PART ONE
THE DEMIGUISE
His first year at Hogwarts and Slytherin had lost the House Cup. Lost it to famous Harry Potter and his fellow Gryffindors. Great. More things for his father to be disappointed in him for. As if there weren't enough already.
Draco Malfoy sat on the Hogwarts Express on the last day of school with his forehead pressed against the window he was sitting by. His friends, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, were sitting across from Draco, looking unsure of themselves.
“We could go make fun of Harry?” suggested Goyle dully.
“You go…” answered Malfoy tonelessly. What is there to make fun of right now anyway? He thought to himself. It’s boring, really, going on about Harry’s Mudblood mother all the time…
Crabbe and Goyle exchanged puzzled looks.
Malfoy sighed. Of course Crabbe and Goyle had always been there with him wherever he went, but they weren’t the close friends that Draco had always wanted. However, it seemed he’d never have friends like that… friends like Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were to Harry.
Harry again, Malfoy thought. Famous, perfect, lucky Harry. Harry Potter with his ugly scar and inheritance from his dead parents. An evil voice much like his father’s entered Draco’s mind. Everybody loves him. Why don’t you? Malfoy forced himself to think about it.
Because he’s in Gryffindor, and I’m in Slytherin, Malfoy answered defiantly. The wicked voice was back. Maybe you’re supposed to be in Gryffindor?
Malfoy pushed the thought away. That was ridiculous; the Sorting Hat had a definite reason for putting him in Slytherin. The Sorting Hat wouldn’t make a mistake. It couldn’t.
Malfoy stood up.
“I’m gonna “ er “ get s“some air,” he muttered to Crabbe and Goyle, and slouched out into the corridor.
Crabbe and Goyle’s current expressions suggested that they had both recently been hit with the Impedimenta spell. Their reactions were quite slow.
Malfoy closed the compartment door on their increasingly shocked faces and started walking, shoulders hunched, along the corridor with his hands in his robe pockets.
Malfoy tried to keep his mind free of thoughts about Harry, or the House Cup, or (especially) his father. Draco knew that his father, Lucius Malfoy, would be thoroughly angered at the fact that no-good Harry Potter was beating him at every exam (with the obvious exception of Potions), had made the House Quidditch team when Draco had not, and had sealed the winning of the House Cup by defeating the Dark Lord at the end of the year. It was no secret to Draco that Lucius found him a bit of a disappointment, and disapproved of practically everything he did. But it wasn’t as though Draco was annoying him on purpose; he very much wanted to live up to his family name, of course, but it was hard---the Malfoys had a basically perfect reputation.
Draco snorted. So much for not thinking about his father.
Malfoy’s thoughts were interrupted, however, by the sudden appearance of Pansy Parkinson, who came running out of a compartment to his right and smacked headlong into him. The pair fell to the ground, and Malfoy abruptly found himself rolled over on top of Pansy.
Pansy lay, breathing rapidly, pinned to the ground with her golden hair streaming out on the floor beneath her head. The black hood of her robes had been flipped up, and now framed her heart-shaped face with surprising perfection. She stopped gaping at Malfoy and closed her mouth; her deep blue eyes gazed up at him with an almost nervous expression. Malfoy looked down at her, noticing every tiny detail about her face, which he suddenly found very attractive. He could count every freckle on her face from here. Pansy blinked, her black lashes lightly brushing his cheeks, on which a light pink flush had slowly appeared.
Malfoy suddenly came to his senses and got up off of her. The inhabitants of Pansy’s compartment were shrieking and hooting loudly.
Draco could feel his face burning. He self-consciously held out his hand (which, he noticed with further mortification, was shaking) and offered it to Pansy. She took it gratefully and got to her feet.
“Um… thanks,” Pansy whispered quietly. Her face was just inches from Draco’s. He noticed with a jolt of his heart the perfect arch of Pansy’s eyebrows. Malfoy could sense that his face was bright red. But she was so pretty…
A girl in Pansy’s compartment suddenly started giggling madly. Malfoy jumped and stepped backwards. You’re such a fool! He told himself. Overcome with embarrassment, Draco started walking quickly backwards, tripped, and almost fell over on a bump in the carpet. If Malfoy had been red in the face before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now.
