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The Protector	By : muteandtremorless Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 3711 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
Title: The Protector
Chapter 7: Fate & Ceremony
Rating [for chapter]: R for violence.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, someone else does, this is not being written for profit.

I didn't travel very far, only a few blocks at the most. When I stopped I didn't feel safe, I was too physically and emotionally bruised and disturbed to continue on. I sat down on a curb and rested my head in my arms. A flap of skin slid loose from my forehead but I gently, with great pain and difficulty, slid it back into place. The wound my head was ragging, it needed to be healed somehow. My mind was filled with shock and torture, Sneed hitting me, Sneed dead, the feel of his flesh as I scraped my fingernails over it. I tried to break the chaos in my mind to search for my mother's healing spell, but the ends of the incantation kept slipping out of my grasp. My vision was blurry and shifty. The shadows and gaudy neon lights of the street performed a sick macabre dance around my thoughts. I gritted my teeth against the pain and set all my might against concentrating. Finally the words began to spill fourth. I was only halfway through the incantation when I felt my consciousness slip and release.
In my dream, which was never a dream at all, three dirty figures hovered above me. Their hands sought the secrets hidden in my clothes, kind and unkind, they dug for drugs and money. Once found they bickered momentarily, their words unintelligible to me, and disappeared. Vanished as another momentary blur against the black of my mind.
When I awoke I had nothing, save my wand. Which would do me no good. The reality of my situation hit me then, and tears came to my eyes. Why had I lived? To Forget, I had lived to forget, and now I had no means by which to forget. I healed myself and hurried away from the curb. I couldn't start a business again, once the rest of the community found out that Sneed was dead, they would of course know that I had killed him. Even though it was common knowledge he was sick, they would know once they found out about his manner of death. I couldn't stay there either, someone would report me to the cops, if only to save their own hide from jail. There was nothing to do in my life it seemed, but to die. I couldn't kill myself though, all my suicide attempts had told me that, so I stood and began to walk. I would let the world kill me, when it wished. Slowly my feet began to trudge to the next town.
I never made it there, of course, as always just when I was comfortable in my mind, in my lifestyle, in all things in life, something came to disrupt it. And that, this time, was my father. He materialized in front of me, slightly to my left, as I approached I could feel my lips break into a smile. It was the smile of a mad dog, finally set loose against its owner. My smile drove deep into my heart, a flashing reminder. Though obediently my body moved towards my father's arm, I kept what was on my mind, clear and plain on my face.
"Draco." My father addressed me smiling as he slid his arm over my shoulders. "Now your fate truly begins." And as we stepped slowly back into the world of magic, I found silent tears had shed themselves without my knowing. Indeed there were more than enough signs in this wretched life for me. I should have known.
Sitting in the Defense Against Dark Arts class, I could feel his eyes following me. And at night I'd shiver at the feeling of a man with two faces. It was the darker side that always watched me.
As we materialized into a room filled with creatures in black hoods, standing looking towards a dais, where Voldemort's slithering voice filtered down, my father's grip around my shoulders tightened. All those years, the gleam in his eyes wasn't hatred, no instead it was sheer, unmasked pride. But pride in itself is selfish, he was only proud of me because I was his son. I bore his name. I made him flesh, and blood, and eternal all at the same time. In my heart though, he was nothing. I had stopped crying by the time I stood next to Voldemort. My wrists burned with a familiar pain. Voldemort placed a hand forcefully on my shoulder, until that point I had blocked out his words, but now a new realization had hit me and my ears were forced to listen.
"With great joy I present to you the boy who helped me kill Harry Potter." A great cheer rose up from the crowd, I watched Voldemort's manipulating smile widen. "And my pupil." An even great cheer burst from the hooded figures. But it was too late for their cries of happiness to reach me. I had already slipped into the role I had been prepared for all my life. My heart turned to stone, and my eyes shone with a great nothingness. My face lost any hint of emotion at all. I would never in Voldemort's presence, show any emotion ever again. As I stepped off the dais and was being led to my new rooms, I looked into my father's eyes. My gave traveled through his irises and deep inside of his soul, there was no fear for me, in fact there was nothing for me. His insides were as black and rotten with his own selfish poison and probably Voldemort's.

