The Devil Runs Wild

*******~A Mother’s Love~

Lucius arrived in Potter’s chamber the moment the boy awoke and began extracting more magic for the Dark Lord. Potter then fell back asleep after the extraction.

Lucius walked to the Dark Lord’s chamber carrying the vial of Potter’s magic in his hand. The magic glowed a iridescent blue within the vial and Lucius could sense the power of just this small amount of magic. The boy was powerful, indeed, perhaps as powerful as the Dark Lord himself, something Lucius did not wish to contemplate much further.

Lucius walked through a massive doorway to see the Dark Lord sitting in his high-backed throne with his pet snake slithering around at his feet. Lucius did not… ‘get along’ with Nagina. The snake hissed at him as he approached.

“My Lord,” Lucius said, ignoring the large beady-eyes of the vile creature on the floor.

The Dark Lord chuckled and hissed to his snake who obediently slithered away to the back of the room.

“Lucius,” the Dark Lord addressed him and Lucius handed the vial to him, watching the magic in the vial recoil at the Dark Lord’s touch.

“Dismissed,” the Dark Lord said and Lucius turned and left the room.

******

The Dark Lord chuckled at his dismissal of Lucius, which reminded him of a teacher dismissing to his pupil. He always had wanted to be a teacher.

Nagina slithered back up around his feet.

“I do so wish I could see the Malfoy boy,” Nagina hissed up at him. The Dark Lord chuckled.

“Yes, he should be in terrible pain at the moment,” he answered his pet.

******

“What’s wrong with him?” Mrs. Weasley screamed as Severus pushed past her into the room his hands filled with potion vials.

“He is trying to go to Potter…” Severus paused to think on it. “Or a better assumption is that he is trying to use his magic to bring Potter to him and is unable to,” Severus answered as he kneeled next to the bed that Draco was convulsing on. He opened Draco’s mouth and poured the first of the potions inside, casting a spell to ease the path of it down his throat. Another potion lessened the convulsions a bit more. With the third potion, Draco’s convulsing stopped, but the boy was now unconscious and would be for quite awhile. Severus sighed but stood up and left the room. He needed to see an old friend.

*******
“Narcissa,’ Severus said, smiling as Mrs. Malfoy stepped out of the fireplace of his family’s home. Severus had spent as little time as possible in his old home through the years, but to arrange a safe meeting with Narcissa, it had been necessary.

“Severus,” Narcissa nodded at him and Severus knew she had her hand on her wand in her robe.

“It is true, I am not loyal to the Dark Lord,” Severus stated quickly. He thought it best to get that out of the way at once.

“I know,” Narcissa said and Severus was surprised to see her remove her hold on her wand. “Why would I have asked you to protect Draco otherwise? I would not have asked for that if you had been loyal to the Dark Lord and you would not have agreed to protect him if you had been loyal,” Narcissa said.

Severus was taken aback. He had called Narcissa for help, believing once she was told that her son was still alive, she would be more than willing to assist him. She had already gone against the Dark Lord once in order to protect her son and Severus believed she would again. This new revelation, however, was not something Severus was expecting.

“You have known all this time?” Severus asked, suspiciously.

“Yes,” Narcissa said, but Severus saw her eyebrow raise up a bit an knew she was lying.

“You could not have known,” Severus said.

“But I did,” Narcissa said and Severus saw her eyebrow twitch this time. She was indeed lying.

Severus raised crossed him arms over his chest and looked down at her, the way he would at a student that had answered a question incorrectly. Narcissa’s eyes lowered after some time.

“No, I did not know,” Narcissa stated.

Severus nodded his head. Narcissa had been nervous when she had stepped through the fireplace, her lying about what she knew enabled her to justify her risk-taking behavior and to appear superior to Severus, something Narcissa had been trying to do ever since they had met.

“Narcissa,” Severus grumbled crossly and lowered his arms.

Narcissa smiled. “You almost believed me, Severus. You are getting worse at this,” she said in a near-triumphant cry.

Severus knew Narcissa had quite a immature attitude, but to be this childish when Severus had called her here for a “serious matter” was a bit exasperating. He had once heard about her trading jibes with a silly boy in a clothing store…

Severus sighed in annoyance, much like he had several times when in the presence of Draco. “You’re son is much like you,” Severus said and quickly drew his wand as Narcissa pointed her’s at him.

“Do not speak of my son!” Narcissa screamed.