With a strangled noise that seemed to come from deep within his throat, Malfoy turned and ran away, leaving Pansy standing alone in the corridor. Her friend’s howling laughter followed him all the way down the corridor and around the corner, where he slumped down on the ground with their laughs still resounding in his head. Malfoy felt like crying; he pulled himself into the smallest ball he could manage and squeezed his eyes shut. You prat! Now she probably thinks you’re the biggest git ever!
Malfoy’s mood wasn’t made any better when Neville Longbottom, another of Harry’s million admirers, walked by slowly, staring none too inconspicuously at Malfoy’s depressed form on the ground.
“Go away!” Malfoy spat at Neville, who ran off with a terrified squeak.
Malfoy let his head fall with a heavy thud against the wall behind him.
You’re such an idiot, he told himself repeatedly. Pansy’s probably in there right now, laughing herself silly at you with her girlfriends.
The thought gave him no pleasure at all.
Malfoy took the long way back to his compartment, so as not to pass Pansy’s again.
Crabbe and Goyle were gone when Malfoy returned. He left the compartment door open, and they shuffled in five minutes later.
“Where’ve you been?” Malfoy demanded.
Crabbe and Goyle started to mutter something inaudible, but Malfoy waved his hand impatiently and they both fell silent.
The rest of the journey home provided little interest for any of the inhabitants in Malfoy’s compartment, and he stepped out into the dazzling sunlight on Platform 9 ¾ filled with dread. He immediately caught sight of his mother and father standing twenty feet away and looking as though picking up their son was a complete waste of time. Feeling hurt, Draco took his time getting his trunk and eagle owl. The conductor passed them to Malfoy with a cheery smile that he could not have brought himself to return if he had wanted to. As he dragged his trunk along the ground, Draco saw Pansy stepping off the train. Her robes were blowing in the slight breeze, as was her loose hair. Malfoy felt a pang of longing, which was soon overwhelmed by his embarrassment. A group of Pansy’s friend swarmed out after her, so Malfoy, keen not to be seen by them, trudged over to his parents.
“Good,” said Lucius briskly as Draco approached him. “Let’s go now. I need to be somewhere. You probably can’t imagine how urgent this is; no, you couldn’t. You’re too young.”
Draco wait until his father’s back was turned, then gave him a look of pure loathing and shoved his eagle owl’s cage on to his house elf, Dobby, who had been scrambling madly about his feet.
Lucius sniffed impatiently, and prodded Dobby none too gently with the toe of his boot. Dobby squeaked and shuffled forward.
They slowly made their journey away from the barrier that had led Draco into the Muggle train station, and crossed the street out of King’s Cross, Draco struggling all the way with his bulky trunk. Neither Lucius nor Narcissa offered to help him and Dobby was having enough trouble with the birdcage. Malfoy’s eagle owl, Marvolo, was screeching loudly and causing many a passerby to stare as he racketed about in the cage. There was no risk of anyone seeing Dobby, however, for the elf was so small that he was completely blocked from view by the birdcage in his hands. It looked as though the cage was simply floating in midair, but no one seemed to notice or care, which reminded Draco how incredibly stupid and oblivious to things Muggles were.
Draco hated the owl; it had previously been Lucius’, and Draco would’ve changed its name if he could’ve, but it wouldn’t answer to anything else. He didn’t know what had made Lucius name the owl something so stupid; nobody in their right minds should pick such idiotic names, except perhaps Muggles. Draco figured Lucius had been drinking when he bought the owl.
The Malfoys and Dobby reached a house near King’s Cross station, and Lucius knocked sharply on the front door.
The door opened, and Draco gasped. The man in the doorway looked to be at least six and a half feet tall; he appeared shrunken, as though he hadn’t had a decent meal in years. The man looked briefly at Lucius, and then turned bulging, slightly yellowed eyes on Draco, and grinned, revealing a number of decaying black, yellow, and sickly orange teeth. His shaven face was gaunt, and had a distinct sunken appearance, and the hair that hung around it was matted. In the shadows of the darkened house Draco couldn’t tell if the hair was glistening with sweat, grease, or (Draco's stomach lurched unpleasantly) blood.
