Chapter 8: Grey Areas

So after the second chance. After you have decided who you're meant to be. You must decide the purpose of this person you're meant to be. And that's the part that makes everyone want to turn back.

Four years ago.

I stand in the Malfoy Dungeons. A place I refused to visit for the past couple years. Could you blame me? The number of classmates, friends, teachers, and strangers that I've seen dragged down there. Dragged screaming- some never to return. And the ones that did….they might as well have stayed down there.

The first thing I did was clear all the dungeons. I cleaned it fully. And though it's new look made the old cellar look unrecognizable, every detail of what it used to be was etched into my mind. But like Elysium had given me a new purpose, I decided to give the dungeons a new purpose as well.

"This is where you've decided to operate from?" I hear a familiar voice ask. My late Godfather, Severus Snape.

I give a weird smile, liking the disapproval in his voice. "It doesn't look that bad. Plenty of room for my activities."

"And plenty of room for someone to stumble down here and discover your activities." He retorts.

"Which is why I put a disillusion charm on the door. To the outside, the door to the dungeons no longer exists."

The ghost of my godfather huffs. I know he's wishing to find another flaw in my base of operations, but he won't. It took me days to figure it all out, playing devil's advocate with myself everytime a new idea popped into my head.

Something sparked in me when Potter came to visit me the other night. That I didn't have to be the Draco Malfoy others wanted me to be. That my father wanted me to be. That my Godfather wanted me to be- or the rest of my "advisors" in Elysium. I had to be what everyone needed me to be.

And now it was time to figure out why.

"You're questioning your purpose again." I hear my godfather say. "It's like mood swings with you."

I frown. "Is that bad?" I ask, feeling like a child at Hogwarts again- trying to sort my feelings.

"You do remember rescuing that young woman from that Death Eater the other day? Do your remember how she looked at you when you apprehended him?"

"She looked at me as if-"

"As if you were bloody Harry Potter." Snape interrupted me, not waiting for me to spew my pathetic answer. "A symbol. A protector. To remind them that there is someone looking out for the people in this community."

I turn to him, and it's awfully scary to look at him. He looks exactly as he did the last time I saw him- before Voldemort killed him those years ago. It scares me that one day I will be older than him, and look older than him.

"But...why me?" I ask. Why me?

Our eyes meet, and I'm rooted to the spot. I feel like I've asked another childish question, but I honestly wanted to know. What possessed the four greatest wizards in the world to pick me, Draco Malfoy, to be the guardian of the Wizarding Community? Little did I know, that my answer was coming.

"Look into our past, Draco." Snape says. "Did any of us start as famously as Harry Potter?"

Trying to skip the history lesson in my head. "No, but-"

"Despite our past, we became the greatest wizards of our time. Each of us asking, why us? But I look at you Draco. I look at the people we have inspired- for the good and the bad, and I realized why. And that is a purpose who have to learn for yourself."

At his last words, he disappears in thin air. I stand there for a moment, pondering Snape's words. I think back to the lady in the alley. When Snape first asked me the question, I was convinced that the lady looked afraid or confused- that she thought I was going to hurt her next. But I then realized that it wasn't confusion at all.

It was hope.

Now.

"Two brandys please." Granger says.

I raise my brow. "Taking a page out of Seamus's book I see."

She laughs, and I feel my stomach turn in knots. I had just saved her life and fought off at least five brutes the night before- yet sitting beside her in this normal hotel bar made me queasy with fear.

The bartender hands us our drinks. I'm not sure what to say, and from the way Granger is running her finger across her glass, she doesn't either. I clear my throat, once again shaking the nerves away.

"Were you really going to turn Seamus in?" Not the best conversation starter, but I had no other ideas where to start.

Granger took a sip of her drink. "At that moment...I think I wanted to. But...last night. Had the Vigilante not known that we would be here…" She chuckled. "We wouldn't be having these drinks right now."

I give a small smile. "So, should we be thanking the Vigilante?"

"For what? Illegally prying into Seamus's mind? Or rescuing me?"

"Why do you do that?" I laugh, taking a sip of my own drink.

She laughs as well. "It's just...the Vigilante is such a gray area. He did save my life, which I'm thankful for. But at the same time he forcefully extracted information from a Ministry officer."

I try not to get defensive, but I can feel a gruffness in my voice. "Well, it isn't like he could've walked in the Ministry and asked for it."

"But the question is: Why does he need it? He knows why we need it, but we don't know his agenda. What is his purpose?"

My mind races back to the conversation me and Snape had in the Malfoy dungeons four years ago, when I was questioning the Vigilante's purpose as well.

"He followed me to that alley for a reason," She went on. "And it wasn't to save me. I just wish I knew- I wish we knew, why he does what he does."

She laughs to herself, pressing her lips against her glass. I look at her, secretly wanting to hear her laugh again.

"What?" I ask.

"It's silly," She starts. "But...all my life I've been able to figure anyone and everything that comes my way. At Hogwarts, the war, and now the Ministry. And here comes this Vigilante, who seems to be always ten steps ahead of me-" She looks at me, and I try not to melt into her brown eyes.

"He's the one person I can't figure out."

Now I understood why she was so aggressive with Seamus. Though she didn't outrightly say it, I now knew her deepest desire. To find out who the Vigilante was. But not him telling her who he was, or revealing his identity to her one random night. But for her to tie the clues and the evidence together- to find that the man sitting beside her was him.

