Chapter Four
THE CROOKED HEART
“The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on.” - Joseph Heller
Chapter Four: The First Culling
It had been two wretched days since the last meeting. During that time, Draco had begun to feel worse than ever about his current position, and had begun to doubt what he had always thought to be true. It shook his reality to its core and he had been walking around in a bubble for several days - like it was not his life he was currently living, but someone else’s and he was just observing it.
Draco stood in his usual place on the dais with Snape and Avery either side of him. He looked down at the thousand strong mass of aristocrats, thieves, businessmen and murderers chattering excitedly together about the massacre coming. They wore expressions that he had only imagined vampires and other such creatures’ would wear. The look of blood-lust. He stifled his need to gulp.
Draco had known this day was coming for some time, yet he had always found ways to push it out of his mind. And now that the day had come, everything was happening much too fast for his comprehension.
The chatter began to die away as Nagini slithered onto the dais from the door at the back, the signal that the Dark Lord was coming. The snake’s master followed behind him not a moment later and the chatter died - fear took its place.
The Dark Lord stood before them in silence, surveying them all but meeting no one’s eye. Draco could see that he enjoyed watching these men and women, many of high social station, stand in awe and fear of him. It made him seem petty to Draco, though Draco did not understand why he hadn’t noticed it sooner.
“My servants,” his hiss echoed off the cave walls. “Today is a great day for us.” No one dared to even breathe too loudly. Draco noticed that Harris Houghton had in fact stopped breathing, due to his deviated septum, and was turning an interesting shade of blue. “Today is the day that the world, magic and muggle alike, will see just how powerful we are.” The Dark Lord’s voice quickened and became more impassioned. “Today is the day that muggles and Mudbloods will know their place in this world … in my world. Terror will reign!”
The crowd could not contain their blood thirst and they began to scream in anticipation. They raised their hands and stomped their feet, their screeching echoing off the walls. They sounded like hyenas. Like banshees, like wraiths … like death. Draco wanted to block his ears; he had never heard anything more disturbing in his life. He felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest and he began breathing heavily. The Dark Lord, however, seemed pleased. “Yes! Terror will reign and the streets of muggle England will run red with blood! Today is the first day of the rest of their lives. Because their lives will become ours! Today will be remembered! Every one of you will be glorified in our history! Today is the first culling.”
The roar that met these words were deafening and Draco could not help but cover his ears and hope that in all the excitement no one noticed the look of complete and utter panic on his face.
“Go now! Follow your leaders and return to me, my children, with your appetites finally sated!” The roar grew to fever pitch and Draco could feel the cave floor moving beneath the platform. He tried to catch his breath but had only a second before Avery had grabbed him by the neck of his robes and pulled him off the dais. “You’re with me, Malfoy. Come on!”
Draco was dragged from the cave with a group of at least twenty men and about three women, led by Avery. Draco noticed that Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were also in this group, and almost as if by habit, they stood either side of him.
They ran down the mountain path - not an easy feat with only the moon for light - until they reached a beaten down muggle car. Avery held up his wrist to look at the time. “We’re first!” he shouted as Bellatrix ran towards the car, a group of men and women in tow. Draco noticed that a few of them had lit their wands and he felt foolish for not thinking to do the same.
“Well hurry up then! It changes destination every thirty seconds!” she told him. “And don’t forget to apparate out, the Portkey won’t follow you!”
“Quickly then, everyone grab hold of the car!” Draco robotically followed orders and went to hold onto a rusty windscreen wiper but was nearly violently knocked aside by an overly enthusiastic man. He had to be a least seven feet tall and about as wide, he had a mangy beard and beady little black eyes. He was panting in anticipation and Draco moved aside and placed his hand carefully on the bonnet.
His fear had reached its peak, and suddenly the Portkey began sending them forth. The air whistled loudly in his ear and the feeling of being dragged by every limb in different directions was upon him. It ended quickly and he was dropped heavily to the concrete ground in a heap.
The silent noise that had been shrieking at him back at the mountain had now disappeared. He looked up and down the muggle street he now lay in. Only the fear remained. There was complete stillness at first, as they each took in their new surrounding. It did not last. The huge man gave a mighty howl and ran into the nearest home, his wand held high. The others began to follow, some on their own some in pairs, sprinting to the houses.
Avery grabbed Draco’s robes again and led him into the street opposite the one they had landed in. Draco felt like he was in a dream as he began to hear the screams from the other streets and every fibre of his being was begging him to wake up.
