Disclaimer: See Chapter 0.

Author's note: TBA.

Draco Malfoy sat cross-legged on a pad made from a folded blanket on the floor of a Muggle camping tent. He had not changed much in the small two-man sleeper, but he had put a weather shield and a glamor on it, both for protection. His temporary home looked like just another tree in the Irish countryside, and it kept the rain and wind out. He was invisible and sheltered. He was comfortable as was possible in the tiny space, and he had time to meditate and recuperate.

Draco had been on the run ever since June, ever since the fiasco with Dumbledore had resulted in his—his condition—being outed to Voldemort and his father. His mother had always known, being one of those rare people who could tell the difference between earth magic and life magic just by the feel of it. She had done a lot of research when he was very young, and she had guided him as best she could.

Draco was not—technically—a wizard. He was an earth magician, or mage for short. Mages were far more likely to be found in obscure religious orders than in wizarding society. In fact, to Draco's admittedly poor knowledge, there had never been a wizard who was also a mage, though some thought Merlin might have been one such. Draco could perform magic, very convincingly, but he manipulated earth magic with his life magic, gathering it into the palm of his hand and forcing it through his wand to produce a spell. He had more steps to go through to preform the same spell as someone else, which made him just a tad slower than, say, Potter or Granger.

Draco sighed and stared into the flame of his candle, the only light he had allowed himself. He'd done such a good job of pretending, that he was a wizard, that he was his father's little shadow, that he believed in Lord Voldemort's vile sputum. But in the end, no amount of pretending could force him to betray his true beliefs, to kill Dumbledore and every other Muggle-loving teacher at Hogwarts. Surrounded by the dark, he repelled it, like a candle in the night.

He had his mother to thank for that. Despite Lucius Malfoy's influence upon his son, Narcissa had the raising of him, and so had been able to instill decent values in him. He valued all life, even more because he could sense life, could feel it when things died or were born. He sometimes shared the pain of death or injury with animals he became close to, to say nothing of people.

He had overcome mush in the past year, including his fear of death's pain, but that didn't mean he courted it, and Voldemort's order to murder Hogwarts' staff had undone him. He'd tried. For the sake of his own survival, Draco had tried his best to do as he'd been commanded, to commit murder. Tried and failed.

He later learned from Snape that the task had been a trap all along, a trap he'd been rescued from by his god father, but that rescue had not come without a cost. The price of his freedom? To hear a secret and carry it for as long as both he and Snape lived.

There had been hundreds of revelations that night, and not all, or even most, had come from the mouth of Severus Snape, but for now, Draco remembered those that had. Snape had known for a long time that Draco was no wizard, had known since he first sat Potions with him, and he'd protected that secret behind his formidable Occulmensy shields. Dumbledore had been dying of curse poisoning the night Severus had killed him, had, in fact, asked Snape to relieve his suffering when it would do the most good. And most shocking of all, both Dumbledore and Voldemort had had perfectly logical reasons for believing they had Snape's loyalty. Yes, Snape hated James Potter, had not mourned his or Sirius Black's passing. But he had loved Lily! She had been his one true friend during his torturous time at Hogwarts, his one staunch deffender against the pranks, the taunts, and the loneliness. Romance had never happened between them, only fraternity, but when Snape heard that Voldemort had killed his best friend in the world, he'd changed sides for good, becoming the perfect spy.

Snape had vindicated Draco's search for peace, told him in no uncertain terms that he had been right to deny Voldemort his prize. They'd talked for hours in the relative safety of the open air as they walked from the edge of the Forbidden Forest to a waiting Portkey. And here Snape made his first—and last—mistake. In order to hide something with Occulmensy, you must not think about it, must shove it to the back of your mind and layer shields upon it to prevent unauthorized peeking. Voldemort had overheard their entire conversation while checking up on all of his men.

The dark wizard had taken days to plan Snape's execution, and in the end had chosen irony for his weapon. He called his Death Eaters to his side and told Snape to come forward, that he was to be rewarded for his services in killing Dumbledore. Then he'd injected him with basilisk venom.

