Chapter 55 Draco
Chapter 55 Draco
Draco woke up groggy. His mouth was dry, his head was spinning, he could half see through heavy eyelids but everything was blurry.
‘He’s awake.’
Draco knew that voice, he searched his memories to match it to a person but his brain was moving frustratingly slow.
‘Is he?’ The answering voice was deep, stupid and familiar. Crabbe and Goyle.
Draco hadn’t thought about either of his ‘friends’ in months, they had ceased to exist for him.
‘Draco?’ Crabbe asked
‘Mmmphhhh.’ He tried to speak but his mouth wouldn’t form words in the same way his head couldn’t form coherent thoughts.
Draco was on the floor and there was carpet beneath him but the ground was uneven. He wasn’t at Malfoy Manor anymore, the air here was too cool and fresh.
Memories began to flash across his consciousness.
The electric intensity of his kiss with Dudley, Voldemort’s voice cruelly cutting through their passion. Lucius’s glee as he cast the cruciatus curse at him and then there was nothing. His memory went blank, like he had blinked out of existence.
He heaved his body forward as the memories came back, they were a physical pain. He must have cried out as well because Goyle was at his side with his hand on Draco’s back.
‘Draco? Are you okay?’
‘D-Don’t touch!’ He snapped. He couldn’t bear to have anyone near him, his whole world was wrong, knocked wildly off its axis.
Goyle backed off, his hands in the air.
Draco’s eyes were beginning to focus and he could see the genuine concern in his friends face. A small part of him felt guilty but his anger was far stronger. Draco had to physically dig his nails into his forearm to stop himself from exploding in fury. How could they take Dudley from him? Dudley was his! They belonged to each other.
‘Where are we? H-how’d I get here?’ Draco spoke through gritted teeth, he could see now that he was in some kind of tent, the walls and ceiling were canvas.
‘The forbidden forest. They’re attacking the castle.’ Draco was relieved to see concern and not excitement on Goyle’s face.
‘The dark lord told us to watch you.’ Goyle shifted uncomfortably.
‘He took your wand and told us to keep you here.’
‘What did you do Draco? Where’s your bloody hand gone?’ Crabbe interjected with far less patience and pointing to Draco’s stump.
‘I fell in love with Harry Potter’s muggle cousin.’ Draco said simply.
‘Ha good one!’ Crabbe laughed, it was an ugly sound.
Goyle said nothing, he watched Draco appraisingly, like he was written in a language Goyle didn’t speak.
Draco could still feel the sharp edge of the horcrux box in his robe pocket. They clearly hadn’t thought to search him properly. He had to fight every urge in his body not to apparate straight to Azkaban, but he would never have made it that far and there was anti-apparition charms all over the island and he had a promise to keep. He had to destroy the horcrux. It was all that mattered. He had to do it for Dudley. Draco’s head was still swimming and it felt like every muscle in his body was still spasming with the aftershocks of the cruciatus curse but he had to find a way out of here. Now.
Goyle was holding his wand, he had always been smarter than Draco had given him credit for. Crabbe however had left his unattended on his seat.
‘Will you help me to the chair?’ He tried his best to sound pathetic.
‘Sorry about before.’ He added.
Crabbe knelt down and hooked his arm around Draco hauling him up onto his feet.
Draco hobbled awkwardly over to the chair, feigning the level of his incapacitation.
He placed his hands on the seat, picking up Crabbe’s wand as he did so. He quickly turned and pointed it at his friend.
‘Petrificus totalis!’
Crabbe’s frozen body hit the carpet with a thud, shock painted his round face.
Draco turned again to point Crabbe’s wand at Goyle. The wand felt wrong but it still did as Draco asked.
Goyle’s hands were already up.
‘Twenty minutes.’ Goyle said calmly.
‘I can give you twenty minutes headstart, then I’ll tell them you jinxed us and escaped.’
‘You swear?’ Draco pushed. Trying to force tears back into his eyes.
‘I swear. Just, Draco... if you’re trying to stop him… good luck.’ Draco saw the kindness in him.
‘Thank you.’ Draco replied, he placed his hand on Goyle’s and Goyle placed his on top. They stood there for a beat, years of friendship hung in the air between them, then Draco ducked out of the tent.
He was on the north side of the forbidden forest, he had been placed in a tent on the fringes of Voldemort’s makeshift camp. People were rushing backwards and forwards through the camp, carrying cauldrons, food and large bags. A large fire was crackling in the centre. A troll was sat calmly at the edge of the camp, picking something out of his ears and eating it. No one noticed him as he crept his way round to the back of the tent and out of sight.
He needed to get south, to the black lake.
Draco’s feet were still bare as he ran as fast as he could along the perimeter of the forest. Staying just within the tree line for cover. He could see the castle to his right. It was cocooned in a glowing orange bubble. Draco couldn’t help but be comforted by it. People were fighting back. Hogwarts was fighting back.
The ground was rough and uneven, stones and twigs tore up his feet but he kept running and running until he reached the shore of the black lake.
