Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Oath Breaker ❯ An Exclusive Interview ( Chapter 17 )

Part 17

In the crowded castle, Draco slipped by like a shadow, at last coming into the great hall and sitting at the table nearest the main doors. Hagrid's first period class was already there tending to the eggs of the only surviving hydra, and they looked up curiously at him. They were all Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws but no one said anything and although they kept an eye on him, the class passed without incident.

When the bell rang, Hagrid saw his class off and then cautiously approached him. "Hiding for a week don' make anyone forget what you did," he started. "An' you can tell Snape there ain' no more hydras for 'im, so you can stop waitin' aroun'."

"In another hour," Draco said, not looking up, "I will have the pleasure of giving Ms. Rita Skeeter an interview for the Daily Prophet. That interview will be held here during class."

"What?" Hagrid asked, eyes widening. "She's coming here? Today?"

"Yes." Now Draco languidly tilted his head back to see him, acting every inch the aristocrat. "And if you keep your mouth shut during that time, I won't bring your name up as one of the dark wizards in Hogwarts."

"I'm no dark wizard!" Hagrid growled, drawing himself up to his full height and towering over Draco. "That's a bald-faced lie!"

"When has that ever stopped her?" He smiled and ran his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. "You may have leaked information to her anonymously, but did you really think that would protect you from me?"

He didn't expect Hagrid to answer and indeed he didn't, instead retreating to where the next batch of students already gathered around the hydra and his eggs. Draco's smile immediately fell. As if he wouldn't be able to tell who told Skeeter about him nearly killing Filch. Of the few people who knew about it, only Hagrid would have talked to the press.

For the next hour, he alternately drummed his fingers on the table, held his head in his hands, and even paced a few feet from the door, trying to think of what he would say. There was a reason dark wizards never tried to argue against their accusers. Dark wizards didn't really ride at night to steal goods, curse honest wizards and trick unwary travelers? They did. Dark wizards didn't practice necromancy? They did. Dark wizards were not in the employ of the dark lord? Many of them were.

He sank back into his chair. Hands clasped, eyes shut tight, he took a deep breath to steady himself. "Please," he whispered to the air. "Please, let me do this right."

Think. What did he need this interview for? What was his hoped result? To reassure the parents that they needn't fear him among their children. To reassure them that he was not the monster in their storybooks. That dark magic was not inherently evil. That he was on their side in the war against the dark lord.

Voldemort. He would center everything around Voldemort. The light wizards liked to say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Dark wizards considered their enemy's enemy a tool to be used, but the sentiment was roughly the same. He breathed out. He could do this. He was sure he could.

By the time the main doors opened and Rita walked in, her eyes zeroing in on him like a predator, he felt confident enough to keep himself from throwing up from anxiety.

"Mister Malfoy," she said, a coldly triumphant smile on her face. "I cannot tell you how delighted your invitation made me. You've certainly set the wizarding world on its head."

"I rather think it was your articles that saw to that," he said, slightly inclining his head towards her in greeting.

At the far end of the classroom, the students noticed her and her photographer coming in and began to whisper amongst each other, craning their heads to get a better look. Hagrid quickly moved to block their view and set them back to work, glancing once over his shoulder to see if Draco was looking at him.

"It's been a few years since we last did business together," she said as she sat down opposite him and opened her bag. "You've changed since then."

"The years have not been kind," he replied. "And I admit, I missed the pleasure of your articles during your sabbatical."

Her smile turned a little wary. "Well, we all need a break now and then." She pulled out a quill and parchment, looking a little awkward as she held the feather between her long nails. "Dumbledore's letter insisted that I not use my usual quill, so you'll forgive me if I'm often looking at my notes. Now then, shall we start? Can you confirm for me that the rumors are true that you are a dark wizard?"

"I am."

If anything, her eyes gleamed even more. "And how long have you been a dark wizard?"

He opened his mouth, hesitated, then shook his head. "It's not as if I turned into one overnight. It's like asking how long you've been a light wizard. I grew up dark."

