Chapter 25 Draco
Chapter 25 Draco
Draco was sat in a library at an old desk. He was flicking through the pages of an old book. Draco felt a little queasy, the book was horrible.
‘The strength of a horcrux is directly proportional to the number of souls sacrificed…’ Draco turned the page.
‘Flesh of a follower is also required, the willingness of the participant is irrelevant to the success of the incantation…’
Feeling dread in his stomach Draco slammed the heavy book shut, and jolted awake at the same time.
Horcruxes. That’s what it was called. Voldemort had made a horcrux last night, it was bad, really really bad.If he’d been successful Voldemort would be invincible, completely untouchable. The order had no chance of winning. They didn’t even know, they didn’t know how the odds were now stacked against them.
Pain clawed through him, up both legs and through his torso down to his fingertips. He didn’t know if he could open his eyes yet, the light in the room felt blinding and his head pounded even with them firmly closed. Flashes of memories came back to him in pieces. A drawing on a fridge, a wave of blood gushing from a vulnerable bare neck, a knife glinting as it came straight down onto his arm. His arm. His hand. Fuck.
His eyes bolted open, as he had expected the light assaulted him and he had to blink hard several times before he was able to see properly. It was true. It was real, not just a nightmare. Draco looked down at his nonexistent hand, where he could still somehow feel his fingers, fingers that weren’t there. His ring must have been the object Voldemort had chosen for his horcrux, it had entered the cauldron at the same time as his hand, unless Voldemort had added a different object after Draco had passed out, why bother though, if there was already an object attached to one of your ingredients, the sickest two for one deal imaginable. Pure blistering panic ran through him, all of a sudden he was struggling to get a proper breath, his heart rate shot up, he was flooded with fresh adrenaline. His left hand was gone. He couldn’t look at what was left, he shut his eyes again and tried to steady himself. Someone had hastily wrapped a bandage around the stump. Denial hit. It hadn’t happened, couldn’t have, his father wouldn’t have allowed it, he couldn’t leave his heir mutilated. He’d open his eyes in a moment and his hand would be there. This was just a nightmare. He tried to lie to himself, to allow himself the comfort of denial but the rational part of him knew it wasn’t true.
With his eyes closed he really felt like he had a hand, he could feel his fingers, feel the fabric under his palm. He opened his eyes again and stared at his nonexistent hand. It hurt, a dull but consistent throbbing. It was real. Draco felt so violated, they had stolen something that belonged to him. His own body, without even bothering to ask, they just took him and used him up. He was an ingredient to them, something to be bought, sold and used. Barely worth the air he was breathing. Draco imagined his body cut up, placed in jars in a store cupboard. That’s all he was to Voldemort, a thing, an object.
He was still in the Riddle house, the floorboards were the same and the damp rotten smell still hung in the air. He had been put in a small room, perhaps once used as storage or a servant bedroom, he had been placed on the ground on a cotton sheet that looked like it had been taken from one of the pieces of furniture, under his head as a makeshift pillow was the duffle bag his father had thrown at him in the study the night before.
Draco was fizzing with a heady cocktail of emotions, he was so sad, too sad to even comprehend, his hand, a part of him had been taken, quite literally he was cut up, he could have stayed in that room on the dusty floor and let the house fall into ruin around him, he would have been happy to wither and die alongside the house, to be turned into nothing, let the ivy grow up around him and consume him, pull him into a dark and unending sleep. Draco might have let that happen if it wasn’t for the roiling anger that engulfed him, he was so angry it lit him up from within. The anger was stronger than the sadness, so much stronger that it almost eclipsed it entirely. He would get them back for this somehow, he would get revenge for what they had done if it killed him he didn’t care. They would not get away with this. Even if he had to play along, to act the part, he would do it. He was not above playing a long game, it would make it sweeter when he eventually killed them. He would kill them, he would kill Voldemort for this. Except. He literally couldn’t, Voldemort was untouchable now. Fuck. But draco was undeterred there must be a way to destroy a horcrux.
Draco struggled but eventually sat himself up properly, he was going to have to adapt to this quickly.
Draco tentatively pulled the bandage off his stump. There was no blood, the wound had clearly had some magical intervention because it was already mostly healed, all that was left was a neat red scar along the base, a perfectly straight line. He held his stump aloft and was examining it as best he could with his still blurry eyes, he had calmed down somewhat, the tornado that had raged inside him settled and what remained was a tense stillness. He felt like a full sky before a torrential downpour, heavy and silent.
There was a light knock at the door, but before Draco could answer his father had entered the room. He was dressed in a fresh pair of robes, such a dark green that they were almost black.
‘Draco. You’re awake’ Lucius said stating the obvious.
‘Did you know?’ Draco asked evenly, no hint of anger or fear.
His father knew exactly what he was asking but Lucius continued to play with him.
‘Know what?’
‘Did you know he was going to do this?’ Draco gestured to his stump with his right hand.
‘Does it matter?’
‘It matters to me.’
Lucius said nothing for a while, his expression was unreadable, Draco just couldn’t place it. Regret or indifference? His brows were relaxed but his jaw was clenched.
‘When Voldemort raised the knife, I knew what was going to happen.’ Lucius said eventually.
It was all the answer Draco needed, he might have known for months or not known at all, what mattered was that when Voldemort raised that knife his father could have saved him, but he chose not to. Lucius watched as Voldemort mutilated his own flesh and blood. Draco felt a strange wash of relief over him in that knowledge, he had always craved approval from Lucius, he had done terrible things to win the favour of his father, even when he told himself that he didn’t need it there was a sad desperate part of him that continued to crave attention and love from Lucius. That part was gone now. Lucius had killed it himself and Draco was grateful. He felt free from his father for the first time.
