Darker Side of Me

Darker Side of Me –Chapter 22

The words rung out and echoed on the still air for what felt like centuries to Harry. His mind was swimming and he felt the desperate need to let his knees buckle and give way so that he could crash into the hard ground beneath him. Something stayed his legs, however. Something stopped him from collapsing into darkness and never coming back. Dumbledore was giving him a strange look.

“Harry,” the old wizard said, trying to shake him back to reality. “Harry, Draco is not dead. At least not as far as we know.”

Harry didn’t think he could take much more of this. He was being tossed back and forth from hope to despair like some kind of sadistic pong game. His body and brain couldn’t seem to decide whether to abandon the previous feeling of utter misery and wholly accept what was being told to him, or to simply ignore the words and sink ever deeper into his anguish. His eyes blurred and several strange expressions crossed his face in quick succession.

“What?” he could barely bring himself to say. No other useful words wanted to form on his lips and his brain seemed about ready to give up on the whole situation and hand in its resignation.

“Draco is not dead,” Dumbledore repeated calmly. He looked around the room to give a disapproving look to whomever it was that suggested otherwise. “He is in Voldemort’s possession, so-to-speak, but we have no reason to believe that he has been killed. In fact,” the old wizard added, tweaking his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Lord Voldemort likely has a good reason for keeping Draco alive.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry asked breathily. He could hardly stand straight now. The intense rattling of his emotions had left him terribly drained and weak. “Voldemort wanted him dead. He’s a traitor.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore admitted quietly. Everyone else in the room seemed to be waiting with baited breath, more concerned with Harry’s reactions than with the subject at hand. “Though we believe that Draco is being kept alive to serve a purpose.”

Harry shut his eyes for a moment, trying to steady himself. He finally allowed himself to drop onto the couch to his right before attempting to say anything else. He wanted to give himself a moment to think it all over. Sickening sensations of grief and displeasure washed over him suddenly as his brain instinctively formulated all the worst-possible scenarios surrounding Draco at that moment. He thought of all the most terrible things that he could, knowing that Voldemort had no heart and no soul.

“Why… is he keeping Draco alive, then?” Harry finally managed to ask. He stared only at the ground as a blatant refusal to meet anyone’s eye in case he was to burst into tears. “What…purpose is he… to serve?” Potter almost dreaded the answer, wanting to have none of the sickening thoughts of Voldemort in his head justified.

“Harry,” Lupin’s voice broke the silence. “We think that he’s keeping Draco alive as a lure…”

Harry screwed up his eyes and grabbed handfuls of his own hair in an attempt to control his own shaking. How had he let himself fall into such a terrible position? How had this all started? Why had he let himself be seduced and even loved by Draco Malfoy? Why had he allowed himself to fall in love with someone who was such a strong promise of disaster? More importantly, how had he let Draco get away? How had he let him get dragged back to the Death-Eaters when he promised to protect him?

Harry should have known better than all of this. He should have gone through his entire life loving no one and allowing no one to love him in return. He should have abstained from all contact with anyone because, when he thought about it, anyone he had ever come to truly care for had gotten hurt or killed. It was an eventuality when consorting with Harry Potter. There should be a warning sign floating above his head to warn any prospective friendships or lovers that getting too close to him would result in their death.

“A lure for what?” Harry eventually forced from his mouth. He already knew the answer but hoped somehow, though he didn’t know where he was pulling this hope from, that he was wrong.

“For you, Harry,” Dumbledore whispered. He didn’t need to speak any louder, however. The room was deadly silent as everyone cast their eyes to an empty area. No one would look at him.

“But how could he know that Draco meant anything to me?” he inquired, finally raising his head to look at someone.

“There is the only thing we have,” Lupin answered. “He likely does not know of the relationship you and Draco have. He is probably going on the simple instinct he has that tells him that you would not let him get away with kidnapping someone under your protection. His plan most probably relies solely on your nobility, Harry.”

“My nobility,” Potter repeated, his tone dripping with spite. Some of the members of the room seemed to perk up and come to life.

“Harry, he won’t kill Draco at least until he’s killed you,” Tonks reiterated softly.

“Yes, that means there is some time for us to prepare,” Hermione added. Harry’s head jerked up to look at them.

“Excuse me?” he snapped. “Time for us to prepare? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Well,” Hermione began slowly, clearly frightened by Harry’s tone. “I just mean that you don’t have to rush into it. We can all prepare and plan something out to get him back. It’s not as urgent as it could be.”

Harry’s eyebrows disappeared behind his mane of hair. His mouth hung slightly open as he stared at Hermione. He could not believe, for the life of him, that she had just said something so inconsiderate and stupid.