"'Light wizard'?" she asked. "Is that what dark wizards call the rest of society?"

Tempted to give her the same answer he'd given Harry about blood traitors and mudbloods, he ruefully shook his head. "No, I'm afraid that was someone else's term I've picked up."

"Then it's true that others in the school knew what you were before the headmaster's speech?"

That was a loaded question. If he said no, she might trap him later in the lie. If he said yes, that made it sound like there was a conspiracy running the school. So he gave a reply that didn't quite answer her question. "Rumors were certainly flying around the school before he spoke. Enough students were so sure that they attacked me in the dungeons."

"Is this the attack that put several Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in Hogwart's hospital? I've heard you cast a plague curse as well as summoned hundreds of ravens before nearly killing everyone with lightning."

"You make it sound like I'm some great duelist," he sighed. He almost laughed, but he knew that could be twisted around to make him look like their suffering amused him. Which it did, the bastards deserved all he'd inflicted upon them and more, but she didn't need to know that. "But I would have died if Harry Potter hadn't saved me."

"That seems rather farfetched. No wizard has ever protected a dark wizard."

"Until now. Harry's suffered his own share of attacks from you honest wizards and the press. I suppose that made him more sympathetic."

"But you were never Harry Potter's friend before this year," she argued, leaning back in her seat. Her eyes glittered like two more jewels in her glasses. "You--"

"I know what I've done to him," he said over her, hoping he looked suitably penitent. "It's a testament to his character that he's been able to forgive me. In fact, we've become friends. Until the Slytherins finally came home, this year would have been extremely lonely if he hadn't been there with me."

Rita looked torn in two and he guessed that she wanted to pursue both topics, both his suspicious sudden relationship with Harry and the return of an entire house full of students. But only for a moment. She knew what her readers would really want.

"Let's talk about the Slytherins," she said. "Dozens of children disappeared so thoroughly that the Ministry couldn't find them for months only to turn up at Hogwarts one night, and no one has come forward with a reason as to why."

"Because they were doing what I did at the start of the school year," he said, feeling a little triumphant as he shifted the conversation to his own ends. "Running and hiding from You-Know-Who."

Using the wizarding world's moniker for the dark lord felt silly, but he didn't dare call Voldemort the dark lord in front of her, not now when his loyalties were in question. Plus he didn't seem to need a more impressive name. Beneath Rita's professional demeanor lurked a tiny bit of apprehension.

"I was under the impression," she said, "that You-Know-Who didn't want children around until they came of age. That was the excuse given by many families to keep their children from being tried at the Wizengamot when he disappeared the last time."

"That doesn't stop him from using children as hostages against their parents," he said. "Last time many people were forced to serve him as if he'd used an imperio curse simply out of fear of what he'd do their children. This time we would not let that happen. The same night that many Death Eaters escaped the dar--You-Know-Who, several of the older students gathered every child from every fleeing family and took them into the forest."

"Alone?" she asked.

His respect for her rose slightly. She seemed genuinely concerned.

"They weren't in comfortable beds," he admitted, "and they didn't eat three meals a day, but they were much safer in the forest than anywhere else."

"Surely someone could have taken them in?"

"We had no way to tell who was safe and who wasn't. We couldn't trust anyone except Dumbledore. It wasn't supposed to take them so long to reach Hogwarts, but everything happened so fast that they didn't have time to get to a floo."

"What do you mean, 'everything happened so fast'? Were you supposed to leave with them?"

Taking a deep breath, he now launched into the full account of that night, how the sudden meeting of Death Eaters had forced their hand early, how he stayed behind at the manor to destroy it, and his flight through Voldemort's blizzard before being found by Harry. Throughout his explanation, Rita furiously scribbled notes across her parchment, flipping it over when she ran out of room and hastily waving at her photographer to fish out another scroll from her bag. When he finished at how Dumbledore provided him sanctuary, she didn't give him a chance to rest.

