Memoirs of a Serpent's Son

Memoirs of a Serpent’s Son

--Age 17—part 2

After some more time…

I have been biding my time…not that I have anything better to do that than and what with my limited means of transportation (read: none), I’m at a loss to say anything else.

Nevertheless, I have been consciously biding my time.

I need to get out of here. Desperately I need to. Snape could turn on me at any moment and hand me over to the Dark Lord on a silver platter.

ANY MOMENT.

In fact, I’m almost surprised I have not yet been bound and gagged and lead along a thin wooden plank to be dropped to my death.

Or ‘Avada Kedavraed’…I suppose that would work too.

GOD I’ve been in here too long.

I’ve been getting more and more antsy as time passes. It’s been a few days since I’ve seen hide nor hair of Snape…which not only means that he may never come back at all, but also that I have received no food.

I do know, however, that he only comes into “the room” when Wormtail is not around. I imagine it is solely to ensure that Wormtail (whoever this man really is) is never the wiser about “what Snape is hiding from him”.

This is all very clever of him but it leaves me in a terrible position. I’ve become a growing ball of nerves with no nourishment.

It can do nothing good for my physique.

……

I’ve hit dementia.

*******

I was looking through the pockets of my robes today to while away the time and hopefully find something that might help me formulate a plan to escape as I have none yet. My best strategy was going to be to scream as loud as I could to attract someone’s attention, have them break down the wall and then bolt without another word.

Clearly my plotting skills have gotten a little rusty since I’ve had no use for them, locking in this damn prison.

I found several rather useless items. There was the half-empty bag of Peruvian Darkness Powder that I’d used…that night. There was my journal and self-inking quill, my wand, my Hand of Glory (again last I used it was that night) and a velvet pouch with the coins I carry with me all the time. It also still contained the Galleon I had bewitched to contact Rosmerta whenever I needed to…

Prefer not to discuss that again…

Anyway, I also came across that package that my mother had given me at the start of term before I got on the train…I’d never opened it or even thought about it before I saw it again today, but for some reason I carried it with me every day…

As I held it there in my hands, still wrapped with the note folded tightly against the black wrapping, I have to admit that I felt a spark of excitement and hope…She had said that if I got into trouble, if I were stuck with nowhere to turn, I could use this and save myself…

It might be a sign that she never believed in me, but at that moment I felt as though she was saving me. Maybe… just maybe I could get out and it would all be alright.

I felt so…alive…just for a moment.

I tore the paper and read the note carefully, staring at the article I held in my hand. And in those few seconds, without warning and with the pure irony that reigns my life, my hopes were shattered and I was left feeling even more defeated than before…

This is what the note said:

--Draco,

I know you think you can bear this burden alone and make your father proud, son, but don’t be a fool. You cannot do this on your own… no one can. He should never have chosen you. You are just a child! You don’t deserve to face this kind of responsibility! There were so many others but…No matter.

Draco, you must take what I say here very seriously and not brush it aside. It may be the only difference between life and death for you.

Before you were born, when the Dark Lord was at his peak, a few months before the Potter child became famous, your uncle Regulus was killed for treachery. He was a devoted Death-Eater for very long before he discovered something that completely altered him.

He disappeared for days and weeks before he came to me one night, very late. Your father was gone to His service and Regulus apparated to the Manor in a panic. He said he did not have much time but presented me with this item that now I present to you.

He did not explain any of his reasons for betraying the Dark Lord, nor did he elaborate on what this particular item actually is but he told me that if ever I needed a way to get out, to break free of the power of the Dark Lord and protect my family, that all I needed was this.

He told me that if I destroyed this that it would all come to an end and the war would be won.

That same night they came for him and he was killed. I was so frightened that I locked the thing away in one of the storage rooms and never looked at it again. Yet when He called you to his service, called to take my only son from me and send him to his death, I had to do whatever I could.

This was all I could think of. Dear Regulus died for this, Draco. Keep it safe until you can manage to destroy it. And if you figure out how, do not hesitate.

Never hesitate.

~Mother—

And that was it.

That was the whole letter. Not only had she insulted my capabilities and altogether crushed my pride and self-worth, but she had given me possibly the most cryptic “solution” that I could ever have imagined.

She doesn’t know what it is, but her dear old cousin who just happen to be killed for betraying his master (much like I have) told her that this trinket would work and make everything better. Yes, he said that BEFORE he got killed.

I think my mother has gone completely mad.

I spend so much time staring at it… the thing that had managed to gather up my scattered hopes only to dash them again and break my spirits once more. I held it close and damned it as the little green gems sparkled in the non-existent light.

