Disclaimer: Characters and universe belong to JK Rowling and several large publishing companies and film houses with much more money and many more lawyers than I could ever hope to have.
Author's Notes: I couldn't pick who had the most creative Malfoy death, cause they were all fun to think about, so I decided to give everyone who's ever reviewed this story a gold star. Thank you so much; you've made me want to keep writing during some times when I've felt like giving up. I hope you keep tuning in and enjoying, no matter what;)
Oh, and it's been noted that I've switched Lupin and Black's personalities from what we see in the books. I figure that Azkaban permenantly changed Sirius; he will never be James' fun-loving, prankster friend again. And in this story, I've given Lupin a whole new lease on life and a woman in America who loves him. Therefore, he can let the playful parts of his own personality out. That's all my justifications anyways. Hopefully, it's mildly believable;) On with the story!
****
An Organ of Fire
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
He had just been thinking that what they really needed were swords. Against the ever-regenerating army of silver soldiers, he and Severus had only their wits and their wands. Weapons in their own right, surely, but now that it was only the two of them and Harry had disappeared into the darkness of the manor, they required something a little more substantial to keep Malfoy's diversion at bay.
A sword. Just what Lupin wanted at that exact moment. And it was a sword that he received...only through the sinewy flesh of his left shoulder.
"Fuck!!" he screamed, reflexively grasping the protruding blade for balance. With his foot, he pushed away the suit of armor attached to it. "Severus..."
Snape hit the suit with a quick spell; it disintegrated before their eyes. "Are you hurt?"
"I have a fucking sword through my shoulder!!"
Instead of sympathy, he got calm thinking even as the other wizard kept fighting back the suits. "How deep is it?"
Lupin could already feel sweat gathering on his forehead; the pain was incredible. "Deep enough." He forced himself to draw in a huge breath. "But not all the way through, I don't think."
Snape glanced at him before returning his attention to their enemy. "Pulling it out might do more damage than the blade itself."
"Do you suggest I spend the rest of my life with this...accessory?" Lupin stumbled; with the sword plugging up the wound, only a small amount of blood soaked his robes, but it was enough to begin affecting his equilibrium. "It's gotta come out, Severus..." He gestured with his good hand. "You need my help."
Snape snorted. "I need no one's help." Pausing to muster as much energy as possible, he lunged forward with his wand. "Adsulto circumvado!" The remaining suits exploded in time with one another, sending showers of sparks onto the two wizards. A second later, there was silence. They were alone again in Malfoy Manor.
Momentarily forgetting his shoulder, Lupin gave his old schoolmate an amazed look. "Saving that one up, were you?"
"It's been years since I've been in a good battle." Snape pocketed his wand and reached for the sword. "Brace yourself."
"I thought you said..." He gritted his teeth against the burning pain. "...this would be...a bad idea."
Snape shrugged. "If you want to keep it as a souvenir, that's fine with me."
"I didn't mean that," Lupin snapped back. His knees felt weak, but he would be damned before he let Severus Snape see him falter. "Just...take it easy. Slow. Bit by bit and..." His word ended in an animalistic roar of pain as Snape yanked the sword out of his shoulder and immediately squeezed the torn flesh to stop the fresh flow of blood. "Fuck!! You goddamn, bloody son of a...I told you to go slow!!"
"We don't have the time." Snape reached into his robes and withdrew a tiny vial of yellowish liquid. He pushed aside the blood-soaked layers of Lupin's robes to get at the wound and when he had a clear view, he let a few drops of the liquid fall directly into it. "This will close it up for now."
Lupin couldn't believe how quickly the pain faded to a dull throb. "What is that stuff?"
"Just something handy to have around."
"You know...you're a slimy git..." He had a hard time pushing out the next words. Childhood convictions were hard to overcome, even as a seasoned adult. "But you're not half bad to have around in a battle."
"You're welcome." Snape's reply was prosaic; he returned the vial to his pockets and took out his wand. "Can you move your arm?"
"A little." Lupin winced as he demonstrated, all the while looking up and down the hallway. "Should we go the direction Harry took?"
The other man shook his head. "It would be useless to try and catch up to him now." He pointed to the path Harry hadn't taken. "We'll go this way. It'll get us there."
"Get us where?"
"The light we saw...it could only be coming from the main hall. That's where we'll find them." Snape started walking, not bothering to check and see if his companion was following.
