Violet

I'm incredibly sorry for the long delay on this one. Life's been hella complicated for me recently -- finally finished up my internship, had a lot of events all over the place, and also this chapter was really hard to write in general, since from this point onward we're going to start to deviate even more from canon. Next few chapters should flow out of me much easier, expect me to return to my usual ETA for them. Additionally, this time we have something special! We've special art being made for this chapter by my amazing friend @OtakuArtGallery, who's given me permission to post it alongside the chapter as an accompaniment. For now, they've only managed the sketch, but later on I'll post the full thing! Now, without further ado, the next part of my #Malfoid #fanfic is here! After the events at the Graveyard, a confrontation brews: The Third Task - An Impostor Revealed - Dracaena's heart thundered in her chest as she made her way through the Hogwarts Grounds, silver eyes fixed on the two figures in front of her. Her stomach felt empty, nauseous bile still fresh in her throat from the happenings of the night. Her head spun as she tried to make sense of it all: A boy was dead. Cedric Diggory was dead. Those left at the maze's entrance were left picking up the pieces. A father had been left without a son, wailing and begging the Heavens to bring him back. Tonight, the man would be forced to tell his wife, the woman who'd given birth to the dead boy he held in his arms, what had happened. Dracaena shuddered to imagine the ways grief would soon rend that family apart. It made her feel ill in a way that she could scarce describe, and the thought of the boy's pale skin, of his face now eternally locked into a mask of fear and shock brought on a wave of dread that she'd never felt before. But the implications behind all of it were far, far worse. Lord Voldemort was back. He who must not be named-- the Dark Lord of Wizardry, the Pureblooded Messiah, the man whom her family worshipped, who she'd been told near since birth was meant to lead them all towards a future where filth and taint would no longer be tolerated in their world. A future in which her and her family would lead at the forefront, as servants to the purity of blood that Wizardkind demanded. But to Dracaena, that had all been a fairy tale. A slogan and an example to follow, not an instruction list and a prophecy to come true! Harry had told her, of course: He'd told her of the dreams he kept having, of the nightmares which sometimes made his eyes glassy and his face pale whenever he recounted them. But she thought of them as little more than that; dreams birthed from the unfortunate circumstances of his life, of the scar which shaped it. But he'd said it, hadn't he? He was back. And now there was proof of it all in the form of the body of a promising young man whose life had been callously ripped away by the most unforgivable of curses, and her Harry was hurt so deeply, and all Dracaena Malfoy could now think of as she stalked behind him and Moody was that it could've been her and him instead. That she might have been the one holding a loved one's corpse, crying out their name, clawing at anyone that dared tried to touch her, to rip her away from their cold, lifeless form. That it might've been his green eyes that were staring up past her, and his lips which grew icy and blue. That she might have to wrestle with the fact she'd never be with him again, that she'd never kiss him and hold him and hug him again, never mind tease him or torment him or bedevil him, for as long as she might live. That she might lose her Prince to the very thing that her family held most dear. Tears fell down her face as she thought of it all, and she sucked in a harsh breath through her teeth as quietly as she could as they made their way through the halls. Nearly the entire trip, Harry cried. Though his wails and his sobs had died down to simpering breaths, each hyperventilation a fresh spear through Dracaena's heart. They walked in front, a good ways away, and Moody spoke to Harry the entire time, reassuring him in ways that sounded so cold and methodical that they somehow incensed a deep anger in Dracaena's chest. A resentment for the man who clearly knew nothing about how to comfort another, when it should have been her wrapped around Harry's shoulders, offering him all the warmth that his horrid family had denied to him all his life. Offering him a warmth that even those two girls that always orbited him never could. Where were they going? Why had Moody taken him away in the first place? Why was she sneaking around? It was that rumbling in her gut again, every instinct inside of her screaming at her that something was deeply, deeply wrong about what she was seeing. That Moody was going to hurt Harry, even more than he already was. Minutes later, as the Professor ushered the by now shaking and no longer crying boy into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, Dracaena's hunch was proven correct. She was glad she'd been forced to learn the Silencio Charm early, and indeed that one of her fellow Slytherin upperclassmen had been knowledgeable enough of their position under her to teach her it. For it was that very spell which allowed her to sneak up as close as she did, to slowly open the door that Professor Moody had locked with a cast of Alohomora, and hear everything that followed. "It was you from the beginning! You put my name in the Goblet of Fire-- you bewitched Krum!" Harry's voice echoed within the office at the top of the classroom, as Dracaena's silenced footsteps came up the spiral staircase, her heart in her throat and her wand firmly held in her hand. "Bu-bu-bu-bu--" Moody mocked him, high pitched and sniveling. "You won because of me, Potter! You ended up in that graveyard tonight because I deemed it so, and now the blood in these veins runs in the Dark Lord's!