Somnio Salvus DRARRY

Chapter 19

Draco stood rooted to the spot. His father had been unable to shed any light on the failure of the plot, so Voldemort would be looking for answers elsewhere - any time now. The pale, skeletal face turned towards him. Burning eyes surveyed him intently, making him feel rather as though he were being slowly cooked. Abruptly the blood-red gaze fell instead upon Bellatrix. Draco thought she looked as if she would rather be back in Azkaban than where she was at that moment.

Voldemort stepped closer to her and reached towards her face with long, bony fingers. He slowly lifted her chin so that she was looking at him.

'Bella,' he said quietly. The high, cold voice was softened slightly. It could hardly be called affectionate, but the diminished venom and malice in his tone suggested to Draco that the Dark Lord was rather fond of her. Somehow, though, he didn't think that would help her much.

'I believe we agreed that you would deliver Harry Potter to me today, yet instead I seem to find myself in the company of Malfoy the Younger. Is there an explanation for this?'

She haltingly began to recount the scene outside the pub, but it quickly became apparent to everyone present that Voldemort wasn't really interested in explanations. In Draco's opinion, he just enjoyed making people squirm. Bellatrix faltered, and her voice faded away. Voldemort smiled at her in a wholly unpleasant manner.

'I have no use for failures, Bella,' he seethed. 'Finite Incantatem!'

Whatever protective spell he had bestowed on Bellatrix began to dissolve. Wisps of sparkling smoke evaporated from her skin. She shivered, but Draco didn't think it was because she had suddenly become sensitive to the cold.

'Wormtail!' snapped Voldemort. The little bald man hurried forward, fumbling ineptly with his wand. 'I need time to devise a suitable punishment. See to it that Mrs. Lestrange is installed comfortably in the Master Bedchamber in the meantime.'

Wormtail performed a rather unprofessional Full Body-bind, which left Bellatrix unable to move, but still slightly flexible. Her legs collapsed under her as if she had fainted. Wormtail seized one of her arms with a powerful-looking artificial hand, and dragged her through a doorway on the left side of the room.

Voldemort turned his attention to Draco.

'Why?' He asked, in a voice like molten lead. 'Why are you here? And why is Harry Potter...not here?'

Draco very much doubted that there was a correct answer to that question. He bit his lip and cleared his throat, trying to summon the courage to tell Voldemort where to go. He tried to meet the Dark Lord's malevolent stare with an audacious one of his own, but it hurt his eyes. Instead, he looked over Voldemort's shoulder at Lucius. He was surprised by what he saw.

Although his father's face was expressionless, and he stood watching events with an air of passive nonchalance, Draco was not fooled. The steel-grey eyes were too much like his own - they revealed to him a good measure of what was behind them.

There was fear...and anger. There was a flicker of the kind of paternal outrage that emerges when a father discovers his child being bullied. But there was something else...there! Draco was able to guess what his father was thinking. Lucius was no stranger to Draco's fits of defiance and rebelliousness during his childhood, and he would have recognised one at once. Now he was trying to communicate a warning.

Draco thought quickly. Perhaps if he resisted the urge to declare himself an ally of Harry Potter, he might just emerge from the situation in one piece. He very much wanted to spit in Voldemort's face but he knew perfectly well that he would die for it. So he decided to take his father's lead...for now.