Draya Malfoy

22 - Draya's Detour

"Get under here, quick."

Harry had pulled his Invisibility Cloak out of his bag, motioning for Ron and Hermione to join him under it.

"Er... mate," Ron said, arching a ginger eyebrow, "aren't we a bit old for this game?"

"Just do it." Harry demanded, getting impatient.

He was anxious that he was going to lose her. And he just knew she was up to something bad. She was a Malfoy, after all.

Harry wasn't stupid, he could see it in her piercing silver eyes when she had looked at him in the shop. There was something there that wasn't there before... a secret - perhaps even a deadly one.

And he was determined to discover what it was she was hiding.

"Look," Hermione said, trying to prevent Harry from throwing the cloak over her bushy hair, "I'm usually up for one of your wacky adventures, as you know, but Mrs Weasley said we mustn't-"

"I just saw Malfoy give her mummy the slip and I'm pretty certain there is no innocent reason for it."

Merlin, didn't they realise, Harry thought angrily. Draya Malfoy was bad news and she needed to be stopped.

"Perhaps she's buying her mum a present?" Ron shrugged, his gaze momentarily distracted by a crowd of giggling girls all queuing up to buy Fred and George's latest range of love potions.

"What, down Knockturn Alley?" Harry scoffed.

"Well, actually..." Hermione said beginning to look exasperated, "it isn't all that implausible. I heard you can get some priceless heirlooms-"

"Look, are you coming or not?" Harry snapped. "Because either way, I'm following her. And without you, I cannot guarantee that I won't get killed or expelled."

Sighing, Hermione conceded, ducking beneath the cloak, closely followed by Ron who always did everything his friends did.

As they scurried, invisible, after Draya Malfoy, Harry experienced that tiny thrill of excitement he always felt when he knew he was onto something big.

******

Mr Borgin wore a curious expression of mingled resentment and fear as I flashed him my Dark Mark.

I didn't want it to come to this, but he was being infuriating and I needed him to do as I say. Without knowing how to fix that cabinet, I was screwed.

Hell - I was screwed anyway. It was made clear to me by Voldemort himself that if I didn't find a way to make Dumbledore dead by the end of the school year, then I was dead.

"But that- that's impossible!" Borgin stuttered as he stared down at my funky new tattoo. "You are just a child-"

"I'm sixteen," I snarled, viciously tugging my sleeve back down. "And clearly old enough to be entrusted into his circle. Now do as I say or you'll find yourself regretting it very much, old man."

"They'll be no need for-"

"I'll decide that," I said. "Well, I'd better be off. And don't forget to keep that one safe. I'll need it."

I pointed to the large black cabinet at the back of the shop and did not lower my hand until he gave me an answer.

"Perhaps you'd like to take it now?"

"No, of course I wouldn't, you stupid little man, how would I look carrying that down the street? Just don't sell it."

Grumbling, he retrieved from behind the till what looked like a battered old bookkeeping pad. I drummed my well manicured fingernails on the counter as he scratched down a note with his quill.

"Satisfied?"

"Oh not nearly enough. But that'll be all... for now. Not a word to anyone, Borgin, and that includes my mother, understand?"

"Naturally, naturally," he murmured, making a deep bow.

And with that, I wheeled on my heel and strode out of the shop, praying that I could get back to Flourish and Blotts before Mother clocked my absence.

However, just as I stepped out onto the street and the bell over the door tinkled loudly, something rather odd struck me. It alarmed me enough to freeze me in my tracks. My heart racing, I looked up and down the empty alleyway.

Because I swear I could smell Harry Potter. But that was ridiculous, surely? As if he would dare wander down Knockturn Alley?

I inhaled deeply, and there it was - that familiar cologne tickling my nose. It instantly stirred up feelings of irritation mingled with something else... anger? Passion?

Dear Merlin, he annoyed me even when he was not present. And yes, I hated him with a passion: the way he swaggered around the shops as though he hadn't just landed my father in prison! The arrogance of the pompous prick.

A sharp rap on the door behind me snapped me out of my reverie. It was Borgin, peering anxiously out at me through the grubby window of the shop door.

"Everything okay there... er... miss? Only you're blocking the way for potential clients."

Clients?! What clients? Ha. He should be so lucky.

Sticking my middle finger up at him, I strode away, vowing not to let a single thing distract me from now on.

I had a job to do, and not even Harry Potter could stop me.

*****

Don't get me wrong. I hadn't wanted the Dark Mark.

After it happened... when I staggered up to my room and crawled into my bathroom - I couldn't stop retching. I retched until there was nothing left and then continued dry retching into the night. I didn't sleep a wink, the memory of the pain and humiliation of being held down by my aunt as Voldemort did his thing too traumatic and fresh on my mind.

"You are a woman now," Bellatrix had said, her face full of pride as she admired the finished work her master had inflicted on my once beautiful unblemished skin.

My mother had quietly sobbed throughout the entire ordeal. It had been the loudest and most heartbreaking sound in the room.

Before Lord Voldemort left, he brushed down his robes and looked at me with those terrifying red eyes. "You have your father to thank for that," he said coldly. And then he swept from the room.

It had taken me the majority of the remaining summer to accept my fate. In that time, throughout a series of horrifying and downright unpleasant meetings, it became clear to me that Dumbledore was to die, and that I was to be the one to make it happen.

"It's a sort of hazing thing," Bellatrix shared as she offered me a tumbler of mead. I readily accepted it and downed it in one. "When I first joined, I had to blow up an entire orphanage. You've got to simply off an old man who should have fallen off his mortal coil fifty years earlier. The Dark Lord must like you."

Yeah, that didn't help.

I contacted none of my friends throughout the holidays. I didn't know what to say. Pansy wrote a few times at the beginning but her letters quickly dried out when it was clear I wasn't responding.

Blaise sent me one owl about four weeks in - a curtesy note, it seemed, enquiring how things were. I guess it meant he still cared a little.

Daphne sent a Howler in the last week of August announcing that Theo had officially dumped her.

I GAVE THAT BASTARD EVERYTHING, DRAYA - EVERY LAST PIECE OF MY BODY AND SOUL! I MEAN IT, DRAYA, WE ARE NO LONGER TALKING TO HIM EVER AGAIN. IF YOU EVEN SO MUCH AS SAY HELLO TO HIM THEN I WILL NO LONGER CONSIDER YOU MY FRIEND. ALWAYS REMEMBER - SISTERS BEFORE MISTERS!

The cup of tea that Voldemort was about to sip stilled at his thin lips, his red eyes widening as he watched the Howler burst into flames above the remnants of that morning's breakfast table, the ashes of Theo and Daphne's relationship scattering down on his unfinished boiled egg and marmite soldiers.

Dramatic cow.

******