with cold. It was a sign of frost bite, of disease, of impending death. Its what people used
to describe zombies, soulless abominations who walked the planet coldly and without
purpose. Draco would have killed for that feeling.
And he intended to.
The wizarding hospitals in England were labeled the absolute best in the planet. They
had the strongest potions, the wizards who’d mastered the strongest healing spells. That,
paired with a natural physical protection that wizarding blood granted the body it flowed
through, they had a fatality rate of less than .05%. Apparently, Draco thought, 2,000 men
and women had walked out alive.
The doctor, face plastered with sweat and tears- obviously Draco would not be the only
one to mourn one of the most famous wizards on the planet’s passing- had tried to
explain it in some half cocked scientific way. He explained how a shotgun work, how the
pellets exploded outward, going in a dozen different directions and effecting at least
three different organs very seriously. They had patched up his stomach and his liver, but
had only seconds to try to fix up his lungs, in a procedure that took minutes to fully go
through. Even the best medical wizards in the world hadn’t been able to pull it off.
He’d thought about taking a swing at the doctor. He wasn’t sure why, he knew that the
man had done anything he- or anyone else- could have to try to help, but the fact
remained that he failed. But Draco had already started to search for the numbness,
looking for the frozen icicle to cling to, and the doctor had sadly retreated before Draco
fully comprehended how much he wanted to rip through the man’s throat and pull out his
spine directly through his mouth.
Draco had a half dozen wands back in his house. He collected them of sorts, and he
wasn’t sure why, because he was only truly proficient with his dueling wand, and he
couldn’t even describe how creepy he thought that Mr. Ollivander was. But he went there
just the same, looking at the newly forged wands, picking out anything that happened to
catch his eye and special ordered some alterations for it. A spiraling handle of gold, scale
ridged, that went all the way up to the tip, where an open snake mouth protruded.
Now he had a new wand, and there was no alterations needed. It certainly wasn’t a Yew,
elven inches, springy. Or an elm, fourteen inches, whispy. It was steel, seven inches long,
and inflexible. It gleamed when he turned it into the light, and it jutted out of a ropy,
leather handle. It was the kind of wand a Muggle would understand. It was the kind of
wand they would call a knife.
Vernon was still sitting in the clearing he had been launched to when Draco had left, but
he’d managed to crawl his way to a wall and was slouched against it miserably, clutching
a four inch gash on the side of his temple that had stained his usually spotless hair brown
and red. He managed to look in the general direction that Draco marched into the area
from, but his eyes seemed unfocused, and it was obvious he had one hell of a concussion.
The fact that he was a massive, cumbersome shape did nothing to deter Draco as he
advanced, and he only took the time to mutter “Maxima” under his breath before he
arrived. He caught him by the ripped shirt and hauled him up off his feet so that his toes
were dangling a good eight inches above the ground, his magically enervated muscles
barely tensing up beneath his robes.
“Hello,” he said to the man, “lets go have some fun.”
*****
He’d only seen a Muggle movie one time, with Harry, some pathetically underactioned
cop movie with what was called ‘special effects’ and could probably be conjured by an
eight year old with his wand. But there was a scene that was actually entertaining because
it showed what Harry explained as a ‘shake down’ scene... two dirty cops had grabbed an
innocent man and were trying to force him to confess to a murder he didn’t commit. They
used all kinds of tricks, and although Draco didn’t think any of them were right for him,
he did like the spinning fan in the background. Of course, a wizard doesn’t need a fan to
make noise and wind.
He kept hearing the voice. His voice. Harry’s voice. It was in his head, speaking too
softly for him to hear. I wonder, he thought, If this is what its like to be insane. Hearing
voices that aren’t there. A ponderous expression spread across his face as he finished
tying a knot and hooked the rope over the pipe and pulling down on it, lifting the hefty
cargo on the other end into the air and keeping it there. Of course, he thought, people
who are insane don’t know it. So it must be perfectly sane to here voices.
Vernon still hadn’t fully come to, to which Draco snorted. That was pathetic. He didn’t
care what kind of spill you took, you should be able to form coherent words after the first
two hours. But all Vernon could do was look wide eyed and make some strange muffled
mumbling sound as Draco wandered around the room, getting things ready, and then
pulled out the knife.
