World without End

Chapter One

Standing helplessly outside the grey mass of Number 12 Grimmauld Place was a man who bore the unmistakable appearance of someone who had travelled a very long way. Tall, fair, and slender, he was the epitome of good Pureblood breeding. He glowed bright against the foggy London street, and the longer he stood, the more stares he drew to him. Only the messy, dirt-streaked nature of his overall appearance kept Muggle passer-bys from thinking his face had once graced the cover of glossy magazines.

He remembered well the worn scrap of paper he held in his cold hands, which gave away the position of the old house in front of him. "You will make the right decision. I'm sure of it," the old wizard had said, thrusting the paper at him with his good hand, the other shrivelled at his side. A decision had been made now but not of freewill. Self-preservation had won out against old allegiances and rivalries and so here he was, on his bitterest rival's doorstep. He lowered his dark heavy hood as he walked purposefully towards the door and lifted the cold, metal knocker. The door opened slowly, throwing a dim light onto his grubby cheeks, and despite trying to keep his composure, he grimaced when he saw who was standing in the doorway.

It was, of course, Harry Potter. He studied him shrewdly; he had grown long, lean and shaggy in the few months since he had seen him. Yet, he looked clumsily and hastily put together, from his Muggle jeans worn at the knee to his badly creased scarlet jumper. The dim light of the hall reflected off the small golden glasses that slipped down his nose as Harry frowned deeply and opened the door a touch wider.

"Malfoy." His face was flushed with the expected righteous anger. "Is there any reason why you're standing on my doorstep?"

"Yes," Draco smirked in response, "sanctuary."

*

When Harry looked through the kitchen window, he knew autumn had come early. He could see the chill air stirring the fog through the depths of the street. He sighed; it was a dreary sort of day and it matched his dreary mood.

He watched Lupin sit quietly and rub his fingers against the knotty mahogany of Sirius's old kitchen table; a half-drunk cup of morning coffee lay forgotten next to him. Behind him, Harry paced back and forth across the ceramic flagstone tiles, and continued to consider the pressing problem of Malfoy.

"Harry, how could you have sent him away? We need him. We haven't heard anything for weeks. He may give us details we need."

"I had to send him away. We cannot have him here at the Order's Headquarters. He's Death Eater, Professor."

Harry tugged angrily at his hand-made jumper. Malfoy was the last thing he needed. He had been living at Grimmauld Place since he had come of age, and since he arrived, finding Horcruxes had been his highest priority. Nevertheless, as late summer began to turn into autumn, he was no closer to any of them. In fact, the majority of his time he spent organising the Order, which he was now the head of, as had been Dumbledore's wish.

"Besides, we have no idea where his allegiances lie. All we have to go on is the intelligence from Kingsley and all he managed to find out was that Snape abandoned him in some forest in Anglia, and then fucked off back to find his master. I don't even know how Malfoy was able to find us."

Remus didn't comment on his bad language and barely waited a heartbeat before answering, "Of course you do. The Fidelius Charm stops anyone but the Secret-Keeper from revealing the location. Albus must have given it to him just before he died, perhaps on the tower?"

"No," Harry said firmly, "not on the tower." He tried to push that scene from his mind; he was tired of the raw emotion he felt when he thought about Dumbledore's old, helpless face falling away down though the darkness. "Anyway," he continued, pushing the thoughts down, "that's not what's important now. Malfoy knows the Order's secret location and considering his connections, that's bad."

Remus sighed heavily. "That's all the more reason to let him stay. If we leave him to You-Know-Who, they'll drain him of the information he does know."

"Surely that's even more reason not to let him stay in the first place, that way he won't have anything to tell Voldemort."

"If you don't let him stay, You-Know-Who will kill him."

Harry shrugged with forced nonchalance. "So? I don't care."

Remus fixed him with a paternal stare. "I know you don't mean that."

"I don't?" Harry raised his voice. "He didn't seem to feel much when he was pointing a wand at Dumbledore's throat." He was shouting now, the words exploding out of him. "We shouldn't make the same mistakes that Dumbledore did. We should never trust the enemy. Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater!"

"Calm down, Harry. People do sometimes change. Remember your father?"

