The Rise and Fall of Lieutenant Malfoy

Draco strolled casually along the wall towards Harry, who could make out only intermittent swirly movements through the merciful screen of smoke. He could see a flash as the occasional spell hit Malfoy from behind, fired from defenders on the opposite side of the wall, but they were as ineffective as the reserves' had been.

"So, Potter. Did you come out here to discuss our 'relationship'?" he leered.

"I have nothing to say to you," Harry replied, shock making the sound rasp in his throat.

"Don't you want to greet your conquering hero?"

Harry choked for a moment longer, but finally found his angry voice somewhere around his lower intestine.

"You have got to be kidding," he spat in return. "If you think the big smoke-and-pretty-hair thing is going to sway me, you're, um, completely wrong." He replayed the last sentence over in his head, trying to figure out what it was about the words that made him sound like a spineless twat.

"Well, that's excellent, I don't want to talk about it either. Especially with an audience." Draco indicated the others grouped dumbly around them, watching the confrontation hopefully. "I think we should dispose of them the quick way, don't you?"

Before Harry could say a word, Draco swung his wand up, muttered a long and complicated-sounding spell, and every one of the reserves collapsed into nothingness with a small puff of steam. Harry cried out in horror, but Draco seemed completely unperturbed at the speedy demise of his former friends from the Order. He jumped lightly down from the wall and turned toward Harry once again, purple smoke still billowing behind him.

Harry grimly raised his own wand in defense, feeling a ball of lead apparate into his stomach. He might be forced into killing Dra-- Malfoy, but he wouldn't be baited into attacking first. He watched warily as energy crackled around the blond's head, the malice of the magic distorting his appearance into all kinds of unpleasant variations at random. This latest one involved fangs and claws, which glinted and flexed menacingly. To hell with chivalry, Harry thought suddenly. I want to live through this. He drew back his clenched fist and fired the most hideous, destructive curse he could bear to speak directly at Malfoy's leather-draped chest. "RICTUSEMPRA!" he screamed, waving his wand with the merciless hand of vengeance.

Malfoy reacted to the spell's impact near his right shoulder with a surprised yelp, which sounded quite incongruous given the way a magically induced wind was currently whipping his cloak around, ballooning it up behind him and making the leather snap like a bullwhip. As with the others, however, the laughing hex had no effect whatsoever.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Potter?" Draco yelled. "If you were trying to lighten the mood, a Cheering Charm might have done the trick. I can't be affected by malicious spells, even ridiculous ones like Rictusempra."

"Tarantallegra!"

"Nope."

"S-stupefy!"

"Potter. What part of 'I can't be affected' didn't you understand?"

Harry wondered what further curses he could force himself to throw at his former love, reasoning that there must be something that would be powerful enough to knock him out long enough for Harry to reach Voldemort. Perhaps a well-placed 'Impedimentia'.... Then, with a pang, he remembered the remorseless serenity with which Draco had just evaporated their classmates, and thought of Ron and Hermione and Lupin and poor, drunken Sirius, and realized he was just going to have to do it. The very worst. At least he could try to make it painless. Draco watched with a raised wand and a guarded expression, magical spikes sprouting incidentally from the back of his cloak like porcupine quills, as Harry gathered himself to wreak his final destruction. He stared into the blond's eyes and sent out a silent apology, then took a deep breath... and realized that Draco was smiling. There was a strained pause.

"I have to tell you something," Draco said, still smiling.

"Oh, god," Harry choked miserably, "you really did have an affair with Wormtail."

"What? Are you completely sick? Listen to me, for once in your life." Draco lowered his wand slowly, watching Harry for any sign of movement. "I," he announced, pausing for dramatic effect, "am a spy." Harry blinked for a moment, then raised his wand again and hit him with a disarming spell.

"STOP that! I'm telling the truth!" Draco yelled as the spell again bounced harmlessly away.

Harry frowned and opened his mouth to cast... something, he wasn't sure what, and realized that he couldn't move. He hadn't even heard Draco speak a spell, he was just pointing his wand at him and looking exasperated. Exasperated? Draco grinned again; it was one of those patently annoying, shit-eating, got-you-now grins. Harry decided he hated him. Really.

