The Rise and Fall of Lieutenant Malfoy

"Well," said Draco. "Looks like I've just fucked right up." Voldemort looked at him steadily, slitted eyes narrowed as far as they would go without closing completely. They faced off across the grass like antagonists in a spaghetti Western, hands on their wands and dusty smoke (though purple) drifting by on the gentle breeze. "Reducto!" Draco cried suddenly, just as Voldemort screamed out his own curse, the words of which were mercifully lost in the noise of battle over the wall.

The two spells exploded into the air, glowing with greenish power and lighting up the entire courtyard. Voldemort was blasted backward, head-over-heels like a first year in Dueling Club, to land stunned on the grass 50 meters away. Draco wondered for a moment why he had not been hit with something much worse himself - he'd definitely seen something very nasty rocketing out from the Dark Lord's wand - only to belatedly realize he had not been the intended target.

He turned slowly, breathing labored with shock, to see Harry crumpled face-down on the ground by the castle wall. He stood stock-still for a moment as his wand clattered to the ground from fingers gone suddenly numb. At last he stumbled toward Harry with a choking sound, and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder to turn him, expecting to see those vibrant green eyes wide and lifeless...

Harry squinted quizzically up at him, blinking rapidly. "Could you give me a hand? I've lost a contact lens. I never could get that damn spell right, and Hermione said--"

Draco didn't hear the rest. A black cloud of imminent and fatal wrath fell over his vision; he drew back the hand that didn't have a death grip on Harry's shoulder, and punched him solidly in the face. Harry's head flew back and connected with the stone walkway with a horrible thwack, and he went limp under Draco's grasping fingers.

"Shit," Draco repeated. He glanced up in time to see Voldemort getting calmly to his feet. He did not look pleased. Frantically he ran through spells in his head, trying to think of one that would allow him to gain the advantage without actually leaving Harry unconscious on the ground at the mercy of a powerful madman. Nothing sprang to mind.

"That was unwise, my lieutenant," Voldemort said as he approached, stopping a few feet away. "Until you attacked me, I might have been convinced that you had my best interests in mind when you told the Potter boy that you were spying for the Muggle-lovers."

"You wouldn't have believed me anyway, " Draco said. "I'm a terrible liar."

"Given that you succeeded in convincing not only me but your own lover that you were entirely devoted to purging the world of Muggles, you'll forgive me if I don't take that at face value."

"He's not my lover," Draco said instantly, hoping his concern for Harry had gone unnoticed. The last thing he needed was for Voldemort to realize how easily he could manipulate Draco's most glaring weakness.

"Oh, please," said the Dark Lord, "it's so obvious. Or perhaps you meant something else all those nights you made Nagini so distressed, screaming out, 'Yes, Harry, yes, god, right there!' in your sleep." Draco just stared at him, unable to think of a suitable reply. Fortunately he didn't have to.

"Did Voldemort just say 'yes, Harry, yes, god, right there,' or am I still unconscious?" Harry asked groggily from the ground. "Because if he did, I think I'm going to have to throw up."

"Believe me, I take no joy in this disgusting revelation," Voldemort sneered. "I thought Lucius had taught you more carefully, young Malfoy, but now I see that he was indeed the incompetent weenie I had always suspected him to be."

"Hey," said Draco mildly, trying to drag Harry to a sitting position, "who're you calling weenie?"

"I shall take great pleasure in returning his own damaged goods to him, perhaps damaged a bit further than when originally provided, but the fault lies with the manufacturer," Voldemort continued, lost in the seductive depths of his extended metaphor. "A few loose bolts, a few misplaced charms, perhaps a cosmetic defect or two..." Draco dropped Harry unceremoniously on his ass and whipped around, looking furious.

"Yeah, yeah, and my warranty on evil ran out the day before yesterday, always happens, doesn't it? Impedimentia!" But Voldemort was prepared this time and deflected the curse, stepping smoothly aside as it blasted a few chips from the castle stone.