Avery led him up a gardened path and into a modest house. He had only a moment to look to his right and see an extremely overweight father and son sitting in front of a strange box before Avery had waved his wand and performed the killing curse on both. Their lifeless bodies slumped in the couch before they had even realised they had company.
Draco’s breath caught. His head began screaming at him. Escape. Escape! ESCAPE! It was all happening too fast.
“I’ll go to another house,” Avery said with a new spring in his voice. “Look around here and kill anyone else.” With that he raced out of the home in search of fresh prey. Draco stood still in the entrance, his eyes still on the slumped bodies and his ears filled with the screams coming from down the neighbouring streets.
“What is all this noise?” A woman’s voice came from behind him. “Vernon, Mrs. Figg must be having trouble with the ca…” The voice cut off as the woman spotted Draco.
The tall, thin, bird-like lady had an armful of freshly ironed clothes and looked Draco up and down with wide eyes. Her face began to pale as she took in Draco’s robes and the wand in his hand. It almost seemed like she knew what he was. She slowly looked behind Draco and saw her husband and son. She dropped the ironing and ran towards them, nearly knocking Draco over in the process.
Draco watched in horror as her face began to crumple and she shook her son by the shoulders ferociously, trying to wake him up. But she could not.
“I … I …” Draco didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. He was feeling faint and his head and heart and legs were screaming at him to escape. But he didn’t know where. There was no where for him to go.
The woman looked up at Draco, her face suddenly hard and fists clenched. “You! You-”
“No!” Draco shouted. “I did-didn’t … it wasn’t me. I swear it!”
The woman, far to consumed in her sudden boiling hate seemed to neither notice nor care that Draco was talking. She ran for him her arms outstretched as if ready to bowl him over.
“Dionysus!” The woman was thrown back, more powerfully than Draco had intended in his desperation. It was only as she fell to the carpeted floor, and blood began to pool around her middle that Draco realised he had thrown her onto the pointy trophy that had stood in the centre of the coffee table. He could see it sticking out from her belly and Draco was about to faint when Avery came up behind him and slapped him encouragingly on the back. “Blood thirsty, aren’t you? That’s good. But no more tonight, c’mon let’s go.”
Avery, once again, began dragging Draco by the robes back to where they had originally landed. But even as they left the street, Draco could not get the image of that woman’s crumpled face out of his head.
The sounds of muggle police cars could be heard in the distance and Draco was vaguely aware of Avery rounding everyone up. The giant man was not responding though. He had a young boy’s, clearly lifeless body, in his hands and was tossing it around his head and screaming to the full moon. At last he let the boy go and his body landed at Draco’s feet on the concrete with a sickening crack. The little boy’s eyes were wide open; the look of absolute terror was still in them.
Draco was about to vomit right there in front of all of them, but through some grace of God, Avery yelled, “Apparate now!” And they began popping away. Draco vomited there on the road with no one alive in sight. When he was done, he was too horrified to do anything but stand there and look into those boys’ eyes. Only when the lights of the approaching muggle police cars came into view did Draco finally begin drumming up some sense. He raised his wand and apparated away. Looking more like the dead lying in that little muggle village, than the living that had murdered them.
(())
“Full moon tonight.” Ron looked out the window of their cheap hotel room on the outskirts of London. “We should probably get acquainted with it; Hermione reckons if we stay at another hotel we won’t have enough money for food.”
“Hmm.” Harry was lying on the lumpy bed, engrossed in his father’s journal, and was not paying attention.
“We could transfigure money, but Hermione says it won’t last and it’s not fair to do that to the muggles.”
“Yeah,” said Harry vaguely.
Ron sighed. “Harry, Hermione told me that you are a reincarnation of a baby elephant that tragically lost its life to a giant lioness in Niger, Africa. Is she telling the truth?”
“Yeah, I know.” Harry said quietly, now consulting the map.
Ron smirked. “Was she telling the truth about you being in love with Malfoy and that you’ve being having a rampant affair with him for years?”
Harry snapped out of it. “What? What are you going on about?”
“Just uncovering some nameless truths,” said Ron, still smirking.
“Right,” said Harry. “Well I think I’ve figured something out. Where’s Hermione?”
“Checking out the bathroom situation.”
“Meaning …?”
“She’s getting rid of the spiders before I have my shower,” said Ron with his arms crossed and a look on his face that just dared Harry to laugh.
The bathroom door opened and Hermione came out. “All clear, Ron.”
“Harry reckons his found something,” said Ron.