Snape had Apparated out to where Draco waited for him, but there was no cure but phoenix tears, which neither of them had on hand. The poison killed him within the hour, but not before he'd had a chance to bottle some of his memories and tell Draco what to do with them. "When Voldemort strikes at Hogwarts, not before and not after, you get this vial to Potter."

"What's in it?"

"Information that he requires. You won't understand it all, but he will. Dumbledore's last message to him is in there. He new it would have to come from me. Now, it will have to come from you, as well. It is vital for him to defeat Voldemort." He took a ragged breath. "I have loved you as a son, and you have made me proud. I know you will continue to do so." Then he died.

So here he sat in his tent, trying to find some direction in the light of a candle, his dead mentor lying outside disguised as a rock. He sighed and stood. It was time to be moving on. If he was to get Potter to accept the vial from him, he would have to get him to trust him, and that was going to take a lot of skill and finesse.

Draco exited the tent, abolished the illusion, and turned to Snape's body. Deciding that it needed to be buried, he banished it to a location six feet below it's current resting place. The earth bubbled up around it, since it could not occupy the same space as the dirt. Then he used his abilities with life magic to remove bits off the boulder that lay at Snape's head, writing, "Here lies Severus Prince-Snape, a Slytherin, a Spy and a Good Man."

Draco stared at he gravestone for a while, pondering all he knew of the man beneath it, but eventually his connection to life magic started vibrating, a sign he took for a warning of danger. It wouldn't be long before they found him.

Draco looked up at a sudden loud noise. He saw nothing, but he felt an intense presence, a brilliant sun of life magic, and he felt no danger from it, only curiosity and a kind of searching alertness. A person who was very strong with life magic was looking for something that they were curious about. Me. He's looking for me.

Draco was wary of a trap, but reason told him that Voldemort had nothing to do with this. Voldemort put off a stink to his senses that he likened to an old, unemptied chamber pot*. No, this was something new, something unrelated. Or rather, someone.

The noise came from a Muggle air craft, and as he watched it settled quietly to the ground in front of him. The bubble that contained the pilot slid open, and a man with a pale gray helmet stood up inside. He took off the helmet and looked directly at Draco, and in that instant, Draco knew that this was the person who was looking for him. The man leaped from the plane to the ground and, leaving his helmet on the wing of the plane, he came toward Draco.

Trusting his senses on the matter of the man before him, Draco walked forward as well and extended his hand in greeting. "I'm Draco Malfoy."

The man took his hand, and Draco felt a wisp of portent fly through his mind before he could get a good look at it. "Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight."

"Why have you come here? And what is a Jedi Knight?"

"I have come to render aid to this planet against the coming darkness. And as for what a Jedi is—" Life magic vibrated in warning once again, and it was obvious that both of them had felt it. "That will have to wait. We're about to have company."

The both of them turned toward the front of the plane, and there, from out of the forest, seven Death Eaters quietly emerged. One of them was Lucius. "Well, well. Found a friend, have we, Draco? Tell the Muggle to leave, and we won't harm him."

Draco let life magic flow through him, and he suddenly knew the answer to his own second question as he answered his father. "He's no Muggle. He's a Mage. And I've learned not to believe you, father." He whispered to Skywalker, "Is there enough room in that thing for me?"

Skywalker nodded. "The boy has my protection."

Grinning, Lucius raised his wand at the interloper. "Then you will die for him."

Luke had his lightsaber out in an instant, and as Draco's father said two strange words, an acidic green light shot forth from the wand. But Luke caught the spell on the blade of the saber, and the energy crackled around the blade before fading. The man who'd tried to kill him looked absolutely shocked for about two seconds. Then he shouted, "Kill them!" The other men drew their own wands and started firing spells. Luke deflected the first volley, then gathered the force, raised his hand, and pushed outward, sending their attackers flying.

Luke turned to Draco and picked him up with the force, depositing him on the wing of Lando's fighter-turned-yacht. He flicked the switch on the second cockpit bubble and shouted, "Get in!" Then he shut down his light saber and jumped back into the pilot's seat. He pulled his helmet to him from the wing and put it on over his head. Then he closed the ship up and got the engines going before any of the attackers ever regained their footing.