"My father had morals, he never killed an innocent."

"From what I remember Draco never killed anyone." Remus voice took on an urgent tone, "Listen Harry, Draco's on the move I assume Voldemort hasn't found him yet, but he will, so you need to make a decision soon. The Order answers to you now, so it's your decision to make. Can't you put your schoolboy differences aside for the Order's sake?"

"This is about protecting the Order." Harry made to rise. "I'm sorry, Professor, but I've made my decision and Malfoy can rot in hell."

*

"I just don't think it's possible, Professor. It looks like he's made up his mind."

Professor Lupin sighed and Hermione felt the unhappy sting of his disappointment flowing through her.

"I was hoping you could help him change his mind. He won't listen to Tonks, won't listen to Kingsley, he won't listen to me; he won't even take it to the Order meeting so we can all talk about it."

Well it is his choice, she thought bitterly. At least he's getting one now.

Of course, she said none of this aloud. She was wise enough to know it would not go down well. Instead, she said politely, "Okay, Professor. I'll talk to him."

"Thank you, Hermione!" He looked years younger when he was happy. For a moment, she saw him as Tonks did, but then it was gone and the now greying figure stood before her once again. "Even if you only get him to take a vote to the meeting, that's a start."

Hermione heart plummeted. Secretly, she wasn't even sure if she agreed with Lupin. By breeching the security of Hogwarts and facilitating the killing of Dumbledore, Malfoy had proven without a doubt to her that he couldn't be trusted. Now Lupin was suggesting they let him into their last stronghold. Madness! But what did she know? To them she was still some snot-nosed kid, joining the Order had made no difference.

She found Harry in the kitchen, as she seem to be doing more often these days, clutching a cold, half-drunk mug of coffee in his hands.

"You never drink all of it."

He stuck his tongue out at her in the first playful gesture she had seen in months. "I admit I just like holding the cup."

He looked ragged. He was excessively young to lead a whole army against a lunatic. His lovely tan face had the decidedly gaunt appearance of someone who had lost too much weight too rapidly and his deep green eyes were red with worry and strain.

"What were you thinking about?" she asked, trying to keep her tone light.

"This meeting," he grimaced. "I'm just trying to prepare. It's the first proper meeting since...well since Dumbledore...died. It's a full house, all forty-two members of the inner circle, not all of them happy about my transition to power." He said the last bit loftily Hermione heard the snag in his voice.

"You don't take orders from them, Harry. Dumbledore would never have left you in charge if he didn't think you were capable."

He nodded silently, loosening his grip on the coffee cup. It was now or never.

"Maybe you should reconsider your position on Malfoy."

"Oh Merlin, not you too?"

She shrugged. "I think it's a good idea to keep him here, to keep on eye on him."

"At headquarters?"

"Well, we don't have to expose him to anything. We could keep him out of the way."

He looked up and looked her deeply in the eyes. "Is that what you really think?"

"Yes, Harry." She put a warm hand on his. "It's better than having him out there causing trouble. "

He continued to gaze at her longer than was necessary and for one horribly painful moment, she thought he was reading her mind, but then he blinked and said in a tired voice "Well, if you think it's for the best...I trust you. He can stay but I'm personally warding up his bedroom." He rose tiredly. "Sorry, Hermione. It's time for the meeting, and I have to go. I'm sure they're waiting for me. I'll see you there?"

"Sure." She paused. "Harry?"

"Yes?" He half-turned to face her and she was glad to see that the kind smile he normally wore for her was still in place.

"You're doing the right thing."

"We'll see," he answered grimly.

*

With a painful squeeze, Harry Apparated silently in the middle of a quiet country lane in Wiltshire. Finding Malfoy had been as easy as performing a tracking spell on Malfoy's signature.

"It won't work if he's shielded his magical imprint or stopped using magic altogether," Kingsley had reminded him. "Then you'll have to try something else."

"He must have shielded his magic; it would be too dangerous not to." he had muttered, but he had been wrong. They had managed to track him down to this very road in Wiltshire, within 50 miles of the Malfoy Manor.

He didn't want Malfoy to see him first so Harry threw on his Invisibility Cloak and then put his wand in the centre of his palm.