“Good afternoon,” said the tall man slowly, in a voice completely the opposite of his appearance; it was smooth, rich, and deep, and though the greeting had been general, Draco knew it was directed to him.
“Yes, yes,” said Lucius impatiently.
The smile slowly vanished from the man’s face, and though he continued to stare at Draco intently, he moved out of the way and let the Malfoys step inside.
Dobby hobbled in after them with Marvolo’s cage, but not quick enough: the door shut with a snap on the pillowcase he was wearing as clothing. Marvolo’s cage went flying and hit the wall opposite, its occupant screeching madly, but Lucius was ignoring him.
“Murdoch, I received your message. Do you have it?”
“Yes. Follow me,” answered the tall man, and led Lucius upstairs.
Dobby stopped trying to crawl away from the door, which was proving useless, and turned right around and began tugging on his pillowcase, grunting and panting with the effort of trying to tear his pillowcase away from the door.
Draco abandoned his trunk and walked to the foot of the straight staircase, which had quite a forbidding look to it. What were his father and Murdoch up to? Not bothering to think about the consequences that could come from it, Draco sneaked up the stairs while Narcissa rummaged in her purse for something. Hushed voices were coming from a closed door just to the right at the top of the stairs.
Draco pressed his ear against the hard wood door, and squinted against the darkness. For a moment the voices were unclear. Draco’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dim hallway, where he saw a row of paintings on the wall opposite him. The occupants of these portraits all looked quite evil to Draco; they fixed him with accusing stares. He turned his eyes instead to the other wall. On this was hanging what looked like a bloodstained dagger, along with an assortment of other weapons. The mace nearest Draco was still dripping with blood. An ugly pool of dark reddish-black had stained the carpet below it.
Draco turned away from the horrible sight. Further along the ground by his feet he noticed beneath the closed door there was a narrow strip of golden light. It seemed to be the only room in the house that had a candle lit inside. Draco suddenly caught a whisper of voices from behind the door he was pressed against.
“Here it is, Lucius,” Murdoch hissed.
Lucius’ voice came swiftly from behind the door. “Everything is in order?”
Murdoch sounded triumphant. “The Dark Lord’s work will be done, Lucius.”
The Dark Lord?
“Good,” said Lucius, and he sounded equally pleased. “I always knew we could get some old memories into Hogwarts.”
Draco heard Murdoch and his father laugh.
“Oh and Lucius, before you go, I’d like to show you something else I’ve just bought. That bloke at Borgin and Burkes sold it to me, but I’ve actually found it quite useful. I’m sure he wasn’t even aware of what it could do.” Murdoch laughed quietly. “I’ve thought about using it on some Muggles down in the Surrey area, and if you’ll just follow me…” Murdoch’s voice trailed off, and Draco heard the unmistakable clunk of footsteps receding further into the room.
Draco stepped back from the door. He was dying to know exactly what Murdoch and his father had been exchanging. And what was the comment about getting “memories into Hogwarts” all about?
Thoroughly confused, Draco gazed around the shadowy hallway once more. He had turned to the staircase, and was about to leave, when a low moaning sounded from somewhere behind him. Draco whipped around, searching frantically for the source of the sound. The cry was very sad and pitiful sounding, and it didn’t sound human.
Draco edged forward in the semi-darkness, trying not to imagine stepping in a fresh pool of blood. The darkness seemed to grow around him as he walked further down the hall, and he was immensely relieved when he found a patch of moonlight. With the suddenness of being pushed backwards, Draco realized that the moonlight was seeping out through an open door. The wailing, which had grown steadily quieter, now seemed to be coming from the open door. Without a second thought, he pushed open the door.
Draco almost jumped backwards into the hallway. The moaning stopped abruptly, and Malfoy found himself being stared at from across the room by a pair of half-concealed, shining black eyes. The reason that the saddened eyes were partially covered was due to the fact that the creature had long, silvery hair, which hung low on its brow.
