses, and dark magic Draco would never had imagined existed or were even possible. His father would charm Draco's curses to deflect the Ministry of Magic's detectors.

He hated the 'lessons'. Every night he would drag himself to the drawing room, and act his part impeccably. His father may be a skilled Legilimens, but Draco had learned Occlumency from Snape. He hadn't known at the time why his head of house was teaching him this magic. Snape had just said, "It will be useful" and left it at that. Well, Draco had thought fiercely, it's coming in useful now...

Draco's face would be a blank canvas, waiting for emotion to wipe across it, but it never did. That was the act. To act as though he was enjoying his lessons as much as a Malfoy was allowed to enjoy anything. And all the while, Lucius fell for it.

There, beneath all the hidden emotion, and all the sick feeling in his heart, he was feeling a fierce joy that he was deceiving his father. For years he has suffered at the hands of Lucius Malfoy. He'd lost count of the amount of time's he'd passed out after the Cruciatus curse had finally been lifted by his father. Now Draco was winning a battle. His father was fool enough to actually believe that Draco was enjoying the sinister, twisted lessons.

Draco stumbled into his room later that night. As he had been expecting, his father had punished him. The knowledge that it would happen, however, had not made the pain any easier to bear. He had suffered the Cruciatus curse four times. It had left his body feeling terrible. His very bones were aching, his hands and knees shook, and he wanted nothing more than to be let free. He resented his father, and hated the curses he endured silently. Though not as much as he had hated the rest of the lesson, the stories he was forced to listen to, and the magic he was forced to learn which had, once again left him feeling ill.

Collapsing onto his bed with its silk bedclothes, his body crumpled. After resting for a few moments, in which he regained his composure, Draco picked up a glass vial filled with a bright green something from his bedside table and tapped it with his wand. It disappeared and a large, dusty, leather-bound book appeared in its place.

He had found it in his mother's room on the third day of the holidays. She had sent him up to get her shawl. Under the chest of draws he had seen a spider skirting something square and brown. He had picked it up. It had no title. Ever since it had been hidden in his room, the thing that stopped Draco from going insane.

Now he removed a bookmark and let it open. He only read a few pages. It was a book about Muggles. At first he had been disgusted that his mother owned such a thing. With more tuition from the book though Draco had become fascinated with Muggles. He still hated them, of course he did. That would never leave him. But he had learned that they were just creatures. Like animals, they were different to Witches and Wizards, but not worthy of death. They hadn't actually done anything wrong...

Draco stopped and looked at a (still) picture of a Muggle. It looked similar to Professor Sprout... he remembered the lesson he had just received. Throwing his book down he ran to his bathroom as fast as his body would allow and vomited violently into the toilet at the memory of the story. Yes he hated Muggles, but he was beginning to hate his father more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry Potter rolled over in his sleep and gave a gentle snore. His eyelids flickered as their occupants experienced REM. A scar on his forehead showed up a little more clearly than it usually did. The room about him was cluttered with many odd things, most notably a large, empty birds cage with a few droppings and morsels of food littering the newspaper on the base. Through the open window a gentle August breeze rustled the thin, ragged, curtains. Suddenly, something far bigger and stronger than any breeze swooped through the window and, with a soft thud landed on Harry's chest. The boy gasped, and woke from his slumber with a start. A great silhouette was visible by the mist of the yellow light creeping into his bedroom from the streetlamp outside. Staring at the thing before him, he realised it was a particularly large owl. Stretching out his arms he put on his light and placed his glasses onto his nose. "What?" He said sleepily. The owl just rustled its handsome feathers in a dignified sort of way. He reached out and touched the letter in the owl's beak, ready to read it. Instantly he felt a jerk behind his navel and the world around him began to spin.

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"I still don't see wh-"

"Oh, Harry!" said Mrs Weasley in an exasperated tone, "We had to get you away from there! You were in danger!"

"I know!" he said, almost yelling now, "I just wish I could know why! I can't protect myself from a danger I know nothing about! I'm not a child! I'm 16!" He was angry now. He had arrived at three in the morning. Now, sitting around the dinner table, he knew no more than he did when the portkey had taken him.

"You know," said a calm voice from the dark corner of the kitchen, "He's right Molly. He will know sooner or later anyway. I really see no point in trying to hide it from him."

Mrs Weasley went slightly pink. Once again she was being overridden. "Right. OK Remus. Have it your way. You're his guardian after all now that-um, now," she finished in a small voice. Harry said nothing.

Lupin stepped out of the corner. "Thank you, Molly," he said.

"Yes, yes. Sit down Harry," she replied.

"No," he said, defiantly.

"What? Why not?" Mrs Weasley couldn't comprehend Harry's decision.