"Nice trick, isn't it, Potter? Silent, yet brilliantly effective. Though it wouldn't be necessary if you could control your spastic Gryffindor Rescue Reflex for TEN FUCKING SECONDS and pay attention!" He waved his other hand, and Harry felt his jaw unlock while the rest of him remained frozen.

"If you expect me to be impressed by a first-year full body bind, Malfoy, you really have overestimated your appeal in leather," he growled. This was a complete lie; Harry would have been impressed by Draco breathing in that cloak, but he hoped that his frozen features would conceal the fact that he still couldn't look away, even if he'd been allowed to.

"If I was trying to impress you, Potter, believe me, you would know it. Now. I am going to explain this slowly so you will have some time to allow your brain to catch up to your overexcited wand. I am a spy. I have been working for our esteemed Headmaster secretly for the past few months, gaining the Dark Lord's trust so that I could - er, borrow the Imperviant spell for study."

"Borrow a spell? How the hell do you borrow a spell?" Harry asked, reasoning that Draco wouldn't be able to control his spastic Slytherin Gloating Reflex, and perhaps an escape could be devised in the time allotted for Harry to be fully humiliated.

"Well, he's got to put it on you, actually; it's the reason all those hexes and curses don't affect me. He's put it on himself and on me, along with a massive transfer of some kind of dark power. Don't ask me where he got it - the point is that now I can act for him when he's not around. Obviously, even Voldemort can't be in two places at once."

Somehow, hearing exactly what he wanted to hear was not having the expected pleasant effect on Harry. In fact, his suspicions of Draco's motives were gaining strength with every word the boy spoke.

"I am not falling for this, Malfoy. You've killed people!" he heard himself insist. "You just melted an entire regiment of injured students and civilians...do you think I'm going to buy that it just had to be done to keep up appearances?"

"It just had to be done to keep up appearances," Draco repeated in a nonchalant drawl. "Besides, they aren't dead, you idiot. They're - er - smaller, and they're in a kind of holding area, but they're perfectly safe. Dumbledore came up with the spell himself, see, it looks like a nasty Sublimation Curse gone horribly wrong, but it's harmless."

"Uh huh. Let's say I'm stupid enough to believe that. But you've been doing other things," Harry continued. "We have real spies, you know, and they've seen you, lots of times. You've been laying waste like you're trying to usher in the apocalypse."

"They were supposed to see me! Do you think I wanted to see that forest go down in a blight of plague-carrying death moths?" he snapped. "You think I enjoyed turning Hogsmeade into a blasted heath?"

"It sure as hell sounded like you were enjoying it," retorted Harry, thinking of the grim tales of total destruction that Hannah had tearfully reported.

"Of course not - well, except for Madame Sunshine's Groove Threads, that was a mercy, but the rest of it was a bastion of childhood memory that will never be recovered. Harry... look at me. No, not the damned horns, look at my eyes. Do you really think I'm making all this up?"

Harry squinted into the steady gray gaze. The oddly-colored smoke was building up again, making it difficult to get a clear line of sight, but... it looked like he meant it. Then again, Harry supposed he was not really the best person to ask. He heard Ron's voice echoing in his head, insisting 'Harry, you're a terrible judge of character,' and knew Ron was probably right. He didn't understand why Draco was even asking him to trust him. After their last communication, which had indeed contained a fast-acting poison they only just caught in time to prevent his untimely transformation into a blackened corpse, he didn't see how it could lead to anything good. He looked away from the eyes he had once trusted, and lied.

"Yes," he said. "I think you're making it all up. You aren't who you pretended to be with me. Why you did it I'll probably never know, but you've... you've made your own bargains. Look at you, Draco, you have imps dancing little Satanic rituals around your boots. Why would you even come to me now? It doesn't make -"

"It does make sense! You've got to tell Dumbledore what I'm telling you! Fine, don't believe me about the spy thing, but just shut up for a minute because this is important - you remember how Pettigrew blew up a street full of people after he betrayed your family?"

"No, I'd forgotten that tiny detail in order to make room for your treacle tart recipe in my overtaxed brain."

"How many spells do you know that can cause that kind of damage?"