Draco stepped cautiously into the room. The creature wasn’t in any fit state to attack him if it had wanted to; its wrists and ankles were bound gruesomely with what looked to Draco like barbed wire. Draco thought for a second that his eyes were tricking him: the creature only seven feet away from him seemed to be vanishing slightly, and then reappearing, but that couldn’t be possible, could it?
Draco stopped moving forward, and simply looked at the creature. Its entire body was covered with silky, silvery fur. It had long arms, and was crouching on short black legs, which were folded at its side. The creature had long, intelligent fingers, like a human’s, but the hands were closed up like a fist; the creature’s weight seemed to be resting solely on its back legs and the knuckles of its folded hands. The creature was currently looking just as quizzically at Draco as he was looking at it. Draco dropped his gaze, so as not to frighten it, and looked around the room.
The room, which was square and rather high ceilinged, had no windows, only one table and a rather hard looking metal chair against one wall.
Drawn by curiosity, Malfoy walked slowly over to the table. On it lay a single page of parchment and a quill. A bottle of ink lay upturned on the floor below it. Wet ink covered a foot of the floor near Draco’s shoes.
Malfoy reached over and picked up the piece of parchment, reading with increased shock and dismay. It was written in sloppy handwriting, and accented with a crude drawing of the silvery creature.
The Demiguise:
Can be invisible
Eats plants
Silver hair
SKIN IT
Following was a list of how to weave Invisibility Cloaks. Malfoy gaped at the parchment. He felt like tearing it in half. It was twisted, imagining Murdoch leering at the creature, about to kill it. Malfoy glanced down in horror at the last six words:
KILL MOTHER AND GET THE BABY
Draco looked back at the Demiguise. It had stopped looking frightened, and now was looking at him pleadingly. Draco suddenly noticed a small Demiguise by its mother. It seemed to have simply appeared out of nowhere next to her, which (Draco reminded himself) it probably had. The baby was, if possible, even silkier than its mother, but only less than a foot tall. It, however, had not been bound like its mother; Murdoch had probably guessed that it was too young to be dangerous, and would not leave its mother’s side.
Draco looked sadly at the pair of Demiguise. He knew what their fate would soon be.
Suddenly, and without warning, the mother Demiguise gave Draco one last calculating look, and held up her baby to him.
Draco couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He couldn’t take a Demiguise home! Even one as small as this one. Someone was bound to notice (that someone most likely being his father), and then Draco would be severely punished. He didn’t know exactly what Lucius would do to him.
But the poor creature was going to die…
A minute later Draco shuffled out of the room with a squeaking Demiguise hidden beneath his robes. It was very warm and cuddly.
The door that he had listened at earlier was still closed with the solitary light shining from inside, which was a good sign that Draco’s father and Murdoch were still talking.
Once down the molding staircase and back into the still dimly lit waiting room, Draco flattened himself against the wall and into a dark corner away from his mother.
“Draco!” she said sharply from a chair some ten feet away from him, and he looked up guiltily. “Get out of that corner immediately. I will not have you bringing filth from this house into ours!”
Draco edged sheepishly out of the corner, folding his arms across the Demiguise, which had fallen silent.
“Now, take some of this and go home.” She brandished a pot of Floo Powder at him. “Go with Dobby and have him set up the dining room for supper.”
Draco glanced at the house elf, who was still tugging feebly at his pillowcase, unable to reach the doorknob in his current position, and therefore trapped.
Draco groaned at his misfortune, and edged over to free the elf. He opened the door, gave Dobby a split second to move, and shut it again.
Dobby straightened up, smoothing the creases out of his pillowcase.
“Thank you, sir!” he squeaked at Draco.
Draco glared at the elf. “Just walk faster next time.”
“Yes sir, Dobby knows, sir.” The house elf bowed clumsily and ran off to retrieve Marvolo and his cage.
Narcissa beckoned to Draco, and he walked over to her, deliberately keeping his arms folded across his chest to hide the bulk. Why was he doing this? Had he gone crazy?