"How true. And I believe in repaying my debts in proportion to their usefulness to me. Speaking of which," he said casually, lifting his wand, "I believe you have something of mine." In a rush, Draco felt the power he'd been infused with when Voldemort had made him a lieutenant being whisked out of him like water from a draining bathtub. It made him feel almost as nauseous as it had when it was given it to him; Dark sources of magic were not gentle when forced to share their gifts with others. But as the spell continued to affect him, he could feel something else happening as well... he was finding it difficult to focus his mind; his thoughts were becoming fuzzy and a ringing sound was growing in his ears. He felt strangely like his physical strength was going, as if his legs were about to collapse, though they were as steady as ever. He tried to jerk physically backwards, away from Voldemort's attack, but nothing changed. He could move perfectly well, but the feeling of strain had only increased.

"You're taking too much," he gasped. "That's more than what was yours." He dropped to his knees by his fallen wand and clung to it, feeling the power in it like a lifeline, but one that grew steadily less solid. Voldemort tilted his head slightly and would have raised an eyebrow if he'd had any. "Interest," he said.

Harry watched all this from the place he had fallen, trying to make sense of thoughts that had been scrambled with the impact of his head on the stones. He saw Voldemort standing only a few steps away, wand held in an aggressive stance, snakelike features twisted in anger. It took him a moment to recognize the figure under attack, as it was almost completely covered in a shiny black cloak which he vaguely recalled as being deeply important on a very personal level. A blink later he realized that Draco had collapsed on the grass, head bent, clutching his wand like a precious childhood teddy bear and Voldemort's sneer was growing into a very nasty smile. A wave of horror rose up within him, and he no longer needed to think clearly to know what to do.

"Avada Kedavra," he snarled instantly, fuelling the magic with the full force of his rage as memory of the last few minutes returned. He felt the curse build up inside him with a poisonously pleasant bubbling sensation, and watched as an all-too-familiar green light hissed out of his wand and struck Voldemort directly in the center of his chest. Voldemort glanced over at him without lifting his wand from Draco's hunched form.

"Damned annoying when that one doesn't work, isn't it, Potter? You think to yourself, 'Oh, yes, I know this spell better than my own disembodied face. An old favorite. A classic.' And then it turns on you. Of course, you remember all about that." He turned towards Harry, finally abandoning his attack on Draco, who was lying unconscious on the ground. "Betrayed by one's own power, Potter. It isn't pleasant." He cast a Stunning spell carelessly in Harry's direction, but it only singed one of his sleeves as he rolled out of the way. Harry began scuttling backwards on his hands and knees, cursing the dizziness still preventing him from standing. His knees scraped over the stony pathway as Voldemort strolled after him, and then there was a jarring thump as his foot hit the stone wall of the castle. The Dark Lord stared down at him, hatred evident in his face, and Harry squinted back up at him and was momentarily glad he hadn't been able to find his contact lens. It would be better to at least be able to look his parents' murderer in the face, though. He opened his eyes as wide as they would go since squinting didn't seem to work, but his focus was still one-sided. He tried closing the fuzzy eye.

"Oh, stop flirting, Potter. Your dubious charms are wasted on me." He twisted his thin lips into a thoughtful pout. "You know, I was going to force you to watch me dismember your friend there with a Muggle dental drill, but frankly I'm sick of looking at you and your huge, drippy, soulful eyes. You're as bad as those sickening little porcelain dolls my father used to collect, the twisted old coot." He raised his wand menacingly and Harry tried to make himself as small as possible. "And I did enjoy smashing those dolls," he continued with a destructive glint in his eyes. "So farewell, Potter. OUCH!!!"

This exclamation was accompanied by the sizzling sound of a curse hitting home. Voldemort stumbled heavily, but managed to keep his feet at the last moment. As he moved to regain his balance, Harry saw Draco behind him, his head just lifted from the ground, teeth gritted together in concentration. Apparently he had managed a weak Stunning spell, but was too drained to cast it effectively. Voldemort didn't seem terribly concerned.

"Ah, so you are still with us, Mr. Malfoy? Excellent. I'd hoped to make a few more adjustments before returning you to your father. But I'd nearly forgotten that other gift I so foolishly bestowed upon you as my former most loyal follower," he added, curling his lip. "Thank you for the reminder; I'd hate to repeat any embarrassing incidents like that sadly inept Reductor curse a few moments ago. Finite impervium." There was a small flash, like a pop from Colin's camera bulb, and Draco knew his protective spell had been lifted. He nearly let his head drop back to the ground in despair; there was no way to harm Voldemort now unless he chose to put the spell on someone else, and the chances that he would do so as rashly as he'd put it on Draco were nonexistent, barring temporary loss of free will.