“Ooo … what?” said Hermione, bouncing onto the bed next to Harry. Harry pulled his glasses down and scratched his eyes. “I think I’ve figured out what was in the cave.”
“What?” asked Ron, joining them on the bed. Harry continued to scratch his eyes.
“Are you having trouble with your glasses, Harry? You’ve been scratching since we got back from Hogwarts,” Hermione queried.
“I don’t think it’s my glasses. It’s my eyes,” said Harry. “It’s blurry when I look through the lenses. Like I don’t need them.”
“What about with them off?” Ron asked. Harry took them off and squinted a bit.
“It’s a little better, but I still can’t see very well.”
“Hmm,” said Hermione, with a frown on her face. “Maybe your eyes have started correcting themselves? Seems odd though. Give them here for a second.”
Harry handed them over and Hermione twirled her wand around for a few seconds and then handed the glasses back.
“Oh, that’s better!” said Harry. “What did you do?”
“Just fixed the lenses up. So anyway, what do you think was in the cave?”
“Oh, right. A statue. I think it was a little gold statue of a horse.”
“A horse?” snorted Ron, not convinced.
“Yes, a horse. But not any horse. Look, my dad wrote about it.” Harry picked up the journal and read out an entry. “‘The four founders chose the animals that would represent their houses at Hogwarts, just like they chose their representative colours. Three of the founders chose their favourite animals (Helga Hufflepuff must have been a seriously weird lady - a badger?), but Gryffindor chose a lion for two reasons. Firstly, his appearance. It is well known, even today, that Godric Gryffindor bore a striking resemblance to a lion (poor bastard). Secondly, the lion is considered to be the king of animals and the most courageous of animals - a characteristic that Gryffindor revered above any other. But Gryffindor’s favourite animal was the horse. His own was a massive stallion, twenty hands high, and such a bright caramel colour that it looked almost gold. Hence, the gold statue of the horse that Gryffindor had made when the animal died.’”
“Interesting …” said Hermione. “But where is it now?”
“Well, my dad wrote that Regulus Black took it but it doesn’t say anything else. It could be anywhere.” Harry sighed.
“So what do you want to do?” asked Ron.
“I want to go back to the Dursley’s and get the ring. We have to try and figure out where Dumbledore found it, then we can go out again.”
“Fair enough. When should we leave?” asked Ron.
“Tonight. It’ll be better if we don’t have to pay for another night here. Have your shower Ron, and then we’ll go.”
“Are you telling me I smell?”
“Today you’re pretty good, actually.”
Hermione laughed and Ron pushed Harry hard to the head board of the bed. “Don’t be an asshole, Harry. It’s very unbecoming.”
“Well don’t accuse me of shagging Draco Malfoy,” said Harry, laughing and lying back on the bed.
Ron joined Harry. “I didn’t think you were listening. I called you a baby elephant as well.”
“That would be a sight,” said Hermione, squishing herself in-between the two boys.
“Harry, the Baby Elephant. Yeah, I suppose it would be,” said Ron as Hermione took both their hands in her own and held their arms in the air. She laughed. “I meant Harry and Malfoy shagging.”
Ron snorted at the same time as Harry shouted, “Oi!”
“Fuck Hermione, I think you’re the one that needs to have a shower,” Ron laughed.
“Don’t swear, Ron!” Hermione dropped his hand and slapped him hard on his thigh.
“Oh, who’s a hypocrite then Miss Hermione ‘Scrigmeour’s-such-a-fuck’ Granger?” said Harry in mock indignation.
“Yeah, exactly!” exclaimed Ron.
“He is a fuck and so are you two!” Hermione sat up, trying to disguise her laughter through a frown.
A childish pillow fight ensued and only ended when Harry fell from the bed, banging his head on the bedside table in the process. He rubbed his forehead gingerly.
“See! You are a fuck,” exclaimed Hermione with her hands on her hips and throwing Ron a dirty, accusing look.
The boys immediately erupted into more laughter and Hermione shook her head and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Once out of their sight, she finally allowed herself a smile.
(())
Ron grimaced. He didn’t know much about the muggle world, but he knew that all those red lights and all those men with those gun-things were not a good sign. He had seen pictures of these in Percy’s Muggle Studies text books.
Policemen. Detectives. Ambulances.
He looked to Harry and Hermione. They were crouched down behind the hedge of number one, Privet Drive, and were trying to stay out of sight of the many muggle authority figures that were surrounding the streets.