I take another sip of my drink, this one longer than before. I honestly wish I could tell her why the Vigilante does what he does. I wish I could tell her truth. Not because it makes me uneasy that the smartest witch in the world can't figure out who the Vigilante is.

But because...it's her.

"So, what would you do if you figured him out?" I ask, my own interest peaking. "The Vigilante."

Granger shrugged. "Ask him why, I guess. Why does he feel the need to do what he does? To go against the law? To harass Ministry officials? Only to put his life before everyone else."

I frown. "So you would be less interested in who he is?"

"Who he is doesn't matter." Granger said bluntly, as if that part of the Vigilante wasn't interesting enough to her. "If it did, he wouldn't be running around in the middle of the night with a mask on."

"So, you're saying he's more than just a man?"

She turns in her seat to look at me, and in that moment I'm frozen. She bites her lip, looking at me as if she doesn't know how to say her next words.

"When the Vigilante was fighting off our kidnappers, I didn't see him as just this guy fighting the bad guys. I saw an ideal. I saw...hope. It was like…" She blushed. "Seeing Dumbledore walk in a room on really bad day at Hogwarts."

She then frowned, turning back to her glass. "But even Dumbledore had secrets. Outside agendas. Just like the Vigilante...a grey area."

Later that night.

I return to the roof of the hotel, my eyes glued to the streets for anything suspicious. But though my eyes seemed focused on the street, my mind was focused somewhere else. The gears in my head were turning mercilessly from the conversation Granger and I had at the pub. It was...refreshing...to challenge her thoughts on the Vigilante. To know what she really thought about him.

"Penny for your thoughts, Mister Malfoy?"

I recognized his voice immediately, and felt that spring of hope Granger described in the bar. But then I remembered her next words, and that hope faltered. It twisted. How could someone so great, be so grey?

"I'm helping people right?" I ask, sounding like a small child. But I knew he wouldn't turn my question away. "What I'm doing...it's a good thing?"

"Four years." Dumbledore chuckled. "And you still have to ask that question?"

He walks up beside me, a ghost in the night. He's wearing his usual light-blue robes and moon-rimmed glasses. If anyone could see us standing side-by-side- his bright robes and my black suit- they would think we were opposites. But we were exactly the same.

"You heard what she said." I respond. "The Vigilante is a grey area. I saved her life, but what about what else I've done? Lying to her and Potter? Breaking into Gringotts?"

"You think it would be easier to tell them the truth? To expose yourself as the Vigilante?"

I don't answer, because I know the answer. Of course it would be simple, telling them I was the Vigilante. But then what? Would they trust me? Would they turn me in? What would happen to Seamus? What would happen to them...if they chose to keep my secret?

"Sometimes Draco, we must do what is right...rather than what is easy. And right now, keeping Miss Granger in the dark is the right thing to do."

He turns to look at me. "I know how you feel about her, and I don't want to see you hurt again."

My throat goes dry. I know what he's referring to. Astoria. It took me four years to finally open up and feel for someone again. And I couldn't let that happen again. The thought of it made me sick, and the thought of it happening again- this time Granger being the victim- it made me feel even worse.

We stand in silence, my eyes actually watching the streets this time to keep my mind from wandering to that night. I can still feel that guttural scream that came from my body when I saw her there. Sitting lifelessly in chair. I could still hear the chains rattling furiously as I tried to fight my way out of them, just so I could get to her. I couldn't let that happen again.

"So, what did we learn from our altercation last night?" Dumbledore asks, changing the subject.

"Five bogeys," I saw immediately, finding relief in talking about something else. "All Russian...could've been working with Nott. They said the 'boss' was coming, but I didn't stick around to see who that was. Too busy saving Granger."

"Hm."

His 'hm' catches my attention, which tells me that he knows something. Or in Dumbledore's case, he's assumed something that will likely be true as the days go by.

"Spit it out, Albus." I say, turning back to the street.

"Their boss was coming," The old wizard started. "Yet they stopped to kidnap you and Miss Granger. What would Harlem Nott want with Hermione Granger and the Vigilante?"

I frown. "Are you saying Granger wasn't supposed to be kidnapped?"

"No, Mister Malfoy. I think you weren't supposed to be kidnapped."

A light bulb flashes in my head. My mind races back to the moment when Hermione and I were bagged. I was following her, but could it be possible that someone else was following her, too? Someone who was close enough to get us both.

"Hermione Granger is the top Magical Creature Specialist in the department." Dumbledore continued. "I wouldn't be surprised if someone knew she was looking into Harlem's files."

I growled. "I also wouldn't be surprised if someone was spreading that knowledge to Harlem himself."

"I have more assumptions, but I think some recon is in order. Don't you think, Draco?"

But I can barely hear his last words. I had already dived off the hotel roof, heading to the exact location from last night. Someone else knew that we were here, not just the Vigilante. And if the situation was exactly what I thought it was...Hermione was in trouble. Serious trouble.

"Seamus." I turn on my telepathic link.

"I heard everything, mate. What do you need me to do?"

"Keep watch on Granger, make sure no one enters the hotel."

"Wouldn't it be easier if you watched Hermione?"

I floo to the tunnel that I used to escape the other night. I hover my hand across the door, no magical current. They must have added extra security.

"Sometimes you gotta do what's right, rather than what's easy, Seamus."

I open the door and step inside the tunnel, feeling my wand feel as powerless as a small stick. Whatever was waiting for me on the other side of the door, I would have to face with brains and brawn. I had half the mind to turn back.

"That's such a Dumbledore thing to say." Seamus says, as the door closes and surprisingly locks.

It's just me and the music now.