I glanced around my new lodgings. At first I hadn't decided to, my mind wanted to sit pleasantly in its shock and be comforted with its pain, but soon withdrawal tremors forced me to walk around. It was a single room, in an ancient castle. No doubt one of the richer Death Eaters had graciously granted it to Voldemort. The walls were a dark gray, the moonlight and stars hardly cast themselves through the solitary window. A fire sparked dimly from one end of the room. A rug lay miserably on the floor. A bed sat shoved almost absent mindedly in one corner. A dresser and a few other assortments of furniture were carelessly placed in equally dull spots. There was a closet that opened by itself into an abyss of pure darkness. I sat on the bed, which faced this closet of nothingness and stared at it, wondering if it was a figment of my imagination or really there.
My answer arrived shortly when a pale, dark eyed youth stepped forward. His hair was a rich brown color and his eyes were an odd shade of dark amber, strangely gold. Aside from the pallor of his skin he seemed quite alive.
"Lord Malfoy Sir, I'm Orpheus, your servant." I could feel my face muscles slip into a look of shock. But Orpheus stuttered onward as if to mask my silence, though he only managed to improve upon it. "Voldemort assigned me, and through him, I can get you anything you would like."
A little lamb, I thought to myself. A little lamb for me to kill.
"Can you sing?" He seemed taken aback by my question, but I no longer cared. I was tired, and he was mine, and I would play with him.
"Sir?"
"Draco."
"I can't sing." I smiled almost bitterly towards him.
"A pity that was how Orpheus saved his bride." I looked him over once more. He was at least two years younger than I was. From the visible muscles of his body, he was well defined if thin. "Not that I suspect you like brides."
His cheeks reddened as proof of my assumption. Voldemort had given me a toy. I probably could have killed this Orpheus without even a glance of reproach from him. I shifted so that I lay fully clothed on top of the surface of the bed. Orpheus looked at me with waiting eyes.
"Go to sleep." I muttered to him. "Go back into your oblivion." He did, he went back into his room, his tiny closet, but he left it open, to watch me. To watch. I could feel his eyes in the darkness, hovering on the threshold. I wished he would go away with all my heart. I wished that I had just dreamt him, because all I could ever do was hurt people. Even if I meant to love and care for them, it seemed, in the end, I only killed them. My head throbbed and I curled tighter, more inwards to myself. You mustn't die, I muttered under my breath, you have to kill Voldemort. There was a rustling from the open darkness. I wondered what my dear Orpheus thought of me, his new master, but I didn't dare ask him. In time sleep swept me away.
Deep into the night I was woken from a fitful sleep and summoned to Voldemort's study. The room was even duller than my own, lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves. Two chairs, a writing desk, and a globe sat in the center of a room. There was no fire. The only light was cast by Voldemort's dull reading lamp. After standing in the doorway for a short time Voldemort beckoned me over to stand beside his writing desk. Though my eyes were swollen with fatigue and hunger I tried my hardest to look emotionless and uncaring.
"Draco." He looked me square in the face, his eyes burning through me, filled with power and greed, and something unidentifiable. "Ask me your question Draco." I thought of my life, the life with my father before Hogwarts, Harry, then Sneed. I thought of all those people and times, and I thought of the pain and frustration and the reality of my situation, before finally looking back into Voldemort's eyes.
"Why?"
"Why what?" His eyes grew more intense, as if to force the answer out of me.
"Why me?"
"You Draco? Why you?" His eyes stayed glued to mine, but the color in them shifted a little as if he were actually thinking about how he would respond to me. "Because it is easy to tame sheep, but to tame a wild animal, something that despises every breath you take and wants nothing more than to tear you to pieces, is truly the sign of a master." Having finished he looked past me as if uninterested in any response I would have had, when he looked back though my face had not changed. He reached out and touched my swollen eyelid. I blinked.
"You may go now, Draco."
The next morning my studies began in earnest. I was assigned a teacher, and was taught the basics of the dark arts. Spells any death eater knows. The reason, in truth, why Voldemort was so powerful, was that he kept all his secrets to himself. He kept them in his mind, and now, they too reside in my mind. It was a long and tedious process, days could be spent on one spell. I had to recite a spell privately to Voldemort before I ate, or retired, at the beginning of a lesson, at the end of the lesson, and in the middle. He was a very good teacher, though it didn't keep me from hating him all the more. He delighted in both my acceleration in the dark arts, and the hatred in my eyes that greeted him every time he looked at me. Because he, unlike my father and the other death eaters I saw often, could see right through me. And also because no matter how hard I tried I could not erase that single emotion from my soul.
