A/N - here it is! Finally, finally! Apologies for lateness - the first draft was not very good and then I've been really busy with revision (as my first exam is in three weeks!). Anyways, reviews are very welcome, as they help elleviate my termianl exam depression. So be nice. Tell me what you think. Let me know you guys are reading this, please?
Merciful forgetfulness
The living twin was whisked to St Mungo's hospital as fast as possible. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to accompany him. All the Weasleys were evacuated from Grimwauld Place on the double, and sent to his bedside, where I'm sure they drove the healers to the brink of insanity. Well, I say all of the Weasleys. I don't know what they did with the other twin… our hopes rocketed when I discovered the one to be alive, but no amount of wishful praying or pleading could encourage a spark of life to manifest itself in the other. Mrs Weasley had been taken with her family to the hospital, although whether she was with them or in a ward herself I didn't know. Grimwauld Place felt strangely empty, now that the red-haired brood was gone. Misty squeaked indignantly when I returned, furious at being locked up. I took him downstairs to the dim drawing room and selected one of the books from the book cases lining the walls of the room. I doubted that anyone else apart from Granger had even touched these volumes, but once you blew the dust away there was a treasure trove of books on the Dark Arts just waiting to be read. I settled into the armchair, Misty on my lap, and opened the tome.
I was halfway through a paragraph on a vile family of ghouls which had evolved especially long, double-jointed fingers to aid the strangulation of their victims when a pair of hands closed over my eyes. I yelped, startling Misty, and leapt up, spilling him from my lap. He gave an indignant hiss as he landed on the floor and a voice behind me laughed.
"You aren't half nervy, Malfoy." I spun around, angry.
"You shouldn't sneak up on me then, Potter!" He laughed again and my heart skipped to see the healthy colour in his cheeks.
"But, Draco…it's so much fun to see you lose your composure."
"You startled Misty," I grumbled. He raised an eyebrow.
"Misty?"
"My cat," I explained. I made kitty-calling noises and Misty emerged, eyeing Potter disdainfully. I sniggered. "You'll have to forgive him. He's only met purebloods before."
"Really?" Potter asked, crouching down and holding out his fingers. Misty gave them a cursory sniff, curled his lip and slunk over to me. "Agreeable as his master, I see. Why is he here?"
"He'll be living with me from now on," I said, reaching down and scooping him up. His purr vibrated against my chest as I rubbed around his ears. Potter slumped down on the sofa and I sat opposite him, Misty pooling into a tabby puddle on my lap. "Why are you so cheerful then?" He smiled roguishly.
"Guess what I did." I sighed.
"I despise guessing games. It's never worth the wait." He leant forward, as if including me in a secret.
"I put on my invisibility cloak and got my firebolt and flew above the whole of London!" I smiled condescendingly.
"Well, that only proves what I already knew: you're an irresponsible idiot who likes nothing more than running off without a word to anyone and playing with death." His hurt expression spurred me on. "And what if Voldemort caught you? Would we have known where you were? If you lived?" A sulky pout tugged the corners of his mouth and I laughed briefly, then grew serious again. "Whilst you were out playing tag with pigeons we found the twins." A mass of emotions – hope, fear, surprise – all flashed over his face.
"And?"
"One's definitely dead. The other's sort of alive." His face fell and he shook slightly.
"Sort of?"
"It's doubtful whether he will remain that way."
"Oh."
"Everyone's at St Mungo's," I added helpfully. "You could go and be full of solidarity…" He laughed harshly.
"No I can't. The Ministry's put a price on my head." I gaped.
"You what now?"
"That's right. I come to you as a fellow wanted criminal. In my absence I was charged with treason through conspiracy to disturb the peace, sheltering a wanted criminal and obstructing and perverting the course of justice."
"How is that treasonable? You haven't made a direct threat on the Ministry." He snorted.
"Draco, my very existence is perceived as a direct threat to the Ministry."
"There are actually Aurors out there looking for you?"
"Yes. I can't go out into public."
"How?" I asked incredulously. "What idiot did this?" He smiled poisonously.
"The motion was proposed to the Wizengamot by none other than its new Chief Warlock (or witch or whatever they call her because she's a woman). The person they chose to replace Dumbledore."
"Name?"