"So a multitude of dark wizards were forced into Voldemort's service? Then their children are dark also? Does that mean that the children in Slytherin are dark?"

"Some of them must be," he said, praying that Pansy would not hate for this. "Our kind would have an easier time surviving alone in the wildnerness and would have helped the ones who couldn't. But many of them are not dark. Many of them are normal wizards and witches whose parents caught You-Know-Who's notice because their children were friends with dark wizards. Some of the parents couldn't help but know each other. That's why they all left together." He wasn't about to tell her that there were no dark wizards in the other houses, that they all congregated in Slytherin for safety and that even then they couldn't fill an entire house. "Other than that, I can't say."

"You mean you won't say? Or do you really not know whether any of the Slytherin students come from dark families?"

"I mean that your kind has hunted us nearly to extinction. It's a little hard to keep a Christmas card list." He didn't try to keep the bitterness from his voice. "Your books paint us like absolute monsters, worse than the devil. We're blamed for everything. Every time someone loses their way at night, they say it was a dark wizard leading them astray. Every time something disappears or someone gets sick, people blame it on dark wizards. If an 'honest' wizard gets caught having an affair, they say a dark witch addled his mind. If we were to blame for every accusation, there'd have to be thousands of us."

"And how many of you are there?"

He hesitated. Tell them the truth and let them know how few they had left to kill, or lie and make them seem threatening? "I can't be sure. I know of a handful, but there are families who have gone deep into hiding, too afraid to come out."

Once again Rita seemed torn in two, but not because she was drooling over two angles. He knew why. No one had ever told her or anyone else in the rest of their world that their books were wrong.

"Dark wizards are afraid of us?" she asked.

"Terrified. We remember what it was like just a couple generations ago, witches like Wendolyn the Weird traveling from town to town to get themselves arrested."

"That was just because she was weird and liked the feel of flames on her skin," Rita argued. "Everyone knows that."

"But what did every muggle court demand from an accused witch but names of more people to arrest? Wendolyn and others like her named hundreds of dark families, witches and wizards who were surprised in their homes or in their fields far from their wands, to be tortured and hanged if they were lucky. Burned if they weren't, and with our natural protection death by burning takes so long." Howling screams and the memory of charred flesh hovered at the edge of his memory and he wrapped his arms around himself as he gave a shaky sigh. "It wasn't uncommon for parents to sacrifice themselves so their children could get away, but sometimes children were still caught. Muggle mobs and 'honest' wizards saw to that."

"You must feel a great amount of bitterness for that," she said. "And you must be terribly afraid to come out like this. What do you think your parents feel about this? No dark family has ever come forward."

His relief that she had taken a sympathetic tone floundered when she brought up his family. "I imagine they're upset, but I don't know if they're even alive."

"You haven't heard from them at all? Not in all this time?"

He shook his head. "You-Know-Who came so close to killing me. I wouldn't be too surprised if he found my parents. I don't want to think about what he would do if he did."

From there they continued in much the same vein, Rita questioning him about his family, his thoughts about history, his brush with Voldemort, and Draco fed her more and more answers that he had already rehearsed in the months before with Harry. He twisted a few half-truths and dressed up pretty lies about how dark wizards just wanted to be left alone, that night rides were an overblown exaggeration for storybooks. He left out pureblood supremacy and the contaminating influence of mudbloods and insisted that dark wizards practiced a different kind of magic, that's all.

They spoke until the lunch bell rang, startling them both. Rita had a stack of notes under her pen with wet ink staining both sides of every page. She smiled and put her quill and notes back in her bag, closing it with a loud click. Draco couldn't help staring at it. An immense store of power lay within, and he was trusting it to a viper of a woman.

"A shame we have to stop so soon," she said, standing. "Next time I really must insist on my quick quotes quill, it leaves me much more time to focus on the story itself. Now, if you'll just sit still for a photo--"

The camera flash went off before he could move. He hoped he looked good and wished he'd done more than run his hands through his hair that morning.

