"Why should I trust you?" The words were cold, gruff, as if the speaker had every reason in the world not to trust whomever he was addressing.
Both the speaker and the man he addressed shared certain qualities: blond hair, gray eyes, a somewhat pointed nose…though this might not be their true appearance as vials of a foul-tasting concoction hidden under their robes attested to. In fact, they were identical to the casual observer, but this night was anything but casual. The two young men faced each other in a pitifully lit library, somewhere in an ancient manor. One was asking for something the first seemed unwilling to give. Trust, after all, can be the hardest thing to give someone that has already violated it.
"Look, I can't tell you everything right now, because someone would probably die if I did…especially if we're overheard. I'm not asking you to forgive me for anything--though I hope that someday you will understand why I did what I did--all I want is for you to trust me in this one thing. If this goes right, everything could be over."
"Even if everything was over right this second, nothing could undo what's already happened. She could be dead already, and you did nothing to stop it," the speaker said bitterly.
"I...I realize that. But if we were able to keep that from happening to anyone else, wouldn't it be worth it? Merlin, Ron, you've been my best friend since we were kids."
Friend. Ron remembered a time when he had called this other man 'friend.' But friends did not let other friends….
There was a popping noise as a third young man, one that looked exactly like the first two, entered the room.
"You…" Ron said as he advanced on the third man. "Somehow, this whole mess all comes back down to you."
"Lower that wand, and calm down. If anyone hears a disturbance in here, she might be killed if she isn't dead already," the real Draco Malfoy whispered.
They all knew that that was something none of them wanted to happen.
After a long second Weasley did so, and the other two sighed in relief. This could not go wrong. Things were in such a tangle already…. But Weasley had been right about one thing, Draco had to admit to himself. It did come back to him, and the last ten months had been nothing short of an extremely tangled mess.
It was a wonder that any of them still knew which way was 'up.'
…………..
Ten months ago….
It was a fairly quite night at the Malfoy Manor, until a blond young man apparated just outside and ran into the house. He was gasping for breath as he ran around searching the rooms. Finally, in the sitting room, he found his mother.
Narcissa Malfoy looked up from the book she was reading by the fire to see who the intruder was, and gasped. Draco knew that he was probably a sight. His clothes were stained by dirt and vegetation from the times he had fallen, his hair was messed from running, he could feel sweat running down his face and back, and there was a very real fear revealed in his face. He had every reason to feel fear.
"Draco!" his mother gasped. "What…did you…what happened!?"
"I failed, and he isn't happy with me. We're leaving," he answered.
His mother turned white as her mind processed this information. "But…we can't run. They'll catch us!"
"Not if we're already dead," he answered, rolling back his sleeve. An unspoken spell withdrew blood from his arm and formed a red globe in the air. "Now, hold still for a second," Draco said, performing the same spell to remove some of his mother's blood.
"The short version is that I couldn't do it, so Snape did," he said, explaining. "We got back to headquarters, and the Dark Lord questioned Snape and I about what happened. He was pleased with Snape for killing Dumbledore, but he was angry with me for failing. I did manage to disarm Dumbledore, so I wasn't killed on the spot. After I left to the other room, he talked to Snape for a minute, and then called me back in. He said that I should come back and get you because the Order knows that I almost killed Dumbledore and might come after you. After he left, Snape told me that the Dark Lord plans to punish me by killing you and me when we get back to headquarters, and I believe him. We're going, just as soon as I can fake a murder scene so the Dark Lord will think that the Order did get to us, but of course I'll be leaving a Dark Mark to make it look like the Death Eaters did it."
This was one occasion where the truth would be much stranger than the lie that would be told. The truth of the situation would be so bizarre, anyone merely looking at the facts that appeared on the surface would assume that the lie was true.
"What do I need to do?" she asked, only barley wincing as blood floated from her arm.
"Get a few sacks of gold, and come right back down here. I should be finished in a few moments," he said, finishing with the blood. As soon as his mother left the room, he set about destroying the parlor.
He sighed, throwing curses around the elegantly decorated parlor. This was his last chance, and he couldn't tell his mother the truth about the situation. In reality, the Dark Lord wasn't out to kill him…yet. Upon hearing about the offer that Dumbledore had given him while he and Snape had been explaining to the Dark Lord what had happened, Snape had gotten the idea that this was too good of an opportunity to miss, and that Draco should take whoever succeeded Dumbledore up on the offer and become the new spy in the Order. Snape guessed that Potter had overheard the whole thing and so would carry out Dumbledore's proposal, so it was worth trying.
Draco was sure that the Dark Lord had intended to kill him as soon as he found out that Snape had been the one to kill Dumbledore, and had chosen to go forward with Snape's idea only because it was more practical than simply killing him on the spot. If he could make himself useful as a spy, everything would be forgiven. After all, he was credited with fighting Dumbledore until he was weak and then disarming him. However, if he wasn't useful…. The Dark Lord had made it very clear that this was his last chance.
Draco had then been ordered to fake his and his mother's deaths, so both the Death Eaters and the wizarding world think them dead, and then to throw himself on the mercy of the Order. While the very idea of throwing himself at Potter's mercy was repugnant, he knew that if he did not, he and his mother would be dead within a few months, no matter how hard they ran. Oh, and he couldn't tell his mother what was really going on. She would be more convincing if she thought that the Order taking them in really was their only hope of survival, which in a way, it was.
When his mother returned several minutes later, he wordlessly took the smallest sack she had, and dropped it on the floor. In moments, he was finished spraying the blood everywhere, and added a few particularly large holes. Nodding, satisfied with his work, they went outside only long enough to leave a dark mark in the sky, and then disapparated.
………………
Less than fifteen minutes later, Bellatrix Lestrange apparated outside the Malfoy Manor. Silently cursing herself for not remembering that there was a shrub there now, she crawled out of it, brushing sticks out of her robes. If it wasn't for that sensor, she could simply apparate inside the mansion, but in order to get around it she had to start from outside the house.
She had been sent by the Dark Lord to see what was keeping her sister and nephew. They should have arrived back at headquarters by now. She supposed that her sister had wanted to pack first, but she had hoped that her nephew had the sense to override his mother. If the Order decided that it wanted a quick retribution, they had to be out of the Manor within the hour, at the very least.
Bellatrix stopped grumbling as she looked up into the sky and saw the dark mark hanging there. Something was not right. She hurried into the mansion, regardless of the sensor she knew the Ministry had put into place to notify them of the presence of any known Death Eater, and soon found the parlor. The furniture was overturned, the pieces that hadn't been almost completely destroyed, and the room was littered with papers, splinters, and ash. The walls were blackened in many places, and a coppery smell hung in the air. There were two rather large holes, where whatever had once occupied the spaces had been totally consumed by the curse that had caused the damage. And then there was the blood. It was everywhere, and still fresh. It did not take much logic to figure out that whomever it belonged to was dead.
A quick spell confirmed that the blood had belonged to her sister and nephew. For a few seconds, Bellatrix stood there, shocked. Snape's intuition had been right; the Order had acted for vengeance, and then, of course, blamed the Death Eaters.
'They will pay for this,' she thought, anger coursing through her veins. 'Oh yes, they will pay. They will pay in oceans of blood!'
Without doing another thing, Bellatrix disapparated from where she stood, back to headquarters.
Oh yes, they would pay.
…………..