He followed the wand's swift movements without hesitation; Remus hadn't wanted him to go alone, especially since it would be night soon.

"It's too dangerous," Remus muttered when Harry grabbed his cloak to leave. "what if there are Death Eaters swarming around? What if Malfoy tries to-"

"If Malfoy tries anything, I'll snap his neck."

He didn't feel so brave now, wandering through some muddy field on some ridiculous mission of mercy, for Malfoy of all people. His wand led him to the end of the field, to a shallow brook. He slid soundlessly into the water, the cold wetness seeping through the bottom of his jeans and clinging to him. As he followed the flow upstream, he noticed a small wooden bridge. Instinct told him to head for it, and he saw what he first thought was a large black bag under the bridge, but when he stood in front of it, it moved. Harry saw the wide hood slide from Draco's head, revealing his mud-spattered face, which was cut and bloody; there was a bruise underneath his eye.

They must have found him earlier than we thought, he thought pitilessly.

"You're here," said Malfoy, his voice brittle and dry. Clearly, he had not spoken for a while. "It took you long enough."

"Excuse me?"

Malfoy pulled himself painfully upwards out of the mucky stream, water draining from the bottom of his cloak. Harry managed to get a better look at him; he certainly didn't look like the Malfoy that he remembered. When he had seen him last, he had been small and shaking at the top of the Astronomy tower. He certainly didn't look like the Malfoy that he remembered. Whenever he'd thought of Malfoy recently, he'd seen him as he'd been that night at the top of the Astronomy tower: small and shaking. Now, looking at Malfoy, Harry didn't see a trace of that frightened boy. Now Malfoy appeared taller, stronger and his pointed face more defined if not more haunted.

"Well, I'm not as dense as you, Potter," he sneered, showing no shred of gratitude towards Harry, who was standing ankle-deep in freezing cold water.

"Why do you think I didn't block my magical signature? I knew Gryffindor goodness wouldn't let you turn away a stray. Pity you're so damn slow."

"Fuck you, Malfoy," Harry flared up. "You're lucky I came at all. Did the Death Eaters do that to your face?"

"Don't be stupid." He turned his back to Harry and hitched a battered looking satchel on to his shoulders. "One of those huge, metal Muggle things ran into me; it already ate one human, it was trapped inside."

It took Harry a minute to realise he meant a car, and by then Malfoy had seemed to smarten himself up and was looking very bored.

"Excuse me, you might be happy to stand here with your mouth hanging open, but if you haven't already realised, it's dark, cold, and dangerous to stay here. If you can find me it won't be hard for the Death Eaters to do the same?"

Harry gritted his teeth, grabbed Malfoy by the arm, and prepared to Apparate. At least it wasn't a long journey.

*

Remus let them in. He leaned against the doorway as he watched Harry stomp into the house and Draco limped carefully behind through the tiled hallway, leaving slightly bloody footprints.

Draco finally drew level with him, and Harry shuttered his mind quickly as Draco's cool eyes met his own. He would not give anything away; he would gain the upper hand, and then, Malfoy would have to answer to him.

"The kitchen is this way," he said coldly. Remus gave Harry a satisfied nod and slipped up the stairs, leaving them alone.

"You cracked."

Harry tried not to let himself be intimidated by Malfoy, who loomed over him, making the most of the slight height difference.

"Well, seems like I'm not the only thing that's cracked." He glanced down at Malfoy's kneecap; the blood from the wound was staining his clothes and dripping down his leg onto the tiled floor. Harry grabbed him, his fingers lacing tightly though Malfoy's light hair, the other hand closing around his neck. "You better keep your mouth shut." Harry mimed a swift kick to the bloodiest part of Malfoy's knee. "I'll cripple you if I have to."

"How noble of you Potter," Malfoy drawled back with noticeable effort. "Literally kicking a man when he's down. I better not turn my back to you; I might find a knife stuck in it."

"Like I said," answered Harry darkly, "if I have to."

"I get the picture, Potter; you're a fearsome warrior who could flip at any minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now could you please unhand me? You're messing up my hair."

"Funny." Harry dropped him without warning. "I thought all the mud would have done that for me."