“What on Earth has happened?” Hermione asked quietly. Harry’s face had gone hard and Ron knew it was something bad. The clicking noise of a camera going off very close to them grabbed their attention. Directly in front of the hedge they were hiding behind, Ron could just make out in the dark, the body of muggle woman. She had no marks on her. There was no blood. But she was clearly dead.
“Death Eaters …” Harry whispered. Ron shuddered and Hermione clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.
Harry quickly ran from the hedge toward a parked car sitting underneath the street lights. Ron followed behind with Hermione. Harry pulled out his shrunken trunk from his robe pocket, and reversed the shrinking spell. He silently pulled out his Invisibility Cloak and chucked it to Hermione. “You two get under that, stay close.” Harry re-shrunk his trunk and put it back in his robe pocket.
Hermione pulled the cloak over them and they squished together - Ron having to duck most uncomfortably - and walked as fast as they could as Harry stealthily moved his way through the mass of muggle authority figures - dodging behind cars and bushes. Ron had trouble keeping an eye on his friend and Hermione kept elbowing him very close to his nether regions.
After a minute, Harry was crouching in a garden of hydrangeas, underneath the window of his relatives’ house. Ron could hear the sounds of policemen talking inside. They waited until the muggles walked out of the house, looking like ghosts, shaking their heads wearily and sadly. They were muttering to each other, “Who did this?”
Ron watched Harry creep inside the front door and he and Hermione clumsily climbed the steps up to the entrance, staying squished together. Ron looked to his left and up the stairs - everything seemed fine. His eyes caught Harry’s face though, it was pale and his eyes were wide. Ron followed Harry’s gaze and could not contain a small shout.
Hermione yanked the cloak off them and moved to Harry, trying to pull him into a hug. Harry pushed her away harshly, his face contorted in pain, and moved toward his aunt. Her eyes were wide open, but Ron could see they were no longer of any use. They were glassy and unnatural. Ron couldn’t move his feet. It didn’t seem real. It didn’t seem real that the muggles had become a part of their war. Part of the wizard war. But then, he supposed they always had been - they had just never known it.
Ron watched Harry lean over his aunt and a single tear slid down his face and dropped onto her cheek. Harry gently closed her eyes and stood over her for a moment, then his attention was turned to the mantle. Ron again, followed his gaze. There, right next to a photo of Harry’s uncle and cousin - taken when Harry’s cousin was still a toddler - was a photograph of Harry and his aunt. Ron did not recall seeing the non-moving picture last time he had been there.
Toddler Harry was sitting on his aunt’s lap, looking up at the camera with his big green eyes, a pacifier in his mouth and his aunt looking down at him lovingly. Harry stood still for a moment then quickly moved forward and grabbed the photo and frame. He then rushed up the stairs and disappeared into a room, coming back down with a little black box in his hand.
His face was dark and hard and he did not look like the Harry Ron knew and loved. Hermione was sobbing softly on Ron’s shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here.” Harry’s face was like steel.
(())
Draco could not get comfortable. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, which meant that he had not slept in twenty-six hours. But it did not seem to matter. The harder he tried to force his eyes to close and remain so, the more reluctant for sleep they seemed.
He tossed and turned in his bed, his deathly fatigue exacerbated by the most incredible feeling of guilt and dread he had never imagined possible. He had finally become what he had been threatening to since he was a small child. He was a murderer.
Draco threw his covers over his head and clutched the sheets, biting his bottom lip and trying not to cry. He was stuck. He was stuck in this life. A life that had been designed for him, and he had allowed it because of his own fear and cowardice. Draco could not go through another night like that one. He could not go through anything like that again. Draco did not want to live like that. At that moment, Draco did not want to live, full stop.
He wondered how things had gotten so terrible. He had never imagined his life would be like this. That his life would feel like this. His father had always spoken of being a Death Eater like it was the greatest job in the world. Like it was something of dignity, something to be proud of. They were ridding the wizarding world of its scum. They were bringing back the prestige associated with being a pureblood. They were doing what was right.
But it was all a lie. A farce. And Draco was lost in it.
“Draco, darling? Are you in here?” Narcissa was tapping on his door, he would not answer her. He would not see her. She was partly to blame for this. How could she let her own son go through that? Didn’t she know him better? What kind of people were his parents? And how come he had never noticed it all before?
Draco bit his bottom lip harder and he realised that he had noticed. He just hadn’t cared. Because he had been ignorant and young and the Dark Lord had made him feel powerful and important and he had liked that feeling. He still liked that feeling. But was the greatness worth it? Draco didn’t think so.