So too, could Orpheus. He was a very brilliant and empathetic young man, and I pitied him, I pitied him because his skill and ability, which would have made him a wonderful healer, landed him in my clutches. And I abused him terribly. All that I could not hold inside: my hatred, my frustrations with myself, my symptoms of withdrawal, all of these things were taken out on him. He suffered brilliantly, for every drop of blood I caused him to shed he did not cry, nor did he make his face stone, nor did he escape into another world. He was right there with me. Sometimes after particularly violent sessions it would feel like he was inside of me, inside my head, watching through my eyes, feeling my pain instead of his own. He tried too, to help me the best he could, he would let me beat him until I myself could no longer move, and then he would put me to bed, softly, like a mother might. He'd hold me, and his blood would be everywhere, but he would almost not notice it. When I'd wake up in the morning he'd always be there, a constant strength, in so much weakness. I didn't go into his room, his little closet in the entire universe, he needed at least one place where he could feel safe from me. He would leave me sometimes, to be alone in my room, when he thought I particularly needed it.
I was never left alone aside from those instances, if I ventured outside of my room a death eater would be at my side questioning me, pestering me until I'd retreat back into my room. Often when very frustrated I would wander up and down the length of the hallway outside my room, ignoring questions, just up and down. After a good hour or so, just when I'd see the guard's eye creeping away, I would go some place else. I'd walk there for hours back and fourth, until found. Thus my insanity drove me. Why didn't I escape, why didn't I rebel? Because I was in a cage, and slowly, deliberately I was being taught all the ways I could kill Voldemort, and for that I would have waited all eternity for.
Years passed in that private hell. Years upon years, and time dulled me slowly, time was my empty painless comforter. It made my mission and everything I'd ever wanted drift away. My wishes became so foreign and twisted to the point that I'd nearly forgotten them all. While under Voldemort's teaching, I witnessed, and took part in a great many battles and slaughterings. Not only did Voldemort want to cause sheer pain and terror but he also tried to plunge wizardry into a Dark Age of sorts. He destroyed all the books, vaults, and schools that taught the arts of magic.
It was a cold spring day when Voldemort blasted Hogwarts to smithereens. One of the first times I was actually allowed outside of my lovely cage. The skies were clear and blue, a rainy wind crept up from the hills behind us. But Hogwarts remained a putrid boil on the sun. The school was oddly silent, our attack was not a surprise, and the school had been closed down three months prior to the attack. Earlier in the year the majority of the staff were killed in a power struggle, one I was not there to see, but heard of often. We began early in the morning, a group of skilled seal breakers worked diligently on the protection spells. Once the school's last defenses were shattered the castle came down with ease, crumbling. The library, beds, curtains, everything that could be burned was set on fire.
Something rumbled deep inside of the Forbidden Forest, and then was silent. I regarded it quietly. It still looked as dark and foreboding as ever. Harry's body flashed in front of my eyes, but by then time had taken away the sting, dulled the poison of my pain, and I turned back towards the demolished grounds.
As our large gathering began to depart and fade Voldemort edged behind me.
"I think," his eyes were unusually bright and clear, "that tonight would be a marvelous night for your induction ceremony." I nodded. My eyes glanced towards the ground, Voldemort lay a hand against my back and we were pulled into my cage.
We were once again in the large spacious room that had proved to me my fate so many years ago. It had not changed much, a few more candles here and there, a few more sources of light. Two throne-like chairs were lined up against the back of the room. Voldemort guided me into the center, and smiling his manipulative smile, asked:
"Are you ready for the guests?" Though I was used to his favorite game of using fear and anticipation to bring out paranoia and suspicion I wasn't quite prepared for what was to come. Instantly the most important, and financially well off, Death Eaters filled the room. Death Eaters, in general, were opportunists, souls that were indecisive about their wants and needs, and only content to be on the side of the winners. Many of them too though knew that Voldmort was a "winner," and had remained faithful through his long low point. After all a baby was no match for Voldemort.