"Thank you so much for your time, Mister Malfoy," she said. "It might take me a little longer to put this article together, but I'm sure it'll be in the paper by tomorrow morning if it isn't a special edition in itself."

Once she'd left, he sighed and slumped in his seat. His back felt stiff, his shoulders ached, his mouth felt like cotton. Groaning, he lay his head on his arms and closed his eyes. At least that was finished, but he couldn't help but go over the entire interview in his memory, agonizing over what he'd said and what he hadn't said.

"Hey, Draco. You all right?"

He smiled despite himself. Harry's voice made some of the anxiety go away. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just finished the interview, that's all."

"How'd it go?"

"Better than I'd expected," he said. "Still wanted to throw up through most of it, but I don't think I've made anything worse."

"Still wish I could've been here with you," Harry said as he sat down beside him. "You look awful."

"Don't say that," Draco moaned, burying his face in his arms. "They took my photo. Great, I'll probably look like a beggar tomorrow."

"You've never looked like a beggar a day in your life," Harry said. "But you're tired, it's obvious."

"I've had a whole week of doing nothing but sitting with you," Draco argued.

"That was hardly a vacation--"

"Hey!" Ron cried. "What's a Slytherin doing at our table?"

Sitting straight, Draco looked up in nigh horror as he discovered that he had indeed sat down at the Gryffindor table, now half full with more students trickling in. The younger children looked at him with wide eyes while the older students laughed at the shock on his face.

Hoping he wasn't as red as his face felt, Draco stood up and swayed slightly, grabbing the table's edge before he fell. Standing quickly, Harry caught and steadied him.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Harry asked, leaning forward trying to see his face. "If you need to see Pomfrey--"

"Just tired," Draco said with a shake of his head. "I'll grab a draught from Severus' office after lunch." When Harry didn't let him go, he smiled again and whispered, "if you hold me much longer, everyone's going to suspect something."

"Would you mind if they did?"

The question surprised him but on reflection he realized it shouldn't have. What could they say about Harry that they hadn't already said? A couple extra hateful epithets? Another nasty Prophet article? After what he'd lived through, what they'd both lived through, how could any of that matter? He didn't have to think about it long.

"Only if you mind."

Harry smiled softly. "You can sit here if you want. Ron can learn to live with it."

A squawk from behind him belied his words, but Draco laughed and shook his head.

"Thank you but my Slytherins would drag me back anyway, for my own good of course." He gently pulled free and stepped away. "And your own friends probably want to make sure I didn't abuse you while you were with me."

"Oh, they already did that," Harry said. "Ron even wanted to make sure you hadn't taken my hair or nails."

"You see?" Draco nodded, reflexively touching the charm under his robes. "You go ahead and prove you're all right and I'll see you later."

"Tonight?"

"I wish. Severus will probably have me working on potions the rest of today and Theo might have quidditch practice for us tonight. Tomorrow, though. I promise."

Finally turning and heading for his table, knowing that everyone had to be watching him, he sank down in the spot Pansy and Vincent made for him. Lunch popped up in front of him, but he sighed and pushed his plate aside to Vincent, who took it eagerly.

"You've got to eat something," Pansy said, forcing her small bowl of soup before him. "You're doing your best Moaning Myrtle impression already."

"It's been a rough semester so far," he muttered. "Give me good news instead. I need that more than food."

"Theo's got our quidditch team together," she said.

"Except for a keeper," Theo said from beside her. "But I'll choose that tonight at practice. I've already asked Snape, and he said you'll be there."

Anything for a chance at shoving a win down McGonagall's throat, Draco thought, even if that meant working his apprentice to an ill-tempered frazzle. "Of course I'll be there. I need to practice on that broom of mine, anyway. Anything else good?"

"The kids who got poisoned are out of the hospital," Pansy said, nodding towards a handful of children at the far end of the table. "And classes are going well. No one's bothered us, although a few of the younger Ravenclaws keep asking our little ones if they're dark, or if they could show them a dark spell. I don't know if they're trying to find out who's dark or if they're just being Ravenclaws."