"Imperio," he tried weakly in a flash of inspiration, but of course there was no effect.

Harry saw Draco struggling to hold his head up, and knew the boy would never be able to dodge Voldemort's next curse - which, judging from the high-pitched whizzing sound screeching from his wand hand, did indeed involve a dental drill. In desperation, he cast a Pepper-Up charm at Draco that Flitwick had taught them last year - not as effective or long-lasting as the potion (as Snape had pointed out no less than ten times in class), but still about as good as a cup of strong, hot coffee. The electric blue spell flashed towards Draco as Voldemort stalked back toward his leather-draped form, but Harry's timing was still a moment off from his blow to the head and the spell struck the Dark Lord on the ankle.

"Damn it!" Harry screamed in frustration, but he was drowned out by a high-pitched "Wooo!" from somewhere above him. He looked up to see steam shooting from Voldemort's tiny, flattened ears. He looked back to Draco in confusion, who was busy curling up into a terrified little ball of shiny black. "It hit him," Harry said blankly. "It didn't bounce."

"It-- wasn't-- a malicious spell," Draco replied between gasps of air, now trying to wriggle under a nearby holly bush bum-first as Voldemort shook his head to clear it in the cloud of steam. He raised his drill-tipped wand over Draco once more, and Harry cast the charm again. More steam issued forth, and Voldemort whipped around in a fury to confront him. Harry cast it again.

"Draco! The Phoenix Army prisoners! Bring them back!" Harry yelled, casting the spell over and over between words. He could see that the steam was lessening; it seemed to be losing its effectiveness the more he used it, as if it had built up to a predetermined cutoff point. Harry switched to Cheering Charms. "Hurry!" he called, sparing one of the Pepper-Ups for Draco, who was dazedly lifting his wand. He looked a bit like Lockhart right after the backfired Memory Charm. The spell's burst of energy and steam seemed to revive him slightly, and after a moment there were popping sounds all around the courtyard as sixty or so recruits of the Phoenix Army flashed into existence and stood blinking in the bright sunlight. Fred Weasley was the first to spot Voldemort and began immediately hurling a stream of ineffective curses at him, including those which normally turned his victims into small, feathered animals. Voldemort roared incoherently and kept throwing curses at Harry, who had dodged behind a convenient tree.

"You're only giving me more strength, you fool!" Voldemort cackled. "I can't be harmed!" His wand arm was trembling violently and his eyes were wide and dodging maniacally all over the courtyard.

"No malicious spells!" Harry yelled at the top of his lungs. "Use nice charms! Lots of them!" Voldemort's next curse withered Harry's entire tree from the ancient, spreading oak he'd sheltered behind to a blackened stump that barely reached his knee, and he ran for the next one. His message had gotten through to at least a few of the others, though, because Voldemort was finding it harder to take aim as the other spells took effect. As he became more confused, Harry dashed forward and dragged Draco, forgotten under the prickly bush, backwards toward the wall of the courtyard. He kept one eye on the small army now surrounding the Dark Lord as they went. He imagined Hermione would have found it quite interesting to observe which charms of a questionable nature were effective against the Imperviant spell. An engorgement charm aimed at Voldemort's almost-nonexistent ears was reflected harmlessly, but when the same charm hit his thigh it caused it to swell to Adonis-like proportions. An Inebrius hex (a less powerful version of the one that still affected Sirius) bounced away, but apparently a Sobering Charm was a curse in a way as well, as it also proved completely ineffective against Voldemort. However, people seemed to be able to accio him all over the courtyard at will. Harry watched as one person after another screamed in horror while the Dark Lord rocketed through the air toward them like a deranged harpy, shrieking with rage, only for another to Summon him from another direction just in time to avoid an unpleasant collision. Harry joined the attacking group once Draco was secure and marginally lucid, and about five minutes after Voldemort had stopped cursing altogether, he called a halt so they could take stock of the damage.

The figure lying on the ground was almost unrecognizable - or would have been if Harry had never seen Tom Riddle. Sleek, black hair had sprouted from the grayish scalp, and years had dropped away under the ministrations of various Youth and Beauty charms. A handsome young man glared up at them from beneath a mountain of flowers and paper hearts, twitching slightly, a mad grin plastered across his face.

