***
I couldn’t bring myself to harm him, probably because I knew I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t the type of person that will just kill somebody, especially a man who has done me no wrong. I still am not that kind of person.
Seeing my Headmaster there, dirty, pale, bleeding, wand less, nobody with a conscience could have brought themselves to kill him. But that was what my father trained me for, right? To kill people, innocent people, to harm people who have done you no harm? Yes, that’s what I was trained for.
But when he said my name like that, in such a soft, weak way, that I’d never heard him use before, I knew at that moment that the measly chance of me murdering him, the slight bit of a chance that had been there before, was gone. I remember what he said, as if it had happened two minutes ago instead of two weeks ago.
“Draco,” he said. “Draco, Draco you are not a killer.”
“How do you know?” I said, almost at once. It was something I prided myself in. Not many people pride themselves in being able to kill somebody, and I’m not all to sure why I did at the time. My voice was shrill and loud. I’m surprised that the whole battle didn’t stop at the high pitched, intensity of my words. “You don’t know what I’m capable of doing, you don’t know what I’ve done!” I defended myself further still.
He told me he knew what I’d done, and he did. I’d let Death Eaters into his school. Death Eaters, whom battled for an evil ruler. They fought for a cause, but what cause? Where they like me, fighting because their families had been threatened? Had they learned to enjoy watching others suffer over time? Or did they fight for Voldemort simply because nobody else cared about them?
When Amycus and Alecto came out to where we were, he didn’t lose his cool. Not for a second. He just, talked to them. I could see they were losing their tempers, and at an unnervingly fast rate. Besides that, what was going to happen to me when Voldemort found out I hadn’t killed Dumbledore?
Then, Snape came outside, and almost immediately, he killed Dumbledore. One of the only people that I knew might have given a damn about me, was dead. Snape fled, along with all the rest of the Death Eaters and myself as Potter emerged to fight. How had Snape killed him like that? Just like that? Dumbledore had asked for help, and all he’d been given was the reaper of death from the living. I guess that Snape felt the need to play God, and take a life that day.
Now, it’s two weeks later. Two weeks after Dumbledore’s death. I’ve been beaten, enslaved, starved half to death, and imprisoned in the basement of The Riddle House. Father was killed, in front of my eyes, and Mother was killed soon after. Voldemort wasn’t joking when he said he would murder my family if I didn’t destroy Dumbledore. But then again, when does Voldemort ever joke?
It wasn’t time for the guard to bring me my food yet, but I was starving. My blonde hair, now filthy and matted, fell in my face while my head leaned forward, I was shackled to the stone wall, the foundation of the house. My body was immobile feeling, it felt like I weighed a thousand pounds, instead of my regular hundred and ninety five. Or at least, I know I weighed that much before I was starved for weeks. The weight was all hanging from my arms and wrists, and let me tell you, that hurt like Hell.
I could never find a way to be even slightly comfortable, and at night my dreams were the memories of my parents being tortured to death with the half circle of death eaters watching, laughing cruelly. That is, I had those dreams when I could actually find sleep.
“Malfoy!” a voice said, outside my cell, yes there were cells in the basement of The Riddle House, amazing, isn’t it? I looked up at the door of the cell. There was nobody there. I watched for a moment, and then turned away, again. Great, now I was hearing things. “Malfoy! Are you awake?” a semi-familiar voice asked.
“Who’s there?” I asked. I couldn’t quite place my finger on who the owner of the voice was, but I knew I recognized it from somewhere. “Show yourself!” I called.
“Where’s the key to get in there?” the voice asked.
“I don’t know! Tell me who you are, and what are you doing here? How did you know I was here?” I asked.
“All will be revealed in due time, my boy. But first we need to get you out of there. Not healthy how you are living, this day care center is pretty pathetic,” the voice told me, taking a stab at humor, and failing. It would have been funny, had I been in another situation.
