Chosen || Draco Malfoy

12 - The Wrong Child

My feet slammed painfully into the ground as I began to topple forwards.

"Woah, there," Harry said, instantly catching my arm and steadying me on my feet. "Are you okay, Cece?"

I looked up at him, a smile tugging helplessly at my lips. It was the first time I'd heard him call me that.

But the smile soon fell when I realised where we were. A graveyard.

What the hell was this fuckery? Dumbledore had some really sick shit going on in his mind these days.

"Where are we?" Harry asked, following my gaze over the many rows of creepy headstones. "Is this supposed to be part of the task?"

"I don't know," I shivered, placing the trophy down at my feet. "Wands out, d'you reckon?"

He nodded, immediately pulling out his wand as he stepped up protectively to my side.

"Stay close to me," he murmured quietly as he looked around him, pressing his shoulder into mine, "it could be dangerous."

"Someone's coming," I said suddenly, my heart racing in my chest at the sight of an approaching figure in the distance.

There was something hellishy freaky about the way this short, cloaked figure lolloped unsteadily towards us.

"Let me do the talking," Harry said quietly out of the corner of his mouth. "I don't trust this, one bit."

"Is that... is that a baby?" I spluttered, my gaze dropping to the bundle in the hooded stranger's arms.

But before Harry could respond, he dropped quite suddenly to the ground, clutching at his scar as his screams pierced hauntingly into the night.

"Harry!" I cried out, the approaching stranger all but forgotten about as I immediately crouched down to try and placate my distressed companion.

"R-Run!" Harry gasped, "Cece, run for your life!"

"I'm not leaving you," I insisted, trying to pull his writhing body up with me to our feet, "we go together, remember?"

Harry nodded through his grunts of agony, his hands still fused tightly over his face as if he was attempting to stop his skull from exploding.

And then, a high, cold voice spoke. And the words that reverberated in the air caused all the breath to leave my body and turn my blood to ice.

"Kill the spare."

A flash of green light later, and Harry and I were blasted apart and thrown heavily to the ground.

Silence.

My heart stopped.

"Harry?" I choked feebly as I gingerly lifted my head, panic consuming me at the sight of his body lying spread-eagled on the ground beside me.

For a second that contained an eternity, I stared into Harry's face, at his open green eyes behind his glasses, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised.

And then, before my mind could feel anything but numb disbelief, I felt myself being pulled to my feet.

"No... Harry!" I cried weakly, desperately reaching out for my friend. "Harry... get up, please... get up!"

But my shock had rendered me useless, and the next thing I knew, I was being dragged away and slammed against a marble headstone where the stranger proceeded to conjure tight cords around me, tying me to the cold stone.

I groaned in utter despair as the stranger's dirty stubby fingers manhandled my brand new suede boots that had cost me an entire six months allowance. Dumbledore was going to be receiving a heavily worded letter from my father about this unnecessary trauma I was being put through.

I wondered if Harry was in on it too. He was, after all, quite freakishly close to Dumbledore, always having whispered and furtive conversations together. I had to hand it to him though, I thought as I stared over at his lifeless body, Harry's acting was totally top notch.

When the stranger proceeded to cut off his own arm, however, I had to reluctantly admit that this was probably no joke. I cringed in disgust as blood spattered my beautiful yellow champion robes.

Now, I'm no Inspector Clouseau, but it seemed to me that Harry and I had somehow stumbled upon some freaky cult thing. What were the chances?

Things soon started making sense though when that ugly baby thing was turned into a snake-like looking man and we were swiftly joined by many black cloaked masked figures.

Ah... Death Eaters.

And by the way that they kept addressing this snake man as 'master' and 'lord', I could only assume that I'd just witnessed the infamous Voldemort rising from the dead.

Fanbloodytastic.

"Um, excuse me," I yelled once Voldemort had politely greeted everyone in the vicinity all except for me. "But what exactly is going on here?"

He turned slowly towards me, looking mildly surprised by my presence.

"Ah, my child," he said in a soft, gentle voice. "You must forgive me for my inhospitality. But in my defence, I was saving the best for last."

A wide smile stretched across his face, making him look uglier than ever.

"You must, indeed, have many questions after your exhausting journey to get here," he continued sympathetically; red eyes shining brightly. "And I will do my utmost best to answer them as honestly as I can."

Murmurs rippled around the semicircle of Death Eaters; the stranger who had put me in this predicament in the first place whimpered as he pathetically cradled his heavily bleeding stump.

There was only one question I needed answering.

"What the fuck do you want with me?!"

A delighted chuckle emitted from his thin lips as though he thought I'd just said the most amusing thing.

"You see, my child," he spoke, never taking his eyes away from mine, "thirteen years ago, I made a grave error. Thirteen years ago I tried to kill the wrong child. It was not Harry Potter who needed to die, for he was, and always will be, simply a spare."

I could not believe my ears, could not quite comprehend what I was hearing.

"But why does anyone have to die?" I asked, trying to talk my way out of this. I'd watched enough crime dramas to know that anything is possible if you knew the right words. "I mean, you're here, and looking pretty good for a guy who's been dead for thirteen years. Although, I do recommend this totally fabulous night cream which worked wonders on my grandmother. If you could just loosen these-"

"Stupid girl!" Voldemort hissed, flicking his wand at me. "Crucio!"

I was consumed with pain beyond anything I had ever experienced; my very bones felt as though they were on fire and my eyes rolled madly in my head. I wanted it to end... to black out... to die...

And then it was gone. I hung limply against my binds, panting heavily, as the night rang with the sound of the Death Eaters' laughter.

"I've brought this girl here today so there is no mistake in anybody's mind," Voldemort spoke, silencing the laughter. "Cecilia Diggory escaped me by a lucky chance, a case of mistaken identity in fact. And I am now going to prove my power by killing her, here and now, in front of you all. But I am a generous man, I will give her a chance. She will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger."

This dude was on some serious shit. He comes back from the dead and the first thing he wants to do is fight a teenage girl to prove he has a big dick?!

"Now untie her, Wormtail, and give her back her wand."

Man, I was beginning to wish that I'd just stayed in bed.

******