"You will all die for this," he announced cheerfully. "It will be painful and bloody and messy and protracted and damned if I don't feel like singing a little song about it!" He sat up so quickly that everyone in the circle took a startled breath and at least two steps back, but Voldemort only burst into a loud rendition of "Mack the Knife" in a surprisingly pleasant baritone. The army watched this open-mouthed (except for Fred, who was laughing so hard he had half-slid down the side of the castle wall and was clawing at the stone for support). Voldemort was halfway through the song and had started substituting "Tom the Snake" at appropriate moments, complete with a nifty soft-shoe number, when Dumbledore turned up with Wormtail in tow, silver hand shackled to the normal one behind his back.

"M-My Lord?" Wormtail stammered, wide-eyed as the song abruptly stopped.

"Peter! Please, call me Tommy!" Wormtail stared at him, taking in the youthful appearance, jovial stature and paper hearts still streaming from the folds of his clothes, and looked a bit hopeful.

"But you said if I called you that I'd - I'd be killed, my Lord."

"Yes, you probably will be," Voldemort replied. "But I imagine I will have no further use for you once I have disposed of these annoying children. Besides, the sun is shining, I'm in a good mood, and it's a fine day for a murder. Do it anyway." Before Wormtail could respond to this request, Dumbledore stepped in and cast quite a powerful (and benevolent) sleeping charm over the young man, who collapsed instantly on his bed of flowers.

"Well sung, Tom," he commented idly. "I shall have to think seriously about requesting that you lead the school song at the leaving feast." He turned to the group gathered around the snoring body. "This battle, I think, is over. Please return to the Great Hall and Professor McGonagall will be with you shortly. You three," he added, nodding to Harry, Wormtail, and Draco's tottering form approaching from the wall, "had better follow me."

***

Harry sat alone in the echoing Great Hall, staring unseeingly at a plate of chicken and ham pie half-eaten in front of him. He'd been kept in Dumbledore's office so long that he'd missed dinner with the rest of the school, and he didn't quite feel like joining the inevitable party in Gryffindor Tower just yet. Draco had been kept even longer to give his full report to the headmaster, and still hadn't been released. Harry was glad to have the time to himself. He couldn't say why he felt so unsettled; of course, he was glad to have Draco back, but there was not exactly an easy camaraderie between them. They'd managed only stilted conversation as they were ushered back up to the school behind Dumbledore, and it had mostly consisted of Draco muttering that the prickly bush had scratched his delicate skin in various unlikely places, and Harry retorting that he hoped he'd swallowed a poisonous berry.

A single set of footsteps ringing in the hall outside finally pulled Harry out of his thoughtful haze and he kept his eyes down, poking at his pie unenthusiastically with a fork. Draco came in, sat down across from him and stared at the top of his head.

"What?" Harry asked, a little put off by this confrontational pose. And Malfoy at the Gryffindor table, no less.

"What?" Draco repeated, disbelief evident in his voice. "Are you planning to speak to me again, or am I interrupting quiet time at the nursery?

"I've spoken to you," Harry muttered.

"You've spoken more to Voldemort today than you have to me." Harry finally looked up.

"Well, you're the one that spent the last month getting all cozy with him. And can you blame me? You haven't exactly been pleasant to talk to lately."

"Of course I can blame you. I am a model conversationalist. I am always pleasant to talk to."

"'I haven't KILLED you?' 'I don't owe you anything?' Ring any bells?"

"You shouldn't take me so seriously, Harry. If you'd said that I'd have laughed it off," Draco replied. Now it was his turn to stare at the table, as Harry continued to glare.

"I wouldn't have said it."

"Oh right, I forgot, you're spineless when you're smitten," Draco sneered, finally giving in to frustration. "I know you wouldn't have done it, Potter, you couldn't have, because it takes guts to be that cruel. I had to make you believe you'd been totally betrayed. You had to think I was going for good, whether you actually gave a damn or not."

"Whether I actually... where the hell do you get that?"

Draco leaned in, his voice intense. "Well, let's see. When I left, there was a more than reasonable chance I wouldn't be coming back in one piece. I figured you knew that, whether I was Voldemort's lackey or not. And I was gone for a long time. But in spite of that, I didn't hear a word from you. Not a thing. Of course, I wasn't allowed to write. But you obviously just couldn't be bothered."