Lupin jogged to keep up, holding one hand over his wound. The blood had been stopped and the pain minimized, but it was still raw flesh, open and exposed to the cool air. "You might've told Harry that. Made it easier on him."
"I didn't think of it at the time," Snape replied, almost regretfully. "There's a secret passage. Lucius showed me once; it was designed for shelter in ancient times if the manor ever came under attack. If it's not been boarded up, it'll take us straight there. We can catch Draco by surprise."
"And where exactly in the hall does this passage open up?"
Snape hesitated. "The fireplace."
"Brilliant," Lupin muttered, still following the potions master. "I've been stabbed already. What's a few third-degree burns to round out the evening?"
****
He couldn't stop remembering the last night they had spent together, the night before the Dark Mark appeared over Hogwarts, the night Lupin had reappeared in their lives and everything had seemed like it might eventually be all right once again.
The light of the full moon had woken them up. Pure, white luminescence shining through the window, creeping up and over their sleeping bodies until it urged them to open their eyes. She had never looked more beautiful than she did when caught up in its glow, her hair spread out over her pillow. Her tongue had circled her lips, wetting them, making them glisten. He hadn't been able to hold himself back, hadn't wanted to. Her arms had opened to him and he took the invitation with pleasure.
She couldn't hide anything from him when they were joined like that; her face was always a page on which everything going through her mind was plainly displayed. He read her like she would devour a book. Harry could never tear his eyes away from hers until it was absolutely necessary, when they both came to the edge of the cliff and there was nothing to do but cling to one another and tumble over it. Consequently, he had memorized every expression her lovely face could possibly compose.
So he knew two things right away. The person clinging to their worst enemy was definitely Hermione.
But looking at her in the moments after he was drawn into Malfoy's presence was like looking at a stranger with the face of someone you used to know. Everything about the person standing in front of Harry was his Hermione. Her thick hair, her petal-soft skin, the smattering of freckles across her nose. But her eyes... He was familiar with every thread of color set into her irises, every fleck of gold, every twinkle. He shivered when her blank stare met his. Everything he knew so well was gone.
Her eyes alone told him the other thing. This was no act.
"Why don't you have a seat, Potter," Draco said, peeling Hermione away from his body. He snapped his fingers and a chair materialized directly behind Harry, knocking into the backs of his knees and sending him flopping down into the seat. He moved to stand up again, but Draco was too quick. Harry felt the Binding Spell take ahold of him like invisible shackles keeping his legs and arms motionless. "There. That's better."
Harry struggled. He thought he had felt rage before, but nothing compared to this new twist in Malfoy's perverted game. "Undo whatever you've done to them," he said, his voice low. "It's me you want. Not them."
"That's where you'd be wrong." Draco cupped Hermione's chin in the palm of his hand; she smiled at him. "I'm enjoying my new toys. They're fun to play with."
"Don't touch her again," Harry warned him. His stare cut into the other wizard like cold, green glass. "Get your hands off of her, Malfoy."
"But she likes it so much..." He released her with a hard pat to her cheek. Hermione just kept smiling. "Enough of that." Draco approached Harry's chair. "So...why have I gone through all this trouble just to bring you here tonight?"
Harry lifted his shoulders as much as he could. "Overcompensating for something?"
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" Draco shot back. "Ah, well. It doesn't matter. You'll know soon enough."
"Know what?" Harry asked, laughing suddenly. "What is there to find out? I already know that you're a jealous, spoiled little wizard dressed up in robes that are too big for you. You can't be your own person, so you've latched onto Voldemort's persona. You think you're being clever by enchanting my godfather and my...my best friend." He paused. "I can feel sorry for you for all of that, Malfoy. That you feel this intense need to prove yourself to me. But what you did to Ron...that's what you'll pay for. Because don't think your little binding spell is going to keep me down for long. I've faced evil and you couldn't come even close to its depths if you tried for another hundred years." His hair fell over his forehead; to look up at Malfoy, he had to peer through it. "Why don't you just grow up?"
The speech was intended to bait Malfoy, but all he did was plant a hand on each of the arms of the chair Harry had been forced into. He leaned in until his nose almost touched Harry's. "Just wait. When the time is right...you're going to choke on those words."