“Just hurry up and get home. I’m starving,” Narcissa snapped, and shoved a bit of Floo Powder into Draco’s hand. He immediately backed away from her and moved over to the fireplace across the room, skirting around the pelt of a griffin on his way. Dobby followed, dragging Marvolo’s cage and Draco’s trunk behind him. The effort of this seemed to be slowly draining the house elf’s maniacal energy, but Draco made no move to help him, nor would he have even if he hadn’t been trying to hide something.
Once at the fireplace, Malfoy threw the Floo Powder into the fire, which turned instantly green, casting an eerie glow on the surrounding walls. He hurried into the flames and shouted “Wiltshire Mansion!”, and in a rush of swirling green amidst the renewed shrieks of Draco’s Demiguise, he was speeding off to his house. The realization of this made Draco want to run back to Hogwarts, but of course that was ridiculous.
A split second later Malfoy stumbled into his living room. The Demiguise was wailing loudly, and Draco hastily uncovered it and tried to calm it down and make it be quiet
However, the Demiguise didn’t seem to want to keep quiet. In a minute, Dobby had appeared with the trunk and Marvolo, and was looking disbelievingly at Draco.
Draco knew it was no use to try and hide the creature now; it was in plain sight, and squawking none too quietly.
“Master?” squeaked Dobby tentatively. “Sir? What have you done?”
Draco swallowed, a lump rising in the back of his throat.
“Sir?” Dobby repeated, just as cautiously. “What have you done?”
“I---I---I just…” Draco’s voice seemed to have died. “Don’t tell my f-father,” he finally stammered. “Dobby, promise me you won’t tell him!”
Dobby raised his enormous green eyes to Draco’s pale blue ones and nodded briefly. Then, abandoning Draco’s owl and trunk, Dobby ran off to the kitchen.
Draco shifted the Demiguise to his right arm and carried his owl cage upstairs in his left.
Once in his room, Draco pushed the door closed with his foot and set Marvolo on his dresser. He then drew closed his window draperies to prevent any nosy neighbors from seeing the Demiguise, which was now clinging tightly to Draco’s neck and robes, and was looking around the room with great interest.
Draco tried to detach the creature from himself, but it merely clung tighter, squeaking feebly, and buried its face in Draco’s shoulder.
Marvolo was eyeing it evilly.
Draco glared at his owl, and sat down on his enormous bed.
The Demiguise peeked out from its shelter of Draco’s robes and studied the bed.
Draco lightly stroked the Demiguise, which was extremely soft.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Pansy. His embarrassment almost arrived again in full force, until it struck him--- Pansy hadn’t been laughing at him with her friends! That was right… unless (the momentary happiness Draco had experienced fell away) she had simply been too shocked at his stupidity to laugh at first. That seemed more like it.
Draco sighed. The Demiguise had recently crawled off of him, and was now settling itself on the closest pillow.
Without warning, his bedroom door opened, and Lucius stood there. Draco gasped and looked over at the Demiguise; it had vanished, but the dent in Draco’s pillowcase was still quite pronounced. Draco quickly looked back at his father.
Lucius raised an eyebrow at Draco’s odd reaction, but decided not to comment. There were other things on his mind at the moment.
“Draco! Look at me!” Lucius hissed.
Draco jumped; he had looked back at his pillow, where the indentations were slowly shifting.
“Yes, Father?”
Lucius squinted at Draco, and almost bared his teeth, but overcame his overwhelming anger.
“This,” he whispered dangerously, and shoved Draco’s trunk into the room, “was in the way of the fireplace when we arrived.”
Dracp squeezed his eyes shut. Oh, he thought miserably. He suddenly had an image in his mind of his father, fallen sprawled across the trunk. Draco clenched his teeth together, trying not to laugh.
Perhaps Lucius noticed this, for he was suddenly snarling.
Draco now had no reason to laugh.
Unexpectedly, Lucius had crossed the room and grabbed Draco’s arms, pinning him to the bed.
“You are my son,” Lucius spat.
Draco tried to wrestle away from Lucius, but his grip on Draco’s wrists only tightened further.
The dents on Draco’s pillow shifted away noticeably, but Lucius was distracted.