My mind drifted back to the present as my parents were slowly dragged forward. I stopped myself from giving Voldemort a puzzled look and studied their features, their faces were in a relaxed state as if they had fallen asleep with their eyes open and standing. Their limbs hung rigidly from their bodies, as unmovable as stone. Voldemort only smiled at stepped backwards slightly, he snapped his fingers, and my parents seemed to regain normal function, as if brought back to life.
My mother stared at me quizzically.
"Draco?" She questioned, her eyes looking only into mine, completely ignoring Voldemort's presence. My father, always the perfect businessman, greeted Lord Voldemort.
"Is Draco doing well? He's always tried very hard."
"Yes, very well indeed. In fact, he is now going to demonstrate some of his studies." My mother's face paled, my father's however remained cunningly optimistic. Voldemort focused his eyes on mine. "With this you will truly have succeeded in your studies." With that he turned away to address the crowd.
"To truly become a master of the dark arts, not only must you perfect your knowledge and skills in every aspects of the precious arts, but you must also have a drive and a desire. Ambition if you will, to use them. And, my friends," he paused to take a breath letting both his proclamation to them of friendship sink in and the anticipation rise, "you must also master yourself." He smiled at my father and made eye contact with a few choice people around the room.
"Now these fine relatives of our dear Malfoy are hindering him." The crowd responded with angry scowls and jeers. Voldemort could have said just about anything and still the Death Eaters would have given him the exact response he wanted. I could feel the anticipation rising in the room, It grew warmer, almost fierce. "They love him. They care for him. He won't be able to move forward in his training if he is worried about his poor parents. Two people among billions! Tell me, should he save two and let our empire, all that we have been building, turn to dust?"
"No!" The crowd shouted raising their arms, moving, too psyched to contain their excitement. My father stood dead still, his eyes cold, he stared only at Voldemort. I remembered when I was little having to ask my mother who my father was, because I had thought for a brief, brief time that fathers were supposed to be kind to their children, and loving. His beatings, the terror and rage he instilled inside of me. The rage and pain that inspired me so many times to hurt and abuse the only person I ever loved.
And then, my father's voice broke through the shouts of the crowd, loud and bold, and earth shattering.
"I don't love him! I never loved him!" I moved slightly, almost in a trance, I positioned myself, the words flying to me from the depths of my mind. My father, seeing that Voldemort was unmoved, turned murderously upon me. I remembered acutely my first memory of him beating me, when I was very small, his heavy footsteps his loud booming voice, closer, and closer.
Then he was gone, then his figure was not inches from me, his voice no longer heard. He was no longer a being in front of me but a thousand pieces splattered all over me, all over Voldemort, all over everything. My mouth dropped. I couldn't believe I had done it. I hadn't done it, I couldn't have! I looked at Voldemort but he had done nothing, not even moved, he was wiping the blood and bits of fatty substance from his face. The crowd was rejoicing. My mother screamed and ran towards me, she wrapped her arms around me in a hug, but she didn't stop screaming, and soon it was just her high frantic shrieks amongst the dead silence of the crowd. Voldemort's face grew angry, hideously angry.
"Shut her up, Draco!" He hissed through clenched teeth, around him the Death Eaters faces of joy and triumph were slowly changing to that of disgust. I stared at my hands. The blood, and the tissue, and then my hands disappeared, just as if they had never been there at all. "Do it now, do it or I'll do it!" I looked up, and was about to tell him that I couldn't, that I hadn't any hands, let alone a desire to harm my own mother, who was now crying hysterically. Before I could say anything there was a loud hideous sound, the sound of muscles and bones, and thoughts, and a soul tearing apart, and suddenly there was nothing in my arms, no human figure leaning against me. I felt my eyes widen, and I dropped to the ground, I could hear nothing. I was covered in blood then, blood everywhere. It looked like I had been born that shade of liquidy red. I could only see Voldemort's feet, his form began to sway slightly, it was a good minute before my ears began to ring, and then another minute or so before the ringing was dull enough for me to understand Voldemort's words.
"Most of you have a loved one or children that you would put before your career as death eaters, your success, and even your life. Now Malfoy has no one. Now he is free to serve us and our cause!"
Cheering again, the crowd was cheering. I was helped to my feet.
