"No!"
"Leave it, you stupid boy!"
"Alice - RUN!"
"How dare you!"
There was a sharp crack, the scuffle of feet and then nothing but the sound of the rain pummelling the pavement.
All Alice could remember as she dashed out of the alleyway, running for her life down the rain-washed streets, was her blonde-haired friend lurching toward the woman just as she let out her strange and terrible cry. He had knocked the stick right out of her hand and sent it clattering across the floor, and for this she had struck him on the side of the head.
His last scream that she should "RUN!" reverberated with a chilling boom inside her head, as she reached the end of the road, turned to her right and kept running. She didn't stop until she had entered her flat, turned the lock in the door and fallen into a heap on her mattress, tears leaking into the mouldy stuffing.
A chill blew through the room, the thin curtains rustling against the metal bars. The curly-haired girl was perched on the sofa, completely alone, sniffing into a scented tissue as she rifled through a heavy book laid on her lap.
"Can't you find anything to help me?" the boy said, watching her from the doorway to his room. "It's so cold where I am.. can't you at least get me out?"
"Draco!" the girl turned quickly, her expression one of surprise. "How are you -?"
"He's got me now," the boy said, a twinge of helplessness in his tone. "It's too late. He's got me… Him…"
A chill blew through his cell, and the pale, shivering boy jerked awake. Flashes of what had happened in the last few hours burnt prickling scars into his brain - Bellatrix Lestrange finding him in the alleyway, trying to kill Alice… then there was the sickening pull of the apparition, the blurry darkness of His headquarters… shoved into a cell, cold and alone… harsh whispers from the other side of the heavy metal door…
And the dream. Once again, he had visited Hermione, and she had been surprised to see him. It had felt so real and yet… could it have been? Could he really have been there? Astral projection. The words played on his mind, dancing amid the confusion of the day's events - of the events of the past three months, in fact. Life at Hogwarts, at home with his mother, seemed a million years ago, on some different plane. He had been a different person before he had known Him. He would never be that boy again.
The Dark Lord had shown him terror like he had never known before. His father had been a cruel man, but he had never feared him the way he had feared Him. He felt as though the proud little rich boy he had once been had dissolved into a mumbling, snivelling, grovelling gutter-creature - nothing but a servant to His beck and call, with death as the penalty for disobedience. To the Dark Lord, the lives of others had the same significance as those of scurrying ants, and He would trample them under His power if any dared to stand in His way.
To think he had once admired Him, thought He stood for everything he believed and wanted.
"Draco… you are not a killer…"
"Malfoy!" a horrible whisper sliced through the door. "Get up, you pathetic little worm!" There was a clang of rusty metal against metal, and bolt of the door flew across. The rusty metal slab creaked open, throwing dirty grey light onto the grimy floor. "Oi," the man's voice said again, and in the half-light Draco saw the uneven outline of a hunched, hideously ugly man with wiry hair creating a kind of thorny halo around his head. The stench of dog's breath and blood was mingled with his words - "He wants to see you."
Draco blinked wearily, and wiped a hand across his forehead, collecting the dirt that was clinging to his sweat. The dust in his hair had streaked it with grey, giving him the appearance of being much older, almost haggard. He limped into the light, his bones aching from where he had slept on the rock solid floor, his face wriggling into an expression of discomfort and horror as he followed the stooped man into a long, dark corridor lined with sniggering portraits.
His had been the only metal door, the others were made of what had once been fine oak, but was now worm-eaten and rotting. The stippled green wallpaper was gradually peeling away, as though longing to reach the coarse black carpet. Behind some of the doors he heard whispering, some excited and some serious, while behind others he heard moaning and weeping, sounds which prickled the hairs on the back of his neck.
Finally, the arched back of his guide halted at a door in far better condition than the others, slathered with black varnish and with a silver serpent slithering across the top panels. The man leant closer to the shining surface and whispered, "He's here."
The silver door handle began to turn of its own accord, and the door swung open very slowly. Though the corridor in which Draco stood was dark, the doorway let in no light from the room beyond, except the pale, flickering yellow from a rusting candelabra. The floor was thick with dust, but it was layered upon a richly detailed carpet of Persian design, laid across varnished dark-wood floorboards. In the centre of the room stood two ornate armchairs, each covered with plush bottle-green material, and by one stood a small round table of mahogany with legs like vines of ivy, twisting and twining round each other before reaching the floor. A fire burned in the grate, its silvery blaze throwing vast shadows over the walls and the elaborately designed fireplace. The figure of a tall, broad-shouldered man in dark robes was silhouetted against the feeble light, as He stood staring into the flames.
Draco had taken two steps into the room, pushed forward by the hunched man, before a high, cold voice seem to seep from the very walls around them. "Leave us," it said.
The boy heard his guide back away and close the heavy door behind him. He looked around at the darkened room in which he stood, observing the bookshelves lining the walls, the dead plants in expensive vases, the polished skull on the table beside the armchair. He was alone now, alone with Him.
Above the fireplace stood a cracked, age-spotted mirror framed with a complex border of gold, in which the figure's face could half be seen by the firelight. White, hairless, with deep eye sockets thrown into shadow and a thin, cruel mouth. Lord Voldemort lifted his glittering red eyes and stared back at the trembling, ashen-faced boy in the mirror.
"Hello, Draco," He whispered.
"M-m my - my Lord -"
The figure by the fireplace held up a thin, skeletal hand. "No need to speak," He said gently, though the sound seemed enough the tear Draco's skin from his bones. "I wish to talk to you, now."
He turned round, and it was all the boy could do not to turn and run for his life. His feet seemed rooted to the carpet, his knees trembling and icy sweat dripping past his wide, staring eyes. He tried to lift a hand to wipe his forehead, but found both arms glued to his sides. He felt as though he could not even blink, just gaze at the mottled skin, the flat, snake-like nose, the slicing slit pupils.
"I do not need to hear your explanations, Draco, I know why you ran away from me." The figure did not move any closer to the boy, but Draco felt as though He had rushed at him with teeth and claws bared. "You ran because you are afraid of me, because you are afraid of my punishment."
Draco tried to nod, but found he could not.
"I'll give you one thing, boy," the man tapped the side of his face with a long, thin finger. "You proved difficult to find. You were clever to stay away from the wizarding world, whether that was by choice or by accident, and your decision to immerse yourself amongst the very dregs of human society showed a willingness to forget your pride - a talent which I admire in my followers. Nevertheless," He paused. When he spoke at last, his voice lost the controlled tone which it had maintained so far, and became a cold, biting hiss. "In your decision to consort with that infernal child and his Order without offering one ounce of resistance, you have crossed into territory which you will struggle to return from!"
He seemed to stop Himself, and the following moments were thick with a suffocating silence. He took in a deep breath.
"If you were any older, I would not have even wasted time keeping you in that cell; for betrayal and attempted escape, I would have killed you."
There was another long pause. The boy began to find it difficult to breathe.
"However," the terrible voice resumed in a tone constructed solely of icy menace. "You are young. Too young to understand. No matter how far you go, no matter who you stay with or where you hide - if you run from me I will find you, and when I do you will pay."
Now He did take a step forward, and Draco felt a crushing claustrophobia, as though a wall of broken glass was racing towards him. "You have betrayed me, boy," He was inches from him, a ghastly coldness flooding Draco's lungs, stifling his voice, choking him. The fire threw a sudden flash of silver light over that harsh, pitiless face as the Dark Lord finished "- and you will suffer for it."