‘Okay.’ Draco said eventually.
‘Okay?’ His father looked quizzical.
‘Okay. When can we leave?’ Draco wanted nothing more than to be back with Dudley. Dudley. What would he do when he saw Draco? He might find him disgusting now. Draco looked down at his stump, he still half expected to see something there. What if Dudley hated it? Draco hated it, could he really ask someone else to look past it?
‘We can’t leave yet, the dark lord says the cauldron has to burn for a week. Dolohov has gone back into the village to refresh the memory charms on the remaining muggles, the dark lord has graciously allowed you to rest.’
Graciously? Draco had to fight hard to not punch his father in the face at that remark.
But more importantly the ritual was not complete? It still needed to burn for a week, there was still time to stop him. Draco’s heart leapt at the thought.
‘Fine.’ Draco said not making eye contact. Lucius shifted on his feet.
‘You’ll be expected to take a shift watching the cauldron later on.’
As if reading his mind Lucius added.
‘Don’t do anything stupid Draco, I promise you it won’t be worth it. I’ll come for you when it’s your turn.
‘Fine.’ He said still not looking at his father. Lucius swiftly left the room.
Draco barely moved for the next few hours, he sat on the floor imagining all of Dudley’s potential reactions to seeing him again, now mutilated. He stared and stared at his wrist like he would maybe wake up or perhaps he could will his hand to grow back if he tried hard enough. Draco wondered absentmindedly if he was in shock but it felt more like grief, it was that numb feeling you get when someone dies, before you can fully accept it there’s that limbo when your brain can’t fully comprehend it, you know you should be crying but it’s not real yet.
Eventually his reverie was interrupted, Dolohov knocked and opened the door,
‘Your turn’ was all he said.
Draco struggled to his feet, still a little lightheaded, he saw stars and had to stand still for a few seconds before he was able to move. Draco looked at Dolohov, he had red eyes, bloodshot and tired, probably from traipsing up and down the village obliviating all of the muggles. Still there was something in them, it might have been sympathy or perhaps relief that it was Draco’s hand currently cooking in the next room and not his own. Dolohov led him back to the cauldron. Yaxley was reclined on a fold out camping chair as the cauldron simmered in front of him, the wood and animal carcasses burning underneath it. A pile of fresh wood was next to Yaxley.
‘Add more when it needs it, your shift is two hours, Bella will take over. If you need someone use the mark.’
Yaxley gave the instructions as if he was telling Draco how to feed his cat not aid an evil dictator in his dark magical ritual to rip his own soul apart in the name of immortality. The ubsurdity of the situation almost made Draco laugh.
‘Okay’ he mumbled in reply as he took Yaxley’s place in the camping chair, grateful for somewhere to sit, he still felt annoyingly very weak.
It wasn’t until Yaxley and Dolohov left him that Draco remembered his hand was in there somewhere. That part of him still existed in some way and it was in this room, in the pot directly in front of him being defiled with dark magic, he wanted to climb inside and get it back, stick it back on somehow, make himself whole again.
Draco realised that it was not only his hand lay inside that cauldron but also the souls of so many innocent muggles, Melissa’s blood, a part of Voldemort’s soul. Draco hadn’t seen how he had removed it but the mere thought turned his stomach.
He could do it, he could extinguish the fire and ruin Voldemorts plan. Ruin the ritual so that it didn’t work, keep Voldemort mortal for a bit longer in the hopes someone would kill him before he could try again. It would almost certainly be a death sentence for him, and by extension Dudley would probably not last long either. His heart heaved at the thought of Dudley’s death. But Draco knew Dudley would agree to it. Dudley was brave and good and he would sacrifice himself to keep Voldemort mortal, Draco knew that for sure, the question was, was he strong enough to sign his own death warrant. If Draco extinguished the fire it would be tantamount to suicide, he would have to kill himself, he would rather go out at his own hand than after prolonged torture, which would almost certainly be his fate if Voldemort caught him.
Draco stared into the fire for a long time, watching the flames lick up the sides of the metal, staring as the wood blackened and turned to ash.
It was a simple maths equation in the end. Would more lives be saved if Draco sabotaged this horcrux than if he allowed it to continue? The answer was an obvious yes.
The question now was how to destroy the horcrux. Clearly it was not yet complete or Voldemort would not have them guarding the cauldron 24/7 so if he put out the fire and let the cauldron go cold surely that would disrupt the magic and the horcrux would die. An eerie calm came over Draco. He felt proud of himself in a strange way, what he was doing was brave, it’s what Dudley would do. He was going to die, but it would be for a greater purpose and it would be painless. Draco knew the spell and he would do it quickly. Draco stood on shaking legs and raised his wand, he would use ‘aguamenti’ to smother the fire and then ‘glacius’ to kill the heat immediately. Just as his mouth began to form the vowel he was hit by a sharp blow to the back of his head.
‘Immobulus!’
It was his fathers voice. Immediately Draco’s limbs were no longer his own. Frozen in place like a statue.
‘Stupid stupid boy.’
Lucius walked around him coming into Draco’s eye line.
‘You never cease to disappoint me.’ Lucius sounded genuinely forlorn.
With a flick of his wrist Lucius sent Draco careening back into the camping chair.
‘The dark lord trusts us Draco, I simply cannot have you putting that in jeopardy. Can you imagine what he would do to me? To your mother, if you succeeded? I am not sorry for this Draco.’
Lucius raised his wand
‘Morbo simulare’
Immediately Draco felt his limbs relax as he was released from his fathers spell, unfortunately the same time he felt his body temperature rocket, he was instantly sweating and clammy. It was like he had a terrible flu all of a sudden, his head was swimming and throbbing, he barely felt able to lift an arm.
Lucius touched his mark.