“I expect more from you. You’re too lazy; can’t even work to win a lousy House Cup.”
Draco tried to sink further into his bed and away from his father.
Lucius drew back and slapped Draco with all the strength he could muster.
Draco bit his lip on a half-escaped cry and put his hands to his cheek.
Lucius strode to the door, then turned with an insane gleam in his eye.
“You’d think that you should impress me more than Harry Potter,” he whispered.
Draco looked at the floor, tears stinging in his eyes from the pain and humiliation.
Lucius glared momentarily at Draco then said shortly, “Dinner’s ready. We expect you soon,” and slammed the door shut.
“I hate you!” Draco screamed at the door. He then ran to his door and locked it before Lucius could reenter (though if he’d thought of it, his father was allowed to use magic any time he pleased, unlike Hogwarts students, and therefore could have unlocked the door anyway) and threw himself on the bed facedown.
An odd purring sound filled the room; the Demiguise had reappeared and was licking Draco’s ear.
Draco wiped at his eyes angrily, sat up, and pulled the Demiguise on to his lap, which snuggled against his chest affectionately. He had no intention whatsoever of going to dinner; he wasn’t hungry, and the prospect of facing his father after the previous ordeal made his heart burn with anger. You’d think you’d be used to it by now! He yelled at himself, and the thought brought a single tear down his cheek. It stung, which suggested that the skin had broken where Lucius had hit him.
Wish Harry Potter could see him now…
The Demiguise continued to purr. The sound was relaxing somehow…
A sharp knock sounded at the door.
Draco sat bolt upright. Had he slept?
The Demiguise squeaked once and disappeared.
“What?” yelled Draco sulkily.
“Are you all right?” came Narcissa’s voice.
“No,” said Draco, wincing; any slight movement sent triggers of pain into his cheek. “Go away.”
“Draco? What’s wrong?”
“Never you mind.”
“He’s fine,” Lucius yelled from downstairs. “Just make him come down here!”
Draco heard his mother give an exasperated sigh.
“Could you come have dinner?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry,” Draco snapped.
“Draco!” said Narcissa warningly. “Come down, now.” Her footsteps receded down the hallway.
Draco groaned and glanced at a mark on his bed.
“Don’t do anything,” he said to it, and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Once down the stairs, Draco entered the kitchen.
Lucius and Narcissa were already sitting down at either end of the table.
Draco sat down nearer Narcissa.
“Finally,” Lucius said impatiently. “The food’s probably stone cold by now!”
Draco examined the patterns of lace in the tablecloth to keep from crying.
“Draco!” Narcissa said suddenly. “Curse the Dark Lord! What happened to your face?”
“You know, I’ve never much liked that phrase ‘curse the Dark Lord’,” Lucius said offhandedly.
“Why?” said Draco, losing his temper. “Because you worship the Dark Lord, do you?”
Lucius stood, every inch of his tall figure shaking with anger. “With any luck the Dark Lord will kill you!” he roared, and, turning on his heel, stormed out of the dining room.
“Lucius!” Narcissa screamed.
A door upstairs slammed.
“Ooh, he did this, didn’t he?” Narcissa raged, gesturing vaguely at Draco’s cheek.
Silent tears poured down his face in response.
Pity overcame Narcissa’s anger, and she pulled Draco off to the bathroom.
“Stay here,” she said. “Let me go get something for that.”
Draco leaned forward and inspected his cheek in the bathroom mirror. There was a nasty, bloody cut on his left cheek, which had probably been brought about by the silver skull ring that Lucius wore on his right hand. The surrounding area was extremely puffy, and had turned a nasty shade of purple and green.
Draco winced. The hatred for his father was boiling inside him. He wanted to hurt him, kill him.
Narcissa returned with a potion in her hand and applied it tenderly to Draco’s face. It felt cool and soothing, and Draco calmed down a bit.
“There you are,” said Narcissa, recapping the potion. “Now don’t bump it or anything for at least an hour…” She peered anxiously at Draco, who looked away. “Draco?”