“He is alive, Narcissa,” Severus said, not lowering his wand in the slightest. He watched as Narcissa’s eyes widened a bit but she did not lower her wand. Severus believed this would take awhile to explain and prepared his arm to hold steady is wand for a long period of time.

*******

Harry woke up disorientated and afraid. He had had a nightmare in which he was unable to reach Draco. The door opened and Draco walked in. Harry tried jumping up to run to him, but seemed to be unable to do much more than lift his torso.

“Draco,” Harry said, instead.

“Harry,” Lucius said and walked forward into the small chamber. Potter had been asleep for nearly fifteen hours and Lucius knew that the amount of time Potter would need to recuperate would increase as his magic level decreased. Only after two weeks, Potter was at such a state of weakness that he was unable to walk more than a few steps.

Harry looked at Draco as Draco appeared to sniff the room.

“What’s that smell?” Draco asked.

“I don’t know,” Harry said and tried to swing his legs over the side of the stone bench he was on. Then Harry noticed Draco looking at his crotch and Harry looked down as well and saw wetness covering his pants.

“You’ve urinated on yourself, Potter,” Draco said and made a disgusted face.

Harry looked up worriedly at Draco. “I’m sorry,” he said. Harry hadn’t even realized he had and wondered why he hadn’t woken up if he had to piss. “I didn’t mean to,” Harry said, confused.

Lucius saw Harry’s eyebrows draw up in confusion. Lucius scolded himself. Potter was thinking and the Dark Lord didn’t want that.

“It’s fine, Harry,” Lucius said and smiled. Harry seemed to forget thinking in favor of smiling back. Lucius took his wand out to clean up the boy. He certainly would not be around such a smell, even if it did humiliate the boy.

********

Draco woke up, feeling awful and was surprised to find himself surrounded by red-haired twins. He closed his eyes and opened them again to make sure it wasn’t a nightmare.

“What?” Draco asked gruffly. The two identical people looked at him when he spoke. One of them got up to leave the room.

“You’ve been out for awhile,” the twin that stayed in the room said.

The other twin arrived with Mrs. Weasley at his side.

“Oh, dear, how do you feel!?” Mrs. Weasley asked, coming right up to his bed and checking his temperature with a hand on his forehead.

Draco, being taken aback by this muggle technique and by the fact that something must have happened to him to cause such concern flinched back from her touch. “What happened?” he asked.

“You died,” Fred said and Draco glared at him.

Mrs. Weasley glared at her son as well but turned to Draco to answer. “We aren’t completely sure, dear, but we think you were trying to bring Harry to you or travel to Harry and could not. You were convulsing this morning when I came in to wake you up for breakfast,” Mrs. Weasley said.

Draco turned his head to look out the small window to see it was dark out. He had been out all day, apparently.

“Right then,” Draco said. He certainly wasn't planning on doing this every morning. “What can we do to fix this?” he asked. Surely, Severus had come up with something.

“We don’t know,” Mrs. Weasley said and Draco was disappointed.

*******

“I want to see him,” Narcissa said.

Severus nodded. “I will bring him here,” he said and moved to the fireplace.

******

Draco didn’t say anything at all when Severus told him that his mother was waiting to see him.

“Draco?” Severus spoke.

Draco did not answer. Severus had contacted his mother and told her that he was alive. His mother was willing to help them, to betray the Dark Lord, to put herself in danger…for him.

“You cannot bring my mother into this,” Draco finally said.

“She is already ‘in’ this, Draco,” Severus said. Draco knew that he was right. His mother already knew he was alive, the damage had already been done. He just couldn’t believe that Severus hadn’t asked him before he had arranged a meeting with his mother.

“Draco, we must go now,” Severus said.

Draco got out of bed.

******
“Draco!” Narcissa cried and grabbed her son as soon as he had exited the fireplace.

“Mother,” Draco said and hugged her back.

“It’s true! You are alive!” she said and Severus rolled his eyes at her pointing out the obvious.

“As I have said, his staying alive depends on the survival of Potter,” Severus said and Narcissa released her son and looked up at Severus.

“I will do it,” Narcissa said determinedly.

Draco saw tears fall down his mother’s cheeks and Draco’s heart clenched. His mother was willing to betray her Lord and her husband, his father for him. Clearly, Draco had underestimated his mother’s love for him. Draco didn’t know what exactly he was feeling right now but it kind of hurt.


Author's note: Thank you so much for the reviews! I thought they were awesome to read...just awesome.