Limits (Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter 2 - The Escape

He waltzed into Voldemort's chambers without bothering to make his presence known. The Dark Lord seemed to be of the opinion that there wasn't a brain cell left in his head, which worked rather nicely. He had total access.

"Ooh pretty," he said as he caught sight of the glowing map that was hovering above the table around which several members of the inner circle were sitting.

He watched the little red dots on the map sparkle for a bit before he managed to drag his eyes away from them. It wasn't his fault if he was attracted by pretty things these days and it did add to the illusion of being a brainless idiot.

"Draco," the Dark Lord's tone was surprised, but calm.

Voldemort had yelled at him once for interrupting and he'd turned into a blubbering wreck and made sure it took hours to calm him down, so the Dark Lord didn't threaten him anymore.

There were major advantages to being thought of as a bimbo. No self-respecting Death Eater would cry in front of their Lord, but Draco had no problem turning on the water works. That seemed to put the Dark Lord on the wrong foot every time.

"Why are you here, Draco?" the Dark Lord asked with what Draco thought was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. "Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"

"It's done," Draco announced brightly and all but bounced across the room, "and it woke me up, so I came to see you."

He stopped a few feet from the Dark Lord's high-backed chair and let himself look worried.

"You don't want to see me, do you?"

He let his lip quiver as he spoke and made his eyes big and round.

"Of course I want to see you," the Dark Lord said immediately and Draco scored himself another point in the wrapping-the-most-evil-man-in-history-around-his-little-finger game he'd been playing for a few weeks now, "but we're a little busy."

"Oh," Draco said as if the thought had never occurred to him.

He turned to the table and looked at all the inner circle who were looking at him.

"Daddy," he all but squealed when he recognised one of the faces under the hoods.

The inner circle did not wear their masks at these meetings, but they did keep their hoods up. Lucius had been out of Azkaban for about a week now and this was only the second time Draco had seen his father. It was after he'd put his wine down, embraced his parent, given him a quick peck on the cheek and returned to where he had been that he caught up with what he was doing. So possibly it wasn't all an act.

"Draco," Lucius eventually greeted, clearly uncomfortable, which was exactly how Draco liked him.

Lucius was far easier to manipulate when the man was unclear about exactly what was going on. Draco loved his father, but he wasn't a Slytherin for nothing.

"Draco, we're having a meeting," the Dark Lord's tone was colder this time.

"Don't mind me," Draco replied brightly and picked up his carafe again, pecked Voldemort on the cheek as if it was nothing and plopped down in the wizard's lap.

No one in the room seemed to know what to do including Voldemort.

"Draco, are you drunk?" the Dark Lord finally asked.

Draco grinned and leaned in close.

"No," he whispered in the Dark Lord's ear, "but there's something in the wine. I think someone wanted me before you, so I came as soon as I realised. You should have some, it's really good stuff."