Draco had always had a strange affinity for the black lake. It seemed to unnerve most students, the surface of the lake was always still, sometimes looking out on it was like looking at an exquisite painting. The sprawling ancient castle or dense trees of the forest were reflected perfectly on its canvas. Draco found it hypnotic, his trips to the lake had been meditative. He had come to the lake often back when he was at Hogwarts. Students were not allowed to swim in the black lake, it was too dangerous, filled with grindylows, mermaids and giant squid. Draco hadn’t cared, as soon as he had perfected the bubble head charm in second year he had spent whole afternoons under its surface, he would swim its murky depths several times a week. It was on one of these afternoon swims that he had found his secret passage into Hogwarts, he prayed now that it was still there and that the caste would let him in.
It smelled of clean wet earth at the waters edge and Draco breathed it in. A dense mist was rolling silently across the surface as Draco stood looking out at the vastness of it. He felt very small but big at the same time. He could barely recognise the person he had been the last time he had stood here. So much had changed, yet the lake remained. He cast the bubble head charm and plunged into the water.
Everything was a browny green under the water, strange creatures fled quickly as if repelled by a magnet. Horned Starfish and Lobalugs drifted past him through the water. Anemones and a thousand different types of seaweed floated lazily in the currents. Draco descended further, trying to find his bearings. The tunnel he was looking for was close by but he hadn’t been down here in a long time and it was well hidden.
He swam deeper, it became harder to see as the light couldn’t penetrate so far down. It wasn’t long before Draco found what he was looking for. It was an ancient cracked archway. Grey stone, with a serpent carved into the keystone at the top. It was covered in algae and barnacles, barely discernible from the rest of the lake floor. The arch was mostly buried in the silt of the bottom of the lake but there was enough room to swim through. Draco aimed straight for it and entered, the grey stone continued through the tunnel and Draco swam, kicking his feet furiously with all of the energy he could muster. Eventually the water got shallower and shallower and Draco was able to touch the bottom, he emerged onto a tiny beach.
He had spent hours here in his previous life, reading books or napping on this little beach.
A large mirror stuck out of the sand, silver and inlaid with emeralds. A snake wound its way around the edge. This was it, Dudley said a silent prayer begging the universe to let him in. He took a tentative step up to the mirror and haltingly stepped through. A warmth rippled over him, like he had stepped through warm water and was on the other side. Draco was inside Hogwarts.
The mirror led into an abandoned cupboard in the Slytherin common room. Tucked out of the way in a section of the dungeon just before the boys dormitories.
Students had tried to use it before but anything put inside mysteriously disappeared so nobody used it anymore. Draco liked to imagine mermaids swimming around the black lake wearing Pansy Parkinson’s favourite coat and various other items that had been lost to the cupboard over the years.
Draco timidly eased open the door and hopped out of the cupboard. The Slytherin common room was deserted but it looked like it had been ransacked. Clothing was strewn around the room, open packets of pumpkin pasties, books and quills littered the floor. Clearly the Slytherin students had left in a rush.
Draco hurried through the common room and left Slytherin house behind him. He ran through the dungeon corridors and stopped abruptly when he realised he didn’t actually know where he was running to. He needed a way to destroy the horcrux, he needed basilisk venom. His best bet was Snape’s potions store.
Draco made off in the direction of the potions classrooms, luckily they were close by. The dungeons were deserted, it was eerie, the wet slap of Draco’s feet reverberating off the walls was the only sound.
Draco yanked open the storeroom door, it was a small room but the walls were lined with narrow shelves, each one holding fifty or so glass jars and vials. Snape probably had them organised in some kind of system but Draco couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Each specimen was labelled in Snape’s swirling script. Lacewing flies, bezoars, mung dung, dittany, dragons blood, ground bicorn, dried nettles, doxy eggs, shrivelfig…Draco read every one, hoping for ‘basilisk venom’ but it was not there. He determined to read each one but to no avail.
Draco read the label on the last vial, a green liquid was held inside ‘veritaserum’ he pocketed it, he wasn’t sure why, but it was a useful and rare potion to have.
Now what? He was running on pure adrenaline. He had to keep going or he would crash. He could feel the horcrux pulsing in his pocket. Could he find Harry? Who else could help? Who else even knew horcruxes existed? Dumbledore? But he was dead. His portrait was here through. It was the only idea Draco could come up with.
Dumbledore’s office was in the top of the west tower. Draco would have to negotiate his way through half the castle.
He set off, hurtling up the stairs to the main castle. There were people here, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, teachers and order members, but none of them paid him any mind at all. The main castle was in utter chaos. The orange bubble was holding but as Draco rounded a corner to enter a courtyard he could see tears, in several places, the bubble was starting to rip open.
People hurried past him, wands aloft and panic on their faces.
Two Ravenclaw girls huddled together on a staircase, hugging and crying. They couldn’t have been older than second years. Draco hesitated, he wanted to stop and help but there was nothing he could do. He continued on, weaving through bodies, straight past the great hall and up several sets of stairs, over the bridge and up into the western section of the castle. He made it all the way to the griffin that guarded Dumbledore’s office. He was about to utter the password when a voice called his name.
‘Oi Malfoy! Where the hell do you think you’re going?’