"Our very own Dolores Umbridge."
"Ah."
"Indeed." He shrugged. "They couldn't refuse her. The opinion of the Wizengamot barely counts now. Its agreement is perfunctory. Ever since Scrimgeour was voted emergency powers he's been running the Ministry as his own private Dictatorship." His voice dripped with scorn. I blinked, surprised. I'd been out of touch from the real world for too long.
"You know…. when it was confirmed that Voldemort had returned… with the support you had…it could at one time have been you running this country, Potter."
"I do not regret passing up on that opportunity," Potter replied gravely. I stroked Misty and he responded by rolling onto his back sleepily, inviting a belly rub. "I saw her, you know," Potter said softly. I frowned.
"Who? Umbridge?"
"No. I was hovering above the Ministry and this woman came out. She was like Rita Skeeter – talking to a pen which was writing her words on a piece of parchment that floated after her. It had to be her. Cleopatra Fama. The doormen were afraid of her."
"What does she look like?" I asked, intrigued. If I was going to take my revenge on her I'd need to know as much as I could. He considered.
"Youngish. I mean, older than us but around early twenties or something. Attractive. She dresses well. Good figure. Blonde." Unbidden the memory of the golden hair I had picked off Weasley's jacket flashed into my mind.
"And what has she to say about you being outlawed?"
"Oh, the usual. The paper's in Hermione's room, although it's not worth reading really. Just says how you've corrupted my mind and hopefully I'll come to my senses and do the right thing." I shifted slightly nervously.
"I can't imagine that happening." He grinned mischievously.
"Neither can I. Anyway, Umbridge only proposed that motion because she wants to see me in Azkaban. Scrimgeour is no longer interested in my co-operation. Just as well, as he was never going to get it."
A crackling of green flames in the fireplace made us both jump and look up, and Tonks spun into being. She looked breathless, but was smiling.
"Harry! There you are! It's George. The healers say he's going to make it!"
"Is he awake?" I asked. She started, as if she hadn't noticed me there before.
"No, sleeping. But it's real sleep, not that terrible half-dead state he was in."
"And Fred?" Potter whispered. Her face froze slightly.
"Fred… was already dead when we got there. They couldn't do anything for him." Potter nodded.
"Poor George. Poor Ron."
"Poor all of them," she replied. "I can't think how this is going to affect them." I can, I thought, and for just a second my mother's face floated before my eyes, and her scent wavered in the air. Potter studied me intently.
"Draco? Are you all right?" I looked up, and the movement of my head shook the tear out of my eye so that it splattered on my cheek. I wiped it away impatiently.
"Fine. There was something in my eye. This place is so dusty!"
"There used to be a House Elf, but he's gone now," Tonks said musingly. "His name was Kreacher. If anything it's got slightly better since then."
"What happened to him?" I asked, curious. Potter looked away.
"He hanged himself with a pair of his old mistress's stockings," she said distastefully. "Couldn't stand having Harry as a master."
"Are you really that bad?" I joked, but he didn't reply. Curious, I tested his mind defences and was surprised to find them rock solid. He was putting everything into shielding his thoughts. Slowly he turned to face me, and as our eyes met I wondered if I was the only House Elf killer in the room.
Potter stood up abruptly.
"I'm tired. I think I'll go up for a nap." Tonks nodded.
"The others are staying at the hospital tonight, so you two have the house to yourselves. I think they're actually releasing George tomorrow. He's coming to stay here for a while."
I slept badly that night. Voldemort stalked through the fog of my nightmares, trailing my mother on a long chain, which he'd rattle whenever she tried to stop and sit down. She was crying and I wanted to reach out to her, but iron bars blocked my way and I could only watch helplessly as he stalked on, trailing her in his wake. The fog swirled and I felt the coldness of Dementor breath and dark shapes flew around me as I fell to my knees, the cold pushing me down. The voices filled my head… the voices that always came when I was near the Dementors. My Father's voice, cold, disapproving.
"Why can't you be more?" And Voldemort, sounding sorrowful as he tortured me.
"You have failed me…" Aunt Bellatrix chimed in.
"Such a disappointment…" And Snape angry, bitter.
"Never speak to me of what happened that night." Their words hammered around and around my head and I wept, feeling smaller and smaller, falling into eternity.