“Oh yeah...” he said, fighting a sudden urge to giggle. “I guess I should undo that,
shouldn’t I?” He grabbed a real wand (Redwood, eight inches, firm) and waved it
casually, breaking the charm he’d cast to keep Vernon’s jaw jammed shut. Instantly the
man started screaming, and Draco rolled his eyes, before rearing back and striking the
man right across the jaw. He silenced for a moment, his scream lowered to a muffled
growl.
“Now listen here, big man.” Draco was sounding downright conversational as he looked
Vernon up and down, pressing his newest want against his own hand, casually taking
small slices out of the palm of his hand with the knife- shouldn’t I be feeling that, he
wondered. “I checked your residue over real quick before I bound you up here. You’ve
been charmed six ways to Sunday. I want to know who did it.”
For a moment, Vernon didn’t answer, and Draco wasn’t sure if he was shaking from rage
or fear. And then he practically spit out the words, a bit of blood dribbling from the side
of his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about you...” he seemed to be searching
for the worst insult he knew, “...freak! I avoid your twisted kind like plague.”
Draco sighed, and leaned back for a moment. Then without warning he jutted forward,
raising his knee and burying it in Vernon’s stomach. The man would have doubled over
if he could have, but Draco had him bond tight, and all he could do was groan in pain and
begin to retch. Oblivious, Draco grabbed his face and straightened him up. “Really? OK,
that means it was packaged. So you’re going to tell me about any phone calls, letters,
snacks... anything you’ve been given by someone you don’t know in the last two weeks.
actually, you’re going to tell me where you got them.”
Once again, Vernon was silent, and Draco wasted no time with knees this time. He
simply raises his knife and pressed it against the man’s shoulder as he watched in
disbelief from around his frazzled mustache, and pulled hard to the side, laying the
shoulder open three inches wide. The man screamed, his eyes closing tightly in pain,
drowning out for a moment the ever-growing volume of Harry’s voice in Draco’s head.
“No, no, no...” it was amazing the things you could imagine in this state.
“Tell me. Now.”
Vernon’s eyes closed tightly, and he seemed to be thinking for all his life. Draco could
just imagine how much the shoulder wound hurt, especially considering he had dipped
the knife in a battle of Muggle cleaning solvent... something called Draino... that he’d
found in the alley before this little production began. “L... l-...” he kept trailing off, and
agitated, Draco prompted him.
“Letter? Lucifer? Lucious?”
“Lucius!” the man screamed, seeming unbelievably relieved. “It was Lucius! He did it!
He did it! Go find him! Lucius!”
Draco stared at him blankly, not understanding the feelings brewing inside him. He
wasn’t shocked or horrified, simply... strained. Like he’d known all along who it was, but
had needed confirmation, even though this was all totally new to him now. Oh well, he
thought simply, barely hearing himself over the imaginary voice in his head that was
absolutely screaming now. Now I know. “Good for you,” he said calmly, “you figured
that out all by yourself.”
“Yes!” Vernon hissed, straining in pain. “Now let me go?”
Draco smiled. “OK,” he said, and patted Vernon once on the face, leaving a dark red
hand print on his cheek, and then started to walk away. He casually reached up and
removed the nose plugs he’d summoned to him, allowing the overwhelming smell of the
room to flood in. Gasoline always did have some a pungent odor, and the room was
completely saturated with it. He turned back to Vernon when he reached the entrance to
the shack he’d transported them to- after all, the cops would have heard about the
gunshots by now- and shot him his biggest grin. “As long as your heading to hell.”
He lit the match up with one hand, using his nail to scratch the tip into flame. Vernon’s
eyes went almost impossibly wide, and he screamed, just once, before Draco re-applied
the mouth bind with a wave of his hand. “Now,” he said, “isn’t this a very Muggle way to
die?”
He spun and dropped the match at the same time, barely making it outside of the flames
out ward leaping distance. The flickering heat swept over the wood, tracing across liquid
lines left on the floor, until they reached the barrels he’d piled up in the center. The
impending explosion knocked him off his feet, and if it hadn’t, the twirling piece of
shrapnel wood that arched right past where he’d been standing a minute before would
have. He turned over on the ground, blinking against the brilliance of the blazing building
and the heat that was rolling out over him, and smiled a small smile.
“Ow.” He said. And watched the building burn.
*Welcome to my world, Ladies and Gentleman. Tiger handed me the story and let me run
with it because he said he didn’t know what to do, so I cocked up a little plan. By the
way, this isn’t the last chapter, the next one will be. And the title is now officially ‘Lost’,
because I want it to be. Got it? Good. Falcon.*