Evangeline Blackwood and the Lost Letter - draco malfoy

twenty five.

Part Two: The Countess
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He sat at the dinning table, holding up The Daily Prophet so that he could continue to read it while sipping at his tea.

The light from the immense window of the dining room was bright and alarming. The sun had risen and was making the journey up to its peak. It was autumn, the heat breaking to reveal cold breezes and withering, orange leaves in the hedges outside. It was not the autumn of the same year that Draco had met Evangeline Blackwood. It was the autumn after.

The leaves falling off of the trees and his need to wear a jacket outdoors brought Draco pain. It meant more time passing and it was passing slowly. It meant more months and weeks and days and hours and minutes that he had been separate from her.

The headline was terrifying today, as it had been every day for the past 547 days. The first time he had picked up the paper, shortly after Evangeline had departed his company, it had read, "THE DARK LORD REVEALS NEW SECRET WEAPON" with a propaganda piece on his upcoming plans. It had been vague and irritating, talking about some new source of power that the Dark Lord was investing in.

Today, the headline was not vague at all.

THE COUNTESS SLAYS TWO DOZEN MORE MUGGLE RESISTANCE FIGHTERS- TALKS OF SURRENDER IN THE STATES.

Underneath the headline was a picture. It was gruesome but Draco stared at it greedily, not pausing even when his mother passed through the dining room on her way to the study.

It was a staged picture, that much was clear. The Countess was a source of motivation for the troops, a fear tactic to use against the Resistance. They printed pictures of her often but he never saw her face. He still knew who it was.

How could he mistake her? He had touched and kissed every inch of her body, had laid his fingertips over every surface of her skin. How could he mistake the rippling veins? The whites and the irises of her eyes devoid of light, pitch black? The black matter radiating from her fingertips? And he knew that black hair, longer now, billowing out from under a thick black hood. These were the only parts of her that were visible. A silver mask covered her nose and mouth with intricate swirling patterns in the metal and slits at the front so that she could breathe. She was clothed head to toe in black, a hood covering her head and blown back from her shoulders, a regal black gown underneath. Even her hands, once milky white and hungry to touch him, were covered in fitted black gloves, grasping her wand that was held out menacingly to her side. In the other hand, she held a real, bleeding heart. Draco watched as the moving picture showed the veins rippling, the black smoke swirling, and the dismembered heart still beating on repeat.

The Countess organizes final strike on the frontlines of San Diego, California (pictured). After months of retaliatory action against the Muggles of the area, she has slayed twenty-four by public execution, among them being twenty-two prominent Muggle agitators and two wizards, in a local town square. This attack, carried out solely by our Countess and her unit, has brought forth rumors of Muggle surrender.

Also at the Battle of San Diego, Resistance member and former Order of the Phoenix criminal Hermione Granger has been captured by The Countess, who transferred her to Hogwarts Prison to await trial for crimes against the Dark Lord. A close friend of the fallen Harry Potter, Granger may have information that will lead to a larger investigation of potential surviving Resistance witches and wizards.

May the strength and glory of our Countess will out.

The listing of the names:
Arthur Wood
Genevieve Johnson
Isabella Spencer
Peter Elliott
Joseph Ward
Daniel Murphy
Bruce Herthel
Brian Lurig
Andrea Baker
Theresa Borders
Carter Hansen
Russel Ramirez
Elizabeth Dang
Kalob Beard
Hiroshi Imafuji
Stacy Liebert
Dante Williams
Alan O'Neal
Rita Casanova
Sydney Meyers-Smith
Jane Hornsworth
Amelia Shepherd
Mundungus Fletcher
Didalus Diggle