Draco straightened up. "Get over here," he ordered Hermione. She obeyed, even going so far as to let him slide an arm around her waist. Harry couldn't subdue a hot stab of rage. It's not her will, he kept telling himself. If she could, she'd have already shriveled his balls with a single hex. Draco turned his face into Hermione's hair. "She could be all right," he said. "Once she's cleaned up, of course. You can't ever wash all the Muggle off of her, but it could almost be fun to roll in the dirt every now and then. Wouldn't you agree?" He pulled back. "What am I saying? You already know, don't you?"
"None of this has anything to do with Hermione. You don't find her sexually attractive; you could only ever get off on what touching her would do to me," Harry replied as evenly as possible.
"Are you saying she's not desirable? Potter, I'm shocked." He chuckled. "Hear that, love? He says you're not sexually attractive."
Hermione rested her cheek on Draco's shoulder. "It only matters what you think."
"Ah, what nice words to hear, even from a knocked-up little Mudblood." Harry's face paled instantly. "I've never liked children. Even when I was one. But...I somehow got stuck with a brat to raise. And Bronson's fine. His blood is as pure as it comes." He delighted in watching Harry's reaction when he knelt in front of Hermione and placed a hand on her lower belly. "But raising Harry Potter's bastard...the universe couldn't have thought up a nicer surprise for me. After all these years..." Draco cleared his throat and stood back up. "It's too bad you won't be around to see the child, Potter. I bet she'll look just like you. Not that I'll hold it against her."
Some sort of super human strength pumped through Harry's body as Draco spoke about his unborn child. His muscles flexed and he felt something pop. His left arm...it was free of the spell! He kept it still, steeling his expression to remain fixed while he worked to break the rest of Draco's spell. Keep him talking...buy yourself some time, his brain yelled at him.
"It looks like you've got everything laid out for you, Malfoy. I just have one question." Harry paused for effect, but in reality, he could feel the invisible chains on his right arm loosening. "Why *are* you going to so much trouble? Attacking the school on Halloween, conjuring the Dark Mark, finding your way through the Hogwarts barriers, steering the Governors to rid the school of Muggles...murdering Ron. What's it all for? I can't believe that you're just going to kill me without taking the opportunity to gloat."
Draco pushed Hermione away; she walked back over to Sirius to wait for his next bidding. "'What's it all for?' Come on, Potter. Don't be dense. The goal of any pureblood worth his weight should be to eliminate the Muggle infestation. It certainly hasn't been an easy thing. But it's always been foremost on my mind. And you should know that...better than anyone else alive."
"Spoken like a true Voldemort groupie." Both of his arms were free now, but even with the ability to raise his wand, which Malfoy had neglected to remove from his petrified hand, without the use of his legs, he wouldn't get very far in an attack.
"As for getting rid of Weasley..." Draco drawled, removing his wand from his robes to finger the length of it. "That was just fun. A little wave of this and it all came tumbling down. One more thorn removed."
Harry's stomach turned. "That's all he was to you, wasn't he? Just a thorn. You spent seven years in school with us...through classes and Quidditch and detentions and trips to Hogsmeade and graduation...and still, you have no problems blighting any one of us out of existence."
"None."
"You're sick, Malfoy."
Draco let out the strangest sigh, plunging a hand through his slick, blond hair. "Sick, yes. Sick *of* Malfoy." He shook his head. "If you cared so much about your dearly departed friend, why did you up and disappear ten years ago?"
"I have nothing to explain to you," Harry replied. His left foot was free.
"Neither do I to you. I've done what I...what great wizards have been trying to do for years. Centuries, even. I've made the first steps towards Purification. The biggest steps. And after everything I've been put through..." Draco smiled coldly. "My time has come."
Just one leg to go... Harry fixed a curious stare onto the other wizard. "Have you ever heard of a Muggle named Adolph Hitler?" He continued without waiting for an answer. "All he wanted was a pure race of people. And he did anything, killed anyone and everyone to achieve his goal."
"I'm bored, Potter. Your point is...?"
"He almost succeeded. Almost. But do you know what happened to him in the end?" The hold on his right leg lifted; Harry nearly broke into a wide grin. "He died in a ditch. Covered in petrol. On fire. Giddy."
At this, Harry shot out of the chair, thrusting his wand out in front of him. "Conjunctivitis!!"
The curse hit Draco directly in his eyes. He screamed and grabbed at his face. His wand clattered to the floor, forgotten through the blinding pain of Harry's spell. "Potter...." he roared.