He looked reluctantly back at her, and suddenly felt extremely sorry for her. Narcissa’s face, which had no doubt once been smooth, was now lined with worry. Her otherwise beautiful face was looking up at Draco. He knew in five years he could legally leave home, but she was doomed to a lifetime with Lucius.
Unless he dies, Draco thought with relish.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I’m just gonna sleep now.”
Draco slowly walked out of the bathroom and up to his room.
The Demiguise leapt off of the dresser as Draco closed the door and on to his shoulder, where it started playing with his hair.
Marvolo was glaring at Draco, who ignored him.
Draco sat back on his bed, and the Demiguise crawled off of his shoulder and parked on a pillow.
Draco exhaled. He would give anything to be back at Hogwarts…
The next month followed without great incident. Dobby had become very nosy while snooping around Draco’s room, however, as if hoping to catch a second glimpse of the Demiguise. To stop this from happening, Draco had taught it to become invisible when anyone other than him was around, which wasn’t too hard, as it did that most of the time anyway.
Neither Lucius nor Narcissa seemed even the slightest bit suspicious. They were accustomed to Draco shutting himself in his room during the previous summers.
Draco had grown very fidgety only a month away from his return to Hogwarts; he was soon counting down the days until he could go back to school. However, had he known that many miles away Harry Potter was doing this same exact thing, he would have ceased.
One night, after a lengthy argument with his father, Draco lay awake in his bed, listening to the rain from a summer storm pounding against his windows. The Demiguise was curled up in an impossibly tiny ball on Draco’s pillow, and seemed to be shivering; its fur was rippling and shaking like ocean waves. Draco’s head was aching with Lucius’ voice, and it wouldn’t stop. He wanted very badly to run away. He could just imagine himself packing a bag or two, hiding the Demiguise in the folds of his cloak, and racing out the door through the wind and rain.
A clap of thunder brought Draco back to his senses. Where would he go? Crabbe’s? Goyle’s? Absolutely not; their fathers were friends with Lucius. He would be sent straight back home.
The darkness of the room shadowed Draco’s mind. He wished, not for the first time, that he had never been born. He hated Lucius and Narcissa. Had the simply brought him into being so they could torture him? A strange thought seeped into Draco’s mind and slowly sunk in, like water through a blanket. Lucius and Narcissa had made the choice to give him life… Couldn’t Draco have the choice to take it away? Would it be so hard?
He wasn’t nearly that depressed. Draco laughed out loud. If it ever did come to that, he knew how he would do it. He’d make it extremely degrading for his father. He’d swallow pills or get a pistol somewhere; kill himself in Muggle fashion. Oh, how Lucius would hate it…
When Draco awoke the following morning, the Demiguise hadn’t moved a muscle. The storm had ended and Draco was lying amidst a tangle of blankets when he awoke. He felt immensely worn out, as if he’d been tossing about all night in his sleep. Draco remembered clearly a dream he’d been having. A bright green skull had been talking to him. It was telling him that Lucius was always right, and that he must join with the Dark Lord. Then the skull’s jaw unhinged, and opened wide, and it began to expel something from its mouth. A jade green snake with four slimy tongues was expelled from the skull’s mouth. The snake hissed an incantation, and Draco felt a searing pain in his chest. That had been when he had woken up. Draco shuddered.
The Demiguise, unawares, was purring.
When Draco ventured downstairs a while later, he found that Dobby was missing. Afraid that the pesky elf had somehow found its way into his bedroom to sneak a glimpse of the Demiguise, Draco ran back up to his room, but after a thorough search of the premises it became apparent that the house elf was truly gone.
Back downstairs Draco sat down at the dining room table, and was suddenly at a loss. What was he to do? For the last almost twelve years of his life Draco had grown accustomed to having Dobby wait on him, and now the elf had disappeared. Draco grew frantic. He was going to starve! He’d never cooked anything in his entire life, and hadn’t the slightest idea how. Where were his mother and father, and how had they eaten?