"I couldn't contact you, you were working with the enemy! How could I have spoken to you?"

"You have an owl! There are school owls! They'd have found me! Voldemort gets mail too, you know. But no, you never sent any word--"

"Oh like I'd have trusted that any animal would have come back alive--"

"--Never said 'don't go, Draco,' never said 'please come back, Draco,' never said 'I hate you and your backstabbing, snake-kissing, pointy, lying face, Draco,' -- not even a bloody Howler. I at least expected a Howler."

"YOU STUPID ARSE YOU WENT AND GOT YOURSELF CONTRACTED TO THE FORCES OF EVIL AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN TELL ME YOU WERE GOING TILL TOO LATE AND I TRUSTED YOU AND NOW MY LIFE IS RUINED AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT AND I HATE FIGHTING AGAINST YOU AND I HATE STILL WANTING YOU AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT I HATE YOUR STUPID OBSESSION WITH HAIR GEL BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE AN ANATOMICALLY INCORRECT PLASTIC DOLL!" Harry screamed. "There. There's your Howler. And what do you mean, 'snake-kissing?'" Draco stared at him, jaw slightly open.

"You still wanted me?" he said in a tiny voice.

"Well maybe not so much if you've been kissing snakes behind my back!"

"Lord, Potter, it was a figure of speech. Anyway, for all I knew, the moment I was gone you'd run off with Weasley or someone equally disgusting and never had a second thought about me afterwards."

"Now you're just being stupid. Ron?"

"You were awfully quick to try charging into the battle after him - I saw McGonagall watching to make sure you stayed with the other group, what was that all about?"

"It's called friendship, you paranoid freak, and you might know something about it if you weren't so--"

"Would you two please cut that out and go practice your twisted foreplay someplace else? I am TRYING to sleep here." Sirius's head popped up from behind the staff table; he had apparently been sleeping in Snuffles form on Dumbledore's seat cushion. Draco and Harry stared at him, and after a moment of glaring at them both, Sirius's head disappeared.

"Or...practice..." Harry started, dazed.

"You're obviously just jealous, anyway!" Sirius's amused voice floated up from behind the table.

"I am not!" Harry and Draco yelled in unison, then returned immediately to scowling at each other.

"You both are, and for no reason whatsoever as it's obvious you're both crazy about each other. Now go snog or whatever in private, or else be more quiet about it, you're keeping me from my beauty sleep." There was a further moment of stunned silence, then Harry seemed to remember himself and turned back to bickering.

"He's still under that stupid Inebrius curse from one of the earlier battles. It's been affecting his rational judgment for weeks now. That one was likely your idea, since you were always crap at anything approaching rational thought."

"Well, obviously he's under a curse, Potter. I mean, come on. Foreplay? What kind of sicko gets off on stupid, petty, pointless arguments that nobody can win?" They stared at each other again. Sirius's voice rang out one final time from the vicinity of the high table.

"I'm not under the curse anymore, for the record. Wormtail lifted it as an act of goodwill for Dumbledore in exchange for a private meeting with Voldie in the prefects' bathroom." They could see Sirius shaking his head as he resettled himself on the chair. "I assumed Peter had lowered his standards since our school days, but really..."

Draco was the first to find his voice this time. "He's not drunk?" he whispered. "They found his marbles?"

"I guess so," Harry replied slowly. "He did always seem to know how I felt, more than other people."

"I didn't know Wormtail could lift curses like that."

"I'm not sure he can, given that foreplay comment."

"Um. So, how do you feel right now?" Draco asked carefully.

Harry thought for a moment. "Well. Kind of turned on, actually."

Draco's eyes glinted. "Me, too. What a fascinating coincidence."

Harry's face broke into a slow, warm smile.

"Hmm. Then perhaps we should take my esteemed godfather's advice and continue this discussion in private." Draco grinned in return.

"Come on then," he said after hardly a pause, and together they walked quickly out of the room, calmly to begin with, then faster and faster, laughter and footsteps quickening to a ringing echo in the huge, empty room. They turned the corner and silence fell once again over the Great Hall.

Snuffles hiccupped loudly.