It was a locket. Just a simple silver locket with an ornate ‘S’ on the front of it. Something interesting about it, mind you, was that it seemed to radiate with its own aura…I don’t understand that.

I still don’t.

But I put it on. I put the chain around my neck and slipped the locket underneath my robes.

It may not actually help save me, but somehow it gave me strength…

*****

I’ve got to do it soon. This is getting unbearable. I hate HEARING him! I hate knowing that he’s just outside the door (or wall), talking to the others and just boasting about his missions and how the Dark Lord still favours him and how important he is now because he did the job that no one could do and –

ARGH I NEED OUT OF HERE!

I heard him talking today… I don’t know to whom. I couldn’t make out the other voice but he was talking. He was saying something about how the time is almost upon us. THE TIME. For what? I don’t know but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will not be so excited about its arrival.

I heard my name. I heard them speak of me. Talking about how much of a disappointment I was and how they knew I could never do it anyway. How they were so amazed that the Dark Lord would risk something so foolish by wasting his task on such a useless boy. They talked of how they were glad that I would soon face my punishment for my failure once I was brought forth.

And that’s about the time when I stopped listening and began wondering if I could just break through the wall myself.

I can’t believe I ever trusted him!

I can’t believe that… WHY DID I COME WITH HIM?

I could have escaped then… that night when he was fighting with Potter on the grounds. I could have run. I could have run and Apparated off somewhere far…and never come back. I could have run and hid and been the coward that everyone thinks I am and I would never have had to face the pain and the loneliness. I would never have had to face the slow drudge of time passing as I waited to be executed, all the while wishing that my own knight in shining armor might come to rescue me.

I would never have had to feel this way and allow myself to break my own heart every time I do.

DAMN SNAPE AND HIS SELF-IMPORTANT DUTIES. DAMN HIM AND DAMN POTTER!

They are both the same in the end… both of them. Both supposed to be the kind of people who help you…people you can turn to and when you need them most, in your dire moments, they turn on you and leave you to die and rot in the sewage of your own misery.

So which is the better of two evils?

******

Oh my god… I’m so fucked.

I can’t believe I did it… I can’t believe it…

I…

Ok ok… start.. start….

I waited for so long for Snape to finally come back… It felt like forever.

It might have been.

I waited and waited and waited and withered away in my hunger and drought and I waited still. Then finally, one day he came.

I heard nothing but silence and my heartbeat as I knew my day was drawing closer and then footsteps. Distant, cold and lonely footsteps.

So I did it. I did it and I cannot even believe now that it worked… this is so surreal…

Just before the footsteps got into range, I set myself up at the doorframe and threw the Peruvian Darkness Powder into the air so that the room became pitch black and consuming. My hand of glory was mostly hidden by my sleeve as I waited and the door clicked open.

Before Snape even had the chance to raise his wand and drop the tray he was carrying, I cast a non-verbal stunning spell and bolted.

I ran….I ran from the house we were in…I didn’t even look around me but I ran and I ran and I burst through the door and outside and I skidded around the corner and I ran into bushes and I tripped over planters and rocks and ran right into trees as I kept glancing over my shoulder, running and running as far as my frightened feet would carry me.

And eventually, somewhere in the darkest part of night, I found myself on the edge of a wood….

I was breathing hard and only standing, I’m sure, because of the rush of adrenaline as I tried to save myself.

It was cold and foggy and I had dropped my Hand of Glory… I don’t know where I dropped it but I did… and it was gone and I was alone in the dark near a forest and could be attacked my Death-Eaters at any moment.

I was shaking and gasping for breath, staring blindly around as I tried to figure out where I was…but I had no idea. I still don’t know where I was…

I did the first thing that came to mind: I cast ‘lumos’ and held up my wand to cast a ray of light as far as I could to see what was around me.

And then I heard a roaring and a crash and a screech as I jumped and fell over onto the grass and a massive purple triple-decker bus stopped just before me. I held my wand out in front of me and prepared to fight, trying to get to my feet but finding that they no longer wanted to work.

Then a little man, a boy of possibly nineteen, popped out of the door and stood there before me wearing a strange kind of uniform and reciting a very practiced speech.

“Welcome to the Knigh’ Bus,” he greeted dully as I tried to catch my breath and hopefully my voice along with it. “Premium travel fo’ the stranded witch or wizard. I am yer conductor, Alex Gribble, where can we take yeh this evenin’?”

I stared at him dumbstruck for a moment as he slowly began to process the fact that I was lying sprawled on the ground and holding my wand firmly directed at his neck. Then it hit me… “stranded witch or wizard??”