Malfoy looked thoughtful. "That's a good point. A world where you manage to be cleaner than me is not one I enjoy being a part of. Now, show me to the bathroom before I commit Hara-kiri."

Harry gritted his teeth. "Oh please, don't let me stop you." It was just like being back to Hogwarts, Malfoy managing to insult him with every sentence, and Harry felt the same bubbling flow of rage whenever he did. However, this was not school, and Harry was not going let Malfoy order him around in his own house.

"Now, Potter. Maybe you're happy to be as filthy as a Mudblood, but I'm not."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Shut the fuck up, Malfoy."

*

Draco, with malicious and deliberate pleasure, had taken as much time cleaning himself as was humanly possible, knowing that Potter was outside the bathroom, bored and uncomfortable. Served the filthy orphan right, thinking he was better than Draco was, and judging him when he knew nothing of the circumstances. Draco winced as the water ran down his leg, cleansing the wound.

"I assume you haven't eaten?" Potter asked him when Draco finally reappeared, looking and feeling more like his kempt self.

"No."

"Well," he paused, "I'm sure Mrs. Weasley left something in the pot."

"Weasley?" Draco murmured with a slight sneer.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," Harry rounded on Draco heatedly. "She's more welcome here than you'll ever be, so you better not insult her if you want to stay here very long."

"I don't think I any lessons from you about control and temper, but thanks for the concern," he said sarcastically. "It means a lot."

Potter, Draco noticed with quiet glee, was not quite as skilled in Occlumency as Draco had thought. He could see, if he concentrated, Potter tuck his rage into the darker recesses of his mind and settle for pushing Malfoy roughly into the kitchen.

It was always good, when one was unsure of the boundaries, to test them. Potter, it seemed, was finally subscribing to the adage that keeping one's temper was a profitable business, but Draco knew it was an act. The knowledge that he was still capable of grating Potter's nerves resulted in a wry grin, which he dropped as he entered a wide, sweet-smelling kitchen. He needed to keep Mama Weasley on side.

"Harry?" said a plump, redheaded woman who was wearing a large green dress. She had her back to him so he couldn't see her face, but she was dressed so shabbily that Draco could only assume that she was the hallowed Mrs. Weasley. "Has our guest arrived?"

"He's not a guest, Mrs. Weasley."

"Now, Harry," she murmured soothingly, in a way that reminded Draco painfully of his own mother. "You know better than that." She turned from her bustling and smiled benevolently at Draco. "You must be starving, dear. You look half-dead." She plonked a bowl of stew in front of him. "Have a seat."

He sat down and Potter sat opposite him, watching him quietly and menacingly while he ingested every small spoonful. Draco felt his face burn; he hated people watching him eat. As soon as Mrs. Weasley left the room, Draco met Potter's eyes and said with more composure than he felt, "As fascinating as I am, you don't need to watch every little thing I do. I'm quite capable of functioning on my own."

"Do you think I'm going to let you out of my sight after what you did? You betrayed our school, our cause and our hope in one night and now that I'm in charge, I'm not letting you do it again."

Draco smiled mirthlessly. "You're in charge?"

The pleasure Draco gained as he watched Potter realise what he'd just let slide was absolutely delicious.

"If you breathe a word of this to anyone, I swear..."

"What makes you think you could stop me? You can't watch me all the time."

"Oh yeah?" Now it was Potter's turn to smile. "I wouldn't be so sure. Your room is just across the hall from mine."

Draco rolled his eyes. Potter was even more stubborn than he remembered, the arrogant prick. "Do you really think that if I were still in league with the Dark Lord, I would be sitting here right now?"

"You could be spying for him."

Draco snorted. "Spying?" Merlin, these Gryffindors were as devoid of cranial capacity as a house-elf. "As wonderfully witty, charming and amazing as I am, I'm sure the Dark Lord has better spies in his arsenal, and surely, the point of having a spy is that you don't suspect them."

"I don't care. Just because you're not in the inner circle now, doesn't mean you weren't in the past and won't be in the future."

Potter was an idiot, just as Draco had thought he would be. Logic had never even crossed his mind. He hadn't the faintest idea why Draco worked so hard to breech Hogwarts. A person does not say no to the Dark Lord. Even if the task you are embarking on was doomed to failure and the price of failure was death. What else could he have done when the stakes had been so impossibly high?