Harry scooped up the wand and ran as fast as he could to Sirius and Hermione. After tucking the wands loosely into his robes, he grabbed them both by their arms. "We're getting out of here now!"
Sirius yanked his arm out of Harry's grip. Hermione followed suit. "Draco hasn't said we can go."
"Snap out of it!" Harry yelled. "Fight him...both of you. You're strong! I know you can do it." He grasped Hermione's slender shoulders. "Do it, Hermione. For the baby...if not for me."
Across the room, Draco still clawed away at his eyes. Unable to see much of anything, he had dropped down to his knees, searching for his wand.
Hermione watched him struggle, a frown on her face. "You hurt his eyes."
"It doesn't matter!" Harry carefully shook her. "Hermione...come on!!" The gentle shaking motion knocked the two wands out of his robes. Licking his lips, Harry released Hermione to retrieve them. As he straightened back up, he took his first good look at Draco's wand. "What the...?" He lifted his stare from the object to look at Draco. "How the bloody fuck did you get this?!" He took a step away from Hermione and Sirius. "Another part of the Malfoy collection, is it?! Answer me!!"
On the floor, Draco laughed harder than Harry had ever heard him laugh before. "You still don't get it, do you? For all your fame and all your supposed cleverness...you're far stupider than your red-haired friend ever was!" Dragging himself to his feet, Draco continued. His teeth were bared, white and sharp. "He figured it out. And he had to be eliminated. Couldn't have him blabbing to the world, could I? It wasn't time yet. But...I think....now it is." He raised his hand. "Finally...after everything you've done to me...I get to kill you. Harry Potter."
****
Lupin sneezed once. Then twice. At the onslaught of the third sneeze, Snape turned on him. "Why don't you just toot a horn and announce 'we're coming!'?" he whispered loudly.
"Why don't *you* just concentrate on where we're going and let me worry about my own allergies?" He sniffed and glanced around the cramped, dusty corridor. "Draco must not know about this passage. Doesn't seem like anyone's been here in...in..." He pulled up a corner of his robes to muffle a great sneeze. "Ages," he finished.
Snape ignored him. "We must be getting closer. I don't remember walking too long when Lucius took me through..."
"Shh!" Lupin held up a hand. "Do you hear that?"
The two men listened for a long moment. "Voices," the other man finally said. "Just up a few feet."
They covered the short distance in no time, and Lupin even managed to hold back an impending sneeze. It was too imperative that they be silent; even his allergies seemed aware of that. The muffled conversation grew louder until they reached their goal. The final end of the secret passage, a brick overlay that dissected the hall.
"The back of the fireplace," Snape said "Feel how warm it's gotten?"
Lupin nodded. "How do we open it?"
His former schoolmate answered by taping his wand on the center brick and saying, "Reveal." The bricks vanished and they were confronted with the massive fire burning in the main hall. "Get down." At Snape's order, he and Lupin flattened themselves to the floor and lowered their heads.
Through the flames, they could see Draco rising to his feet. He was speaking, but through the crackle of the fire and with his back turned to them, they were unable to make out his words. Shifting slightly to the right, Lupin caught a glimpse of Harry holding two wands, a horrified look on his face.
"I can't see much," he whispered. "But Harry doesn't appear to be hurt."
"Quiet." Snape flicked his wand, muttering a quick spell. Within seconds, the volume of the conversation taking place in the room had magnified ten-fold.
"Do you understand now why I've gone to so much trouble, as you put it? Actually, it's really not far more than anything I've done in the past. Only this time...I will succeed. You will not steal revenge or power or glory from me again!!" Draco cried.
Harry shook his head back and forth. "It's not...not possible." His hand raised to cover his forehead; there was pain written on his face. "You can't be...I...I killed him."
"Keep the wand, Harry. It's not important to me anymore. And it belongs with yours, anyway."
"Stop! Stop talking like you're..." The Boy-Who-Lived pointed his wand at his adversary, his eyes burning red. "You're not him!!! You're just Draco Malfoy. Nothing less and certainly nothing more!!"
The blond wizard held out his hands, displaying to the fullest his black-marked robes. "My past, my present..." He threw his head back. "And my future. Make no mistake, Harry Potter. I am Voldemort."
****
To Be Continued
PS: The bit about Hitler was greatly influenced by Eddie Izzard, another genius English entertainer.