“Not urgent, is it?” he spat, getting to his feet suddenly. He had the look of an enraged predator about to dismember a trespasser on its territory. “Draco is currently being held captive by a band of heartless, evil wizards who don’t bloody give a damn about their own families before themselves! He is in the control of people like his father, who would sooner beat him to death than risk their own necks! He is being used and abused by these people just to get me to come to them and you are telling me that it’s not urgent?! The man I love is being held hostage by a man who will stop at nothing to destroy me and you think I’ve got time to prepare?! Let’s have Ron get kidnapped by Voldemort and then see how urgent you think getting him back is!!”

Harry thrashed about the room and hollered at the top of his lungs, sending an intense wave of anger and hatred over everyone present. None of the witches or wizards there dared look at Harry. Hermione’s eyes filled with tears as she glanced at Ron, who was a brilliant shade of red, before she looked at the floor. Dumbledore was the only one who had the courage or the compassion to actually look at Potter.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Harry,” Hermione’s almost inaudible voice flitted to him. He immediately felt guilty for reacting as he had but none of them would understand what he was going through. They all likely regarded the situation as a teenaged fling, or hormonal interactions. No one, apart from Dumbledore, likely thought much of Harry’s feelings for Draco at all. He seethed with anger and hatred and didn’t know just where to direct it.

“I don’t need any bloody time,” Harry finally stated through gritted teeth. “Too much has passed already. It’s about damn time that I acted and put and end to this.”

“Harry, what are you saying exactly?” Tonks asked him fearfully.

“I think it’s damn obvious what he’s trying to say,” Moody’s voice suddenly erupted from behind several unknown wizards. He limped forwards to look Harry in the face. There was a silent recognition between them.

“I’m going to go after Draco, tonight.” Harry did not hesitate in his words. He paid no mind to the frightened voices around him or the uncomfortable expressions of his peers. He was set and he would do what he needed to.

“But Harry,” Ginny tempted. “That means-”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry interrupted. “It means that tonight is the night I’ll have to kill Voldemort.”

*_*_*

“Potter will never come,” Draco proclaimed, attempting simultaneously to convince himself. He stared at Voldemort’s back as the Dark Lord walked around his circle of loyal dogs.

“What makes you so sure of that?” He was clearly humoring Draco in his question, judging from how a ripple of laughter spread around the circle.

“He doesn’t even know where you are,” Draco argued. He held his ground and attempted to keep up his cool and collected face despite his fear. “How is he supposed to get to a place he isn’t aware of? Harry Potter might be good, but he’s not that good.”

Voldemort’s head snapped to look at Draco. There was an animalistic grimace on his misshapen features. He clearly had not appreciated the comment about Harry and expressed it instantaneously. Without a word on either of their parts, Draco suddenly felt an overwhelming agony rush through his body, burning him from the bones out. He clenched his jaw and shut his eyes, fighting the irrepressible urge to collapse on the ground and shake uncontrollably.

“You are stronger than you look,” the Dark Lord remarked as he watched Draco squirm on the spot. “You might have made a good Death-Eater had you not been so stupid to fall victim to Potter’s foolish fantasies.” He lifted the spell and allowed Draco’s muscles to relax and take in the feeling of calm. “Allow me to set the terrible rumor straight and remove any doubt from your naïve mind. Potter is no great wizard. There is absolutely nothing special about him. The only reason he survived the first time was because of my own mistake. He is no ‘Wonder Child’ and he will not survive the next encounter. There is nothing else to it.”

“You are a liar,” Draco spat quietly. He was still shaking and sweating from the curse. Voldemort pressed his cold spindly fingers to Malfoy’s face and lifted his head so that he could stare into the Dark Lord’s face.

“What am I?” he hissed. Malfoy’s mouth shaped into a snarl.

“A bloody liar!” the blonde cried. “You know as well as I do that what you said is not true!”

“You petulant little prick,” the Dark Lord hissed again. He sounded more and more snakelike.

“Why did it mean so much to you to kill an innocent little child then?” Draco snapped, pulling his face from Voldemort’s grasp. “Clearly Harry Potter is special in some way if you would go out of your way to try and destroy him before he’d even learned to walk! He is a threat to you and you know it! You should just admit to it before you really embarrass yourself!”

“Silence!!” Voldemort shrieked causing all of his followers to wince in fear. Draco, however, stood strong. “You’ve no idea of what you speak! I will not admit to anything that is so blatantly untrue!!”

“So you’re just sticking to the story that you’re just a cowardly child-killer?” Draco seethed, clearly pushing the whole thing too far. “Did you really think that would improve your reputation? Who would respect you more because you’d offed a year-old child and his two loving parents?!”

Without another word there was a flash of light and a shriek and Draco fell to the ground, motionless. Voldemort stepped forwards and nudged Malfoy’s head with his foot.

“Take him away and put him somewhere,” Voldemort ordered one of his masked followers. “Don’t go too far, though. He might be of use later.”


A/N: Ahh ok so I realize many of you were rather displeased with the way I ended the last chapter. I don’t really blame you because I honestly would have reacted in the same way at that point. Please don’t hate me! Hehehe anyway, I did promise it was getting darker and darker. I hope you still like it though it’s coming steadily to a close!