He pushed the bowl away from him, stood up, and turned towards Potter who pressed his mouth into a thin, defiant line. He had never really looked at Potter before; oh, he had looked at him with disgust and mild forms of hatred, but he had never really looked before. As Draco eyed him now from under his newly washed hair--his scruffy clothes, his grim expression, his abnormally defeated stance--he felt the first painful stab of guilt at raining on his parade. It could not be easy being Saint Potter; all that righteousness must become suffocating at some point. Not that he cared, or anything like that.

"Could you show me to my room now? Listening to you bleat on has left me quite bored, not to mention queasy. I think I need to lie down."

"You're an ungrateful little shit, you know that?" Harry snapped at him.

"I would have preferred the title, 'Supreme Ruler of the Universe'," said Draco with a grin, showing his sharp, white teeth. He was delighted to irritate Potter yet again; sometimes he was just too easy.

"Shut up, Malfoy." Potter stood up in his awkward manner and began to lead Draco through the winding corridors of the old house of Black. A large, half-rotten staircase began at the bottom of the passageway and ran to the upper floors. Apparently, Draco's room was on the top floor, because Harry continued up the stairs. The stairs got smaller, older, more crooked and narrower, until finally they came to the top of the house, where their bedrooms lay. Their bedrooms were quite close, less than five feet of hallway between their doors, and there was barely enough room at the top of the staircase for the both of them.

"I bet the Weaselette is pleased about your unnatural desire to be close to me. Some might call it an obsession."

"You're the one who's been obsessed with me since day one, what with following me around and trying to get me into trouble."

"That's hardly obsession," Draco sniffed as Potter tried unsuccessfully to allow Draco to pass him. "Merely a genuine desire to see you take your head out of your arse."

"You're one to talk. Oh, and Malfoy[,] don't bother planning anything. Your room is warded. Inside and out."

Draco sneered at Potter and turned his back to him sharply, but the sneer was half-hearted and faded away as soon as he shut the door in Potter's gormless little face.

So, he thought as he strolled into the room, this is where Potter is keeping me prisoner.

The room was simple, but illuminated silvery in the moonlight. The walls were stark white, broken up by the plain, dusky blue curtains on the windows. It was empty save for a rather hard-looking bed, a wonky bedside table and a fearsome looking wardrobe that Draco was not planning to open anytime soon.

He sighed. This was definitely not home, not the Manor. He felt a sharp pang in his heart when he thought of his childhood home ransacked by the Ministry and Death Eaters alike. More pain came when he thought about his poor mother watching it all. She had never wanted to him get mixed up in anything like this. She tried her best to prevent it. Yet, here he was now, perhaps facing the same fate as his father, and he might never see her again. A lump hardened in his throat and hot tears prickled his eyes uncomfortably, but never fell. Malfoys do not cry, he reminded himself. Ever.

He reached into the satchel he had brought with him from the Manor and pulled out his mother's silver snuffbox. It glimmered treacherously at him. Studded intricately against the cool metal was smooth, white Mother-of-Pearl. Against his better judgement, he opened it. Out pranced the ballerina. She was incredibly small and doll-like, wearing a white skirt that ended halfway between her knees and ankles. Her arms, neck, and shoulders were bare. She proceeded to dance up his cloaked arm with great expressiveness and magnificent leaps, during which she seemed to float through the air. He remembered being thrilled by the illusion when he was younger, while watching his mother remove and install her hair combs. They were still inside; they still had her long, colourless hair snagged in their teeth, and they made grooves in his skin as he clutched them tightly in his palm.

"It's only a glamour, Draco. Nothing to get excited about," she had said then, but it was all he had now; a faint, old glamour

He watched the ballerina continue her elegant dance until he fell into a restless sleep. When he woke up, he did so in the same position, but the charm had faded and left him with a pretty, empty box and the faint feel of betrayal all over him. Nevertheless, he was a Malfoy. Malfoys were Slytherins, and they didn't do self-pity. So, in the faint half-light of the morning, when all of London was sleeping, the youngest Malfoy began to prepare a rather nefarious plan.