“You’ll take me anywhere?” I stammered, getting to my feet and climbing aboard before he’d even answered me. I checked over my shoulder several times before pulling up my hood and slouching on one of the beds inside the bus. I had never used the Knight Bus before.

“Well, yeh,” Alex replied as though it was a clear as day. “ ‘oo are yeh?”

I thought of the first name that came to mind and wouldn’t call up the image of a Death-Eater or a famous boy wizard.

“Ron Weasley,” I spat out, almost forgetting Weasel’s first name. I don’t know why his name was the best I could do, but at least I was assured Alex would not recognize it.

“Where to, Mr. Weasley?” Alex asked me, seeming rather suspicious of how odd I was behaving.

And I told him the first thing that I could think of… the only place I wanted to be… the only place I could think to go where I might stand a fighting chance of surviving to see tomorrow.

“Harry Potter,” I told him quickly. “Take me to Harry Potter.”

“Eh? Whatchoo say?” he demanded, giving me the strangest look I’ve ever seen. His face contorted as though every possible part of his brain was working furiously to try and comprehend what I had told him.

“Take me to see Harry Potter,” I repeated more slowly, wishing sorely that he would just leave without knowing where I wanted to go. I could feel Death-Eaters swooping in around us at any moment. “You can do that can’t you? This IS a magical bus?”

“Well yeh, o’ course it is! But yeh’re askin’ lots for someone wif no money teh show fer it,” he said matter-of-factly. “Costs extra when yeh’ve got no address.”

I rolled my eyes and handed him half of the gold that was in my pouch.

“Now get going, I haven’t got all night!!”

And they left and I can honestly say that I now know why Mother and Father have never had us travel by Knight Bus… it is THE most uncomfortable way to travel. I have never felt so sick in my life and was inwardly glad that I had no food to throw up at that moment.

Every so often, as we zipped through the air, I looked over my shoulder and out the window to reassure myself. Then I would check my arm where the bandage was still stained with blood. I hadn’t thought about it for a long time but the bandage was now old and caked with dried blood and I suppose that it made for the most fascinating thing in the world because every time I looked at it, Alex’s eyes burned into me as he tried to see what I was doing.

Then finally we stopped and there came a voice.

“’Ere yeh are, Mr. Weasley,” Alex explained. “Location of ‘Arry Potter. ‘Ave a nice night.”

And he nearly kicked me out of the bus before it jet off behind me.

My stomach dropped down to my feet when I looked around and saw where I was…

I was nowhere. NOWHERE.

There was nothing around for miles, it seemed. Just fog…endless fog and it was dark and late and cold…

I felt dark shadows closing in all around me and I started to run.

I ran in no particular direction and with no particular intent except the hope that I would run right into Potter because it was obvious that I would not be able to see him even if he was there.

I ran and I ran and with every passing moment I felt the urge to scream out his name but stopped myself. Whether it was my pride or my fear that stopped me from calling to him, I’ll never know, but I didn’t. I just kept running… back and forth and around in circles. No matter where I moved it felt like the fog got thicker and thicker and closed in around me so that I could no longer breathe air but only the mist and it caught in my throat and I couldn’t hold myself up any longer.

I fell to my knees and realized that there was asphalt and mud underneath me. There were rocks and there was ground but there was nothing around me. I felt my face wet but I don’t know if I was crying or if it was only the mist. I could hear myself whimpering and sobbing violently as I tried to breathe but I couldn’t.

My lungs closed up and rejected air and the fog was swirling and I kept thinking that it was Voldemort’s followers come to take me away. They’d come to kill me and take me and I would be no more.

And then…then it all went black…black with the faint echo of my cries and the distant sound of what might have been wings.

------IIIII------

A/N: Okkkkkk so I had issues with this one…. I REALLY hope that it turned out ok :( I feel terrible because I’ve just started work and it is mind-numbingly boring and seeps all the creativity out of me, so I have a hard time writing. I meant to write yesterday and post but I could not. I hope that I’ll get into the routine and be able to post regularly again…and make them coherent.

This chapter is kind of a mix of confusing thoughts as Draco has almost resigned himself to think that he’s just waiting to die but needs to get out at the same time… it’s complicated but more interesting stuff coming soon. I still have so much to plot out! GAH I hope that I don’t lose all my spark for writing this with this stupid work blehhh

Anyway, LOVE TO ALL for the reviews because they always make me feel so good! Cookies for you and hopefully more chapters hahaha

ALSO: since hopefully (if I don’t die first) I’ll be done the fanfic before book 7 actually comes out, I will indeed write an alternate 7th book once it does come out. Only in the event of Draco’s untimely death would I not write one, meaning if he dies at the beginning of the book or something stupid like that. Let’s all hope for the best there :)