“Please let me in, darling.” Her tapping became more insistent and Draco scrunched his eyes shut and his bottom lip began bleeding. He would not answer her. He would not see her. He began muttering under his breath what he could not bring himself to say out loud, “Go away, go away, go away.” It became like a mantra, in rhythm with his mother’s knocking.
Finally, she desisted, and Draco made up his mind. He would not live like this anymore. He would just not live.
(())
“Are you sure this is safe,” whispered Ron to the clear night sky. Harry did not answer him.
“It’s a national park, the animals in here a generally human-friendly. Besides, we’ve got our wands and there are no magical creatures here,” Hermione replied.
Harry lay on his back, looking at the stars, paying no attention to his friends. They continued to make small talk, and all the while, trying to pull him into the conversation. But Harry was locked in his own thoughts and Ron and Hermione recognised the look on their friend’s face … he was concocting a plan.
After half and hour of complete silence from Harry, Hermione grabbed his arm and shook him slightly. “Please, Harry. Please talk to us about what happened. You need to let something out, or we won’t be able to move on.” Her voice was sincere and pleading.
Harry sat up and looked her in the eye. “I’m not talking about it. We can move on. We’re leaving first thing in the morning.”
“Where to?” Ron asked.
Harry did not look at him, but did offer and answer. “Azkaban.”
Harry stood up and pulled out his father’s journal from his trunk. He opened it to the centre. In the dark it was hard to make out clearly, but a detailed map of Azkaban Prison, including its location, was there.
Hermione began to shake. “Why are we going there?” she asked, her obvious trepidation not affecting the currently apathetic Harry.
“We’re going to Azkaban,” said Harry, his voice crisp and clear, “to speak to Lucius Malfoy.”
(())
Understanding Lucius Malfoy, was not as impossible as many believed. All over the Ministry of Magic and the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters, people had tried to break down his character so that one day they could break him and render him useless to the Dark Lord.
The first thing they had decided was that he could not, and frankly would not, be defined by one thing. He was a complex being. A walking contradiction.
There were only two things that they knew for sure; Lucius Malfoy loved, and Lucius Malfoy hated. And they were positive that once they could distinguish what fell under what category, they had him.
Unfortunately for them - that was never going to work. Lucius Malfoy is much cleverer than most. Lucius, unlike them, knew exactly how to break a man. You do not do it by finding out what will bring them to pieces; that would be a long and futile journey. What you need to find out, is what will mend a broken man.
You take that away, and there goes their life’s insurance policy.
People thought Lucius Malfoy was cruel and arrogant. This was both an under and over estimation. To work by the Dark Lord’s side, you needed to be more than cruel; you needed to redefine the word. But this cruelty did not stretch over every part of his life. Remember, Lucius loved.
He loved his son.
His life insurance policy.
He loved his son just as much as any other father would. And any other father would give up everything and anyone for their son. Lucius Malfoy, despite popular opinion, was no different.
To most, Lucius seemed indifferent to Draco. Most thought he saw Draco as a possession, much like the way he saw his wife, but this had not been so.
Lucius had plans for his son. Great plans. And they had not included the Dark Lord. For Lucius had realised many years ago that the Dark Lord’s ideals, whilst admirable, were very unattainable. But Lucius had become far to engrossed in it to get out, he knew that. Besides, he enjoyed it. But Lucius did not want Draco to become involved. The risk of death was far too great, and his son deserved more than that.
Unfortunately for Lucius, his Dark Lord had taken a hunch on Draco being his weakness last year, and of course, the Dark Lord had been right. Lucius had finally been broken when his master took revenge on him through his son.
But Lucius had been locked up, and no one had seen him, and no one had heard him. No one knew that he had broken. And so Lucius had began to hope. He read the papers that the Ministry guards gave him. He scrutinized every article and pumped anyone who walked into the prison for information.
His mind had begun to flutter. He began breaking incidents down, breaking down peoples’ characters, and almost like a clairvoyant, something became painfully obvious to Lucius; and he began to mend.
Potter was on his own. Potter knew next to nothing of Death Eater activities. Dumbledore was gone. Lucius knew Potter. Potter, unlike him, was very easy to understand. It was only a matter of time. Lucius made a plan of his own.
He would be giving up everything. He knew that. But his son … his prized son would have a chance.
Indeed, Lucius Malfoy was a very clever man. And that is why, as the guard opened his cell on a frosty morning and handed him his breakfast, he was not at all surprised to find that it was no guard at all, but Harry Potter.
… to be continued.
(())
Author’s Note: Massive hugs to my beta AbundantFear.
raining_slash
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