"Probably just rudely curious as usual," Draco said. "I don't think the ones I put in the hospital are back yet. Anything else?"

"We're warm, dry, well-fed and in comfortable beds every night," Blaise said. When everyone stared at him, he shrugged. "After so damn long in that bloody forest, it's worth mentioning."

Draco smirked and looked sideways at Pansy. "Better than running and hiding again?"

"We'll see," she said coolly.

After lunch, Draco had to leave them again to join Severus in their workshop. Buried under a deep backlog, they worked almost silently in the afternoon light, brewing poisons and antidotes like a miniature factory. As the hours passed, the tension inside slowly mounted as Draco felt his master's unspoken desire to know how the interview went. He felt continually worse wondering if his master thought his situation was so hopeless that he wouldn't even bring it up, but after finishing another batch and placing the glass vials in their rack, he had the sudden thought that perhaps Severus didn't bring it up because he thought it would upset him.

Which was a completely new experience for him. Severus never held back his sometimes cruel but always honest opinions of what he did. To be shown such consideration over something so important didn't make him feel better. It made him feel even more self-conscious.

"I think the interview went well," he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Severus stopped in the middle of a potion and turned slightly, but didn't actually face him. "Oh?"

"Yes. She wasn't nice or anything, but she wasn't mean either. She started to sound a little sympathetic at the end, but she was probably just trying to get more information out of me."

"What kind of information?"

"I didn't name anybody else," Draco hurried to assure him. "Just talked about history and Hogwarts and how we're all on the same side fighting the dark lord."

"Did you call him the dark lord?"

"No, it was always You-Know-Who."

"Anything else?"

"That was it."

"Ah." Severus turned and resumed his brewing. "Well, at least they didn't take a photograph."

Draco froze. Did he really look so awful? He didn't ask out loud, though he did resolve to take a good long look in the mirror before bed.

At least the potions distracted him. Dumbledore's list spilled over the side of the table and he checked off one more potion, a miniscule improvement at best. "Master, do you think I could come in and work on these later tonight after quidditch practice? And maybe I can slip in some time for my own projects? The coins, I haven't had time to--"

"I noticed that you stalled at the last step," Severus said, motioning at a table in the corner. "As bad as your father when it comes to finishing things. I've already tossed them in a spare jar of dragon's blood. They'll be done within the week."
After everything else he'd been busy with all this time, Snape had remembered something so insignificant. Draco smiled very slightly and tilted his head. "Thank you, master."

Severus rolled his eyes quickly with a disdainful 'tch'.

He left soon after, stopping only to grab his besom from the common room before heading to the quidditch pitch. Light frost covered the ground but the snow had been swept from the stands and the pitch itself. Several Slytherins flew through the air at Nott's command and he recognized most of them, while the new keeper seemed to be a child from a hidden family. Nott immediately noticed him and called out for the team to stop practicing, then swooped down and hovered in front of him.

"We've been drilling but now that you're here, I'll go ahead and let the snitch go. Give 'em a taste of playing around a seeker."

"You mean trying not to hit their own seeker with a bludger," Draco said with a wry smile.

"Not just that," Nott said and reached into his pocket. The snitch he pulled out pulsed maniacally in his hand, nearly jerking out of his fingertips. "Kytel Grinset--he's our new keeper--he showed me how to spell the snitch to fly like mad. You said you needed more practice on that broom of yours, and this'll give it to you, all right."

"Don't have to sound so happy about it," Draco grumbled, eyeing the snitch distrustfully. Its erratic movements made it look less like mad and more like enraged.

"Ready?" Nott asked.

Straddling his besom and hoping he wouldn't suffer another panic attack, Draco nodded once and kicked up into the air, hovering over Nott until he saw the gold snitch flash out of his hand and streak into the clouds. He found he didn't have to turn his besom completely around as it flew slightly sideways until it pointed at the snitch.