"You know why," he pointed hopelessly at the kitchen table. At the seat that had been Sirius's. The only seat available. Lupin stepped forward and sat Harry on a kitchen stool instead, ignoring the boy's protests. Finally settling, Harry turned and allowed Lupin to begin talking.

"You heard about the breakout of Azkaban?" he asked Harry, who snorted. Lupin took that as a 'yes'. He continued, "All of the inmates have been recaptured, and are being held in a more secure unit. All of the inmates that is, apart from the twelve you faced before term ended. They are still at large. We-that is, the Order- believe that they have been meeting at Lucius Malfoy's Manor."

"Well why can't you set a trap for them? Catch them there?" Harry asked.

"Malfoy isn't stupid, Harry. He knows that's the obvious course of action for us. He has put so many dark curses around his property it would be impossible to break them all. And besides, some of them not even Dumbledore has heard of. It's not possible.

"But, of course, they, and Voldemort are still looking for you. That's why we had to get you out of Privet Drive. They knew you were there."

"But Dumbledore's put charms and spells there, he can't touch me while I still live there! It's my mother's blood or something-" said Harry, desperately.

"No," agreed Lupin. "Voldemort can't. But the Dursleys can."

"What?!"

"Avery lured them, in a very similar way to the way we lured them out last summer, away from the house. Then he put a memory charm and the Imperius curse on each of them. They could try to kill you themselves, or, as is more likely, take you away from Privet Drive, to a place where you have no protection." Answering the question he saw on Harry's face he said, "We know this because Nymphadora-"

"It's Tonks, Remus."

He nodded in Tonks's direction. "Tonks has been following them, in the same way as Dung and Kingsley are tracking you. She saw what happened between them and Avery, but had no time to act. That Portkey was unauthorised, but Dumbledore didn't seem to care. If it had been intercepted it would have just acted as a normal letter, reading 'Meet you on the Hogwarts Express. Ron'. Only when it got to you was it able to act as the portkey."

Harry saw Ron in the corner, nodding vigorously. Next to him sat Ginny, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie and Arthur Weasley. He still didn't fully understand, but at least now he was able to see that he couldn't have stayed at Privet Drive any longer.

"What about Voldemort?" He had to know. Once again the desire to know had been burning in his mind, until he wanted to scream with frustration.

Lupin shot a quick glance at Arthur Weasley. "We don't, actually know. We think he may be hiding in Malfoy's Manor, but we can't be sure. He hasn't done anything yet. We think he's tying to.... ah...wait for the right time, if you will..."

Suddenly there was a great clattering sound, and Pigwidgeon rose up into the air, circling Lupin's head and hooting loudly. At the same time, two figures appeared. As they straightened up one of them spoke.

"That's the worst Disapparation I've ever been a part of. Did you have to go to the Hog's Head before we left?" It sounded annoyed, but was as slow, calm and deep as ever.

"Sorry, but, see, there was this chap see...and he kept on-" a scraggy ginger head was coming into sight, disentangling itself from many patched and torn robes.

"Finally!" Lupin interrupted, "Where have you been, you left hours ago?"

"We were...held up," said Kingsley Shacklebolt, the man who had spoken first, throwing a dirty look at (an obviously outrageously drunk) Mundungus Fletcher.

Now, for the first time since their arrival Harry noticed that they had each deposited a handle of his heavy, wooden trunk, and between them carried Hedwig's cage, his broomstick and his wand.

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That night, Draco Malfoy didn't sleep well. He knew from his father's bellowing at the Death Eaters (who had begun to treat the Manor as their home) that Harry Potter had escaped, and was no where to be found. His father had forgotten to place the imperturbable charm on the door of the secret room. So Draco had not only discovered the plan to have Potter destroyed by his own family, but also that it had failed. Somewhere, in the pit of his stomach, he felt pleased. He knew that what had happened could only be for good.

As he lay in bed, trying to tempt sleep and ignore the sick feeling in his stomach and throat he suddenly realised something that he had been threatening to realise for almost a month now. Potter was right. Everything he fought for. Voldemort's the one who deserves death. NOT Potter, and NOT Muggles. Suddenly it was clear. Though he hated the idea of Muggles and Mudbloods, Draco Malfoy was not cruel, not as he had always believed he was, and not as his father had always taught him to be. Nothing Voldemort wanted made any sense to Draco any more. He was sick of being bullied, cursed and generally mal-treated by his father, while all his mother could do was stand and watch hopelessly, unable to do anything to help her son, for fear of her own life. The aches in his young bones only served as a reminder of this. Now he knew, the only one he could possibly talk to was Potter. He felt an odd feeling in his chest; something which he knew had nothing to do with being sick.

The Dam had burst.