"Weak…disgrace…fool…failure. Failure."
"I'll do better," I whispered. "I'll do better my lord. I promise. I, I can make it right."
"You can not redeem yourself," he told me. "I have no further use for you." And my fragile hope shattered. How long would I live now? I was useless, useless. Condemned to crawl into a hole and die. I clenched my fists and then the fog wrapped around me, enveloping me, choking me.
I woke up, crying, the blanket twisted tightly across my body, my hands scrabbling at the sheets.
Luckily the others were all too absorbed with George the following morning, so none of them commented on the bags under my eyes. They all arrived about midmorning, with George asleep in a wheelchair and Mummy Weasley half supported by her husband. She looked like she'd been crying a lot, her face sagging at the edges, as if she'd lost the will power to even hold an expression. Daddy Weasley escorted her upstairs, whilst Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Potter held hands and watched fearfully as Lupin levitated George's wheelchair up the stairs and into his room. None of the hospital lot had had an ounce of sleep the night before, so once it was confirmed that George would not wake up for a while they all trudged off to bed, leaving me and Potter and Daddy Weasley downstairs. I kept a wary eye on Daddy Weasley, just in case he should attempt to curse me again.
"How is Mrs Weasley?" Potter asked tentatively. Daddy Weasley sighed and ran his hand through his thinning hair.
"She keeps asking where Fred is," he said tiredly. "I can't bring myself to tell her he's…" He fell into silence.
"You look exhausted," Potter said softly. "You should get some sleep." He nodded.
"I'll go up. If George wakes up…"
"We'll wake you immediately," Potter soothed, gently propelling Daddy Weasley in the direction of the stairs. "But sleep now." Wearily he climbed the stairs, Potter watching until he was out of sight.
I killed time by playing with Misty. After an hour of chasing string he had worn himself out and collapsed in a heap on the carpet, his sides heaving. I laughed, lying down beside him and rubbing his ruff. Potter's footfall made me glance up, and he sat on the carpet beside me.
"Draco, there's something I need to ask you." I yawned and stretched luxuriously.
"What might that be?" He pulled off the sweatband, baring the Dark Mark on his wrist.
"Does yours hurt?" Frowning, I shook my head.
"No."
"Never?"
"Never. I mean, it did the first few months but after that nothing. Why? Does yours?"
"All the time," he whispered. I shrugged.
"Hardly surprising. What you have there is a direct link to Lord Voldemort." He smiled.
"My personal hotline to his mightiness?"
"If you wish. But contact with him causes you pain from what I've heard; and since you're wearing his calling card it's no wonder it's hurting you."
"What is it?" he asked tentatively. "I…I was unconscious when he did it. What has he done to me?" I sat up on my elbows and met his gaze.
"The truth? He takes a load of ingredients including dragon blood and various other things and he mixes it with his own blood to form a dye. He then slashes the skin off your arm and draws the Dark Mark onto your raw flesh with the dye. Then he says a spell under his breath which only he knows the exact words of and the skin forms over the Mark again."
"That's what he did to you?" Potter asked, astonished. I winced, remembering those cool fingers tracing themselves over my agonisingly tender flesh.
"Yes. It's what he'll have done to you too." He shuddered.
"And there's no way to undo it?" I blinked.
"To be honest I haven't actually tried. But when you sliced at it, it grew back didn't it?"
"Yes." He licked his lips. "I've tried other ways, Draco."
"Such as?"
"I tried cutting it off again… when I was in bed. None of you knew. But then it grew back again. When it healed. It healed really fast." I sighed.
"Why do you have to be so damnably brave and so very very silly, Potter? Is it a criterion for being heroic or something? If your blade had slipped you could have cut an artery!"
"Well, I didn't," he said irritably. "And then I tried to exorcise it…"
"You tried to exorcise your arm?" I yelped. "How stupid are you? People have died during exorcisms!"
"Well, I didn't!" he snapped. "Are you going to continue acting like a parent? Because if so I'm leaving." I laughed, rolling onto my back on the floor.
"Oh, now, don't be offended. It's your fault for being terminally foolish." He looked slightly upset.
"That's it. I'm off."
"Ouch! Does the truth sting then?" I teased. He growled.
