Stuck with Me [Harry Potter]

Chapter 2 - Escaping The Dark Lord

Setting: Malfoy Manor, before the Battle of Hogwarts, spring, 1998.

Draco came back to Malfoy Manor for spring break. It had been months since his last visit. He didn't just want to go home, he wanted to get away from Hogwarts as soon as possible. He had been banned anyway because word got out that he helped in the killing of Professor Dumbledore, even though that wasn't true. He didn't aid it because he didn't do anything. He pointed his wand at the man, but Snape came in and stopped him.

He would have a hard time erasing that from his memory. His father instructed him to not obliviate his mind of the horrible event of his headmaster falling from that tower since it was a reminder to always do what he was told, no matter the command. Snape was the one who killed Dumbledore, but Draco watched as the old man fell. He was relieved that he didn't have to do that, but seeing another person die right in front of him... it made him want to vomit. Plus, Dumbledore didn't deserve to die.

Draco sighed in exasperation as he sat on his bed in his spacious room in the farthest corner of the manor. He favored this corner of the manor because it was away from the Death Eaters who rampaged about in the living room and kitchen on the other side of the manor. He liked to stay out of all that commotion. It was quiet, and the portraits of moving seas and billowing fields of barley calmed him.

Sunlight poured through the large windows of his room, casting a golden glow on the large Isfahan rug covering the wooden floor near his bed. He stared at the floor before rolling his white dress shirt sleeve up to reveal the dreaded Dark Mark tattoo on his right arm. He clenched his fist together until his knuckles turned white, and he gritted his teeth. This horrible thing would be on him for life, branding him as a follower of evil. A monster. A person more hated than he already was.

It started moving.

"No..." Draco muttered with a tight jaw as he clenched his fists tighter, making the veins in his wrist protrude. "No..."

He had no choice. He pulled out his sleek, black wand and touched the tattoo with the tip. Disobeying an order from the Dark Lord meant one of the three unforgivable curses. Luckily, the Dark Lord performed none of them on him for not completing his task of killing Dumbledore, since his parents were two of his most loyal followers, but Draco had seen them done in person before. And recently. He pulled down his sleeve, buttoned the wrist buttons, and pulled on his black suit jacket. Exiting his room, and closing the curtains with his wand, he walked down a hallway with portraits of ancestors and a couple suits of armor. He stepped down a stone staircase, two more hallways, and another large flight of stone stairs until he entered his massive living room. He noticed that all the furniture was pushed off to the side, and the curtains were closed. The only source of light was a few torches lit on the walls. Draco frowned. His living room resembled the Slytherin dungeons at Hogwarts.

Draco looked around the room of cleared furniture and a few Death Eaters and realized that the Dark Lord was nowhere to be seen. Why was he even called?

"Draco," his father Lucius said, arm extended to him and standing next to Narcissa, Draco's mother, "come."

He walked over to his father, and when he stood next to him and his black robes, several streams of black smoke filled the room, and when it dissipated, there stood the rest of the Death Eaters, grinning evilly. Draco held his breath as the Death Eaters stood in a circle in the middle of the gloomy room. Draco stood in the circle as well, near his parents, and stared at a green billow of smoke that appeared in the middle. The lizard-like Dark Lord himself appeared in that green cloud of smoke.

"My friends," he said in his cool, slithering voice, chilling Draco's blood, "welcome. We have a small matter to take care of today. Where is our special guest?" He looked around the circle and shouted moderately, "Wormtail!"