"Have him cleaned off then returned, after all we wouldn't want him to miss the festivities of his own induction ceremony."
They took me back to my room where Orpheus instructed them to take me to the bath down the hall. My ears were still ringing, but my hands were back. Orpheus washed me off, his brows furrowed with concern. I watched the blood turn the bath water pink. I stared at my hands again.
"Mom." I murmured and flexed my fingers, I hated them, I wanted to cut them off.
"Shhhhh, shhhhh." Orpheus soothed as he drained the pink bath water and refilled it again with fresh clean normal water. His hands touched my face, my neck, and my shoulders. I let my hands and arms float listlessly upon the surface of the water. I kept staring at them until Orpheus, clothes and all, climbed into the bathtub, sat on my legs, and grabbed my face. Once my eyes focused on his he kissed me, forcefully, hard.
"Are you mad at him? Are you mad at yourself?" My eyes began to drift away from his, my mind sliding back and away, my parents.
He shoved my shoulders hard against the back of the tub. I stared at him, confused. His voice contained anger that he had never used before.
"Don't just run away from life! You are still here, you are still real!" He scratched my shoulder, I felt the sharp pain of a new small cut. "I'm here." He bounced on my legs, already numb, making my knees nearly bend in the wrong direction. I focused on him again. The ringing had subsided. "This is your life, you have to live it, you can't ignore it, because it's not going away anytime soon. This is real." He swung back as if to punch me. My hand reached out and stopped his fist.
"Then kill me! Then make it unreal!" I shouted in response. I pushed him back, got out of the tub, and went to my pile of clothing and retrieved a knife. I yanked him out of the tub and put the handle into his hands. I stepped back a few feet. "Stab me! Right here, or there! It might take me a while to bleed to death, but all of these places will do!"
He looked so pathetic standing there in his thin cotton pants and shirt dripping massive puddles of water onto the floor, shaking, and holding a knife that seemed too large for his hand. His eyes were angry, angry and sad.
"Do it!" He began to shake harder, tears leaked from his eyes, his skin turned a pathetic shade of pink. "Do it, or I'll do it!" I grabbed the knife, he tried to step back, tried to pull the knife away.
"No!" He shouted, but it was too late, too late because I had already pulled the knife forward and into my liver. I fell back onto the floor, he fell on top of me, his hand holding the hilt, my hand holding his. It only drove it farther in. He pulled back, and started to call for help, but his common sense silenced him.
"I killed them." I muttered staring up towards the darkness of the ceiling, seeing my parents, Harry, and then Sneed. "Killed them all." Orpheus pulled the knife out of my liver, I screamed, it was the worst pain I'd ever felt. Immediately his hand was against the open wound. Blood was rushing out, and fast, I could hear him chanting. I was crying from the pain, but soon I let go, and began to drift away from my body. Inside of myself I felt a sudden peace wash over me, I was leaving, finally leaving.
"No." Orpheus shouted at me, slapping me, I sunk rapidly back into my body. His chanting seemed to go on four hours and hours. Even after his voice faded he continued to chant, he grew so weak that he had to lie on the floor, in my blood, still the hoarseness of his ruined whispers reached my ears. Someone pounded on the door, calling my name. I could feel the wound give a violent jolt, and then painfully, very painfully it re-grew itself shut. Shakily I stood, Orpheus' arm slid off my body and onto the floor.
"I'll be out soon." I called to whoever was banging on the door. I lifted Orpheus up, he was barely breathing but still alive. I removed his clothes, wiping the blood off of him with water from the tub. I used our clothes to soak up the blood on the floor, then let them soak in the bath. I wrapped him in a towel and covered myself, then carried us back to my room. I lay him on my bed, pulled on some clean clothes, and a cloak, then ventured back to the festivities.
Once there I was seated upon one of the thrones, Voldemort sat in the one to my right. He handed me a cup of wine.
"Cheer up dear boy, you're looking pale." With that he took a sip of wine and turned his attention back to the Death Eaters. Tables filled with food and games of all kinds had been set up. My head spun from lack of blood and the wine, my vision blurred until I was only staring at ghostly features as faces glimmered in front of me bringing words of congratulations to my ears. I barely made my way back to room, and I didn't even make it back to the bed, I passed out right on the rug.
- 6
- 7
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The Protector