Draco got up out of his chair. He looked around, taking in the forest green curtains, a crumpled issue of the Daily Prophet on a side table by Lucius’ favorite recliner, a half-filled mug of cold coffee, and an extremely ornate Persian rug in front of the enormous, dark green couch. Draco walked over to the right side of the couch and shifted the tall floor lamp over a few feet, its beaded, green shade tinkling in the dead still of the room. Stepping forward, Draco placed his hand on an empty, but distinctly darker square on the wall.
In every place within one foot on either side of Draco’s hand and up to seven feet high the wall shuddered violently. Then, with such abruptness that it was all Draco could do to keep from jumping backwards, the wall made a loud crunching sound and a large rectangle slid out of view to reveal a low passageway and a set of stairs that spiraled upwards beyond reckoning.
Draco stepped inside, inhaling the smell of stale candle smoke and gas lamp oil. The wall closed behind him, silently this time, as Draco began to climb the stairs. After a while he grew dizzy, but still he ventured upwards, and within ten minutes, panting and sweaty, Draco reached the top and stepped into a darkened, circular room.
A single candle had been lit, and was burning relentlessly in the center of the room. Numerous unlit candles were stacked in boxes by the walls, and several standing cupboards held potions of every shape and size. Draco longed to get a closer look at everything, but he had found out what he had come here for: Narcissa wasn’t here.
Positive that he shouldn’t be there, Draco decided to leave, ignoring the urge to poke around in his mother’s magic.
A quarter of an hour later, upon returning to his living room and closing the wall behind him, Draco threw himself on to the couch, looking around helplessly. He was positively starving, the house was freezing due to the absence of the usual fire in the hearth, and his parents were still missing. Draco glared persistently at a picture of a particularly old, ugly man, who was currently snoring in his frame. For a split second the idea of sleep was almost welcoming, but then Draco remembered all too clearly his dream the previous night. Shuddering, he sat up and drew his knees towards his chest. What had it meant? Thinking it best not to dwell on such things, Draco tried to banish the image of the skull and snake from his mind. Yes, he’d seen it before; it was the Dark Mark, a deep, black tattoo given by the Dark Lord to his followers. But why would that concern him in the slightest, let alone enough to penetrate his dreams?
The front door slammed, and Draco bolted upright, jerked out of his troubled thoughts.
“Draco!” came Lucius’ voice from the entryway, crisp and demanding.
Draco got up as quickly as his suddenly tired body would allow, and walked towards the front door. As he rounded the corner and Lucius came into sight, Draco could automatically tell that something was greatly disturbing his father. As Lucius looked up at Draco his expression changed to that of utmost loathing.
“I was hoping,” Lucius hissed through clenched teeth, “that you might explain something for me…” And, from within a deep pocket in his cloak, Lucius drew out a thin glass vial containing a single silvery hair. A Demiguise hair.
Draco didn’t move or speak.
“Where is it?” Lucius snarled, bringing his face right up to Draco’s.
“No!” Draco screamed and ran away from Lucius, through the dining room, up the stairs, and into his room, where he bolted the door shut.
Slowly and surely, Lucius’ footsteps pounded up the stairs, each step defined and purposeful. He seemed to be taking his time, taunting Draco with the knowledge that there was no escape from his eventual arrival.
The Demiguise gave a squeak from Draco’s pillow, and slowly appeared.
“Disappear!” Draco hissed at it, but it was no use. The Demiguise spoke as much English as his broom did.
It slowly crawled across the bed towards him, purring softly. Didn’t it realize that it was in danger?
Draco looked around his room, hoping for a brilliant way of escape to come to him.
Lucius’ footsteps stopped at his bedroom door.
The window! He could set the Demiguise free---
“Alohomora,” snarled Lucius.
The door bolt clicked open, and Lucius swung wide the door, thrusting his face inside.
The Demiguise gave a terrified cry and disappeared, but Lucius had seen where it lay. He brandished his wand at the shivering indentations in Draco’s bed sheets.
“Stupefy!” he roared, and the Demiguise reappeared at once and lay still.
Draco was frozen to a standstill by the window.
Lucius breathed deeply, pushing his wand deep into a pocket in his robes, and slowly turned to Draco, tutting softly.
“Draco, Draco… You should know better.”