--" Harry's voice echoed in a cry alongside the ruffling of clothing and the sound of a hand gripping an arm within the room, and Dracaena felt rage steel her heart. She barely had time to think, afterwards. Everything became a blur. "EXPELLIARMUS!" She shouted as she rounded the corner, coming into view right as Moody pulled his wand from his coat and pointed it towards Harry's face whilst he grasped tight onto his bleeding arm. In a single moment, the man was launched backwards, landing against the cabinets with a thunderous, glass-shattering crash! "Get the hell away from him!" Dracaena snarled, glaring daggers towards the Professor as she stepped into the room, wand held high. She turned towards Harry then, eyes widening as she finally got a close look at what had been done to him. The opened wound in his arm which ran rivers of red down his wrist, the scratches and bruises on his face, the fear in his eyes. She paused, her breath catching. She-- "CRUCIO!" "NO!" Harry fell in front of her, his body curling against itself as untold agonies pressed through him. He gasped, eyes wide open in a silent scream as the Cruciatus Curse made its way into his system. He'd thrown himself in the path of it, protecting her from the spell. Dracaena blinked. In front of her, Moody held his wand aloft with one hand, the other holding onto his side to nurse the bruising of his ribs that her previous attack had given him. His teeth were grit, single eye staring at her with fury utterly animal, completely alien to any form of human propriety. She flicked her wand forward. Anger tore through her again. He'd hurt Harry. He'd hurt him, again. Unforgivable. Unforgivable! Dracaena opened her mouth, wand raising up to the sky. "Avada--!" "EXPELLIARMUS!" Albus Dumbledore's voice boomed through the office like a cannon, a door on the other end of the space suddenly blasted off its hinges. Moody turned a second too late, and soon his body was blasted away for a second time, this time crashing through a chair on the other corner. Dracaena moved immediately, falling to her knees and grabbing at Harry as chaos erupted. She pulled him to her chest, wand still high, eyes wild as Professors Snape, McGonagall and Dumbledore stormed into the room with their wands at the ready. "Severus!" Dumbledore barked, his tone firm as stone as the three of them pressed their wands onto the man's neck and the Potions Professor lifted a hand from his robes to press a potion to Moody's lips. The interrogation began, and Dracaena's eyes were dead set upon the man. She was holding onto Harry, who grasped onto her shoulder and took deep, shuddering breaths. She squeezed onto his hair even as she guarded him, pulling him in deep to her chest. She was shaking --not with fear, but with anger, wrapping herself around him while the proceedings continued. She only allowed herself to look at him when he pulled himself onto a sit alongside her. "Harry." She whispered, holding at his face and letting out a shivering sigh as it finally softened, those boyishly handsome features of his smoothing out now that they weren't scrunched up in agonizing pain. He half-heartedly smiled at her in that way that he always did anytime she worried just a bit more than normal, but that lopsided smile soon turned into a furious glare. That bastard. That bastard! He'd nearly hit her with it-- nearly hurt her like he had him! Harry's fists tightened, and he stood up and grabbed onto the wand at his side, but Dracaena stood with him, grabbing onto his wrist and holding him back from storming towards the seated man. Near them, that very man's true nature was revealed in gruesome fashion. The waning effects of Polyjuice contorted 'Professor Moody' in the chair he'd been unceremoniously crashed into, and all three other Professors surrounded him as the metamorphosis carved its path. Dracaena and Harry both recognized his face with a gasp-- it was hard not to, given how much they'd seen of him in the papers since the beginning of the school year. There, on the chair, Barty Crouch Jr. sat, licking at his lips and growling at all present like a caged animal. He huffed, each of his breaths making his nostrils widen and his teeth creak. His eyes shifted from one end of the room to another, filled with particular contempt anytime he gazed upon Dumbledore, Harry, and Dracaena. Then all of a sudden he stood, stomping forward and shoving McGonagall and Snape away, hands reaching towards Harry. Harry tensed, his fists tight; but though he moved he and the others moved their hands up in instinct, it was Dracaena instead who closed the distance first, fast and purposeful. A hard SLAP echoed across the room as Dracaena's hand cleanly impacted against the horrid man's jaw. Barty reeled back, stunned, and with a quick flick of Dumbledore's wand was he expelled back against the chair, the impact so harsh the ancient stonework behind him spat out a cloud of dust. He wheezed, wretching in place and grabbing at his stomach, each new inhalation of the same a coughing hack for breath. "Hah... Hahah!" Barty lurched, looking past them all and towards Dracaena, his hands reaching to roll against his sleeve. "Stupid girl! Do you not know who I am?! Who I serve?!" There, on his arm, lay a mark which Dracaena immediately recognized. A mark which her Father had shown her once, and only once with pride. A mark which before had meant to her purity and nobility, now slowly stained in the blackest pits of terror. It was a skull spilling a snake from its open mouth, the very same of which coiled and pulsed and slid against Barty's ghoulishly pale skin. "Look at it, girl. You understand its meaning, don't you? All of you do-- especially you, Potter!" Harry winced, and Dumbledore beckoned him forward gently. The boy tensed and, with Dracaena in lockstep behind him, revealed the cut he'd been given on his arm. The criss-cross pattern etched onto his skin seemed to react to the mark upon Barty's arm, and the ghoulish man cackled, each new stint of laughter a breathless heave. "He's back. Lord Voldemort has returned!" "I couldn't stop it." Harry whispered, a broken little mutter that made Dracaena's indignation rise like bile in her throat. Dumbledore shook his head and eyed Snape, whose own gaze had not left Barty for even a moment. "Send him out to Azkaban, Severus. Make sure they know we've found their missing prisoner." The Headmaster turned, both of his arms spreading around the pair of teenagers, ushering them out with that gentle gait that he always held. "They'll welcome me back a hero!" Barty shouted, to which Dumbledore responded: "Perhaps! Personally, I have never had much time for so called 'heroes'!" The two of them were ushered out of the room, and for a single moment did Snape finally break his gaze away from Barty to stare upon the two of them. The pale man's sallow gaze looked upon Dracaena, and she saw within those eyes confliction that he'd never shown around her. But it was gone as quick as it came, for the next moment the man had his lips pressed tight and his wand cruelly twisted against Barty's face. As they were ushered out, Dracaena's hand found Harry's. And though fear had begun to grip her heart again, and doubts over the future and what was to come were now twisting around her mind like the snakes of her House that she so adored, there was a hint of hope in it all. A large helping of relief , even, that she'd been there. That she'd gotten to them in time. And a small smattering of pride, of course-- that she'd been able to save her Prince, just this once. Everything else could weigh on her later. Right now, holding his hand, Dracaena felt light as a feather. #HarryPotter #GobletOfFire #MalfoidFever #MalfoidArt