The Silent Order: Draco Malfoy

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Summer

A hooded man slowly creeps toward me with silver blood dripping from his toothy smile.

He's coming for me next.

Does he want to drain my blood too?

I try to run but I'm paralyzed as the man's knobby hand closes around my neck, lifting me off the ground. He notices the moonstone around my neck and curses.

He tosses me aside.

I thrash, sitting up on a grassy knoll near a cliffside. The sea crashes against the rocks sending salty spray into my face, but my eyes aren't stinging. I can make out the sound of large, beating wings behind me rapidly approaching and I stand too quickly, reaching for my wand. It isn't there.

A beam of light descends from somewhere above me, elongating into a pillar of light. It settles into my searching fist, and I grasp it. I'm mesmerized.

The light dims, solidifying into some kind of staff before whatever is behind me yanks me high into the air.

This time when I thrash and awake, I know for certain I'm in the real world as I hear the pounding fist of Severus Snape rapping on the door to my room at Spinner's End.

Once I recovered from the events of the spring semester, Dumbledore sent me here to spend the rest of the summer. I've been here for several weeks now. In that time Severus and I have seldom spoken.

Out loud, that is.

He's really taken to breaking into my mind to tell me to do chores as opposed to speaking to me physically.

Lazy bastard.

Speak for yourself Lilian. However as it stands, you are the one currently in bed after noon.

I roll my eyes. I open the door with a wave of my hand. Snape has never really cared about my using magic outside of Hogwarts. The whole point of that rule is to prevent unsupervised magic, but when your parents are Hogwarts professors, you're supervised perpetually. At least there's one perk to being under a constant microscope.

There he is, the man himself, Severus Snap, with a cup of tea and a half-eaten piece of toast levitating behind him.

"Seems as though I'm not the only one who slept in? Just getting started are we?"

Your eyes are open. My job here is done. Wash this teacup in half an hour.

He turns to leave before adding, "And Lilian, don't forget, the Malfoy Summer Solstice Ball is this evening."

"That doesn't start until 9 pm?"

Severus looks me up and down, taking in my frizzy hair, armpit sweat, discombobulated moonstone lying on my shoulder, and disheveled sheets.

"Correct. I was hoping to give you ample time to prepare. However, given your general state of disarray, perhaps nine hours was too optimistic..."

I gasp. With a wave of my hand, the door slams behind Snape.

I roll over and fall back asleep. This time my sleep is dreamless.

***

I decide to rejoin the world of the living and go down to breakfast around 3PM. An eagle owl is waiting for me at the kitchen table with a stack of letters. Snape is reading in an armchair nearby.

Unlike my mail from my friends, I've been avoiding these letters. But no matter how many times I send the sealed letters back to the sender, Draco's owl always returns with the same unopened letters plus a new one. It's been happening for the last two weeks.