Like he did during his match with Harry, he lay flat along his besom, curling his fingers into the thin supple vines that now covered most of the wood. As he flew, he found those vines tightening slightly around his hand and compensating for the lack of modern charms meant to keep someone on their broom at high speeds. Keeping the snitch in sight wasn't easy as it twisted and curved through the sky, and he forced the broom faster and faster until the world became a blur and nothing existed except the snitch and the air around him.

Draco suspected that whatever charm they'd used only jinxed away the safety limits on the snitch. He followed it down in a suicide dive and pulled up hard as it it zoomed almost flush with the ground. The frozen dirt cracked under the pressure of his flight. With a violent wrench of its wings, it angled up to the goals and flew through the nearest hoop, and Draco barely had time to notice that his besom had shifted slightly so he wouldn't break his neck trying to follow through. The snitch took him under the stands so fast he had to cling to his broom and hope he didn't clip the supports. At this speed, that would mean a broken arm or shoulder if it didn't send him out of control altogether.

As they flew out and into the pitch again, Draco had to put his free hand in front of his face to block the wind, and as he followed the snitch he realized that he didn't have to see clearly to avoid bludgers or the players. The besom did that for him, easily taking him just inches from a collision while he concentrated on following that flash of gold. It was nerve-wracking but it also let him fly tighter turns around his teammates without worrying about hitting them. Which was a good thing, since the snitch suddenly took a liking to flying loop de loops around the Slytherins, even orbiting a bludger which did its best to break Draco's outstretched hand.

Curling his fingers around the snitch had never felt so satisfying. Pulling his besom to a halt, he took a deep breath and sat straight. The snitch trembled violently and the little wings hummed so hard that they raised welts on the side of his hand.

"Great job," Theo said as he flew up next to him. "What kind of broom is that?"

"It's not," Draco said. "It's a besom. Found it in my family's cellar."

"It looks alive," Theo said. "It even flies like it's alive. Think it'll be allowed on the field?"

"A regulation snitch won't put me through that kind of flight," Draco said, "so I don't think anyone'll notice how it helps me fly. Let them think my ancient broom's a handicap."

"Right," Theo nodded. "Okay, let it go again."

Draco winced. "Again? After all that?"

"Of course after all that. You need more practice after lazing around for months."

"I was not lazing around--"

"We're practicing for an hour at least," Theo said over him. "And Severus said I've got you as long as I need to make sure you're ready."

"He would," Draco grumbled. "Why couldn't he make me team captain?"

"Because you're too busy helping the war effort. And hanging out with Harry Potter."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean by that? Tread carefully, Theo," he warned him. "Potter's been an invaluable tool to me. I won't have that jeopardized."

"Oh yes, a brilliant tool," Theo agreed. "Who broke centuries of tradition and saved your hide. Who you've helped and protected and stayed with for months now. You know, for a dark wizard, you're not very discreet."

"Malfoys aren't discreet," Draco said before realizing he was echoing his master. "I knew people would notice. Unless they've gone beyond the usual gossip--"

"'Usual gossip'?" Theo winced. "You need to go to classes more often. The Boy Who Lived befriends the first openly dark wizard in ages and you think the gossip would be normal? I've heard rumors that you've bewitched him, that you're converting him to the dark, and that he's converting you to the light. I've even heard that you're planning to turn him over to the dark lord."

He ran a hand though his hair. "I thought people would just think we were shagging."

"Are you?"

The blunt question didn't surprise him. Theo proved that Slytherins sometimes showed Gryffindor-like lack of propriety. "No, we're not."

"Yet?"

"Theo, I'd love to stay and gossip like old women, but I've got practice." He let the snitch go and took off after it, leaving Theo far behind.

Still, Theo had a point. He'd hidden in the dungeons long enough. No matter the danger of invading parents or ministry officials, the next stage of proving he wasn't a threat to light wizards was coming amongst them, openly dark and unafraid.

With Harry between him and them, of course.

TBC...