Adamantine - D.M.

Chapter 16 - Schemes & Supplication

I walked briskly back to Draco's room, my feet remembering the way while I contemplated what he had vowed to do. Kill Dumbledore? How could he possibly manage that? Dumbledore was widely regarded to be one of the most powerful wizards, if not the most powerful wizard alive today. It would be a suicide mission for Draco to even attempt to murder our headmaster. But perhaps, that was the plan? 

When I entered the room, I picked up the decorative armchair pillow and threw it hard at his sleeping figure. He picked up his head drowsily and rubbed his eyes. "So, you're helping me then?" he asked sleepily. I scoffed. What a question. "Will I help you kill Dumbledore?" I questioned incredulously. Draco pushed himself into a sitting position. "I wasn't really asking," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Unless you want-" he looked reproachfully towards the door and lowered his voice a bit "-You Know Who to answer to. That's been his plan. Do you think he's giving me this as an honor?" It's because he is trying to punish my father. He um- he made a mistake last year. Something that cost Voldemort a lot. Just like your parents too, I suppose". The moonlight streaming in from the window hit his jaw in a way that seemed to accentuate the sharpness of his features. His cheekbones looked more angular- like he'd been losing weight. I noticed too, that despite the last week we'd been free of classes, he still looked worn, with deep dark circles under his eyes. "Is that what you've been doing then, in the Room of Requirement? Making some sort of weapon?" I looked at the floor as I said this. I was still wearing the shoes I'd put on the morning before at Hogwarts. While I hadn't changed on the outside, on the inside I felt like an entirely different person. A fraud. A shell of the person I thought I was. "What about my family? My friends?" I continued, spiraling into self-pity. Draco sighed. "You really don't understand, do you? You're his." He pulled up his left sleeve, exposing the branded mark writhing on his arm. "It isn't a question anymore of what you want to do. You do it, or you die. It's that simple". I sat down on the bed, opposite Draco. "Fine." I agreed with every fiber of my being telling me not to "so tell ne what you're doing in the Room of Requirement". Draco began to break down his plan. 

"Wait, so the cabinet has a twin?" I interrupted, trying to understand. "Yes-the other of the pair is in Borgin and Burkes; you know? Down Knockturn Alley?" I shook my head, having never dared to venture down that dark and unfriendly sidestreet. "If I can only repair it, that is" he seemed unsure that was possible. "Is this the only way for you to kill him then?" Draco looked sheepish at the question and his focus flickered away from mine. "You know that Gryffindor Chaser? Um- Katie, I think?" He asked, still looking away. My mouth fell open. "Katie Bell? That was you who-?" He shot me a dirty look for how loudly I'd spoken in my surprise. The rumors were that Katie had found a cursed necklace in Hogsmeade. She'd left school that day, and no one had seen her since."I have Madam Rosmerta under the Imperious curse" He said proudly, clearly relishing his successful unforgivable curse. "She's poisoned a bottle of mead for me too. It's just tricky you know- getting people to go along with it". Draco's venture into sending out cursed and poisoned objects seemed a pretty feeble attempt to me to try to kill Dumbledore. He was right, of course. Katie's necklace hadn't made it to Dumbledore, and the mead...I'd doubted that had made it to it's target either. He'd clearly been trying hard not to have to be the one to pull the trigger- figuratively speaking. 

I woke up the next morning in Draco's bed, having accidentally fallen asleep as he talked me through his progress (or lackthereof) with the vanishing cabinet. The winter sun shone in, bleak and feeble through streaks of paned glass. Draco was gone- having left an indentation in the duvet where he had slept. I looked around the room, seeing it for the first time in the daylight. After seeing most of the manor; Draco's room might have been the coziest room in the entire house. He had a squashy armchair in the corner next to a ceiling-high bookshelf. I recognized our old school books on the shelf along with at least 10 about quidditch and a few about pure-blood lineage. I picked up one titled "Ancestry Through The Ages" and wondered briefly if my family was in it. A heavy bearskin rug was sprawled in front of an empty fireplace. Draco's desk was littered with emerald and gold trinkets; haphazardly placed as if he'd decorated himself. I was examining a tiny serpent hourglass when the door sprung open. I startled, having been caught snooping. Narcissa Malfoy entered the room. She was certainly the opposite of her sister, Bellatrix. Her eyes were light, and kinder looking, and she spoke in a soft voice- a trait that Draco had clearly not inherited. "You've traveled before by floo powder, correct?" I nodded. Narcissa pointed her wand at the fireplace and conjured a roaring fire in the once empty grate. "Lucius has modified your brother's memory, he will believe he picked you up on the train from Hogwarts. I trust, that you will keep the events of last night private?" She questioned as I joined her at the fire. I nodded. Who would I tell? Who would believe me? She held out a small golden bowl filled with floo powder. As I reached for a pinch, she grabbed my wrist tightly. "You have to help him. My only son- he" her voice caught for a moment, and she looked close to tears. "He must succeed. You have to help" she pleaded. "I - I will" I choked out, between the dust and the smoke from the fire. She released my hand, and I collected a pinch of the powder and threw it into the fire, "Victor Residence". Emerald flames sprung up, and I wondered briefly as I stepped inside, why Draco hadn't bothered to see me off.