"Well..."

"Ones that Pettigrew could manage on his own?"

Harry thought about this. He had never gotten the impression that Wormtail had been much of a wizard. And to be honest, even in all his studies for various subjects, tournaments, and extracurricular research for harebrained schemes of Hermione's, he'd never come across a spell that could actually kill several people at once; even Avada Kedavra had to be strongly focused on a single individual. Wormtail had reportedly blasted away half a street. He felt his frozen arm drop suddenly, freed from the binding hex, and automatically raised the wand again to find Draco watching him closely.

"I thought not," Draco said. "He needed help, and he had it. He was given the same type of protection and Dark power I was, and it didn't wear off until days after Voldemort attacked your parents' house." He looked at Harry expectantly, but Harry was still not impressed.

"Okay. So what? And now you've got it, and you too can blow up a whole street full of people and chop off a random appendage as your scapegoat's personal souvenir." He went slightly pale. "You aren't going to... chop anything off, are you?" Draco continued to ignore him.

"So, there's something Dumbledore didn't know about this curse! As the only one Voldemort has put under his own Imperviant spell, the only one with the same protection he has, I'm the only one that can stand against him, the only one that can hurt him, barring another miracle like a deadly curse reflected by an infant." The urgency in his voice increased as he stepped forward, words coming in more frantic bursts. The magic's physical illusions faltered slightly under the weight of his apparent panic, and he seemed to shrink slightly, looking exhausted and worried and much more like the boy Harry had watched walk away from him all those nights ago. "Harry, Dumbledore's planning a surprise attack, probably today given that pathetic charge of the limping brigade half an hour ago. He needs to change his plans. They'll be decimated. Go tell him, Harry. Ask him about all this if you don't believe me, but for Merlin's sake, tell him! They're probably headed for Voldemort's last known position while we stand here chatting... I can't give myself away yet, just go. Hurry."

Harry opened his mouth and closed it, not sure exactly what he'd expected to come out of it. Though they were only inches apart, the thickness of the smoke now dancing around them prevented him from looking into Draco's eyes directly. But he didn't think it was necessary. If he couldn't trust his own instincts (which said 'go on, put your life and those of everyone you care about in his hands, yes, the one with the horns, you know you want to' ), then he knew that he could at least trust Dumbledore's.

"All right," he said finally. "I'll go." The relief in Draco's expressions was obscured by the ever-thickening purple haze between them, which was beginning to pulse oddly. It made Draco's pale skin appear to glow, and Harry reached out impulsively to touch his face. He couldn't help himself, believing as he did that he and Draco might both actually get out of this alive - but as his fingers brushed against skin there was a wrenching, discordant shriek from the depths of the fog. Harry's hand dropped and they both turned, shoulder to shoulder...

...as the swirling mess coalesced into the business end of a wand, followed by a scaly hand and the rest of a certain snake-faced former wizard-turned-demon.

"Shit," Draco said, with feeling.

"Indeed," agreed the Dark Lord.

***

~ From the desk of the Dark Lord Voldemort ~

Dear Potter,

You may be surprised to get a letter from me, but hell, I figured I'd already done the damage, might as well indulge in a little of the 'rubbing it in' part for old times' sake. I was always so good at that. I am well aware that I've appeared to waver a little in my convictions these past few weeks, but you should know that I'm now firmly committed to the campaign for the Dark Lord's future dominion over wizards and Muggles. We will wipe the filthy Muggle streets with your bloody, mangled corpses, blah blah blah, just in case there was any confusion about that.

I know you've got some kind of outdated vendetta against Pettigrew, but I think you've missed out; he has a really nice arse for a rat. And he can do some amazing things with that silver hand. I believe the appropriate word is 'tensile.' And of course I'm sure you'll be anxious to see me again, darling, given the rather hasty way we parted, but don't worry. The forces of Lord Voldemort are amassing quickly, and we will be calling on your doorstep rather sooner than I'm sure your venerated Headmaster would like. Sleep well, Potter.

Malfoy

PS - You're not developing a fever, are you? A little nausea, fingers going black where they touch the paper? Because you may want to get that looked at. The rash might even fade before the funeral if they catch it in time. -M