“Just be quiet and get me out of here. We don’t have much time, the guard will be down soon with food,” I told the voice. “Besides, how do you intend on getting me out of the house, let alone these shackles?”
“Pushy today, aren’t we? You’ll see. I’ve got a very…,” he paused. “It’s just an original tool that will break unlock any lock. It was loaned to me by a friend. I tell you, he wasn’t all to pleased about our decision, thought you were a lousy bastard who deserved to be shot. The rest of us think otherwise, and we have no idea what being shot is,” the voice told me as the cell door swung open.
“What do you mean? You keep saying ‘The rest of you’. What do you mean? Who are the others?” I asked curiously. I ignored the fact that the owner of the tool being used to break me out thought I deserved to be shot, whatever that was. Probably some foreign word, like Dutch, or something.
“I told you, all in due time! Now, which hand is your wand hand, because I don’t want to cut that one off,” the voice asked me.
“What?” I exclaimed, becoming anxious and thoroughly disturbed. “Don’t even think about it!”
“I was joking,” the voice said. A hand appeared in the air, with a long knife. I watched in fascination as the hand and knife broke both the shackles that held around my wrists, cutting the flesh and causing them to bruise and bleed. For the first time in two months I could see my wrists again.
“Let’s go! Like you said, we haven’t much time!” the voice exclaimed. I got up numbly, only to find that I could barely stand up. I fell back down, because I hadn’t stood in a long time. “Damn. Okay, you can’t walk, marvelous. But, I’ve got a spell for that. I tell you, working with a bunch of Goblins over in Cairo, Egypt, you pick up on some pretty useful techniques!” the voice said to me semi-cheerfully.
I just looked at the air where I thought the person might be. Working with Goblins in Egypt? Now where had I heard that before? Oh, great, now it was going to drive me crazy until I figured it out. “What’s the spell?” I asked.
“Restringersi il mio piccolo amico!” the voice said, and I felt a very funny feeling all over my body, suddenly, I was shrinking. Smaller and smaller, until I was very tiny, only about two inches tall.
“Hey!” I yelled up to him. My voice was very quiet, high, and squeaky. “What are you doing?”
“This is so I can put you in my pocket and you won’t be any trouble! I am not very sure why the Goblins knew this one, but I suppose it came in handy while transporting all that gold from tombs back to Gringotts,” the voice laughed. I didn’t see anything funny about it! Wait, the invisible person worked for Gringotts? I’d heard that somewhere, sometime in the past that seemed like it had been another life time. Also their voice was still seeming vaguely familiar. I thought hard, and then realized! Oh, now I knew who he was!
“Bill Weasley! Why are you here? Who sent you?” I asked.
“So you figured out who I am? Well, The Order Of The Phoenix sent me, of course!” the voice, Bill Weasley, said. He picked me up on the palm of his hand, and proceeded to apparate outside.
“Whoa, how did you apparate? I thought that they had a barrier up! Is there a way to get past it?” I asked. Normally, I would be insulting the guy up and down. But right now, I wasn’t stupid enough to insult someone who could abandon me back to that basement, squash me like a bug, and frankly I’m not dumb enough to piss off somebody who is saving my ass.
“Yeah, but that’s secret known only to the Order. I can’t tell you the trick just yet,” he told me. “Anyway, I can promise that you’ll be eating in a matter of minutes. You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks, which you probably haven’t,” he said.
And with those final words, we were off. I had no idea what was about to happen, but nothing could be worse than what I had just gone through, right?
***
A.N. Okay, I hope you guys liked this story! It’s my first one to be validated (I hope!) so please no flaming! Reviews are welcome! Bye the way, the spell that Bill said earlier is really ‘Shrink, My little Friend!’ in Italian, incase anyone was wondering. Next chapter will be more funny, than this, I hope! I’l update as soon as I can!
The Reason I Stay Proud by Bertybottaholic
Chapter Notes: This will hopefully get validated, I really hope it does! This idea came to me a while back, but I finally decided to write it down! Yay! Enjoy!