"Why is talking to you so damn infuriating?" I snorted, rolling over so that I was staring straight up at him. As he watched, I raised my eyebrows.
"Because try as you might you can never hope to match my intelligence and wit. And it hurts."
"I'm not in the mood for games," he snapped, turning on his heel. "If anyone asks I've gone out." I shrugged as he flounced out, then winced as the portrait in the hallway started shrieking at him.
"Do you have to wake up the whole house just for the sake of a dramatic exit?" I yelled after him. He swore, and I heard him wrench the curtain across the picture. Her voice subsided and the front door slammed.
I sat up and surveyed the empty drawing room, bored. The silence was oppressive, smothering me, and I had this strange compulsion to go and check on the people asleep. I don't know why. I suppose I was just nosey and fed up and I needed something to do. I climbed the stairs and gently pushed open Weasley R's door.
He snores.
I had to fight the urge to snigger. He was so ungainly, sprawled across the bed with his long arms flung out like a gibbon in his stripy pyjamas. Just like some sort of animal, with the air rattling in and out as he noisily proclaimed to the world that he lived. I could have stopped that in an instant. I could have raised my wand and whispered one curse or I could have picked up the spare pillow on the floor and pressed it down on that hated face. In a second it would be over. But everyone would know it was me. Quietly I closed the door and tried the next one.
Granger slept far more delicately. Her breathing was deep and soft, her sparse chest rising and falling in time. She hadn't even bothered changing, just fallen on the bed. It was amazing, the thrill of power I felt, watching these people sleep. They had no idea, no idea at all that I was there and I could do anything. I could attack them if I wanted; I could hurt them. Softly I closed the door, before my bad impulses ruled me. The last thing I needed now was to give the highly strung crew an excuse to start a spot of Draco baiting.
The third door I opened on that landing was that of the Weasley girl's room. She snuffled in her sleep and I went cautiously, anxious not to wake her. As I watched she rolled to the left slightly, and then fell back to her original position, muttering to herself. I left her to the grip of whatever nightmares ensnared through her mind, remembering my terrible dream the night before, and progressed silently to the next floor. Sliding open the door I suddenly jumped as the figure on the bed moved and sat up.
"Who's there?" he asked, his voice hoarse. I froze, indecisive. Should I run or go forward? He blinked muzzily and I stepped back. The movement startled him and he cringed back. "No…Don't!" He whimpered and raised his arms above his head. Instantly I stepped forward, my voice soothing.
"Easy, easy. It's just me."
"Who?" he begged.
"Mal-," I stopped, not wanting to scare him. "Draco. It's Draco."
"Draco?" George whispered. He blinked his red-rimmed again and looked around. "Where am I? Where's Fred?"
"He's…" I paused, not certain how to continue. But he said it for me.
"No! I remember now. He's dead!" His face paled and I could see the terror lurking in his eyes as I drew closer, shutting the door behind me.
"You're safe now," I murmured reassuringly.
"He's gone. Fred… is gone."
"Yes. But it's over now." I had reached the bed now and he suddenly reached out and grabbed my shirt front.
"Malfoy! Do something for me!" I read his eyes.
"No."
"You don't know what I want!"
"Yes I do."
"It's a small request," he said bitterly, tears filling his eyes, his hands balling into fists in the material of my t-shirt.
"No it's not," I said gently. "And I will not."
"Please!" he cried.
"Why me?"
"Because you… You hate me! I can ask you to do it."
"Can't you even say it?" I asked softly. "Can't you even form the words?" He struggled to force them out.
"I w-want…"
"What?"
"I want you to k-kill me!" He looked panic-stricken, his face white, tears leaking from his eyes.
"I can't. Too many people are counting on you to live," I told him.
"Without Fred!" he wailed.
"Would he want you to die too?"
"You don't understand," he yelled. "You don't understand at all! Can't you see? Th-they were in my m-mind and I tried to fight them, I tried, I tried but He was t-too strong and He m-made me lift my hand with the wand and say the words and then F-fred…" I placed my hand on his lips and met his eyes.
"You don't want to complete that sentence."
"B-but I did it! It's true." I pulled out my wand and he eyed it hungrily.
"No," I whispered. "Not any more. Obliviate!"